The Rest in Politics has been touring, and apparently Rory & Alastair have asked the audience at their various venues which leadership candidate they favour.
Kemi: 10 or so. Jenrick: 10 or so. Cleverly: thousands.
So if we can trust shows of hands from politically-motivated (who else would pay to see this pair?) mainly young people, the Tories have done stuffed up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uty-EWzRMNU
The next Tory leader has to neutralise reform, one way or another. Cleverly couldn’t do that
It has to neutralize Reform or else it will die trying to do so.
The problem with both of the options left is that it’s likely to do so because neither candidate attracts the Nigel Farage vote because they aren’t Nigel Farage.
It’s no upside but I don’t think any of the 6 people who put their name forward were the correct option anyway - taking on Farage may just be an impossible task
It's more likely that Farage will take them on. It think his game plan is to merge Reform with the Conservative Party and become its leader. If it is down to Tory members he might just succeed.
He's 10/1 on Betfair to be Tory leader at the next election. (Thin market)
I think what's happening in Western democracies is that the Populist right is absorbing the "mainstream" right.
RN won 37% to 6% for LR, and Macron's government depends on their at least tolerating it. The never-Trump Republicans are now an irrelevance. Geert Wilders has eclipsed the Liberals and Christian Democrats. Meloni has eclipsed Forza Italia, and so on.
What's remarkable about the current situation is that so many Conservative party members want to see their party swallowed up by Reform/Farage.
It's quite a contrast with the visceral loathing for competing parties on the left from Labour.
There remains some historic loyalty to Labour. People voting Labour because their parents voted Labour, and their grandparents, and their great-grandparents.
That's all gone, now, for the Conservatives. People vote Conservative for instrumental reasons, and they'll vote for another right wing party if its suits them better. We saw that in the final round of Euro elections.
'Former President Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest 50%-48%, according to a new Fox News national survey. That’s a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage.
Harris, however, is ahead by 6 points among voters from the seven key battleground states, and the candidates are tied at 49% each among voters in close counties (where the Biden-Trump 2020 margin was less than 10 points). Trump’s advantage comes from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64%-35%) than Harris has in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58%-39%).
That raises the question of whether the Democrat could win the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was the GOP candidate who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College'
It’s going to be amusing if Trump wins the largest number of votes but Harris still wins the electoral college.
I predict outrage from Trumpists who will have conveniently forgetten about 2016 entirely.
I think US polling is going to be the biggest loser of this election. If Harris wins, she wins big.
Given the reported issues with US polling how much trust is placed on a foxnews poll? I'm surprised the betfair odds on Harris to win the popular vote are still so short when the the money has been going on Trump both in Betfair outright and EC markets.
'Former President Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest 50%-48%, according to a new Fox News national survey. That’s a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage.
Harris, however, is ahead by 6 points among voters from the seven key battleground states, and the candidates are tied at 49% each among voters in close counties (where the Biden-Trump 2020 margin was less than 10 points). Trump’s advantage comes from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64%-35%) than Harris has in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58%-39%).
That raises the question of whether the Democrat could win the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was the GOP candidate who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College'
It’s going to be amusing if Trump wins the largest number of votes but Harris still wins the electoral college.
I predict outrage from Trumpists who will have conveniently forgetten about 2016 entirely.
I think US polling is going to be the biggest loser of this election. If Harris wins, she wins big.
Given the reported issues with US polling how much trust is placed on a foxnews poll? I'm surprised the betfair odds on Harris to win the popular vote are still so short when the the money has been going on Trump both in Betfair outright and EC markets.
Current favourite EC range on Betfair is Trump 300-329 / Harris 210-239
'Former President Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest 50%-48%, according to a new Fox News national survey. That’s a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage.
Harris, however, is ahead by 6 points among voters from the seven key battleground states, and the candidates are tied at 49% each among voters in close counties (where the Biden-Trump 2020 margin was less than 10 points). Trump’s advantage comes from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64%-35%) than Harris has in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58%-39%).
That raises the question of whether the Democrat could win the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was the GOP candidate who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College'
It’s going to be amusing if Trump wins the largest number of votes but Harris still wins the electoral college.
I predict outrage from Trumpists who will have conveniently forgetten about 2016 entirely.
I think US polling is going to be the biggest loser of this election. If Harris wins, she wins big.
No, if Harris wins it will be down to the wire. 1960 JFK v Nixon or 2000 Bush v Gore close
I think that's a Trump victory. ATM he is behind in the PV, so any victory is clearly eked out in the small print of the constitutional process rather than the democratic will of the majority of Americans.
'Former President Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest 50%-48%, according to a new Fox News national survey. That’s a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage.
Harris, however, is ahead by 6 points among voters from the seven key battleground states, and the candidates are tied at 49% each among voters in close counties (where the Biden-Trump 2020 margin was less than 10 points). Trump’s advantage comes from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64%-35%) than Harris has in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58%-39%).
That raises the question of whether the Democrat could win the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was the GOP candidate who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College'
It’s going to be amusing if Trump wins the largest number of votes but Harris still wins the electoral college.
I predict outrage from Trumpists who will have conveniently forgetten about 2016 entirely.
I think US polling is going to be the biggest loser of this election. If Harris wins, she wins big.
Given the reported issues with US polling how much trust is placed on a foxnews poll? I'm surprised the betfair odds on Harris to win the popular vote are still so short when the the money has been going on Trump both in Betfair outright and EC markets.
Fox News polling is rated very highly. Along with Marquette, Marist, Monmouth, Yougov, Quinnipiac, Sienna, Pew, Suffolk, ABC, Emerson, Selzer, Ipsos, SUSA.
Big Village, Morning Consult, Trafalgar, Rasmussen are basically junk.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
As usual, the unintended effects of other policies may save the politicians.
A minor rule change made smallish scale power storage very practical in planning terms. To the disgust of some Greens, a couple of ISO containers of storage isn't classed as a full power station.
So every solar farming type is wondering about buying some of these - https://www.tesla.com/megapack (or equivalent). Enough to shift the production in the day to nighttime.
So we may end up with a very robust, decentralised grid. With a huge, inbuilt, storage capacity.
I already shift my usage (about a 1,000kwh a month) to night time charging and day release of batteries. Saves me just under a couple of hundred pounds a month.
The Rest in Politics has been touring, and apparently Rory & Alastair have asked the audience at their various venues which leadership candidate they favour.
Kemi: 10 or so. Jenrick: 10 or so. Cleverly: thousands.
So if we can trust shows of hands from politically-motivated (who else would pay to see this pair?) mainly young people, the Tories have done stuffed up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uty-EWzRMNU
The next Tory leader has to neutralise reform, one way or another. Cleverly couldn’t do that
It has to neutralize Reform or else it will die trying to do so.
The problem with both of the options left is that it’s likely to do so because neither candidate attracts the Nigel Farage vote because they aren’t Nigel Farage.
It’s no upside but I don’t think any of the 6 people who put their name forward were the correct option anyway - taking on Farage may just be an impossible task
It's more likely that Farage will take them on. It think his game plan is to merge Reform with the Conservative Party and become its leader. If it is down to Tory members he might just succeed.
He's 10/1 on Betfair to be Tory leader at the next election. (Thin market)
I think what's happening in Western democracies is that the Populist right is absorbing the "mainstream" right.
RN won 37% to 6% for LR, and Macron's government depends on their at least tolerating it. The never-Trump Republicans are now an irrelevance. Geert Wilders has eclipsed the Liberals and Christian Democrats. Meloni has eclipsed Forza Italia, and so on.
What's remarkable about the current situation is that so many Conservative party members want to see their party swallowed up by Reform/Farage.
It's quite a contrast with the visceral loathing for competing parties on the left from Labour.
There remains some historic loyalty to Labour. People voting Labour because their parents voted Labour, and their grandparents, and their great-grandparents.
That's all gone, now, for the Conservatives. People vote Conservative for instrumental reasons, and they'll vote for another right wing party if its suits them better. We saw that in the final round of Euro elections.
About 10% will still vote Tory over Reform regardless though and no rightwing party can win a majority without them under FPTP or PR
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
I worked at DECC in 2009-10 when he was the SofS. "Ideological entitlement" is putting it politely.
"Swivel-eyed fanaticism of Ayatollah Khomeini" might be more accurate.
One of the biggest problems we have in government, I think, is that the solutions come first. Supplied by ideology.
Whenever I've talked to people vaguely close to political power, the suggestion that policy should be based on scientific testing gets a "That's nice" in a very condescending tone. Apparently in the Real World, we need to Pick Winners. That are supplied by ideology.
Where "ideology" seems to be the ideological capture of the close advisors to the person making the decision.
For example, the UK Government (and many others, around the world) pursued and still purse the dream of Hydrogen as the Fuel of the Future. Billions spent on it. Number of cars running on hydrogen - a slack handful. Ironically, the failure of this effort had seriously damaged the enthusiasm for investment in areas where hydrogen might be useful as part of a Net Zero economy.
A sane approach is to fund a range of approaches (battery is just one) and then increasingly back the ones that actually work.
That goes for this government's predecessors, too. Energy policy in the UK has been pretty crap for a couple of decades.
Crocs...the Mrs Brown Boys of shoes....mystifying at continued popularity.
Crocs are fantastic for anyone doing outdoor stuff. I mountain bike and run a lot, and crocs are perfect for when you kick off your muddy shoes before you get in the van but still have stuff to do outside like cleaning the bikes off and putting your kit away. Same as the much maligned Dryrobe.
There’s still time for you to edit your post and remove the worst confession in the history of PB if not the internet.
Otoh I have started looking longingly at Birkenstocks. Never too late to change..
Lots of people in rowing use crocs for the reasons above - a kick on/kick off shoe with a thick sole, water and dirt invulnerable...
Yep. I have a pair at every exit of the house and garage for when I go out to garden or just to put something in the bin.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
But do you have the full two-way inverter, so that the battery can power the house with the mains off?
The vast majority can’t, because of the switching circuits required.
Mine was going to cost an extra £800 and i thought, maybe foolishly, that ive only had about three power cuts in thirty years that lasted more than 1/2 an hour.
Spin or not this Electoral Calculus poll for Jenrick showing him gaining an extra 27 more Tory seats at the next general election than Badenoch would is great for him given ballot papers are arriving on Tory members doorsteps this week and it was published in Tory house journal the Daily Telegraph.
Except that even for someone right of centre such as me it feels like the maxim of "nobody cares" needs to be applied. Essentially it is a choice between two very poor candidates, rather like when the GE was a choice between PM Johnson or PM Corbyn. Dumb or even dumber?
At least the last three general elections (May vs Corbyn, Johnson vs Corbyn, Sunak vs Starmer) have been between fairly or very poor candidates.
The question is, at what point do we say that the problem isn't with individual parties or politicians, it's the whole arrogant, entitled, cynical, incompetent political class?
Yes, throw them out and elect a brilliant new politician who isn't from the corrupt Westminster class, vote for me, Nigel Farage!
That's the kind of thing we are going to get, if the politicians don't wake up.
It probably won't be Farage - someone younger, without the baggage. See the alt-right in France, Italy etc...
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
As usual, the unintended effects of other policies may save the politicians.
A minor rule change made smallish scale power storage very practical in planning terms. To the disgust of some Greens, a couple of ISO containers of storage isn't classed as a full power station.
So every solar farming type is wondering about buying some of these - https://www.tesla.com/megapack (or equivalent). Enough to shift the production in the day to nighttime.
So we may end up with a very robust, decentralised grid. With a huge, inbuilt, storage capacity.
Crocs...the Mrs Brown Boys of shoes....mystifying at continued popularity.
Crocs are fantastic for anyone doing outdoor stuff. I mountain bike and run a lot, and crocs are perfect for when you kick off your muddy shoes before you get in the van but still have stuff to do outside like cleaning the bikes off and putting your kit away. Same as the much maligned Dryrobe.
Yep, dominate market share in the wilder parts of Scotland. I wear Keen Newports though - much better for dodgy river crossings.
I thought Keen as a brand had gone down the tubes in terms of quality. They used to make great hiking boots, then went all cost engineer the hell out of them.
I haven't had any issues with them, and recently worked in the industry. Easy returns process and their reps were good to work with.
They are certainly not a brand to go with if you're doing serious mountain work over many weeks/months. Also remember that a lot of issues are model or factory specific - there was a a particular boot that fell apart almost immediately and we worked out precisely the batch and factory that was causing the issue.
On walking boots - has anyone had an issue whereby their middle toes go both numb and quite painful after a few miles? I bought a pair of Brasher boots - I was delighted with them. But every time I wear them by toes go numb after a few miles - even on quite innocuous terrain. They're now sitting folornly in the shed - I can't quite bring myself to part with them - and the miles are being done by some cheap Peter Storm boots which seem to do my feet no harm whatsoever.
When did you buy them? The design has changed quite a bit in recent months. I've bought but not yet used a new pair, which are somewhat different from the previous make.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I can't spot any decision that Miliband has made that materially changes the course of energy generation in the UK. Most of this stuff has been in the oven for years, including the closure of coal power, massive investment in offshore wind, even REMA. Indeed, the mistake over CCS speaks to industry capture, not the opposite.
A lot of this stuff sounds like Telegraph speculation over the budget - hysterical speculation.
Because he actually means it. The conservatives werent going to switch the gas off in 2030. The intention is to fully decarbonise the electricity network by 2030. There are a series of difficulties in this. 1) the reversal in household decreases in energy consumption due to increased EV and gas boiler replacement 2) the decommissioning of five nuclear power stations between now and 2030 with new ones not coming on stream until after that date. 3) Five years and two months is not long enough to replace the 60% of electricity generated by nuclear and gas the other evening with renewables.
It is a one way path to brown outs and black outs. It doesnt matter how many wind turbines you have, when its not windy they dont turn, low wind/no wind can often be a continent wide weather pattern and can last for quite a period of time.
The system needs to be able to meet peak capacity with forms of energy that are always available, renewables often give the most power when you need them least. Lots of things can help ease the fluctuations like battery balancing. But at its core the system cannot work without natural gas being able to supply the bulk of demand at an instant's moment.
It is not possible to have a functioning electricity grid and be carbon free with today's technology in the absence of rapid nuclear role out.
We have a fanatic in charge of our energy system, and if you let him he will blow up (metaphorically) the gas pipelines rather than fail at his plan. Unless he relents energy is going to be either too expensive to use at peak times or it will be rationed.
Energy being too expensive to use at peak times (but very cheap at other times) is a feature, not a bug. Demand management will inevitably be be a critical factor in achieving net zero; some will see this as an opportunity and work to take advantage of flexible pricing, while others will go on bitching and moaning.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I can't spot any decision that Miliband has made that materially changes the course of energy generation in the UK. Most of this stuff has been in the oven for years, including the closure of coal power, massive investment in offshore wind, even REMA. Indeed, the mistake over CCS speaks to industry capture, not the opposite.
A lot of this stuff sounds like Telegraph speculation over the budget - hysterical speculation.
Because he actually means it. The conservatives werent going to switch the gas off in 2030. The intention is to fully decarbonise the electricity network by 2030. There are a series of difficulties in this. 1) the reversal in household decreases in energy consumption due to increased EV and gas boiler replacement 2) the decommissioning of five nuclear power stations between now and 2030 with new ones not coming on stream until after that date. 3) Five years and two months is not long enough to replace the 60% of electricity generated by nuclear and gas the other evening with renewables.
It is a one way path to brown outs and black outs. It doesnt matter how many wind turbines you have, when its not windy they dont turn, low wind/no wind can often be a continent wide weather pattern and can last for quite a period of time.
The system needs to be able to meet peak capacity with forms of energy that are always available, renewables often give the most power when you need them least. Lots of things can help ease the fluctuations like battery balancing. But at its core the system cannot work without natural gas being able to supply the bulk of demand at an instant's moment.
It is not possible to have a functioning electricity grid and be carbon free with today's technology in the absence of rapid nuclear role out.
We have a fanatic in charge of our energy system, and if you let him he will blow up (metaphorically) the gas pipelines rather than fail at his plan. Unless he relents energy is going to be either too expensive to use at peak times or it will be rationed.
I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, but what actual decisions has he made that makes any of this more or less likely? This is all just stuff inherited from the last Tory government.
The Labour manifesto actually pointed out that gas energy production would need to continue, and the CCC has suggested we might need it all the way into the 2050s. As far as I'm aware, Miliband has not reversed Sunak's plans for new gas power stations, and was broadly supportive of the idea back in March.
The new stuff he has introduced is about setting the grid up for renewables (obvious) and binning planning regulations for transmission and production, including onshore wind. That sounds... sensible and reasonable, no?
'Former President Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest 50%-48%, according to a new Fox News national survey. That’s a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage.
Harris, however, is ahead by 6 points among voters from the seven key battleground states, and the candidates are tied at 49% each among voters in close counties (where the Biden-Trump 2020 margin was less than 10 points). Trump’s advantage comes from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64%-35%) than Harris has in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58%-39%).
That raises the question of whether the Democrat could win the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was the GOP candidate who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College'
It’s going to be amusing if Trump wins the largest number of votes but Harris still wins the electoral college.
I predict outrage from Trumpists who will have conveniently forgetten about 2016 entirely.
I think US polling is going to be the biggest loser of this election. If Harris wins, she wins big.
No, if Harris wins it will be down to the wire. 1960 JFK v Nixon or 2000 Bush v Gore close
Seems highly likely and, if so, utterly mind-bending weird.
How can it be so close between an absolute monarchist demagogue who has clearly lost his marbles and a decent, if rather mediocre, upholder of the rule of law and the constitution?
Around 50% of american voters don't want to live in a functioning democracy. It is incredible.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
Look for anyone under 45 the death of Liam Payne is going to be far more interesting than IMF warnings about Rachel Reeves' budget later this month, that is just reality.
One Direction were the biggest British boy band this century globally
Trump's not going to win the popular vote and lose the electoral college, far too many votes come in late from the west coast for Harris that don't mean anything ECV wise running up the margin for Harris. If Trump wins the PV, he's won. Handily.
Except the biggest swing to Trump since 2020 in current polls is in California and New York.
Harris is doing about as well as Biden in Pennsylvania and Nevada and slightly worse in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin but better in North Carolina
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
As usual, the unintended effects of other policies may save the politicians.
A minor rule change made smallish scale power storage very practical in planning terms. To the disgust of some Greens, a couple of ISO containers of storage isn't classed as a full power station.
So every solar farming type is wondering about buying some of these - https://www.tesla.com/megapack (or equivalent). Enough to shift the production in the day to nighttime.
So we may end up with a very robust, decentralised grid. With a huge, inbuilt, storage capacity.
What was their objection ?
The UK Greens are still close to their origin - the merging of various environmental protestors into a single cause. "I will object to what you object to".
Some people are opposed to *any* development - you even get those who explicitly want to shrink "growth".
Further, the Process State, with its long and complex planning system, is a climbing frame for the objectors to anything. By excluding small scale storage from a huge chunk of that... well, it's immoral to some people. There is a *right*, you see, to a 10 year public enquiry.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
But do you have the full two-way inverter, so that the battery can power the house with the mains off?
The vast majority can’t, because of the switching circuits required.
Mine can't, I could get someone in to "sort it though". More pertinently, in my case it wouldn't do much good as with the amount of solar Miliband is planning on rolling out we're not going to get brownouts on sunny days like today. They'll be when there's an anti-cyclonic high pressure inversion with a sheet of strato-cumulus across the nation in December or January (Low wind, low solar)
The Rest in Politics has been touring, and apparently Rory & Alastair have asked the audience at their various venues which leadership candidate they favour.
Kemi: 10 or so. Jenrick: 10 or so. Cleverly: thousands.
So if we can trust shows of hands from politically-motivated (who else would pay to see this pair?) mainly young people, the Tories have done stuffed up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uty-EWzRMNU
The next Tory leader has to neutralise reform, one way or another. Cleverly couldn’t do that
It has to neutralize Reform or else it will die trying to do so.
The problem with both of the options left is that it’s likely to do so because neither candidate attracts the Nigel Farage vote because they aren’t Nigel Farage.
It’s no upside but I don’t think any of the 6 people who put their name forward were the correct option anyway - taking on Farage may just be an impossible task
It's more likely that Farage will take them on. It think his game plan is to merge Reform with the Conservative Party and become its leader. If it is down to Tory members he might just succeed.
He's 10/1 on Betfair to be Tory leader at the next election. (Thin market)
I think what's happening in Western democracies is that the Populist right is absorbing the "mainstream" right.
RN won 37% to 6% for LR, and Macron's government depends on their at least tolerating it. The never-Trump Republicans are now an irrelevance. Geert Wilders has eclipsed the Liberals and Christian Democrats. Meloni has eclipsed Forza Italia, and so on.
What's remarkable about the current situation is that so many Conservative party members want to see their party swallowed up by Reform/Farage.
It's quite a contrast with the visceral loathing for competing parties on the left from Labour.
Ends vs Means. I want a small state, low taxes, cheap energy, work paying at every level of society, minimum government and bureaucracy. I don't much care which party or figurehead delivers it, so long as it happens. I'm a pragmatist, I'll take the best option on the table every time, even if it's only going to deliver some of what I want (or even just not deliver stuff I really don't want).
The left (particularly the hard left) is all about ideological purity, pragmatism be dammed. I suppose given none of it's policies have worked anywhere they've been tried, it's all they've got left. Hence it's all factionalism and hatred.
Here's JD Vance arguing that Trump's first election was invalid because Hillary was treated unfairly by the media. And that Trump didn't lose in 2020, because some companies didn't cooperate with him in smearing Joe Biden with the conspiracy theories (which got enormous media coverage at the time) regarding his son's indiscretions.
Vance says Trump did not lose in 2020 ‘by the words that I would use’ https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4937684-jdvance-denies-trump-won-2020/ Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that former President Trump did not lose in 2020 “by the words that I would use” — some of his most extensive comments yet on the subject of the last presidential election results. “First of all, on the election of 2020 — I’ve answered this question directly, a million times — no,” Vance said a campaign event in Pennsylvania when a reporter asked what message Vance thought it sent to independent voters when he didn’t directly answer the question “Did Donald Trump lose in 2020?” “I think there were serious problems in 2020. So did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use,” Vance said. “Here’s the thing that I focus on — because what the media will do, they’ll focus on the court cases or they’ll focus on some crazy conspiracy theory,” he added later. “What I know, what verifiably I know happened is that in 2020, large technology companies censored Americans from talking about things like the Hunter Biden laptop story, and that had a major, major consequence on the election.”..
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
In case you forgot the conservatives lost the election and it is Labour now who have to take action
The question is can they raise the taxes and cut spending when spending is in their DNA
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
As usual, the unintended effects of other policies may save the politicians.
A minor rule change made smallish scale power storage very practical in planning terms. To the disgust of some Greens, a couple of ISO containers of storage isn't classed as a full power station.
So every solar farming type is wondering about buying some of these - https://www.tesla.com/megapack (or equivalent). Enough to shift the production in the day to nighttime.
So we may end up with a very robust, decentralised grid. With a huge, inbuilt, storage capacity.
What was their objection ?
The UK Greens are still close to their origin - the merging of various environmental protestors into a single cause. "I will object to what you object to".
Some people are opposed to *any* development - you even get those who explicitly want to shrink "growth".
Further, the Process State, with its long and complex planning system, is a climbing frame for the objectors to anything. By excluding small scale storage from a huge chunk of that... well, it's immoral to some people. There is a *right*, you see, to a 10 year public enquiry.
If that's the Green Party, then fuck them. They're worse than useless.
And I'm someone sympathetic to their environmental cause.
'Former President Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest 50%-48%, according to a new Fox News national survey. That’s a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage.
Harris, however, is ahead by 6 points among voters from the seven key battleground states, and the candidates are tied at 49% each among voters in close counties (where the Biden-Trump 2020 margin was less than 10 points). Trump’s advantage comes from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64%-35%) than Harris has in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58%-39%).
That raises the question of whether the Democrat could win the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was the GOP candidate who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College'
It’s going to be amusing if Trump wins the largest number of votes but Harris still wins the electoral college.
I predict outrage from Trumpists who will have conveniently forgetten about 2016 entirely.
I think US polling is going to be the biggest loser of this election. If Harris wins, she wins big.
No, if Harris wins it will be down to the wire. 1960 JFK v Nixon or 2000 Bush v Gore close
Seems highly likely and, if so, utterly mind-bending weird.
How can it be so close between an absolute monarchist demagogue who has clearly lost his marbles and a decent, if rather mediocre, upholder of the rule of law and the constitution?
Around 50% of american voters don't want to live in a functioning democracy. It is incredible.
It's an ideological battle between two figurehead candidates,
45% will vote for The Trump (semi-mythical figure who promises, at the same time, a return to the sane past and a revolution), no matter what. 45% will vote for the Anti Trump, no matter what.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
This polling seems silly to me. Whoever wins has the task of earning the right to have a conversation with the general public. The public don't want to listen at the moment. I think Badenoch will make people sit up and listen more than Jenrick. However Reform may end up getting listened to more.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I can't spot any decision that Miliband has made that materially changes the course of energy generation in the UK. Most of this stuff has been in the oven for years, including the closure of coal power, massive investment in offshore wind, even REMA. Indeed, the mistake over CCS speaks to industry capture, not the opposite.
A lot of this stuff sounds like Telegraph speculation over the budget - hysterical speculation.
Because he actually means it. The conservatives werent going to switch the gas off in 2030. The intention is to fully decarbonise the electricity network by 2030. There are a series of difficulties in this. 1) the reversal in household decreases in energy consumption due to increased EV and gas boiler replacement 2) the decommissioning of five nuclear power stations between now and 2030 with new ones not coming on stream until after that date. 3) Five years and two months is not long enough to replace the 60% of electricity generated by nuclear and gas the other evening with renewables.
It is a one way path to brown outs and black outs. It doesnt matter how many wind turbines you have, when its not windy they dont turn, low wind/no wind can often be a continent wide weather pattern and can last for quite a period of time.
The system needs to be able to meet peak capacity with forms of energy that are always available, renewables often give the most power when you need them least. Lots of things can help ease the fluctuations like battery balancing. But at its core the system cannot work without natural gas being able to supply the bulk of demand at an instant's moment.
It is not possible to have a functioning electricity grid and be carbon free with today's technology in the absence of rapid nuclear role out.
We have a fanatic in charge of our energy system, and if you let him he will blow up (metaphorically) the gas pipelines rather than fail at his plan. Unless he relents energy is going to be either too expensive to use at peak times or it will be rationed.
I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, but what actual decisions has he made that makes any of this more or less likely? This is all just stuff inherited from the last Tory government.
The Labour manifesto actually pointed out that gas energy production would need to continue, and the CCC has suggested we might need it all the way into the 2050s. As far as I'm aware, Miliband has not reversed Sunak's plans for new gas power stations, and was broadly supportive of the idea back in March.
The new stuff he has introduced is about setting the grid up for renewables (obvious) and binning planning regulations for transmission and production, including onshore wind. That sounds... sensible and reasonable, no?
You guys are fighting phantoms.
They want dirty fossil fuels and if they can't have that then they want nuclear, despite the costly ongoing legacy of decommissioning and whatever else they were doing at Sellafield. Financially, how can something that operates for 50 years but requires a contract for decommissioning 200 years+ into the future from the point it stops operating make sense? My kids' grandkids will still be paying to decommission the magnox reactors.
The Rest in Politics has been touring, and apparently Rory & Alastair have asked the audience at their various venues which leadership candidate they favour.
Kemi: 10 or so. Jenrick: 10 or so. Cleverly: thousands.
So if we can trust shows of hands from politically-motivated (who else would pay to see this pair?) mainly young people, the Tories have done stuffed up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uty-EWzRMNU
The next Tory leader has to neutralise reform, one way or another. Cleverly couldn’t do that
It has to neutralize Reform or else it will die trying to do so.
The problem with both of the options left is that it’s likely to do so because neither candidate attracts the Nigel Farage vote because they aren’t Nigel Farage.
It’s no upside but I don’t think any of the 6 people who put their name forward were the correct option anyway - taking on Farage may just be an impossible task
It's more likely that Farage will take them on. It think his game plan is to merge Reform with the Conservative Party and become its leader. If it is down to Tory members he might just succeed.
He's 10/1 on Betfair to be Tory leader at the next election. (Thin market)
I think what's happening in Western democracies is that the Populist right is absorbing the "mainstream" right.
RN won 37% to 6% for LR, and Macron's government depends on their at least tolerating it. The never-Trump Republicans are now an irrelevance. Geert Wilders has eclipsed the Liberals and Christian Democrats. Meloni has eclipsed Forza Italia, and so on.
Though LR Barnier is now PM in France with the support of Macron's party rather than RN.
Haley would also likely have won a clearer victory than Trump would, if he does win and Wilders is only in government with Liberals and Christian Democrats as Meloni is only in government with Forza Italia.
So while the energy in western politics is on the populist right they can only normally form a government with mainstream right support
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
Look for anyone under 45 the death of Liam Payne is going to be far more interesting than IMF warnings about Rachel Reeves' budget later this month, that is just reality.
One Direction were the biggest British boy band this century globally
If true then Sir Keir has played a blinder. Literally everyone on the planet had fallen in love with HS2 (after an admittedly shaky start) and the decision to scrap it was the very nadir of Rishi's administration. If Sir Keir reinstates it then that's gonna make him one hell of a popular guy!
If true then Sir Keir has played a blinder. Literally everyone on the planet had fallen in love with HS2 (after an admittedly shaky start) and the decision to scrap it was the very nadir of Rishi's administration. If Sir Keir reinstates it then that's gonna make him one hell of a popular guy!
'Former President Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest 50%-48%, according to a new Fox News national survey. That’s a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage.
Harris, however, is ahead by 6 points among voters from the seven key battleground states, and the candidates are tied at 49% each among voters in close counties (where the Biden-Trump 2020 margin was less than 10 points). Trump’s advantage comes from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64%-35%) than Harris has in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58%-39%).
That raises the question of whether the Democrat could win the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was the GOP candidate who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College'
It’s going to be amusing if Trump wins the largest number of votes but Harris still wins the electoral college.
I predict outrage from Trumpists who will have conveniently forgetten about 2016 entirely.
I think US polling is going to be the biggest loser of this election. If Harris wins, she wins big.
Given the reported issues with US polling how much trust is placed on a foxnews poll? I'm surprised the betfair odds on Harris to win the popular vote are still so short when the the money has been going on Trump both in Betfair outright and EC markets.
Fox News polling is rated very highly. Along with Marquette, Marist, Monmouth, Yougov, Quinnipiac, Sienna, Pew, Suffolk, ABC, Emerson, Selzer, Ipsos, SUSA.
Big Village, Morning Consult, Trafalgar, Rasmussen are basically junk.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050.
2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
As usual, the unintended effects of other policies may save the politicians.
A minor rule change made smallish scale power storage very practical in planning terms. To the disgust of some Greens, a couple of ISO containers of storage isn't classed as a full power station.
So every solar farming type is wondering about buying some of these - https://www.tesla.com/megapack (or equivalent). Enough to shift the production in the day to nighttime.
So we may end up with a very robust, decentralised grid. With a huge, inbuilt, storage capacity.
What was their objection ?
Could be quite lucrative if you can shift your export to the grid to peak time. Apparently in france there are now EV charging stations combined with electricity storage banks, the company get paid to balance the grid primarily.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050.
2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Miliband’s plans are total decarbonisation of the electricity grid by 2030.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
That seems unlikely, given that the current target is 2050.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
What unfunded promises have they made?
It was actually Sunak/Hunt that proposed an essentially impossible / undeliverable spending projection.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
As usual, the unintended effects of other policies may save the politicians.
A minor rule change made smallish scale power storage very practical in planning terms. To the disgust of some Greens, a couple of ISO containers of storage isn't classed as a full power station.
So every solar farming type is wondering about buying some of these - https://www.tesla.com/megapack (or equivalent). Enough to shift the production in the day to nighttime.
So we may end up with a very robust, decentralised grid. With a huge, inbuilt, storage capacity.
What was their objection ?
Could be quite lucrative if you can shift your export to the grid to peak time. Apparently in france there are now EV charging stations combined with electricity storage banks, the company get paid to balance the grid primarily.
That's happening here, gradually, as well.
Starts with the calculation that time shifting cheap leccy helps profits for the charging station. Then they find that being paid to store even more leccy is quite profitable as well.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
I worked at DECC in 2009-10 when he was the SofS. "Ideological entitlement" is putting it politely.
"Swivel-eyed fanaticism of Ayatollah Khomeini" might be more accurate.
One of the biggest problems we have in government, I think, is that the solutions come first. Supplied by ideology.
Whenever I've talked to people vaguely close to political power, the suggestion that policy should be based on scientific testing gets a "That's nice" in a very condescending tone. Apparently in the Real World, we need to Pick Winners. That are supplied by ideology.
Where "ideology" seems to be the ideological capture of the close advisors to the person making the decision.
For example, the UK Government (and many others, around the world) pursued and still purse the dream of Hydrogen as the Fuel of the Future. Billions spent on it. Number of cars running on hydrogen - a slack handful. Ironically, the failure of this effort had seriously damaged the enthusiasm for investment in areas where hydrogen might be useful as part of a Net Zero economy.
A sane approach is to fund a range of approaches (battery is just one) and then increasingly back the ones that actually work.
An even saner approach is to let the private sector develop technology, because that's what it's good at. Contrast Ukraine's drone industry - anarchic, thrusting, innovative and productive - with our own or America's disastrous defence procurement - statist, stiflingly bureaucratic and heavily rigged in favour of a few domestic giants.
The government should never pick winners, just set the most benign framework for winners to emerge,which mostly involves getting out of the way, unless something like safety is imperilled. You may miss out on the occasional amazing innovation, but you'll save incomparably more by not backing duds.
But politicians and civil servants arrogantly think they can beat the private sector, rather than have the private sector take ruthless advantage of them, and never, ever seem to learn.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
If true then Sir Keir has played a blinder. Literally everyone on the planet had fallen in love with HS2 (after an admittedly shaky start) and the decision to scrap it was the very nadir of Rishi's administration. If Sir Keir reinstates it then that's gonna make him one hell of a popular guy!
It is pointless unless it goes to Manchester
If Sir Keir gets it to Crewe then the final step to Manchester will only be a matter of time, such will be the political momentum. Looks like game, set and match for Sir Keir, with him as the newly anointed King of Levelling Up and the Red Wall back in Labour's hands for the foreseeable future.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
As usual, the unintended effects of other policies may save the politicians.
A minor rule change made smallish scale power storage very practical in planning terms. To the disgust of some Greens, a couple of ISO containers of storage isn't classed as a full power station.
So every solar farming type is wondering about buying some of these - https://www.tesla.com/megapack (or equivalent). Enough to shift the production in the day to nighttime.
So we may end up with a very robust, decentralised grid. With a huge, inbuilt, storage capacity.
What was their objection ?
The UK Greens are still close to their origin - the merging of various environmental protestors into a single cause. "I will object to what you object to".
Some people are opposed to *any* development - you even get those who explicitly want to shrink "growth".
Further, the Process State, with its long and complex planning system, is a climbing frame for the objectors to anything. By excluding small scale storage from a huge chunk of that... well, it's immoral to some people. There is a *right*, you see, to a 10 year public enquiry.
If that's the Green Party, then fuck them. They're worse than useless.
And I'm someone sympathetic to their environmental cause.
Lots of different strands in the Greens. But at some point they are going to have to work out if they really want negative growth. And what that would mean for their social agenda.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Net zero carbon electricity generation isn't the same as net zero emissions. The latter takes into account all emissions, not just those from electricity generation.
Fox News polling is rated very highly. Along with Marquette, Marist, Monmouth, Yougov, Quinnipiac, Sienna, Pew, Suffolk, ABC, Emerson, Selzer, Ipsos, SUSA. Big Village, Morning Consult, Trafalgar, Rasmussen are basically junk.
Rasmussen in 2022 had an average 5.1% error, 100% in favour of the GOP. InsiderAdvantage and Trafalgar are also highly suspect. There are also others. The polls published often have a sample size of 500 or 600.
Sir Keir was handed an open goal on HS2 by Rishi and seems set to finally kick one in a goal.
Rishi practically gift-wrapped Sir Keir an open goal on HS2, and now it looks like Keir's finally ready to look at the goal, kick one into the goal, maybe even aim for the goal while reminding us there's still a goal to hit and finally get a ball into that goal.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I am so glad we’ve got solar panels and a battery.
As usual, the unintended effects of other policies may save the politicians.
A minor rule change made smallish scale power storage very practical in planning terms. To the disgust of some Greens, a couple of ISO containers of storage isn't classed as a full power station.
So every solar farming type is wondering about buying some of these - https://www.tesla.com/megapack (or equivalent). Enough to shift the production in the day to nighttime.
So we may end up with a very robust, decentralised grid. With a huge, inbuilt, storage capacity.
What was their objection ?
The UK Greens are still close to their origin - the merging of various environmental protestors into a single cause. "I will object to what you object to".
Some people are opposed to *any* development - you even get those who explicitly want to shrink "growth".
Further, the Process State, with its long and complex planning system, is a climbing frame for the objectors to anything. By excluding small scale storage from a huge chunk of that... well, it's immoral to some people. There is a *right*, you see, to a 10 year public enquiry.
If true then Sir Keir has played a blinder. Literally everyone on the planet had fallen in love with HS2 (after an admittedly shaky start) and the decision to scrap it was the very nadir of Rishi's administration. If Sir Keir reinstates it then that's gonna make him one hell of a popular guy!
It is pointless unless it goes to Manchester
If Sir Keir gets it to Crewe then the final step to Manchester will only be a matter of time, such will be the political momentum. Looks like game, set and match for Sir Keir, with him as the newly anointed King of Levelling Up and the Red Wall back in Labour's hands for the foreseeable future.
I see someone is overreaching ever so slightly again this morning..
SKS reigniting HS2 Phase 2a is welcome but isn't going to usher in the 1,000 year Labour reich.
The carbon capture project was actually initiated under the last government.
I know very little about the merits or otherwise of it, but the Tories obviously thought it a good idea, at least until 4 July.
It is inevitable that there will be some areas that are extremely difficult to decarbonise, and carbon capture may well be a solution in these areas. But it is surely very much a last resort. Our efforts for now should be focussed on rolling out renewables (and possibly nuclear, but I have my doubts there) as quickly as possible and on demand management initiatives.
Sir Keir was handed an open goal on HS2 by Rishi and seems set to finally kick one in a goal.
Rishi practically gift-wrapped Sir Keir an open goal on HS2, and now it looks like Keir's finally ready to look at the goal, kick one into the goal, maybe even aim for the goal while reminding us there's still a goal to hit and finally get a ball into that goal.
Goal.
...albeit after spending a year he wasn't even going to look at the goal.
So we now have, potentially, a fast line with plenty of capacity from London to Crewe, then a) a line on a map we are definitely not looking at across Cheshire and at the same time b) heavily congested rail routes across Manchester with no spare capacity, then another, unconnected fast line with plenty of capacity from a field at the bottom end of Greater Manchester to Manchester City Centre.
A solution suggests itself, but government aren't yet saying it out loud.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Net zero carbon electricity generation isn't the same as net zero emissions. The latter takes into account all emissions, not just those from electricity generation.
Yup - concrete is another huge issue, for example. Transport, we all know about.
If true then Sir Keir has played a blinder. Literally everyone on the planet had fallen in love with HS2 (after an admittedly shaky start) and the decision to scrap it was the very nadir of Rishi's administration. If Sir Keir reinstates it then that's gonna make him one hell of a popular guy!
It is pointless unless it goes to Manchester
If Sir Keir gets it to Crewe then the final step to Manchester will only be a matter of time, such will be the political momentum. Looks like game, set and match for Sir Keir, with him as the newly anointed King of Levelling Up and the Red Wall back in Labour's hands for the foreseeable future.
I see someone is overreaching ever so slightly again this morning..
SKS reigniting HS2 Phase 2a is welcome but isn't going to usher in the 1,000 year Labour reich.
Wasn't making the trains run on time more associated with l'Impero?
Sir Keir was handed an open goal on HS2 by Rishi and seems set to finally kick one in a goal.
Rishi practically gift-wrapped Sir Keir an open goal on HS2, and now it looks like Keir's finally ready to look at the goal, kick one into the goal, maybe even aim for the goal while reminding us there's still a goal to hit and finally get a ball into that goal.
Goal.
4D chess inn’it
Rishi wanted to do it. But by abolishing it made it much more likely that Labour would support it.
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
I worked at DECC in 2009-10 when he was the SofS. "Ideological entitlement" is putting it politely.
"Swivel-eyed fanaticism of Ayatollah Khomeini" might be more accurate.
One of the biggest problems we have in government, I think, is that the solutions come first. Supplied by ideology.
Whenever I've talked to people vaguely close to political power, the suggestion that policy should be based on scientific testing gets a "That's nice" in a very condescending tone. Apparently in the Real World, we need to Pick Winners. That are supplied by ideology.
Where "ideology" seems to be the ideological capture of the close advisors to the person making the decision.
For example, the UK Government (and many others, around the world) pursued and still purse the dream of Hydrogen as the Fuel of the Future. Billions spent on it. Number of cars running on hydrogen - a slack handful. Ironically, the failure of this effort had seriously damaged the enthusiasm for investment in areas where hydrogen might be useful as part of a Net Zero economy.
A sane approach is to fund a range of approaches (battery is just one) and then increasingly back the ones that actually work.
An even saner approach is to let the private sector develop technology, because that's what it's good at. Contrast Ukraine's drone industry - anarchic, thrusting, innovative and productive - with our own or America's disastrous defence procurement - statist, stiflingly bureaucratic and heavily rigged in favour of a few domestic giants.
The government should never pick winners, just set the most benign framework for winners to emerge,which mostly involves getting out of the way, unless something like safety is imperilled. You may miss out on the occasional amazing innovation, but you'll save incomparably more by not backing duds.
But politicians and civil servants arrogantly think they can beat the private sector, rather than have the private sector take ruthless advantage of them, and never, ever seem to learn.
That's a gross oversimplification of a not unreasonable principle.
Government can have a huge role to play, both in encouraging the development of new technology (see, for example, the success of DARPA, and its analogues), and in funding entire industries (look for example at China with solar and battery manufacturing - or going back a bit, the semiconductor industry in the US).
US defence procurement isn't disastrous; it's a mix of good and bad. Again for example, look at the recent rise of Anduril, as a startup defence contractor producing highly innovative products.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
An interesting suggestion I've come across - that synthetic fuel starts making sense when solar power drops below 12% of the cost of oil powered electricity generation. And that solar is approaching that now - in some markets.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Nice problem to have though.
If EVs really take off and vehicle-to-grid charging can be ramped up, that would also go a long way towards solving the storage issue.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Sir Keir was handed an open goal on HS2 by Rishi and seems set to finally kick one in a goal.
Rishi practically gift-wrapped Sir Keir an open goal on HS2, and now it looks like Keir's finally ready to look at the goal, kick one into the goal, maybe even aim for the goal while reminding us there's still a goal to hit and finally get a ball into that goal.
Goal.
...albeit after spending a year he wasn't even going to look at the goal.
So we now have, potentially, a fast line with plenty of capacity from London to Crewe, then a) a line on a map we are definitely not looking at across Cheshire and at the same time b) heavily congested rail routes across Manchester with no spare capacity, then another, unconnected fast line with plenty of capacity from a field at the bottom end of Greater Manchester to Manchester City Centre.
A solution suggests itself, but government aren't yet saying it out loud.
I got lost in the text. What is the obvious solution I am missing?
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
That would make achieving zero emissions electricity production much easier.
In that case let's just go back to petrol cars
Mind you, that seems to be happening
I'm optimistic about EVs and net zero more generally.
I think it's worth being ambitious with this stuff lest the worrywarts stymie progress. 66 years between flight and the moon, but this time we've already got the technology to make it happen. Just look at batteries and solar.
Sir Keir was handed an open goal on HS2 by Rishi and seems set to finally kick one in a goal.
Rishi practically gift-wrapped Sir Keir an open goal on HS2, and now it looks like Keir's finally ready to look at the goal, kick one into the goal, maybe even aim for the goal while reminding us there's still a goal to hit and finally get a ball into that goal.
Goal.
...albeit after spending a year he wasn't even going to look at the goal.
So we now have, potentially, a fast line with plenty of capacity from London to Crewe, then a) a line on a map we are definitely not looking at across Cheshire and at the same time b) heavily congested rail routes across Manchester with no spare capacity, then another, unconnected fast line with plenty of capacity from a field at the bottom end of Greater Manchester to Manchester City Centre.
A solution suggests itself, but government aren't yet saying it out loud.
And getting on a Manchester train at Crewe that has come from London anyway in less than 2 hours
Are the Brits really going to let this idea fall through, and hand the initiative to the two existing superpowers?
If the Americans get theirs working and delivered, the unit price drops very quickly and any new entrants face huge barriers to entry.
Don't worry, Labour are spending £22bn in carbon capture.
sobs quietly
The other day I spoke to a friend who works in the energy industry and is quite a lefty and he was scathing about Ed Miliband.
The competence of Chris Grayling and the ideological entrenchment of Jeremy Corbyn was how he was described.
Yup, he's a disaster, the guy I met in energy at the industry AI conference last week was scathing. He said he thinks the government will spend £50bn+ and we'll still get blackouts in the 2030s based on the new plan.
I can't spot any decision that Miliband has made that materially changes the course of energy generation in the UK. Most of this stuff has been in the oven for years, including the closure of coal power, massive investment in offshore wind, even REMA. Indeed, the mistake over CCS speaks to industry capture, not the opposite.
A lot of this stuff sounds like Telegraph speculation over the budget - hysterical speculation.
Because he actually means it. The conservatives werent going to switch the gas off in 2030. The intention is to fully decarbonise the electricity network by 2030. There are a series of difficulties in this. 1) the reversal in household decreases in energy consumption due to increased EV and gas boiler replacement 2) the decommissioning of five nuclear power stations between now and 2030 with new ones not coming on stream until after that date. 3) Five years and two months is not long enough to replace the 60% of electricity generated by nuclear and gas the other evening with renewables.
It is a one way path to brown outs and black outs. It doesnt matter how many wind turbines you have, when its not windy they dont turn, low wind/no wind can often be a continent wide weather pattern and can last for quite a period of time.
The system needs to be able to meet peak capacity with forms of energy that are always available, renewables often give the most power when you need them least. Lots of things can help ease the fluctuations like battery balancing. But at its core the system cannot work without natural gas being able to supply the bulk of demand at an instant's moment.
It is not possible to have a functioning electricity grid and be carbon free with today's technology in the absence of rapid nuclear role out.
We have a fanatic in charge of our energy system, and if you let him he will blow up (metaphorically) the gas pipelines rather than fail at his plan. Unless he relents energy is going to be either too expensive to use at peak times or it will be rationed.
Not only all of the above, but also that the electricity we do get will be considerably more expensive as a result, recent Ukraine-related spike excepted.
The carbon capture project was actually initiated under the last government.
I know very little about the merits or otherwise of it, but the Tories obviously thought it a good idea, at least until 4 July.
It is inevitable that there will be some areas that are extremely difficult to decarbonise, and carbon capture may well be a solution in these areas. But it is surely very much a last resort. Our efforts for now should be focussed on rolling out renewables (and possibly nuclear, but I have my doubts there) as quickly as possible and on demand management initiatives.
I'm happy to do nuclear as long as it on an "as well as" basis with investment in wind, solar, tidal and storage, and not instead of those (which seems to be the case with Hinkley Point C favoured over tidal).
One of the main problems with nuclear is that it is just so slow to deliver new capacity. I wonder how much renewable capacity has been added to the grid, only including projects approved after HPC was approved, since the decision on HPC was made?
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
EV costs - along with battery costs - will fall quite rapidly over the rest of this decade. The fluctuation in demand from month to month isn't really relevant. There's no 'going back' to old fashioned internal combustion engines.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
EV costs - along with battery costs - will fall quite rapidly over the rest of this decade. The fluctuation in demand from month to month isn't really relevant. There's no 'going back' to old fashioned internal combustion engines.
I am sure you are right but it is still the case the consumer prefers petrol to ev
The carbon capture project was actually initiated under the last government.
I know very little about the merits or otherwise of it, but the Tories obviously thought it a good idea, at least until 4 July.
It is inevitable that there will be some areas that are extremely difficult to decarbonise, and carbon capture may well be a solution in these areas. But it is surely very much a last resort. Our efforts for now should be focussed on rolling out renewables (and possibly nuclear, but I have my doubts there) as quickly as possible and on demand management initiatives.
I'm happy to do nuclear as long as it on an "as well as" basis with investment in wind, solar, tidal and storage, and not instead of those (which seems to be the case with Hinkley Point C favoured over tidal).
One of the main problems with nuclear is that it is just so slow to deliver new capacity. I wonder how much renewable capacity has been added to the grid, only including projects approved after HPC was approved, since the decision on HPC was made?
Even renewables could have been delivered a LOT faster. For similar reasons to the excessive time we take in building nuclear.
https://ukdayone.org/briefings/reforming-judicial-review-to-get-britain-building ..Norfolk Vanguard, an offshore wind project off the coast of East Anglia that would have provided enough energy to power 1.95 million homes per year through installation of between 90 and 156 wind turbines. Permission for the project was challenged by a single private individual, who succeeded in delaying the project by 2 years...
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
EV costs - along with battery costs - will fall quite rapidly over the rest of this decade. The fluctuation in demand from month to month isn't really relevant. There's no 'going back' to old fashioned internal combustion engines.
I am sure you are right but it is still the case the consumer prefers petrol to ev
If my phone is anything to go by I'll never actually get to drive a EV. the battery will always be flat.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
EV costs - along with battery costs - will fall quite rapidly over the rest of this decade. The fluctuation in demand from month to month isn't really relevant. There's no 'going back' to old fashioned internal combustion engines.
I am sure you are right but it is still the case the consumer prefers petrol to ev
Once the price crosses over for cheaper vehicles, then the preference will switch.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
Catching up on the news, and on yesterday's accident vs collision topic, the death of Liam Payne sounds, based on reporting, more like a Darwin Award entry than an 'accident'.
It's always strange watching the protestations of media and friends to whitewash celebrity alkies and junkies.
We have the same about long-term violent criminal thugs who suddenly become "popular with everyone" or "would do anything to help anyone" or "the son every mum would love to have".
I suggest that far more good can come from such deaths if a modicum of honesty was present.
Feels to me like SKS has tried to regain some momentum.
With the man behind his election win, he must feel confident.
The Autumn Statement is a huge event for labour, and how it is received will go a long way to seeing if Starmer can prevent further drops in poll ratings
An interesting suggestion I've come across - that synthetic fuel starts making sense when solar power drops below 12% of the cost of oil powered electricity generation. And that solar is approaching that now - in some markets.
Yes. The same with excess wind at windy times. There's already a whole bunch of essentially free wind energy available at peak wind times. If you can turn that excess renewable energy into a mix of aviation fuel and methane (easy to store long-term for that occasional fortnight in winter with no wind or solar) then you go a long way towards knocking the more troublesome corner cases in reaching a zero carbon future into shape.
Battery storage makes most sense when you can shift the energy from the middle of the day to the evening (for solar). It's a bit less useful for the timescales on which you want to shift wind energy, because if you do so on timescales of ~week, then you have about seven times fewer charge/discharge cycles to make money on. That's when synthetic fuels start to look interesting.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
EV costs - along with battery costs - will fall quite rapidly over the rest of this decade. The fluctuation in demand from month to month isn't really relevant. There's no 'going back' to old fashioned internal combustion engines.
I am sure you are right but it is still the case the consumer prefers petrol to ev
Once the price crosses over for cheaper vehicles, then the preference will switch.
The big hurdles are the ever increasing insurance costs and their resale value
The Rest in Politics has been touring, and apparently Rory & Alastair have asked the audience at their various venues which leadership candidate they favour.
Kemi: 10 or so. Jenrick: 10 or so. Cleverly: thousands.
So if we can trust shows of hands from politically-motivated (who else would pay to see this pair?) mainly young people, the Tories have done stuffed up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uty-EWzRMNU
The next Tory leader has to neutralise reform, one way or another. Cleverly couldn’t do that
It has to neutralize Reform or else it will die trying to do so.
The problem with both of the options left is that it’s likely to do so because neither candidate attracts the Nigel Farage vote because they aren’t Nigel Farage.
It’s no upside but I don’t think any of the 6 people who put their name forward were the correct option anyway - taking on Farage may just be an impossible task
It's more likely that Farage will take them on. It think his game plan is to merge Reform with the Conservative Party and become its leader. If it is down to Tory members he might just succeed.
He's 10/1 on Betfair to be Tory leader at the next election. (Thin market)
I think what's happening in Western democracies is that the Populist right is absorbing the "mainstream" right.
RN won 37% to 6% for LR, and Macron's government depends on their at least tolerating it. The never-Trump Republicans are now an irrelevance. Geert Wilders has eclipsed the Liberals and Christian Democrats. Meloni has eclipsed Forza Italia, and so on.
What's remarkable about the current situation is that so many Conservative party members want to see their party swallowed up by Reform/Farage.
It's quite a contrast with the visceral loathing for competing parties on the left from Labour.
There remains some historic loyalty to Labour. People voting Labour because their parents voted Labour, and their grandparents, and their great-grandparents.
That's all gone, now, for the Conservatives. People vote Conservative for instrumental reasons, and they'll vote for another right wing party if its suits them better. We saw that in the final round of Euro elections.
About 10% will still vote Tory over Reform regardless though and no rightwing party can win a majority without them under FPTP or PR
Catching up on the news, and on yesterday's accident vs collision topic, the death of Liam Payne sounds, based on reporting, more like a Darwin Award entry than an 'accident'.
It's always strange watching the protestations of media and friends to whitewash celebrity alkies and junkies.
We have the same about long-term violent criminal thugs who suddenly become "popular with everyone" or "would do anything to help anyone" or "the son every mum would love to have".
I suggest that far more good can come from such deaths if a modicum of honesty was present.
I have to admit, I’d never heard of Liam Payne, till now.
The Rest in Politics has been touring, and apparently Rory & Alastair have asked the audience at their various venues which leadership candidate they favour.
Kemi: 10 or so. Jenrick: 10 or so. Cleverly: thousands.
So if we can trust shows of hands from politically-motivated (who else would pay to see this pair?) mainly young people, the Tories have done stuffed up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uty-EWzRMNU
The next Tory leader has to neutralise reform, one way or another. Cleverly couldn’t do that
It has to neutralize Reform or else it will die trying to do so.
The problem with both of the options left is that it’s likely to do so because neither candidate attracts the Nigel Farage vote because they aren’t Nigel Farage.
It’s no upside but I don’t think any of the 6 people who put their name forward were the correct option anyway - taking on Farage may just be an impossible task
It's more likely that Farage will take them on. It think his game plan is to merge Reform with the Conservative Party and become its leader. If it is down to Tory members he might just succeed.
He's 10/1 on Betfair to be Tory leader at the next election. (Thin market)
I think what's happening in Western democracies is that the Populist right is absorbing the "mainstream" right.
RN won 37% to 6% for LR, and Macron's government depends on their at least tolerating it. The never-Trump Republicans are now an irrelevance. Geert Wilders has eclipsed the Liberals and Christian Democrats. Meloni has eclipsed Forza Italia, and so on.
What's remarkable about the current situation is that so many Conservative party members want to see their party swallowed up by Reform/Farage.
It's quite a contrast with the visceral loathing for competing parties on the left from Labour.
There remains some historic loyalty to Labour. People voting Labour because their parents voted Labour, and their grandparents, and their great-grandparents.
That's all gone, now, for the Conservatives. People vote Conservative for instrumental reasons, and they'll vote for another right wing party if its suits them better. We saw that in the final round of Euro elections.
About 10% will still vote Tory over Reform regardless though and no rightwing party can win a majority without them under FPTP or PR
An interesting suggestion I've come across - that synthetic fuel starts making sense when solar power drops below 12% of the cost of oil powered electricity generation. And that solar is approaching that now - in some markets.
Yes. The same with excess wind at windy times. There's already a whole bunch of essentially free wind energy available at peak wind times. If you can turn that excess renewable energy into a mix of aviation fuel and methane (easy to store long-term for that occasional fortnight in winter with no wind or solar) then you go a long way towards knocking the more troublesome corner cases in reaching a zero carbon future into shape.
Battery storage makes most sense when you can shift the energy from the middle of the day to the evening (for solar). It's a bit less useful for the timescales on which you want to shift wind energy, because if you do so on timescales of ~week, then you have about seven times fewer charge/discharge cycles to make money on. That's when synthetic fuels start to look interesting.
Catching up on the news, and on yesterday's accident vs collision topic, the death of Liam Payne sounds, based on reporting, more like a Darwin Award entry than an 'accident'.
It's always strange watching the protestations of media and friends to whitewash celebrity alkies and junkies.
We have the same about long-term violent criminal thugs who suddenly become "popular with everyone" or "would do anything to help anyone" or "the son every mum would love to have".
I suggest that far more good can come from such deaths if a modicum of honesty was present.
I have to admit, I’d never heard of Liam Payne, till now.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
Sir Keir was handed an open goal on HS2 by Rishi and seems set to finally kick one in a goal.
Rishi practically gift-wrapped Sir Keir an open goal on HS2, and now it looks like Keir's finally ready to look at the goal, kick one into the goal, maybe even aim for the goal while reminding us there's still a goal to hit and finally get a ball into that goal.
Goal.
...albeit after spending a year he wasn't even going to look at the goal.
So we now have, potentially, a fast line with plenty of capacity from London to Crewe, then a) a line on a map we are definitely not looking at across Cheshire and at the same time b) heavily congested rail routes across Manchester with no spare capacity, then another, unconnected fast line with plenty of capacity from a field at the bottom end of Greater Manchester to Manchester City Centre.
A solution suggests itself, but government aren't yet saying it out loud.
And getting on a Manchester train at Crewe that has come from London anyway in less than 2 hours
I expect the proposal will not be that passengers change trains, but that trains from London continue to Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland on the existing network. Which is fine, except that there is very little spare capacity on the existing network. So local, freight and other services will have to make way. So if your destination point is, say, Cheadle Hulme, gains you make in journey time to London on the fast bit are offset by longer wait periods for your local train for the final leg of your journey. And actually you only go to London once in a blue moon anyway, and you go to Stockport and Manchester far more often. And these journeys are now more infrequent.
The point being, what we are trying to do is address capacity, not journey speed; we are trying to provide people in places like Cheadle Hulme with more frequent local services which we can only do by taking the fast trains off the network. And until we put that final link in place across Cheshire, we're not fulfilling the purpose of the scheme.
Not, of course, that I don't welcome this next stage to Crewe.
One of the differences between what is being proposed now and what was being proposed a year ago was that HS2 proposed to bypass Crewe station, since it is heavily congested. That is not now happening. So services will have to be cut from Crewe. I'm fine about not bypassing Crewe, but we need to do the obvious alternative, which is major upgrades to Crewe station and its junctions*. Which would be good not just for HS2 but for the north western rail network generally, for which Crewe is a major pinchpoint.
*The issue is not so much the station itself but its junctions. How, for example, do Manchester-Shrewsbury trains get across the whole of the WCML? By causing a major headache for N-S trains, which need to allow quite a gap to let them through, that's how.
An interesting suggestion I've come across - that synthetic fuel starts making sense when solar power drops below 12% of the cost of oil powered electricity generation. And that solar is approaching that now - in some markets.
Yes. The same with excess wind at windy times. There's already a whole bunch of essentially free wind energy available at peak wind times. If you can turn that excess renewable energy into a mix of aviation fuel and methane (easy to store long-term for that occasional fortnight in winter with no wind or solar) then you go a long way towards knocking the more troublesome corner cases in reaching a zero carbon future into shape.
Battery storage makes most sense when you can shift the energy from the middle of the day to the evening (for solar). It's a bit less useful for the timescales on which you want to shift wind energy, because if you do so on timescales of ~week, then you have about seven times fewer charge/discharge cycles to make money on. That's when synthetic fuels start to look interesting.
Which has reminded me to get our immersion heater fixed, so we can take more advantage of the free electricity offered by Octopus when there's a surplus of wind power and thus avoid using a bit of gas.
Catching up on the news, and on yesterday's accident vs collision topic, the death of Liam Payne sounds, based on reporting, more like a Darwin Award entry than an 'accident'.
It's always strange watching the protestations of media and friends to whitewash celebrity alkies and junkies.
We have the same about long-term violent criminal thugs who suddenly become "popular with everyone" or "would do anything to help anyone" or "the son every mum would love to have".
I suggest that far more good can come from such deaths if a modicum of honesty was present.
I have to admit, I’d never heard of Liam Payne, till now.
Comments
That's all gone, now, for the Conservatives. People vote Conservative for instrumental reasons, and they'll vote for another right wing party if its suits them better. We saw that in the final round of Euro elections.
I'm surprised the betfair odds on Harris to win the popular vote are still so short when the the money has been going on Trump both in Betfair outright and EC markets.
Big Village, Morning Consult, Trafalgar, Rasmussen are basically junk.
Energy policy in the UK has been pretty crap for a couple of decades.
It probably won't be Farage - someone younger, without the baggage. See the alt-right in France, Italy etc...
I buy - or bought - them for their wide fitting.
The Labour manifesto actually pointed out that gas energy production would need to continue, and the CCC has suggested we might need it all the way into the 2050s. As far as I'm aware, Miliband has not reversed Sunak's plans for new gas power stations, and was broadly supportive of the idea back in March.
The new stuff he has introduced is about setting the grid up for renewables (obvious) and binning planning regulations for transmission and production, including onshore wind. That sounds... sensible and reasonable, no?
You guys are fighting phantoms.
How can it be so close between an absolute monarchist demagogue who has clearly lost his marbles and a decent, if rather mediocre, upholder of the rule of law and the constitution?
Around 50% of american voters don't want to live in a functioning democracy. It is incredible.
One Direction were the biggest British boy band this century globally
Harris is doing about as well as Biden in Pennsylvania and Nevada and slightly worse in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin but better in North Carolina
@HenryRiley1
EXCL
HS2 to run from London Euston to Crewe
LBC understands govt was planning announcement in the new year - reversing Rishi Sunak's cut to 'phase 2a'
Private talks said to have taken place involving Keir Starmer at last month's Labour Conference
@LBC
Some people are opposed to *any* development - you even get those who explicitly want to shrink "growth".
Further, the Process State, with its long and complex planning system, is a climbing frame for the objectors to anything. By excluding small scale storage from a huge chunk of that... well, it's immoral to some people. There is a *right*, you see, to a 10 year public enquiry.
The left (particularly the hard left) is all about ideological purity, pragmatism be dammed. I suppose given none of it's policies have worked anywhere they've been tried, it's all they've got left. Hence it's all factionalism and hatred.
And that Trump didn't lose in 2020, because some companies didn't cooperate with him in smearing Joe Biden with the conspiracy theories (which got enormous media coverage at the time) regarding his son's indiscretions.
Vance says Trump did not lose in 2020 ‘by the words that I would use’
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4937684-jdvance-denies-trump-won-2020/
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that former President Trump did not lose in 2020 “by the words that I would use” — some of his most extensive comments yet on the subject of the last presidential election results.
“First of all, on the election of 2020 — I’ve answered this question directly, a million times — no,” Vance said a campaign event in Pennsylvania when a reporter asked what message Vance thought it sent to independent voters when he didn’t directly answer the question “Did Donald Trump lose in 2020?”
“I think there were serious problems in 2020. So did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use,” Vance said.
“Here’s the thing that I focus on — because what the media will do, they’ll focus on the court cases or they’ll focus on some crazy conspiracy theory,” he added later. “What I know, what verifiably I know happened is that in 2020, large technology companies censored Americans from talking about things like the Hunter Biden laptop story, and that had a major, major consequence on the election.”..
The question is can they raise the taxes and cut spending when spending is in their DNA
They're worse than useless.
And I'm someone sympathetic to their environmental cause.
Thanks for the threader, @TSE .
45% will vote for The Trump (semi-mythical figure who promises, at the same time, a return to the sane past and a revolution), no matter what.
45% will vote for the Anti Trump, no matter what.
Financially, how can something that operates for 50 years but requires a contract for decommissioning 200 years+ into the future from the point it stops operating make sense? My kids' grandkids will still be paying to decommission the magnox reactors.
Haley would also likely have won a clearer victory than Trump would, if he does win and Wilders is only in government with Liberals and Christian Democrats as Meloni is only in government with Forza Italia.
So while the energy in western politics is on the populist right they can only normally form a government with mainstream right support
Harris (D): 52%
Trump (R): 47%
Marist / Oct 10, 2024 / n=1401
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1846567172098646198
I don't put much faith in any of them.
The honest pollsters acknowledge the serious uncertainty inherent in polling this election.
2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green
Apparently in france there are now EV charging stations combined with electricity storage banks, the company get paid to balance the grid primarily.
https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1846856338023780758
It was actually Sunak/Hunt that proposed an essentially impossible / undeliverable spending projection.
Starts with the calculation that time shifting cheap leccy helps profits for the charging station. Then they find that being paid to store even more leccy is quite profitable as well.
The government should never pick winners, just set the most benign framework for winners to emerge,which mostly involves getting out of the way, unless something like safety is imperilled. You may miss out on the occasional amazing innovation, but you'll save incomparably more by not backing duds.
But politicians and civil servants arrogantly think they can beat the private sector, rather than have the private sector take ruthless advantage of them, and never, ever seem to learn.
I know very little about the merits or otherwise of it, but the Tories obviously thought it a good idea, at least until 4 July.
Ed Miliband
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-secretary-ed-miliband-sets-out-his-priorities-for-the-department
Thank you for your replies to my earlier question. From them I take that the following polls are good
- ABC,
- Emerson,
- Fox News,
- Ipsos,
- Marist,
- Marquette,
- Monmouth,
- Pew,
- Quinnipiac,
- Selzer,
- Sienna,
- Suffolk,
- SUSA,
- Yougov,
And the following polls are bad- Big Village,
- InsiderAdvantage,
- Morning Consult,
- Rasmussen,
- Trafalgar,
I will try to update this as further data comes inCredit where credit is due.
Goal.
Reforming Judicial Review to get Britain Building
Judicial Reviews are being used to slow down and block major building projects. Reforming them could get Britain building again.
https://ukdayone.org/briefings/reforming-judicial-review-to-get-britain-building
Pretty good paper, which lays out detail of the costs of delays for particular projects. And how to avoid them in the future.
SKS reigniting HS2 Phase 2a is welcome but isn't going to usher in the 1,000 year Labour reich.
So we now have, potentially, a fast line with plenty of capacity from London to Crewe, then a) a line on a map we are definitely not looking at across Cheshire and at the same time b) heavily congested rail routes across Manchester with no spare capacity, then another, unconnected fast line with plenty of capacity from a field at the bottom end of Greater Manchester to Manchester City Centre.
A solution suggests itself, but government aren't yet saying it out loud.
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Nice problem to have though.
https://x.com/undersneege/status/1846857918139740295?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Rishi wanted to do it. But by abolishing it made it much more likely that Labour would support it.
Government can have a huge role to play, both in encouraging the development of new technology (see, for example, the success of DARPA, and its analogues), and in funding entire industries (look for example at China with solar and battery manufacturing - or going back a bit, the semiconductor industry in the US).
US defence procurement isn't disastrous; it's a mix of good and bad.
Again for example, look at the recent rise of Anduril, as a startup defence contractor producing highly innovative products.
EU demand for electric cars 'on a continual downward trajectory' https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-13870203/EU-demand-electric-cars-continues-fall-sales-collapse-France-Germany.html?ito=native_share_article-nativemenubutton
(Though FE makes a good point above)
Mind you, that seems to be happening
I think it's worth being ambitious with this stuff lest the worrywarts stymie progress. 66 years between flight and the moon, but this time we've already got the technology to make it happen. Just look at batteries and solar.
One of the main problems with nuclear is that it is just so slow to deliver new capacity. I wonder how much renewable capacity has been added to the grid, only including projects approved after HPC was approved, since the decision on HPC was made?
EV Sales In China, US, & UK Increased In September, Decreased in EU
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/10/16/ev-sales-in-china-us-uk-increased-in-september-decreased-in-eu/
EV costs - along with battery costs - will fall quite rapidly over the rest of this decade. The fluctuation in demand from month to month isn't really relevant.
There's no 'going back' to old fashioned internal combustion engines.
With the man behind his election win, he must feel confident.
For similar reasons to the excessive time we take in building nuclear.
https://ukdayone.org/briefings/reforming-judicial-review-to-get-britain-building
..Norfolk Vanguard, an offshore wind project off the coast of East Anglia that would have provided enough energy to power 1.95 million homes per year through installation of between 90 and 156 wind turbines. Permission for the project was challenged by a single private individual, who succeeded in delaying the project by 2 years...
- Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
- Not enough charging stations
- Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
- EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
- Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.The Independent reports that the guy was out of control on drink and drugs:
A hotel worker made a distressed call to police shortly before his death, it has emerged, in which they said a guest was “destroying everything in his room” and appeared to be “on drugs and alcohol”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/liam-payne-death-age-cause-buenos-aires-hotel-news-b2630682.html
It's always strange watching the protestations of media and friends to whitewash celebrity alkies and junkies.
We have the same about long-term violent criminal thugs who suddenly become "popular with everyone" or "would do anything to help anyone" or "the son every mum would love to have".
I suggest that far more good can come from such deaths if a modicum of honesty was present.
Battery storage makes most sense when you can shift the energy from the middle of the day to the evening (for solar). It's a bit less useful for the timescales on which you want to shift wind energy, because if you do so on timescales of ~week, then you have about seven times fewer charge/discharge cycles to make money on. That's when synthetic fuels start to look interesting.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
Which is fine, except that there is very little spare capacity on the existing network. So local, freight and other services will have to make way. So if your destination point is, say, Cheadle Hulme, gains you make in journey time to London on the fast bit are offset by longer wait periods for your local train for the final leg of your journey.
And actually you only go to London once in a blue moon anyway, and you go to Stockport and Manchester far more often. And these journeys are now more infrequent.
The point being, what we are trying to do is address capacity, not journey speed; we are trying to provide people in places like Cheadle Hulme with more frequent local services which we can only do by taking the fast trains off the network. And until we put that final link in place across Cheshire, we're not fulfilling the purpose of the scheme.
Not, of course, that I don't welcome this next stage to Crewe.
One of the differences between what is being proposed now and what was being proposed a year ago was that HS2 proposed to bypass Crewe station, since it is heavily congested. That is not now happening. So services will have to be cut from Crewe.
I'm fine about not bypassing Crewe, but we need to do the obvious alternative, which is major upgrades to Crewe station and its junctions*. Which would be good not just for HS2 but for the north western rail network generally, for which Crewe is a major pinchpoint.
*The issue is not so much the station itself but its junctions. How, for example, do Manchester-Shrewsbury trains get across the whole of the WCML? By causing a major headache for N-S trains, which need to allow quite a gap to let them through, that's how.
SIR KEIR