I didn't see much evidence John Major or Rishi Sunak enjoyed being Prime Minister in their last 12 months - I don't suppose it was much "fun" for James Callaghan either.
That didn't mean they were all heading for the door (despite all the pleas and protestations they should go).
Most Prime Ministers have to be dragged kicking and screaming from No.10 whether by the electorate or the "men in grey suits". Even Boris Johnson now regrets giving in to the likes of Sir Graham Brady and thinks he should have held out.
No, Starmer will see it out unless there is a monumental scandal or a health issue - the last PM to leave in any way voluntarily was Wilson in 1976 (though there seem all sorts of theories about that). Absent either of those he will be the Prime Minister and Labour leader at the next election - whether he wins re-election or not is another matter.
He's already lost Leon's and Taz's votes, so it's looking like a walkover for um... maybe Farage.
Only a third of labour voters, on recent polling, are pleased with their performance to date so we are not alone. Unlike Leon I can be won back, like many others I suspect, and Don’t worry, he still has you to shill for him here, when you show your face that is and when you’re not having Leon wipe the floor with you, as he did the other night or you’re not flouncing because people are being nasty about labour 😂😂😂😂
I couldn't care less if you call Labour out when they have genuinely f***** up. The delay in the budget is ludicrous, the kite flying around WFP poorly thought through, the negative stance on the EU, pathetic, the response to Israel is weak, clarity on immigration is slow and the dangerous small boats keep coming, and I could go on. .
You care enough to continually have digs at me about my support for labour, another one today for no reason, and your digs at me as a ‘lifelong labour voter’ using inverted commas to imply otherwise. 🙄
Perhaps you are, I wouldn't know, but by your commentary you are giving them a turkey's voting for Christmas vote.
Indeed you wouldn’t know but it doesn’t stop you from commenting, ad nauseum.
Mind you commenting without knowledge is not unique to this particular issue where you’re concerned.
That was quite a cumbersome final sentence
I guess to you it would appear to be.
So was that one. Perhaps it's best I leave you to brush up your sentence construction. I will bid you adieu!
Former racing driver Billy Monger just completed the World Ironman Championship for Comic Relief, and knocked TWO HOURS off the course record for a double amputee in the event.
Quite an achievement. An Ironman race is blooming difficult - a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and then a marathon 26.2 mile run. Doing that without any disabilities is amazing.
In the main race, Frenchman Sam Laidlow blew up on the run and ended up walking a lot of it, despite having a big lead off the bike. Well done to the winner, Patrick Lange.
Doing all of that in 7 1/2 hrs is just mental.
Sounds like the Sam character despite being born in UK, fully embraced being a French man, surrendering like that.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
I think this is backwards. Once you max out the grid with renewables, you probably have times when you have lots of surplus energy that you can use for carbon capture. Assuming you're still making things like concrete and glass you'll be producing CO2 even if their energy source is totally renewable, so if you're serious about net zero you need to be doing carbon capture.
The argument against carbon capture is that the whole idea that the UK is going to get to Net Zero is fake, and it'll be using loads of fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, in which case you'd be better spending the money chipping away at that.
There appear be two incompatible arguments in principle against carbon capture. Firstly net zero is a massive hoax as you have said. Secondly we shouldn't be doing CO2 under any circumstances so there's no carbon to capture. It is true on the second point that carbon capture is heavily promoted by the fossil fuel lobby. The suggestion Ed Miliband is a green zealot on this is misplaced.
A potential argument could be carbon capture is a good idea in principle but not cost effective. We're not getting to that argument. We're stuck on square 1.
My argument against carbon capture is that it's always going to be more expensive than releasing the carbon to the atmosphere. Likely a lot more expensive. So it will be difficult to make it stick.
Alternative technology that lets you do the same thing, but without generating the carbon dioxide in the first place, can be cheaper, and so will then replace the carbon-producing technology without having to ensure that money is spent in perpetuity - subsidies only have to be provided while the technology is developing and reaching efficiencies of scale.
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
I very much doubt that Plan A involved him becoming Prime Minister. More likely it was that he's just having cleaned up the party, moved them on a bit but lost. That he became PM is a function of the repeated pratfalls by the last lot.
He's not getting any younger, and the job takes it out of a man- look at Johnson or Sunak. I reckon his plan B is to win in 2028 and retire in 2030. Whether that works or not is not yet for ours to see.
Plan C would be to do a Biden in 2028 or so; step down with a medical chitty and hand over to someone younger and smiler.
50:50 chance that he goes early? I wouldn't put it that high, but it's certainly not a low chance. What really kills these odds for me is that the return might be more than four years away. You can get a decent lower-risk return in that time.
The other factor, there isn't an obvious replacement at the moment.
Ah, that's when Starmer tearfully does the walk of shame to the Palace and advises the King to call for Badenoch/Farage/Truss/Johnson/the exhumed remains of Lady Thatcher.
But yes, the thing to watch is who gets promoted at the mid-term reshuffle
My comment about no obvious replacement wasn't just talking about the Labour party!
Starmer's personal ratings are terrible, but the public don't really like anybody else, so there is literally no pressure for the foreseeable future.
The mood music from Labour has become more positive and active recent weeks.
No. No it hasn't.
It has. That doesn’t mean that you feel more positive about them or that press coverage has been more positive and active (though I’d say it has), but the actual rhetoric coming out of government departments has - even the treasury. Deliberately, I think, in the face of criticism of their lugubrious tone up to then.
JFYI a plate of really excellent fresh sashimi - tuna, salmon, mackerel, roe, the works - in a pretty cool little restaurant in downtown Osaka, is 1200 Yen
That’s…. £6
Yeah, when Japan is cheap, it's really cheap. I had a great 3 course lunch plus glass of wine in this little French bistro near the peace memorial park in Hiroshima for £9:
Apart from a few really high end hotels in Kyoto and Tokyo (not paying, fortunately) I have noted that EVERYTHING is cheap in Japan, sometimes ridiculously so: trains and beers, Ubers and hookers
I had a plate of excellent gyoza earlier for £2.40
Also wine, amazingly. You can walk in any convenience store and walk out with a decent bottle of red (nothing special, but decent) for £4
if you can contrive to live in Japan on a western salary, right now, you live like The Shogun
Is this simply because the Yen is ridiculously undervalued, or is it the impact of persistent deflation due to a shrinking population?
I very much doubt that Plan A involved him becoming Prime Minister. More likely it was that he's just having cleaned up the party, moved them on a bit but lost. That he became PM is a function of the repeated pratfalls by the last lot.
He's not getting any younger, and the job takes it out of a man- look at Johnson or Sunak. I reckon his plan B is to win in 2028 and retire in 2030. Whether that works or not is not yet for ours to see.
Plan C would be to do a Biden in 2028 or so; step down with a medical chitty and hand over to someone younger and smiler.
50:50 chance that he goes early? I wouldn't put it that high, but it's certainly not a low chance. What really kills these odds for me is that the return might be more than four years away. You can get a decent lower-risk return in that time.
The other factor, there isn't an obvious replacement at the moment.
Ah, that's when Starmer tearfully does the walk of shame to the Palace and advises the King to call for Badenoch/Farage/Truss/Johnson/the exhumed remains of Lady Thatcher.
But yes, the thing to watch is who gets promoted at the mid-term reshuffle
My comment about no obvious replacement wasn't just talking about the Labour party!
Starmer's personal ratings are terrible, but the public don't really like anybody else, so there is literally no pressure for the foreseeable future.
The mood music from Labour has become more positive and active recent weeks.
No. No it hasn't.
They have descended in to rudderless desperation after 100 days, much the same as the last government, but with a massive majority. Routine incompetence that achieves short term stability at the expense of a long term plan.
What proportion of that 60% think the USA is "on the wrong track" because it's on the verge of electing Trump again? It's a terrible polling question, vague and easy to misinterpret. The two results are a Harris presidency without control of the Senate, unable to rebalance the democratic norms and small c conservative because they will be blocked in the Houses or Trump with a majority in both and totally unchecked, able to pursue radical changes. A Harris presidency doesn't threaten the Republican's but a Trump presidency could be a threat to all.
It's a pretty standard question which measures whether people want change or want to protect the status quo. In normal political times I think it's a great question to discern the fundamental mood of the nation.
I'd agree that Trump breaks it, though, because there will be a lot of people not happy with the status quo, but who are also terrified of the change that Trump would seek to bring about.
JFYI a plate of really excellent fresh sashimi - tuna, salmon, mackerel, roe, the works - in a pretty cool little restaurant in downtown Osaka, is 1200 Yen
That’s…. £6
Yeah, when Japan is cheap, it's really cheap. I had a great 3 course lunch plus glass of wine in this little French bistro near the peace memorial park in Hiroshima for £9:
Apart from a few really high end hotels in Kyoto and Tokyo (not paying, fortunately) I have noted that EVERYTHING is cheap in Japan, sometimes ridiculously so: trains and beers, Ubers and hookers
I had a plate of excellent gyoza earlier for £2.40
Also wine, amazingly. You can walk in any convenience store and walk out with a decent bottle of red (nothing special, but decent) for £4
if you can contrive to live in Japan on a western salary, right now, you live like The Shogun
Is this simply because the Yen is ridiculously undervalued, or is it the impact of persistent deflation due to a shrinking population?
It’s always been a bit of an odd situation even when the Yen was strong: many restaurants incredibly expensive but some very cheap.
My theory is that some of these small family ones, like Chinese takeaways here, do almost all the work themselves and employ few if any staff, and are in buildings where they own the freehold. So their only costs are the food and the equipment / bills. And some are pretty old so may not need much income.
Fpt Bloody hell, I know 24/7 royal PR is SOP for the Beeb, but it’s in fawning overdrive today. The doctors are looking after Chuck’s physical health but it’s his sense of duty that is keeping his mind and spirit in fine fettle apparently. It seems that we need to know this at the top of every news bulletin, on the hour.
The BBC has been inextricably infected by royal derangement syndrome for decades, and it’s getting worse.
What little I saw from Samoa was the king looking old and frail. It's good to know that his health is improving, but it's rather cruel to expect such an old man to carry out multiple duties.
If we are to keep a monarchy, we should have a retirement age so that we have monarchs who are well enough for the rigours of the role. It is done in other monarchies, so not a threat to the role.
But our monarchy (with the possible exception of Japan) seems to be the last one that demands that a kind of holy mystique be attached to it, literally holy since they bung the CoE into the mix. Such a prosaic concept as a retirement age would finish the mystique (such as it is) off. Since the next one in line seems to be a slightly dim middle manager with a pushy wife, perhaps that’ll do the finishing off anyway.
What a load of crap.
Compared to Starmer, Badenoch, Jenrick, Farage, Davey and Swinney Wills and Kate would be like the British JFK and Jackie.
The King is also younger than Biden and Trump
But you're a baptised fully signed up member of the cult.
Look at the polling, William has a net favourable rating of +59%, Kate a net rating of +61%.
You'd think then on that basis they'd ask the state broadcaster to stop continually arsecrawling them, out of embarassment apart from anything else. Or perhaps the two are connected?
They don't, the BBC already give far more coverage to the ridiculous Republic than they should.
In my view the BBC is not pro monarchy enough now
Up it to half hourly bulletins on how KCII is a bloody good chap doing a marvellous job?
I very much doubt that Plan A involved him becoming Prime Minister. More likely it was that he's just having cleaned up the party, moved them on a bit but lost. That he became PM is a function of the repeated pratfalls by the last lot.
He's not getting any younger, and the job takes it out of a man- look at Johnson or Sunak. I reckon his plan B is to win in 2028 and retire in 2030. Whether that works or not is not yet for ours to see.
Plan C would be to do a Biden in 2028 or so; step down with a medical chitty and hand over to someone younger and smiler.
50:50 chance that he goes early? I wouldn't put it that high, but it's certainly not a low chance. What really kills these odds for me is that the return might be more than four years away. You can get a decent lower-risk return in that time.
The other factor, there isn't an obvious replacement at the moment.
Ah, that's when Starmer tearfully does the walk of shame to the Palace and advises the King to call for Badenoch/Farage/Truss/Johnson/the exhumed remains of Lady Thatcher.
But yes, the thing to watch is who gets promoted at the mid-term reshuffle
My comment about no obvious replacement wasn't just talking about the Labour party!
Starmer's personal ratings are terrible, but the public don't really like anybody else, so there is literally no pressure for the foreseeable future.
The mood music from Labour has become more positive and active recent weeks.
Former racing driver Billy Monger just completed the World Ironman Championship for Comic Relief, and knocked TWO HOURS off the course record for a double amputee in the event.
Quite an achievement. An Ironman race is blooming difficult - a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and then a marathon 26.2 mile run. Doing that without any disabilities is amazing.
In the main race, Frenchman Sam Laidlow blew up on the run and ended up walking a lot of it, despite having a big lead off the bike. Well done to the winner, Patrick Lange.
Indeed, well done to anyone mad enough to compete in such an event!
Billy Monger’s story is quite amazing, he was just 17 when he lost both his legs in an accident in an F4 British Championship car race at Donington Park. He was at the time widely tipped as a potential future F1 driver. He recovered much against the expectations of the doctors treating him, got back in racing cars and won an F3 race in the European Championships a couple of years later, driving a heavily modified car with hand controls.
A genuinely inspiring individual. I’ve just thrown £100 to his Comic Relief fund as my good turn for the week.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
I was reading that across London 16,000 housing completions are being achieved against a goal of 81,000, with a large amount of strategic projects being described as 'beached whales', IE they are not viable. They are mostly flats for sale. Construction costs up 30% since 2021 but new build sale prices are flat. So either the government remove the planning obligations or affordable housing commitments, or you pump in subsidy through grant, but this requires action from the mayor.
If the government were serious, they would get a grip on this, but there is no sign of that; instead they are boasting that they have taken action already to sort out the planning system and deliver 'brownfield sites', which is disproved by this reality.
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
I very much doubt that Plan A involved him becoming Prime Minister. More likely it was that he's just having cleaned up the party, moved them on a bit but lost. That he became PM is a function of the repeated pratfalls by the last lot.
He's not getting any younger, and the job takes it out of a man- look at Johnson or Sunak. I reckon his plan B is to win in 2028 and retire in 2030. Whether that works or not is not yet for ours to see.
Plan C would be to do a Biden in 2028 or so; step down with a medical chitty and hand over to someone younger and smiler.
50:50 chance that he goes early? I wouldn't put it that high, but it's certainly not a low chance. What really kills these odds for me is that the return might be more than four years away. You can get a decent lower-risk return in that time.
The other factor, there isn't an obvious replacement at the moment.
Ah, that's when Starmer tearfully does the walk of shame to the Palace and advises the King to call for Badenoch/Farage/Truss/Johnson/the exhumed remains of Lady Thatcher.
But yes, the thing to watch is who gets promoted at the mid-term reshuffle
My comment about no obvious replacement wasn't just talking about the Labour party!
Starmer's personal ratings are terrible, but the public don't really like anybody else, so there is literally no pressure for the foreseeable future.
The mood music from Labour has become more positive and active recent weeks.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
I very much doubt that Plan A involved him becoming Prime Minister. More likely it was that he's just having cleaned up the party, moved them on a bit but lost. That he became PM is a function of the repeated pratfalls by the last lot.
He's not getting any younger, and the job takes it out of a man- look at Johnson or Sunak. I reckon his plan B is to win in 2028 and retire in 2030. Whether that works or not is not yet for ours to see.
Plan C would be to do a Biden in 2028 or so; step down with a medical chitty and hand over to someone younger and smiler.
50:50 chance that he goes early? I wouldn't put it that high, but it's certainly not a low chance. What really kills these odds for me is that the return might be more than four years away. You can get a decent lower-risk return in that time.
The other factor, there isn't an obvious replacement at the moment.
Ah, that's when Starmer tearfully does the walk of shame to the Palace and advises the King to call for Badenoch/Farage/Truss/Johnson/the exhumed remains of Lady Thatcher.
But yes, the thing to watch is who gets promoted at the mid-term reshuffle
My comment about no obvious replacement wasn't just talking about the Labour party!
Starmer's personal ratings are terrible, but the public don't really like anybody else, so there is literally no pressure for the foreseeable future.
The mood music from Labour has become more positive and active recent weeks.
Former racing driver Billy Monger just completed the World Ironman Championship for Comic Relief, and knocked TWO HOURS off the course record for a double amputee in the event.
Quite an achievement. An Ironman race is blooming difficult - a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and then a marathon 26.2 mile run. Doing that without any disabilities is amazing.
In the main race, Frenchman Sam Laidlow blew up on the run and ended up walking a lot of it, despite having a big lead off the bike. Well done to the winner, Patrick Lange.
Indeed, well done to anyone mad enough to compete in wuch an event!
Billy Monger’s story is quite amazing, he was just 17 when he lost both his legs in an accident in an F4 British Championship car race at Donington Park. He was at the time widely tipped as a potential future F1 driver. He recovered much against the expectations of the doctors treating him, got back in racing cars and won an F3 race in the European Championships a couple of years later, driving a heavily modified car with hand controls.
A genuinely inspiring individual. I’ve just thrown £100 to his Comic Relief fund as my good turn for the week.
I watched that race live on ITV. The camera was actually onboard with him at the moment of the crash - as I recall, there was nothing he could do to avoid the crash, nor could anyone else - even the stalled driver. From the way the TV commentators were acting, and the way other races were delayed, I felt sure that there had been a fatality.
Fortunately not, and he's been an inspirational young man - driving problems aside...
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
Or it could be that senior Tories have much more of an idea about which of their colleagues are bent as nine bob notes than most of us do...
Former racing driver Billy Monger just completed the World Ironman Championship for Comic Relief, and knocked TWO HOURS off the course record for a double amputee in the event.
JFYI a plate of really excellent fresh sashimi - tuna, salmon, mackerel, roe, the works - in a pretty cool little restaurant in downtown Osaka, is 1200 Yen
That’s…. £6
Yeah, when Japan is cheap, it's really cheap. I had a great 3 course lunch plus glass of wine in this little French bistro near the peace memorial park in Hiroshima for £9:
Apart from a few really high end hotels in Kyoto and Tokyo (not paying, fortunately) I have noted that EVERYTHING is cheap in Japan, sometimes ridiculously so: trains and beers, Ubers and hookers
I had a plate of excellent gyoza earlier for £2.40
Also wine, amazingly. You can walk in any convenience store and walk out with a decent bottle of red (nothing special, but decent) for £4
if you can contrive to live in Japan on a western salary, right now, you live like The Shogun
Is this simply because the Yen is ridiculously undervalued, or is it the impact of persistent deflation due to a shrinking population?
Of all the things HMG could invest in I'm not particularly impressed with £21bn in CCUS.
It's a bit of a dud technology and yet to work with decidedly unclear economic benefits. I suspect it will prove a waste.
I'd far rather they focused investment on accelerating a clean energy transition, industrial strategy and onshoring and strategic transport links.
It's a shocking waste of money, IMO.
Things I would do, in government, to forward a Green Revolution
1) Order a small nuclear reactor 2) Order a tidal pond 3) Subsidy for U.K. made storage for ZEVs. Pay for actual KWh delivered. Since this will be years in the future, no money needs to be paid now.
All thing which we could have done at least half a decade back. Tory and Labour governments fail us on basic economic self interest.
And designing the grid to be able to support change was a choice that should and could have been made 30 years ago. We knew we had to do it.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
My pet project for energy storage is storage heaters - those 1960s basic technology things, their time has come. Or should be. No-one is talking about them. Consume excess electricity for marginal cost and release the energy as heat when needed.
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
If Badenoch wins, unless she wins by a landslide which is unlikely she will have to give Jenrick a shadow cabinet job
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
Without even listening that sounds like one of those questions along the lines of "have you thought about changing profession in the last year?" Obviously all employees think about that sort of thing to a degree, but it gets spun by pressure groups and the media into "60% of Doctors want to leave the profession".
The America is on the wrong track polling could to some extent reflect Trump/Maga. Individual candidate unfavourability has Harris polling lower than Trump. Trump is marmite and has a ceiling of 46-47%. This becomes all about getting the vote out.
Isn't that contradictory? If it's all about relative turnout then you can't talk about a ceiling for Trump.
Does anyone here have an opinion about the value of polling registered early voters by the likes of MaristPoll? Is this sort of polling useful?
The reason I ask is that I have seen several posts on Reddit who claim it is better than regular opinion polling, and I wonder how true that is.
Do you have a link please?
(My initial thought is that differential non-response is an issue here: they report the results from those who answered their questions, but those who didn't respond may be disproportionately pro-Trump or pro-Kamala and that messes things up)
Former racing driver Billy Monger just completed the World Ironman Championship for Comic Relief, and knocked TWO HOURS off the course record for a double amputee in the event.
Quite an achievement. An Ironman race is blooming difficult - a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and then a marathon 26.2 mile run. Doing that without any disabilities is amazing.
In the main race, Frenchman Sam Laidlow blew up on the run and ended up walking a lot of it, despite having a big lead off the bike. Well done to the winner, Patrick Lange.
Indeed, well done to anyone mad enough to compete in wuch an event!
Billy Monger’s story is quite amazing, he was just 17 when he lost both his legs in an accident in an F4 British Championship car race at Donington Park. He was at the time widely tipped as a potential future F1 driver. He recovered much against the expectations of the doctors treating him, got back in racing cars and won an F3 race in the European Championships a couple of years later, driving a heavily modified car with hand controls.
A genuinely inspiring individual. I’ve just thrown £100 to his Comic Relief fund as my good turn for the week.
I watched that race live on ITV. The camera was actually onboard with him at the moment of the crash - as I recall, there was nothing he could do to avoid the crash, nor could anyone else - even the stalled driver. From the way the TV commentators were acting, and the way other races were delayed, I felt sure that there had been a fatality.
Fortunately not, and he's been an inspirational young man - driving problems aside...
Yes it was awfully close to a fatality at the time, thankfully modern motorsport is a lot safer now than it ever used to be. Big up to all of the marshals and medics who volunteer their time so people can go car racing.
Does anyone here have an opinion about the value of polling registered early voters by the likes of MaristPoll? Is this sort of polling useful?
The reason I ask is that I have seen several posts on Reddit who claim it is better than regular opinion polling, and I wonder how true that is.
There will be a reasonable proportion of voters who feel it is wrong to do polling post voting. Not sure why, but I would instinctively feel less comfortable responding than pre voting. Those voters may skew differently to those who do respond to polling.
It's interesting but not enough evidence to know if it is better or worse. People will be guessing.
Trump clearly wasn't / isn't an asshat 24/7. He wouldn't have managed to be part of the elite set for so many years or for the Apprentice to run for what 14 seasons.
What Trump is a spoiled rich kid from New York who is most likely a narcissist.
You well play nice with him and he gets want he wants, I am sure he perfectly pleasant*. The I'm the best, the richest, etc, it is that classic NYC wiseguy serial boaster / bullshitter, see 80s stock traders.
Where things nasty is if you don't do what he says or even worse try to prevent him from getting what he wants or cross him. Its like saying no to toddler when they are in cereal aisle.
* I watched a bit of JRE, and Rogan don't push him very hard and after all the BSing about tariffs etc, they have a perfectly nice chat about things like MMA, where he asks sensible questions and listens to Rogan talk about his specialist subject.
Roger
If you watch 'The Apprentice' about his early years in New York it probably gives you a pretty accurate look at what he was like. Not particularly likable or dislikable. Not very nice to women though they end up marrying him. His God is money though he's not as successful as he'd like to be at making it.
......Oh ....and he'll ttrample on anyone he needs to to get where he wants to get to including his immediate family though that felt like film makers licence
(PS somethings gone funny with the posting. This is Francis's post until it says Roger)
Does anyone here have an opinion about the value of polling registered early voters by the likes of MaristPoll? Is this sort of polling useful?
The reason I ask is that I have seen several posts on Reddit who claim it is better than regular opinion polling, and I wonder how true that is.
Do you have a link please?
(My initial thought is that differential non-response is an issue here: they report the results from those who answered their questions, but those who didn't respond may be disproportionately pro-Trump or pro-Kamala and that messes things up)
No links I'm afraid, and I doubt I could find them again on Reddit.
It was something I read yesterday, and I wondered if they have a point, or are they merely clutching at straws that look good for Harris. The gist though was that Harris was doing better in reality than opinion and voting intention polling indicates.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
1kg raised 1m is 9.8 joules.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
I was reading that across London 16,000 housing completions are being achieved against a goal of 81,000, with a large amount of strategic projects being described as 'beached whales', IE they are not viable. They are mostly flats for sale. Construction costs up 30% since 2021 but new build sale prices are flat. So either the government remove the planning obligations or affordable housing commitments, or you pump in subsidy through grant, but this requires action from the mayor.
If the government were serious, they would get a grip on this, but there is no sign of that; instead they are boasting that they have taken action already to sort out the planning system and deliver 'brownfield sites', which is disproved by this reality.
Have we seen the proposals wrt the Planning System, yet?
Changes to ease development on some green belt land could have a huge impact in London - the London Green Belt is full of scrub and brownfield.
The Planning System is such that any changes will take 1.5-2 years at least to feed through to anything noticeable, except perhaps for things now being taken forward which were gummed up by Rishi's abolition of local housing targets in his "omigod how can I save our butt" period.
JD Vance criticizes “American leaders” who pick a side in the war in Ukraine: “Unfortunately, you got a lot of American leaders who like to beat their chest and say; this [Ukraine] is the good guy and this [Russia] is the bad guy.”
Can PB Trumpers for Ukraine confirm who is the good guy and the bad guy in Russia v Ukraine?
The Pope. Who is praying for nothing but peace and love to break out.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
1kg raised 1m is 9.8 joules.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
Other than manufacturing capacity, are there any significant constraints on battery production now (ie raw materials)? I get the impression not.
Interesting header. Not enough serious thought is going into what a Trump administration would look like. I don't know.
Which is more likely? A semi-fascist new order? Or a chaotic despotism more like his first term? This may depend on how much Trump will be in charge.
For analogies, the best I can think of Kaiser Bill, playing with his navy whilst Germany went to hell in a handcart.
Trump will first of all focus on saving himself, then he will focus on enriching himself.
Why not all of the above? A chaotic despotism (attempted) as the 2025 types try and do stuff. Trump tries to do his thing, and weirdly clash with the 2025 types on surprising, random stuff. While agreeing with the 2025 types on other random stuff. And fighting the blue states. But also, probably getting push back from red states when he impinges on the flow of pork money….. And stuffing (or trying to stuff) his pockets at the same time.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
1kg raised 1m is 9.8 joules.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
Other than manufacturing capacity, are there any significant constraints on battery production now (ie raw materials)? I get the impression not.
Nope. It’s all about building the actual factories.
Rather than talking about building them, having meetings about building them, furrowing brows over building them etc etc
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
In terms of the senate , this poll for Montana raised a few eyebrows . It’s the best for Tester in a while and especially from Emerson which has been viewed as GOP friendly in this election cycle .
Sheehy 50 Tester 46
With leaners pushed
Sheehy 51 Tester 48
It’s still going to be hard for Tester but he wasn’t supposed to win last time either .
In which an utterly unknown Guardian music writer “Sam Wolfson” suggests that famous actor, TV host, sports commentator, comedian, and world’s most successful podcaster Joe Rogan is “not the smartest cookie”
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
Or it could be that senior Tories have much more of an idea about which of their colleagues are bent as nine bob notes than most of us do...
Given that Kemi's faction holds sex parties where blackmail material could be gathered, you're probably right, but she wasn't making new accusations, she was bringing up the Desmond stuff.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
1kg raised 1m is 9.8 joules.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
Other than manufacturing capacity, are there any significant constraints on battery production now (ie raw materials)? I get the impression not.
Nope. It’s all about building the actual factories.
Rather than talking about building them, having meetings about building them, furrowing brows over building them etc etc
Scheduling time to do the thing isn't doing the thing.
Making a to-do list for the thing isn't doing the thing.
Telling people you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing.
Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn't doing the thing.
Writing a banger tweet about how you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing.
Hating on yourself for not doing the thing isn't doing the thing. Hating on other people who have done the thing isn't doing the thing. Hating on the obstacles in the way of doing the thing isn't doing the thing.
Fantasizing about all of the adoration you'll receive once you do the thing isn't doing the thing.
Reading about how to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Reading about how other people did the thing isn't doing the thing. Reading this essay isn't doing the thing.
The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing.
In which an utterly unknown Guardian music writer “Sam Wolfson” suggests that famous actor, TV host, sports commentator, comedian, and world’s most successful podcaster Joe Rogan is “not the smartest cookie”
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
If Badenoch wins, unless she wins by a landslide which is unlikely she will have to give Jenrick a shadow cabinet job
She has accused Braverman of being mentally ill, and now hints at Jenrick’s impropriety - when Tominey asks her whether she can unite the party she says 'Look at who's supporting me' - which seems rather to miss the point.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
1kg raised 1m is 9.8 joules.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
So the idea is to run a shipping container full of batteries up and down a mine shaft?
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
I think this is backwards. Once you max out the grid with renewables, you probably have times when you have lots of surplus energy that you can use for carbon capture. Assuming you're still making things like concrete and glass you'll be producing CO2 even if their energy source is totally renewable, so if you're serious about net zero you need to be doing carbon capture.
The argument against carbon capture is that the whole idea that the UK is going to get to Net Zero is fake, and it'll be using loads of fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, in which case you'd be better spending the money chipping away at that.
There appear be two incompatible arguments in principle against carbon capture. Firstly net zero is a massive hoax as you have said. Secondly we shouldn't be doing CO2 under any circumstances so there's no carbon to capture. It is true on the second point that carbon capture is heavily promoted by the fossil fuel lobby. The suggestion Ed Miliband is a green zealot on this is misplaced.
A potential argument could be carbon capture is a good idea in principle but not cost effective. We're not getting to that argument. We're stuck on square 1.
My argument against carbon capture is that it's always going to be more expensive than releasing the carbon to the atmosphere. Likely a lot more expensive. So it will be difficult to make it stick.
Alternative technology that lets you do the same thing, but without generating the carbon dioxide in the first place, can be cheaper, and so will then replace the carbon-producing technology without having to ensure that money is spent in perpetuity - subsidies only have to be provided while the technology is developing and reaching efficiencies of scale.
Except there is little utility in pumping CO2 into disused N Sea oil wells, whatever technology is used for its capture.
We're only doing it as a sop to the industry. And it's another long term commitment whose economic rationale is exceptionally dubious.
I don't mind government placing bets, indeed I'm in favour if it. But not when they're really bad bets.
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
Or it could be that senior Tories have much more of an idea about which of their colleagues are bent as nine bob notes than most of us do...
Given that Kemi's faction holds sex parties where blackmail material could be gathered, you're probably right, but she wasn't making new accusations, she was bringing up the Desmond stuff.
Sex parties and corruption! Glad to see the Tories getting "back to basics".
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
Without even listening that sounds like one of those questions along the lines of "have you thought about changing profession in the last year?" Obviously all employees think about that sort of thing to a degree, but it gets spun by pressure groups and the media into "60% of Doctors want to leave the profession".
It was an ambiguous question, plus dodgy interpretation.
The BMA claimed:
one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life
The basis of the claim was a survey by another group which asked:
"to what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement: I know of general practice workers in my own region who have taken their own lives due to work pressures."
(GPs make up ~25% of all general practice workers.)
1 - The group referred to is obviously totally different. 2 - There was a red flag level of "don't know" or "prefer not to answer" in the responses, at 24%. 3 - "Know of" is totally different to "know". "Know of" could be on Facebook or a newspaper report. 4 - The question is generally ambiguous.
The BMA are blowing up their claim to be credible.
The piece also includes comparisons with other roughly comparable groups, and Doctors are low in occurrence. Also other bits worth a listen.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
1kg raised 1m is 9.8 joules.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
Other than manufacturing capacity, are there any significant constraints on battery production now (ie raw materials)? I get the impression not.
Nope. It’s all about building the actual factories.
Rather than talking about building them, having meetings about building them, furrowing brows over building them etc etc
Other than not having a UK company with the necessary manufacturing technology, none at all. Create the right incentives and permissions and it could happen very quickly.
JD Vance criticizes “American leaders” who pick a side in the war in Ukraine: “Unfortunately, you got a lot of American leaders who like to beat their chest and say; this [Ukraine] is the good guy and this [Russia] is the bad guy.”
Can PB Trumpers for Ukraine confirm who is the good guy and the bad guy in Russia v Ukraine?
The Pope. Who is praying for nothing but peace and love to break out.
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
Or it could be that senior Tories have much more of an idea about which of their colleagues are bent as nine bob notes than most of us do...
Given that Kemi's faction holds sex parties where blackmail material could be gathered, you're probably right, but she wasn't making new accusations, she was bringing up the Desmond stuff.
Well I haven't looked at today's Sunday papers yet......
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
If Badenoch wins, unless she wins by a landslide which is unlikely she will have to give Jenrick a shadow cabinet job
She has accused Braverman of being mentally ill, and now hints at Jenrick’s impropriety - when Tominey asks her whether she can unite the party she says 'Look at who's supporting me' - which seems rather to miss the point.
She’s going to be fun! Starmer’s hardly never-a-dull-moment, and much as I like Davey he’s not in the habit of throwing sex parties, so Kemi could be our very own political wine Friday.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
1kg raised 1m is 9.8 joules.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
So the idea is to run a shipping container full of batteries up and down a mine shaft?
Ha!
It comes down to energy density. Stored potential energy is surprisingly lacking in density. Which is why pumped storage is the system used previously - high density material (water) and lots of it (millions of tons)
Interesting header. Not enough serious thought is going into what a Trump administration would look like. I don't know.
Which is more likely? A semi-fascist new order? Or a chaotic despotism more like his first term? This may depend on how much Trump will be in charge.
For analogies, the best I can think of Kaiser Bill, playing with his navy whilst Germany went to hell in a handcart.
Trump will first of all focus on saving himself, then he will focus on enriching himself.
Why not all of the above? A chaotic despotism (attempted) as the 2025 types try and do stuff. Trump tries to do his thing, and weirdly clash with the 2025 types on surprising, random stuff. While agreeing with the 2025 types on other random stuff. And fighting the blue states. But also, probably getting push back from red states when he impinges on the flow of pork money….. And stuffing (or trying to stuff) his pockets at the same time.
I tend to think that if he's alright Jack, he perhaps does not care or isn't interested. OTOH they could do that without him telling them.
Trump's people must be despairing about how he decided to trash Detroit. Whilst in Michigan.
That Nevada number is better for Harris. Maybe the Silver State is playing its old trick - showing just enough leg to the Republicans to get them excited - then settling back into the Democrat column come election day.
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
Without even listening that sounds like one of those questions along the lines of "have you thought about changing profession in the last year?" Obviously all employees think about that sort of thing to a degree, but it gets spun by pressure groups and the media into "60% of Doctors want to leave the profession".
It was an ambiguous question, plus dodgy interpretation.
The BMA claimed:
one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life
...
It's a meaningless stat. 100% of all people alive during 2001 know of a large-scale terrorist attack. It does not measure the prevalence of terrorist attacks.
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
If Badenoch wins, unless she wins by a landslide which is unlikely she will have to give Jenrick a shadow cabinet job
She has accused Braverman of being mentally ill, and now hints at Jenrick’s impropriety - when Tominey asks her whether she can unite the party she says 'Look at who's supporting me' - which seems rather to miss the point.
She’s going to be fun! Starmer’s hardly never-a-dull-moment, and much as I like Davey he’s not in the habit of throwing sex parties, so Kemi could be our very own political wine Friday.
Kemi hasn't thrown any sex parties, they were held by Dougie Smith.
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
Without even listening that sounds like one of those questions along the lines of "have you thought about changing profession in the last year?" Obviously all employees think about that sort of thing to a degree, but it gets spun by pressure groups and the media into "60% of Doctors want to leave the profession".
It was an ambiguous question, plus dodgy interpretation.
The BMA claimed:
one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life
The basis of the claim was a survey by another group which asked:
"to what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement: I know of general practice workers in my own region who have taken their own lives due to work pressures."
(GPs make up ~25% of all general practice workers.)
1 - The group referred to is obviously totally different. 2 - There was a red flag level of "don't know" or "prefer not to answer" in the responses, at 24%. 3 - "Know of" is totally different to "know". "Know of" could be on Facebook or a newspaper report. 4 - The question is generally ambiguous.
The BMA are blowing up their claim to be credible.
The piece also includes comparisons with other roughly comparable groups, and Doctors are low in occurrence. Also other bits worth a listen.
They also went on a bear hunt.
Bears can eat 250k buffalo berries a day. Someone tracked bears through the woods collecting and analysing the poop.
(Bears shit in the woods about 10 times a day, and each contains approx 20k buffalo berries.)
@MattW, to save me time, please can you tell me the paper (source, whatever) that the BMA cited in support of the "one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life" stat please?
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
Without even listening that sounds like one of those questions along the lines of "have you thought about changing profession in the last year?" Obviously all employees think about that sort of thing to a degree, but it gets spun by pressure groups and the media into "60% of Doctors want to leave the profession".
It was an ambiguous question, plus dodgy interpretation.
The BMA claimed:
one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life
...
It's a meaningless stat. 100% of all people alive during 2001 know of a large-scale terrorist attack. It does not measure the prevalence of terrorist attacks.
I knew two software engineers who committed suicide. That does not mean that suicide is prevalent amongst software engineers.
I’m sitting outside an independent coffee shop in Bloomsbury opposite the British Museum, which is looking resplendent in the October sunshine. The coffee, in a flash Lavazza cup, is rank. Like something out of a BP wild bean cafe. £3.80.
I suppose I’m paying to sit in an attractive spot with a view of this strangely Dublin-like part of London, rather than paying for something drinkable.
I’m doing a Sunday walk up from here through Regents Park to Primrose Hill. Nice day for it.
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
If Badenoch wins, unless she wins by a landslide which is unlikely she will have to give Jenrick a shadow cabinet job
She has accused Braverman of being mentally ill, and now hints at Jenrick’s impropriety - when Tominey asks her whether she can unite the party she says 'Look at who's supporting me' - which seems rather to miss the point.
She’s going to be fun! Starmer’s hardly never-a-dull-moment, and much as I like Davey he’s not in the habit of throwing sex parties, so Kemi could be our very own political wine Friday.
Kemi hasn't thrown any sex parties, they were held by Dougie Smith.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
1kg raised 1m is 9.8 joules.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
So the idea is to run a shipping container full of batteries up and down a mine shaft?
Ha!
It comes down to energy density. Stored potential energy is surprisingly lacking in density. Which is why pumped storage is the system used previously - high density material (water) and lots of it (millions of tons)
So maybe if they’re lead acid batteries it might work. Those things are heavy buggers.
I am working today on a request to work out what is the best metric to use for a meta-analysis from a list of <30 studies, which is a problem because i) quite a few methods require 30 or more studies, and ii) they've gone down a rabbit-hole for the metric they want to use, which is overcomplicated and not available for all those studies, so I have to find another one that they can use, which involves me reading these studies. Oh the joy of a Sunday afternoon...
I’m sitting outside an independent coffee shop in Bloomsbury opposite the British Museum, which is looking resplendent in the October sunshine. The coffee, in a flash Lavazza cup, is rank. Like something out of a BP wild bean cafe. £3.80.
I suppose I’m paying to sit in an attractive spot with a view of this strangely Dublin-like part of London, rather than paying for something drinkable.
I’m doing a Sunday walk up from here through Regents Park to Primrose Hill. Nice day for it.
Don’t so coffee, never really done coffee. Very much a tea man. I find it annoying having to wait for a cuppa while someone has a coffee from one of those machines that takes yonks to produce a drink for a few quid.
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
Without even listening that sounds like one of those questions along the lines of "have you thought about changing profession in the last year?" Obviously all employees think about that sort of thing to a degree, but it gets spun by pressure groups and the media into "60% of Doctors want to leave the profession".
It was an ambiguous question, plus dodgy interpretation.
The BMA claimed:
one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life
...
It's a meaningless stat. 100% of all people alive during 2001 know of a large-scale terrorist attack. It does not measure the prevalence of terrorist attacks.
It’s also quite scary to think that that was 23 years ago. Many of today’s young graduates weren’t alive in 2001.
For reference I was born in 1977, the first disaster story that I remember live was probably the Challenger disaster in Jan 1986, when I was eight years old.
Interesting header. Not enough serious thought is going into what a Trump administration would look like. I don't know.
Which is more likely? A semi-fascist new order? Or a chaotic despotism more like his first term? This may depend on how much Trump will be in charge.
For analogies, the best I can think of Kaiser Bill, playing with his navy whilst Germany went to hell in a handcart.
Trump will first of all focus on saving himself, then he will focus on enriching himself.
Why not all of the above? A chaotic despotism (attempted) as the 2025 types try and do stuff. Trump tries to do his thing, and weirdly clash with the 2025 types on surprising, random stuff. While agreeing with the 2025 types on other random stuff. And fighting the blue states. But also, probably getting push back from red states when he impinges on the flow of pork money….. And stuffing (or trying to stuff) his pockets at the same time.
@MattW, to save me time, please can you tell me the paper (source, whatever) that the BMA cited in support of the "one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life" stat please?
Survey by campaign group Rebuild General Practice in 2022. Survey of 1300 GPs. Quoted by Dr Katie Bramhall-Stainer, Chair of the BMA Committee on GPs, on the Today programme.
A recording of her saying it is in the M4L episode at about 11:25.
I think M4L tracked down the source, which is not mentioned in her quote.
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
Without even listening that sounds like one of those questions along the lines of "have you thought about changing profession in the last year?" Obviously all employees think about that sort of thing to a degree, but it gets spun by pressure groups and the media into "60% of Doctors want to leave the profession".
It was an ambiguous question, plus dodgy interpretation.
The BMA claimed:
one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life
The basis of the claim was a survey by another group which asked:
"to what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement: I know of general practice workers in my own region who have taken their own lives due to work pressures."
(GPs make up ~25% of all general practice workers.)
1 - The group referred to is obviously totally different. 2 - There was a red flag level of "don't know" or "prefer not to answer" in the responses, at 24%. 3 - "Know of" is totally different to "know". "Know of" could be on Facebook or a newspaper report. 4 - The question is generally ambiguous.
The BMA are blowing up their claim to be credible.
The piece also includes comparisons with other roughly comparable groups, and Doctors are low in occurrence. Also other bits worth a listen.
They also went on a bear hunt.
Bears can eat 250k buffalo berries a day. Someone tracked bears through the woods collecting and analysing the poop.
(Bears shit in the woods about 10 times a day, and each contains approx 20k buffalo berries.)
Woah, I call shenanigans on that. How heavy are 250,000 buffaloberries? How heavy is a bear? Facially, there would seem to be a disparity
I’m sitting outside an independent coffee shop in Bloomsbury opposite the British Museum, which is looking resplendent in the October sunshine. The coffee, in a flash Lavazza cup, is rank. Like something out of a BP wild bean cafe. £3.80.
I suppose I’m paying to sit in an attractive spot with a view of this strangely Dublin-like part of London, rather than paying for something drinkable.
I’m doing a Sunday walk up from here through Regents Park to Primrose Hill. Nice day for it.
I’m watching Disney’s Emmy-winning Shogun which - in this pilot episode at least - is all set in and around Osaka Castle, having myself just come from Osaka Castle, and now I lie abed in my hotel and when I look up from my wine and iPad I can see… Osaka Castle
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
If Badenoch wins, unless she wins by a landslide which is unlikely she will have to give Jenrick a shadow cabinet job
Whoever wins has 120 colleagues to pick from. Fewer once you eliminate the ones with select committee or speakership team roles. Fewer still once you eliminate the obviously absurd.
They won't have much option to be picky. They're already at the "look lads, one of you has to have Stuart(notyetinromford) on your team" stage of PE lessons.
I’m sitting outside an independent coffee shop in Bloomsbury opposite the British Museum, which is looking resplendent in the October sunshine. The coffee, in a flash Lavazza cup, is rank. Like something out of a BP wild bean cafe. £3.80.
I suppose I’m paying to sit in an attractive spot with a view of this strangely Dublin-like part of London, rather than paying for something drinkable.
I’m doing a Sunday walk up from here through Regents Park to Primrose Hill. Nice day for it.
I’m watching Disney’s Emmy-winning Shogun which - in this pilot episode at least - is all set in and around Osaka Castle, having myself just come from Osaka Castle, and now I lie abed in my hotel and when I look up from my wine and iPad I can see… Osaka Castle
Interesting header. Not enough serious thought is going into what a Trump administration would look like. I don't know.
Which is more likely? A semi-fascist new order? Or a chaotic despotism more like his first term? This may depend on how much Trump will be in charge.
For analogies, the best I can think of Kaiser Bill, playing with his navy whilst Germany went to hell in a handcart.
Trump will first of all focus on saving himself, then he will focus on enriching himself.
Why not all of the above? A chaotic despotism (attempted) as the 2025 types try and do stuff. Trump tries to do his thing, and weirdly clash with the 2025 types on surprising, random stuff. While agreeing with the 2025 types on other random stuff. And fighting the blue states. But also, probably getting push back from red states when he impinges on the flow of pork money….. And stuffing (or trying to stuff) his pockets at the same time.
A couple of interesting bits from this week's More or Less.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics. 11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
Without even listening that sounds like one of those questions along the lines of "have you thought about changing profession in the last year?" Obviously all employees think about that sort of thing to a degree, but it gets spun by pressure groups and the media into "60% of Doctors want to leave the profession".
It was an ambiguous question, plus dodgy interpretation.
The BMA claimed:
one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life
The basis of the claim was a survey by another group which asked:
"to what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement: I know of general practice workers in my own region who have taken their own lives due to work pressures."
(GPs make up ~25% of all general practice workers.)
1 - The group referred to is obviously totally different. 2 - There was a red flag level of "don't know" or "prefer not to answer" in the responses, at 24%. 3 - "Know of" is totally different to "know". "Know of" could be on Facebook or a newspaper report. 4 - The question is generally ambiguous.
The BMA are blowing up their claim to be credible.
The piece also includes comparisons with other roughly comparable groups, and Doctors are low in occurrence. Also other bits worth a listen.
They also went on a bear hunt.
Bears can eat 250k buffalo berries a day. Someone tracked bears through the woods collecting and analysing the poop.
(Bears shit in the woods about 10 times a day, and each contains approx 20k buffalo berries.)
Woah, I call shenanigans on that. How heavy are 250,000 buffaloberries? How heavy is a bear? Facially, there would seem to be a disparity
The stat was triangulated, which is fun.
They counted the berries in the bear shit in the woods, having tracked bears with radio collars, then worked out a check from the carb content of a dried buffalo berry and multiplied it to see how many would meet the needs of a bear in pre-hibernation season. Cross check was within ~10%, which is pretty good imo; I'm impressed.
There's a dependence on transit time maybe, which perhaps accelerates when you are on 250k berries a day, and maybe something about nutrition absorption rate which might make a modest difference.
But it was actually very convincing.
Yogi Bear needs less, obviously, since he lives on stolen sandwiches as well.
Mr. Royale, the carbon capture bullshit is ridiculous.
If we succeed in getting more green energy we'll get far less bang from the carbon capture buck. If Miliband's a green zealot he can at least but one who isn't a complete moron. Throw the money into green energy production instead of a technology that only matters if we've got a load of older, dirtier forms of generation.
This illustrates the problem not the solution. Let is assume the 'science' is correct and includes the real possibility we are doomed bigly if CO2 continues to rise.
It doesn't matter if there are reductions in CO2 emissions (so far there aren't by the way). CO2 is going to carry on being emitted for the long term future. A complete turnaround isn't on any horizon.
This adds, at whatever speed, to the CO2 already there. It's like debt. Lowering the amount you borrow further sounds good but still increases the debt.
This means that unless carbon capture works, if we could be doomed, we are doomed.
The only chances we have are: actually we aren't doomed despite CO2; or the successful scaling up of carbon capture by a global hoover. There are no other options. (Obvs maximal greening is also essential - that's a given).
In terms of reducing emissions, it's like paying off your highest interest debts first. That's why switching from coal to gas in the 2010s was probably the most important intervention we have made so far.
Next up is wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps, probably in that order. You'd get an awful lot more carbon out of the atmosphere over 50 years from 5GW of wind power than a speculative effort at CCS (I think 5GW is roughly equivalent to £20 billion).
But, and again I’ll defer to someone with inside knowledge on this, my understanding is that the CCUS play is largely a piece of industrial strategy. It’s giving a nascent industry a guaranteed buyer once it’s off the ground, so that industry can then start selling storage to the world and make money.
It’s not money on the table now but it’s the sort of strategy the US military has successfully used to incubate future aerospace and defence giants.
Who is going to buy ? It seems highly improbable to me, given the advance in other technologies, and the cost of this. And that's without considering the practical objections, which @Richard_Tyndall has previously outlined.
If government is to drive industrial energy policy, then get those SMR nukes into production yesterday, build a couple of reservoirs for pumped storage, explore tidal electricity production, and invest in university projects for making energy storage more efficient.
Already doing your 2nd and 3rd options here in Scotland. The problem with pumped storage is the scale required. Would need something like the entire Findhorn valley, and just look how quickly batteries are developing as an alternative.
Existing structures that wouldn't require as much engineering (some of the very large clay pits in the SW) might still be economically competitive.
Chucking some big weights down our disused mines too. Basically stone age technology, but it works!
Weights?
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
You could get more than a days worth of energy just from the mines in the Midlands, apparently.
1kg raised 1m is 9.8 joules.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
So the idea is to run a shipping container full of batteries up and down a mine shaft?
Double bubble. Just make sure the electrical connections are secure.
Interesting header. Not enough serious thought is going into what a Trump administration would look like. I don't know.
Which is more likely? A semi-fascist new order? Or a chaotic despotism more like his first term? This may depend on how much Trump will be in charge.
For analogies, the best I can think of Kaiser Bill, playing with his navy whilst Germany went to hell in a handcart.
Trump will first of all focus on saving himself, then he will focus on enriching himself.
Why not all of the above? A chaotic despotism (attempted) as the 2025 types try and do stuff. Trump tries to do his thing, and weirdly clash with the 2025 types on surprising, random stuff. While agreeing with the 2025 types on other random stuff. And fighting the blue states. But also, probably getting push back from red states when he impinges on the flow of pork money….. And stuffing (or trying to stuff) his pockets at the same time.
I’m sitting outside an independent coffee shop in Bloomsbury opposite the British Museum, which is looking resplendent in the October sunshine. The coffee, in a flash Lavazza cup, is rank. Like something out of a BP wild bean cafe. £3.80.
I suppose I’m paying to sit in an attractive spot with a view of this strangely Dublin-like part of London, rather than paying for something drinkable.
I’m doing a Sunday walk up from here through Regents Park to Primrose Hill. Nice day for it.
I’m watching Disney’s Emmy-winning Shogun which - in this pilot episode at least - is all set in and around Osaka Castle, having myself just come from Osaka Castle, and now I lie abed in my hotel and when I look up from my wine and iPad I can see… Osaka Castle
Watch out for the ninja assassins.
Also watch out for accidentally pledging fealty to random war lords.
It is interesting that Kemi Badenoch has said there's a 'whiff of impropriety' about Robert Jenrick. I mean she might be right, and he has said that her lack of policies is 'disrespectful', so it's not all one way traffic, but it could still be indicative of a few different things. Possibly that she doesn't think the deal is sealed and is using everything she can to get traditional Tories onside, or possibly that she is planning on excluding Jenrick and his parliamentary faction (which is considerable) from her shadow cabinet, as it seems difficult to come back from such a statement to give someone a job.
If Badenoch wins, unless she wins by a landslide which is unlikely she will have to give Jenrick a shadow cabinet job
She has accused Braverman of being mentally ill, and now hints at Jenrick’s impropriety - when Tominey asks her whether she can unite the party she says 'Look at who's supporting me' - which seems rather to miss the point.
Jenrick and Braverman are both Cambridge-educated lawyers, so let's not dismiss Kemi out of hand.
American failure to show movement to prior poll is infuriating, but for Pennsylvania the prior poll appears to have been Harris +5, for Wisconsin Harris +3, for Georgia a tie and for the others I can't be bothered, but in any case in line with the trend most pollsters are picking up.
Interesting header. Not enough serious thought is going into what a Trump administration would look like. I don't know.
Which is more likely? A semi-fascist new order? Or a chaotic despotism more like his first term? This may depend on how much Trump will be in charge.
For analogies, the best I can think of Kaiser Bill, playing with his navy whilst Germany went to hell in a handcart.
Trump will first of all focus on saving himself, then he will focus on enriching himself.
Why not all of the above? A chaotic despotism (attempted) as the 2025 types try and do stuff. Trump tries to do his thing, and weirdly clash with the 2025 types on surprising, random stuff. While agreeing with the 2025 types on other random stuff. And fighting the blue states. But also, probably getting push back from red states when he impinges on the flow of pork money….. And stuffing (or trying to stuff) his pockets at the same time.
American failure to show movement to prior poll is infuriating, but for Pennsylvania the prior poll appears to have been Harris +5, for Wisconsin Harris +3, for Georgia a tie and for the others I can't be bothered, but in any case in line with the trend most pollsters are picking up.
Also any idea why these are being posted as new when they went in to the averages on Wednesday?
Comments
Sounds like the Sam character despite being born in UK, fully embraced being a French man, surrendering like that.
Alternative technology that lets you do the same thing, but without generating the carbon dioxide in the first place, can be cheaper, and so will then replace the carbon-producing technology without having to ensure that money is spent in perpetuity - subsidies only have to be provided while the technology is developing and reaching efficiencies of scale.
6:20 Trump's latest fabrications. This time about crime statistics.
11:00 Knocking spots off misrepresentation of stats about GP suicides by the BMA. Especially around misinterpretation of unclear questions to get a big claim.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00244l3
Can’t actually store much energy that way. It’s about scale. Every now and then, you get people asking why we can’t run the country off the old water mills. Well, you could run a couple of houses of one Pelton wheel (turbine)
It is already cheaper to replicate Dinorwig with batteries. Which you would spread around - a few shipping containers here, a few there. This is happening right now - because building a Dinorwig would take a decade of planning. Parking a ISO container of batteries next to your solar farm requires next to no planning.
One form of pumped storage that would make sense is, if you are building tidal lagoons, add capacity in the ponds to pump more water in. So you’d use excess leccy to add to the tide, in effect.
The Many Links Between Project 2025 and Trump’s World
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/22/us/politics/project-2025-trump-heritage-foundation.html
I'd agree that Trump breaks it, though, because there will be a lot of people not happy with the status quo, but who are also terrified of the change that Trump would seek to bring about.
My theory is that some of these small family ones, like Chinese takeaways here, do almost all the work themselves and employ few if any staff, and are in buildings where they own the freehold. So their only costs are the food and the equipment / bills. And some are pretty old so may not need much income.
(There are explanations)
Which is more likely? A semi-fascist new order? Or a chaotic despotism more like his first term? This may depend on how much Trump will be in charge.
Billy Monger’s story is quite amazing, he was just 17 when he lost both his legs in an accident in an F4 British Championship car race at Donington Park. He was at the time widely tipped as a potential future F1 driver. He recovered much against the expectations of the doctors treating him, got back in racing cars and won an F3 race in the European Championships a couple of years later, driving a heavily modified car with hand controls.
A genuinely inspiring individual. I’ve just thrown £100 to his Comic Relief fund as my good turn for the week.
If the government were serious, they would get a grip on this, but there is no sign of that; instead they are boasting that they have taken action already to sort out the planning system and deliver 'brownfield sites', which is disproved by this reality.
Fortunately not, and he's been an inspirational young man - driving problems aside...
Nevada - 🔵 Harris +1
Michigan - 🔵 Harris +4
Pennsylvania - 🔵 Harris +2
Wisconsin - 🟡 Tie
Arizona - 🟡 Tie
Georgia - 🔴 Trump +2
N. Carolina - 🔴 Trump +2
Morning Consult (Bloomberg) #C - LV - 10/20
https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1850414788179795990
We have been failed appallingly for decades.
CCS is just the latest corruption.
The reason I ask is that I have seen several posts on Reddit who claim it is better than regular opinion polling, and I wonder how true that is.
(My initial thought is that differential non-response is an issue here: they report the results from those who answered their questions, but those who didn't respond may be disproportionately pro-Trump or pro-Kamala and that messes things up)
Big up to all of the marshals and medics who volunteer their time so people can go car racing.
The BBC did a good long read on his story, for those who don’t know it:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/I_lost_my_legs_but_not_my_daredevil_spirit
It's interesting but not enough evidence to know if it is better or worse. People will be guessing.
Violence: Quite a bit
Supreme Court: Trump wins as the founders and God clearly intended
What Trump is a spoiled rich kid from New York who is most likely a narcissist.
You well play nice with him and he gets want he wants, I am sure he perfectly pleasant*. The I'm the best, the richest, etc, it is that classic NYC wiseguy serial boaster / bullshitter, see 80s stock traders.
Where things nasty is if you don't do what he says or even worse try to prevent him from getting what he wants or cross him. Its like saying no to toddler when they are in cereal aisle.
* I watched a bit of JRE, and Rogan don't push him very hard and after all the BSing about tariffs etc, they have a perfectly nice chat about things like MMA, where he asks sensible questions and listens to Rogan talk about his specialist subject.
Roger
If you watch 'The Apprentice' about his early years in New York it probably gives you a pretty accurate look at what he was like. Not particularly likable or dislikable. Not very nice to women though they end up marrying him. His God is money though he's not as successful as he'd like to be at making it.
......Oh ....and he'll ttrample on anyone he needs to to get where he wants to get to including his immediate family though that felt like film makers licence
(PS somethings gone funny with the posting. This is Francis's post until it says Roger)
It was something I read yesterday, and I wondered if they have a point, or are they merely clutching at straws that look good for Harris. The gist though was that Harris was doing better in reality than opinion and voting intention polling indicates.
Trump will first of all focus on saving himself, then he will focus on enriching himself.
So 1kg raised 100m could run a 1KW fan heater for 1 second.
An ISO container of batteries stores 14 billion joules.
Which is roughly, 100 tons lifted 14.2 kilometres.
Changes to ease development on some green belt land could have a huge impact in London - the London Green Belt is full of scrub and brownfield.
The Planning System is such that any changes will take 1.5-2 years at least to feed through to anything noticeable, except perhaps for things now being taken forward which were gummed up by Rishi's abolition of local housing targets in his "omigod how can I save our butt" period.
Rather than talking about building them, having meetings about building them, furrowing brows over building them etc etc
TIPP
Harris 48(-)
Trump 48 (-)
ABC/Ipsos poll
Harris 51(+1)
Trump 47 (-1)
In terms of the senate , this poll for Montana raised a few eyebrows . It’s the best for Tester in a while and especially from Emerson which has been viewed as GOP friendly in this election cycle .
Sheehy 50
Tester 46
With leaners pushed
Sheehy 51
Tester 48
It’s still going to be hard for Tester but he wasn’t supposed to win last time either .
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/26/trump-joe-rogan-interview-analysis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The worst of it is this epicene Gen Z wanker probably thinks he’s made a great point
The SC can only stop the count in a state, which isn't much use to Trump unless he is already ahead there anyway
Preparing to do the thing isn't doing the thing.
Scheduling time to do the thing isn't doing the thing.
Making a to-do list for the thing isn't doing the thing.
Telling people you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing.
Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn't doing the thing.
Writing a banger tweet about how you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing.
Hating on yourself for not doing the thing isn't doing the thing. Hating on other people who have done the thing isn't doing the thing. Hating on the obstacles in the way of doing the thing isn't doing the thing.
Fantasizing about all of the adoration you'll receive once you do the thing isn't doing the thing.
Reading about how to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Reading about how other people did the thing isn't doing the thing. Reading this essay isn't doing the thing.
The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing.
A total failure that it’s only likely attracted a SuperBowl-sized audience for a podcast.
We're only doing it as a sop to the industry. And it's another long term commitment whose economic rationale is exceptionally dubious.
I don't mind government placing bets, indeed I'm in favour if it. But not when they're really bad bets.
The BMA claimed:
one in four GPs know another GP who has taken their own life
The basis of the claim was a survey by another group which asked:
"to what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement: I know of general practice workers in my own region who have taken their own lives due to work pressures."
(GPs make up ~25% of all general practice workers.)
1 - The group referred to is obviously totally different.
2 - There was a red flag level of "don't know" or "prefer not to answer" in the responses, at 24%.
3 - "Know of" is totally different to "know". "Know of" could be on Facebook or a newspaper report.
4 - The question is generally ambiguous.
The BMA are blowing up their claim to be credible.
The piece also includes comparisons with other roughly comparable groups, and Doctors are low in occurrence. Also other bits worth a listen.
Create the right incentives and permissions and it could happen very quickly.
It comes down to energy density. Stored potential energy is surprisingly lacking in density. Which is why pumped storage is the system used previously - high density material (water) and lots of it (millions of tons)
That Nevada number is better for Harris. Maybe the Silver State is playing its old trick - showing just enough leg to the Republicans to get them excited - then settling back into the Democrat column come election day.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8107533/Former-sex-party-boss-lands-job-Downing-Street-Government-strategist-researcher.html
Bears can eat 250k buffalo berries a day. Someone tracked bears through the woods collecting and analysing the poop.
(Bears shit in the woods about 10 times a day, and each contains approx 20k buffalo berries.)
I’m sitting outside an independent coffee shop in Bloomsbury opposite the British Museum, which is looking resplendent in the October sunshine. The coffee, in a flash Lavazza cup, is rank. Like something out of a BP wild bean cafe. £3.80.
I suppose I’m paying to sit in an attractive spot with a view of this strangely Dublin-like part of London, rather than paying for something drinkable.
I’m doing a Sunday walk up from here through Regents Park to Primrose Hill. Nice day for it.
https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1238a2TheClosingDays.pdf
(This post is bought to you by the track "Taxi - Ave Maria" from the "28 Days Later" soundtrack by John Murphy. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNPZMcFfSnc )
For reference I was born in 1977, the first disaster story that I remember live was probably the Challenger disaster in Jan 1986, when I was eight years old.
You could do worse than read up on them for guidance on stuff that might happen.
https://americafirstpolicy.com/assets/uploads/files/The-America-First-Transition-Project-Introduction.pdf
A recording of her saying it is in the M4L episode at about 11:25.
I think M4L tracked down the source, which is not mentioned in her quote.
They won't have much option to be picky. They're already at the "look lads, one of you has to have Stuart(notyetinromford) on your team" stage of PE lessons.
They counted the berries in the bear shit in the woods, having tracked bears with radio collars, then worked out a check from the carb content of a dried buffalo berry and multiplied it to see how many would meet the needs of a bear in pre-hibernation season. Cross check was within ~10%, which is pretty good imo; I'm impressed.
There's a dependence on transit time maybe, which perhaps accelerates when you are on 250k berries a day, and maybe something about nutrition absorption rate which might make a modest difference.
But it was actually very convincing.
Yogi Bear needs less, obviously, since he lives on stolen sandwiches as well.
Landmark work.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said "working people" would not see higher taxes on their payslips following Wednesday's Budget.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c789915n5elo
I really don't know what they are digging this hole. Its as believable as Chris Kaba was an architect. Just be straight up with people.
I would have expected their comms strategy to be more slick.