Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
But it's an energy storage issue as well. That hasn't been developed properly yet.
True
But at least we finally have an Energy Secretary who understands that and has plans and proposals to deliver it and also the massive increase to grid capacity required
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
But it's an energy storage issue as well. That hasn't been developed properly yet.
I do not really understand why new homes are not normally built with solar panels.
Yes, Kemi is a dud. But no idea why this should surprise anyone. She was useless, absent and cowardly as BizSec, as many of us pointed out repeatedly.
What on Earth commended her to the top job? What credentials did/does she have?
The whole episode is weird beyond measure.
Point of Order
This is a Conservative Party fansite please do not critique Conservatives. You need to understand that Kemi beasted Starmer over sandwiches and Reeves has squandered the golden legacy. Also please be aware Brexit is going well and the Rwanda removal scheme was a work of genius. If you have any questions just ask @Alanbrook Taz or @FrancisUrquhart they are here to help throughout the day.
I see you are at the nonsense again. As I have told you plenty of times, I have no love for the Tories, particularly the past 10 years worth of them. And as I have said, you will struggle to find much evidence of me backing them up on the crap policies they have come up e.g. It won't be hard to find that I said from the get go that I thought the Rwanda scheme was nonsense.
People easily confuse a broadly right-of-centre outlook with supporting that shower of idiots. You end up accused of all sorts of nonsense.
NHS news. Well, not news. Elon Musk tweeted (or retweeted with comment) this handy table showing American healthcare admin costs are out of this world.
Perhaps Musk sympathises with the murder of Brian Thompson.
Suspect that every CEO in the US is taking a very big look at their personal security at the moment. Many healthcare companies have deleted “management team” biographies from websites in the past week.
I’m genuinely interested if the incoming administration can un-fcuk healthcare in the US. Where I live the system is roughly similar, an insurance-based model, but without the total fcukery seen in the US, and it generally works well, without the massively inflated prices and contractual terms that are common Stateside.
Hardly given the GOP opposition to socialised medicine
No, the sandpit has pretty much the US system at a high level, an insurance-based model mostly sponsored by employers.
Except that the pharmacy will tell you the price of any given drug, and the hospital will tell you the price of any given treatment, telling the pharmacist I have insurance doesn’t make a $10 drug suddenly have a $20 copay and a $200 bill sent somewhere that gets rebated $150 back to the “Pharmacy Benefit Manager” that’s owned by the insurance company.
That’s all before we start on Medicare and Medicaid not being allowed to negotiate prices on drugs, they either have to pay the list price or not carry them, as the manufacturers spend literally billions on end-user TV advertisements and billions more on marketing drugs to doctors with commissions on prescription.
Oh, and every doctor needs to spend $250k per year on professional indemnity insurance, because you’ll need a lawyer on rentention to be an American doctor.
The US healthcare system is actually that fcuked, anything the incoming administration can do to unfcuk it is going to be beneficial to millions of Americans.
The Biden administration actually did a fair job of flattening the curve of US healthcare spending - which no administration in the previous couple of decades had managed.
But you're right it's a huge mess.
So far, Trump's most consequential proposal is to defund Veterans' healthcare entirely. Which is unlikely to happen - and would lose the GOP the next election in a landslide if it did.
NHS news. Well, not news. Elon Musk tweeted (or retweeted with comment) this handy table showing American healthcare admin costs are out of this world.
Perhaps Musk sympathises with the murder of Brian Thompson.
Suspect that every CEO in the US is taking a very big look at their personal security at the moment. Many healthcare companies have deleted “management team” biographies from websites in the past week.
I’m genuinely interested if the incoming administration can un-fcuk healthcare in the US. Where I live the system is roughly similar, an insurance-based model, but without the total fcukery seen in the US, and it generally works well, without the massively inflated prices and contractual terms that are common Stateside.
Donald Trump has been promising to unveil his healthcare plan shortly for over 8 years.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
But it's an energy storage issue as well. That hasn't been developed properly yet.
I do not really understand why new homes are not normally built with solar panels.
Cost to the developer, I imagine. Which is why it might need regulation, the unintended consequences of which are increased prices of new builds, which is also somehow needs to be curtailed. Which then leads to a need to deal with the "create a burner company to run a development" problem - which is how many developers get out of any post-hoc obligations, and inhibit regulation which applies across a whole portfolio of development.
Yes, Kemi is a dud. But no idea why this should surprise anyone. She was useless, absent and cowardly as BizSec, as many of us pointed out repeatedly.
What on Earth commended her to the top job? What credentials did/does she have?
The whole episode is weird beyond measure.
Partly, an incredible amount of ambition. She give the impression of really, really wanting the job. That helps you get to the top in politics, even if it is a huge red flag in terms of being suitable.
Mostly, that most of the alternatives are visibly worse. Jenrick is too cynical in his nastiness, Morduant too not-an-MP, Hunt too past it. Cleverly would probably be better, but mostly because I think he would appreciate the absurdity of the situation more.
The next few years are where the purges of 2019 threaten to really come back and bite the Conservatives on the bottom. Even if they want to change direction fundamentally, they don't really have the people to do so.
The rot started when The Clown purged anyone who did not agree with his cynical conversion to the Brexit cause. It essentially removed a large part of the more credible part of the Conservative Party so that it is now a shadow of its former self and a kind of Reform-Lite. I am inclined to think the party is doomed, though the incompetence of Toolmakerson and the Complaints Support Manager just might offer a glimmer of hope for them.
The rot started a generation before that. The calibre of Conservative MP’s (as with MP’s generally, and journalists), is far worse than 30-40 years ago.
Who would become an MP? It's a shit, pretty poorly paid job.
MPs pay is almost three times the average voters pay, plus expenses, so plenty will still want to do it
Even if many KCs and investment bankers and company directors who might have considered it in the past can't be bothered to take the pay cut as well as social media abuse now
Yep - some people will earn less than an MP does but if you want clever people being MPs you need to pay them roughly what they could earn elsewhere and it’s not difficult (if you are half bright) to earn more money than an MP
I don’t think the calibre of politician has much to do with the level of pay.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
But it's an energy storage issue as well. That hasn't been developed properly yet.
I do not really understand why new homes are not normally built with solar panels.
A fair few are in the new estates around here. Not all though.
The small two-and-three storey blocks of flats do not appear to have them, despite having sloped rooves.
There seems to be no connection between rooves with panels and south-facing.
Incidentally though, they all have electric charging points (which I think is law now?)
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
But it's an energy storage issue as well. That hasn't been developed properly yet.
I do not really understand why new homes are not normally built with solar panels.
A fair few are in the new estates around here. Not all though.
The small two-and-three storey blocks of flats do not appear to have them, despite having sloped rooves.
There seems to be no connection between rooves with panels and south-facing.
Incidentally though, they all have electric charging points (which I think is law now?)
The later council houses in my part of Scotland have solar panels ab initio. Built over last 10 years or so.
I think they genuinely thought it would just magically happen by virtue of them being in office.
They are like the worst sales manager ever. "Team we have to beat last years figures, but everything is terrible and things are only going to get worse." They'd be first on the chopping block.
As Brexiteers are so fond of remarking - imagine how crap the Tories must have been to lose to them, then.
The last government was complete crap, and deserved to lose.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
There is about 3.2x current wind capacity in the planning "pipeline". So over the last 24 hours we'd have generated about 7GW in average; 35GW on average over the past week. Average demand is also about 35GW, though peaks up to 40GW during the day.
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
As well as an incoming US government promising a serious bonfire of regulations and taxes.
...and tariffs
Does anyone think Trump will actually implement the tarrifs on Canada and Mexico? It's one thing to say it...
Generally speaking, he does what he says he will do, or at least tries.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
But it's an energy storage issue as well. That hasn't been developed properly yet.
I do not really understand why new homes are not normally built with solar panels.
A fair few are in the new estates around here. Not all though.
The small two-and-three storey blocks of flats do not appear to have them, despite having sloped rooves.
There seems to be no connection between rooves with panels and south-facing.
Incidentally though, they all have electric charging points (which I think is law now?)
The later council houses in my part of Scotland have solar panels ab initio. Built over last 10 years or so.
Glad to hear it. Near here there's a small estate just about completed, with no solar panels, but, apparently central heating, and no fireplaces. The houses do, though, have chimneys 'for aesthetic reasons!'
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
Bradman didn't score many runs under floodlights either. Even failed to make a hundred against NZ or Pakistan, not sure what the fuss was about.
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
As well as an incoming US government promising a serious bonfire of regulations and taxes.
...and tariffs
Does anyone think Trump will actually implement the tarrifs on Canada and Mexico? It's one thing to say it...
Generally speaking, he does what he says he will do, or at least tries.
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
As you well know, ODI and T20 were not invented back then... Naughty TSE
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Yes, Kemi is a dud. But no idea why this should surprise anyone. She was useless, absent and cowardly as BizSec, as many of us pointed out repeatedly.
What on Earth commended her to the top job? What credentials did/does she have?
The whole episode is weird beyond measure.
Partly, an incredible amount of ambition. She give the impression of really, really wanting the job. That helps you get to the top in politics, even if it is a huge red flag in terms of being suitable.
Mostly, that most of the alternatives are visibly worse. Jenrick is too cynical in his nastiness, Morduant too not-an-MP, Hunt too past it. Cleverly would probably be better, but mostly because I think he would appreciate the absurdity of the situation more.
The next few years are where the purges of 2019 threaten to really come back and bite the Conservatives on the bottom. Even if they want to change direction fundamentally, they don't really have the people to do so.
So who was lost in the 'purges of 2019' ?
Here are the names:
Guto Bebb Ken Clarke David Gauke Sam Gyimah Justine Greening Dominic Grieve Philip Hammond Olly Letwin Anne Milton Antoinette Sandbach Rory Stewart
Give their ages and the loss of seats this year how many would even still be MPs ?
It wasn't so much about the MPs (though 2022-now would have benefitted from having people like Gauke, Greening and Stewart on-call) as the effect on the candidates' list. The people who didn't enter parliament in 2019 or 2024. The people who won't be interesting spokesmen in 2028 or senior Cabinet members in 2033.
The curse of delayed consequences strikes again.
Greening and Stewart wouldn't even be MPs now.
And how many of these hypothetical 'lost' Conservative politicians would have been elected this year ? Single digits at most and possibly zero.
And why would they be any different to other Conservative MPs in any case ?
Now I know there's a yearning from nice, centrist people for a 'proper' Conservative party and a desire to blame Boris for its 'disappearance'.
But it really doesn't exist and never could have existed.
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
I agree on most of this, but while its true that some of the great fast bowlers from decades ago were genuinely quick, its not true that there were more of them.
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
Yes, Kemi is a dud. But no idea why this should surprise anyone. She was useless, absent and cowardly as BizSec, as many of us pointed out repeatedly.
What on Earth commended her to the top job? What credentials did/does she have?
The whole episode is weird beyond measure.
Partly, an incredible amount of ambition. She give the impression of really, really wanting the job. That helps you get to the top in politics, even if it is a huge red flag in terms of being suitable.
Mostly, that most of the alternatives are visibly worse. Jenrick is too cynical in his nastiness, Morduant too not-an-MP, Hunt too past it. Cleverly would probably be better, but mostly because I think he would appreciate the absurdity of the situation more.
The next few years are where the purges of 2019 threaten to really come back and bite the Conservatives on the bottom. Even if they want to change direction fundamentally, they don't really have the people to do so.
So who was lost in the 'purges of 2019' ?
Here are the names:
Guto Bebb Ken Clarke David Gauke Sam Gyimah Justine Greening Dominic Grieve Philip Hammond Olly Letwin Anne Milton Antoinette Sandbach Rory Stewart
Give their ages and the loss of seats this year how many would even still be MPs ?
Every single one of those would make a better LOTO, and together as a force, a front bench that could win voters back.
The first thing they would do is acknowledge the moment Boris promised sunlit uplands where everyone’s incomes was much higher, the Conservative Party had lost touch with reality, so make clear that they would be a clear break from all that. Instead Badenoch’s party is in “we were doing the right thing and turning it round - take illegal migration, Rwanda was a deterrent and Starmer unilaterally scrapped it” mode. 🤦♀️
Yes, Kemi is a dud. But no idea why this should surprise anyone. She was useless, absent and cowardly as BizSec, as many of us pointed out repeatedly.
What on Earth commended her to the top job? What credentials did/does she have?
The whole episode is weird beyond measure.
Partly, an incredible amount of ambition. She give the impression of really, really wanting the job. That helps you get to the top in politics, even if it is a huge red flag in terms of being suitable.
Mostly, that most of the alternatives are visibly worse. Jenrick is too cynical in his nastiness, Morduant too not-an-MP, Hunt too past it. Cleverly would probably be better, but mostly because I think he would appreciate the absurdity of the situation more.
The next few years are where the purges of 2019 threaten to really come back and bite the Conservatives on the bottom. Even if they want to change direction fundamentally, they don't really have the people to do so.
The rot started when The Clown purged anyone who did not agree with his cynical conversion to the Brexit cause. It essentially removed a large part of the more credible part of the Conservative Party so that it is now a shadow of its former self and a kind of Reform-Lite. I am inclined to think the party is doomed, though the incompetence of Toolmakerson and the Complaints Support Manager just might offer a glimmer of hope for them.
The rot started a generation before that. The calibre of Conservative MP’s (as with MP’s generally, and journalists), is far worse than 30-40 years ago.
Who would become an MP? It's a shit, pretty poorly paid job.
MPs pay is almost three times the average voters pay, plus expenses, so plenty will still want to do it
Even if many KCs and investment bankers and company directors who might have considered it in the past can't be bothered to take the pay cut as well as social media abuse now
But you need people who can earn ten times that - if you want the best. To make it worth enduring the social media abuse.
Or you could better protect them with some meaningful policing of the bile spewed on social media.
I still wouldn't be an MP for all the tea in China.
Maybe we should just select people to be MPs/Lords for a one year stint. Make it like jury service. Choose to sit for a party or as a crossbencher.
All the tea in China must be a few billion quid, Ill do it for half the tea in China myself.
It's actually looking more likely that they'll confirm the guy with a drinking problem, credibly accused of sexual abuse, who bankrupted two non-profit organisations, as Defence Secretary, than Tulsi Gabbard as DNI.
Gabbard struggles to woo senators ahead of confirmation fight
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5038091-tulsi-gabbard-struggles-senators/ Tulsi Gabbard is struggling through her meetings with senators this week, sources told The Hill, highlighting the difficult path she faces in winning confirmation to be director of national intelligence. Nearly a half dozen sources, including senators and individuals close to the situation, indicated that Gabbard is having trouble during meetings with lawmakers, with one source familiar describing the sit-downs as “not going well.” “She was proving to be a little shallow, like a House member talking at a hearing and not someone who needs to provide the president’s daily intelligence briefing,” the source familiar said. Two Senate Republicans also echoed the concerns, with one noting that multiple members who have sat down with her have come away unimpressed thus far. “I’ve heard that she’s not very well prepared,” the Senate GOP member said, describing them as “BS sessions.” “I’ve heard not great things.” The second Senate Republican added there have been “a lot of eyerolls” from members who have sat down with the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman early on...
Wes Streeting has criticised Ed Miliband over his failure to back military action against Bashar al-Assad in 2013.
Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, was Labour leader when he led efforts to torpedo Lord Cameron’s attempt to launch strikes in Syria to deter the use of chemical weapons.
On Thursday night Mr Streeting, the Health Secretary, said that “if the West had acted faster, Assad would have been gone”.
But Mr Miliband rebuked his Cabinet colleague on Friday morning, saying it was “just wrong” to suggest Assad would have been forced from power sooner if the West had acted at the time.
Reading today’s headline, I do think there’s a case for passing an Act of Attainder against Prince Andrew.
Have always been a royalist, but suspect that legislation aimed at Andrew and Harry would now probably get passed.
What kind of legislation are you proposing against Harry, prosecutions for heinous consorting with luvvies and damaging the reputations (lol) of those fine institutions, our tabloid press?
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
One of the labour staffers posing as @Shecorns88 was born in 1988, not ALL of them...
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
As well as an incoming US government promising a serious bonfire of regulations and taxes.
...and tariffs
Does anyone think Trump will actually implement the tarrifs on Canada and Mexico? It's one thing to say it...
Generally speaking, he does what he says he will do, or at least tries.
Err. No.
Two obvious examples are the renegotiation of NAFTA and the creation of the Space Force. I'd also argue he did try to get the wall built.
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
LOL Broken Britain - we cant even get decent trolls any more.
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
Anybody who goes into a shop knows inflation is not dropping , quite the opposite.
Really? I watch prices in Tesco and Sainsburys like a hawk, these being the biggest part of my outgoings. My view is that there was a steep rise in prices which coincided with the end of covid/start of Ukraine, which stabilised (i.e. food inflation dropped back to about zero) after about 16 months (i.e. about a year ago) and that prices ha e in anything dipped since then. Supermarket food prices are still higher thanin 2020, but my perception is that food price inflation is downwards.
Restauarant food prices may still be increasing, but that forms a much smaller part of my experience. Even here, the impression I get is that these have stabilised lately.
I had a discombobulating experience at the shops yesterday. Blueberries, there were two choices, Tesco own brand (basic not "Tesco Finest") or something very bespoke and classy called "Rosedene Farms". Same poundage, and the optics supported the obvious conclusion that the latter must be superior, ie the berries looked firm and plump and even in size/colour compared to the own brand which were of variable size, smaller on average, a bit mottled. Ok, but check the price delta right? Weigh it up. You owe it to yourself to do that regardless of how much you've got in the bank. Well get this. There was a significant price difference (of 85p) but it was the boutique offering that was cheaper. Hmmm. Totally thrown. Past its sell-by so on special? Checked that, and nope. Now what on earth was going on there? How are you meant to process something like that?
Wes Streeting has criticised Ed Miliband over his failure to back military action against Bashar al-Assad in 2013.
Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, was Labour leader when he led efforts to torpedo Lord Cameron’s attempt to launch strikes in Syria to deter the use of chemical weapons.
On Thursday night Mr Streeting, the Health Secretary, said that “if the West had acted faster, Assad would have been gone”.
But Mr Miliband rebuked his Cabinet colleague on Friday morning, saying it was “just wrong” to suggest Assad would have been forced from power sooner if the West had acted at the time.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
Anybody who goes into a shop knows inflation is not dropping , quite the opposite.
Really? I watch prices in Tesco and Sainsburys like a hawk, these being the biggest part of my outgoings. My view is that there was a steep rise in prices which coincided with the end of covid/start of Ukraine, which stabilised (i.e. food inflation dropped back to about zero) after about 16 months (i.e. about a year ago) and that prices ha e in anything dipped since then. Supermarket food prices are still higher thanin 2020, but my perception is that food price inflation is downwards.
Restauarant food prices may still be increasing, but that forms a much smaller part of my experience. Even here, the impression I get is that these have stabilised lately.
I had a discombobulating experience at the shops yesterday. Blueberries, there were two choices, Tesco own brand (basic not "Tesco Finest") or something very bespoke and classy called "Rosedene Farms". Same poundage, and the optics supported the obvious conclusion that the latter must be superior, ie the berries looked firm and plump and even in size/colour compared to the own brand which were of variable size, smaller on average, a bit mottled. Ok, but check the price delta right? Weigh it up. You owe it to yourself to do that regardless of how much you've got in the bank. Well get this. There was a significant price difference (of 85p) but it was the boutique offering that was cheaper. Hmmm. Totally thrown. Past its sell-by so on special? Checked that, and nope. Now what on earth was going on there? How are you meant to process something like that?
Rosedene is own brand Tesco, used to be called Tesco Value. Probably just their source farm was better than the other that particular week due to weather or whatever.
Yes, Kemi is a dud. But no idea why this should surprise anyone. She was useless, absent and cowardly as BizSec, as many of us pointed out repeatedly.
What on Earth commended her to the top job? What credentials did/does she have?
The whole episode is weird beyond measure.
Partly, an incredible amount of ambition. She give the impression of really, really wanting the job. That helps you get to the top in politics, even if it is a huge red flag in terms of being suitable.
Mostly, that most of the alternatives are visibly worse. Jenrick is too cynical in his nastiness, Morduant too not-an-MP, Hunt too past it. Cleverly would probably be better, but mostly because I think he would appreciate the absurdity of the situation more.
The next few years are where the purges of 2019 threaten to really come back and bite the Conservatives on the bottom. Even if they want to change direction fundamentally, they don't really have the people to do so.
So who was lost in the 'purges of 2019' ?
Here are the names:
Guto Bebb Ken Clarke David Gauke Sam Gyimah Justine Greening Dominic Grieve Philip Hammond Olly Letwin Anne Milton Antoinette Sandbach Rory Stewart
Give their ages and the loss of seats this year how many would even still be MPs ?
Every single one of those would make a better LOTO, and together as a force, a front bench that could win voters back.
The first thing they would do is acknowledge the moment Boris promised sunlit uplands where everyone’s incomes was much higher, the Conservative Party had lost touch with reality, so make clear that they would be a clear break from all that. Instead Badenoch’s party is in “we were doing the right thing and turning it round - take illegal migration, Rwanda was a deterrent and Starmer unilaterally scrapped it” mode. 🤦♀️
I think I'd only rate Kenneth Clarke and Oliver Letwin among them.
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
As well as an incoming US government promising a serious bonfire of regulations and taxes.
...and tariffs
Does anyone think Trump will actually implement the tarrifs on Canada and Mexico? It's one thing to say it...
Generally speaking, he does what he says he will do, or at least tries.
Err. No.
Two obvious examples are the renegotiation of NAFTA and the creation of the Space Force. I'd also argue he did try to get the wall built.
And the 25,843 court cases against him where he went back on his word?
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
Anybody who goes into a shop knows inflation is not dropping , quite the opposite.
Really? I watch prices in Tesco and Sainsburys like a hawk, these being the biggest part of my outgoings. My view is that there was a steep rise in prices which coincided with the end of covid/start of Ukraine, which stabilised (i.e. food inflation dropped back to about zero) after about 16 months (i.e. about a year ago) and that prices ha e in anything dipped since then. Supermarket food prices are still higher thanin 2020, but my perception is that food price inflation is downwards.
Restauarant food prices may still be increasing, but that forms a much smaller part of my experience. Even here, the impression I get is that these have stabilised lately.
Its hard to tell with shrinkflation and drops in quality. Absolute price paid per item probably stable, maybe even falling but price per kg for same quality probably rising still.
One of the things that irks me is shrinkflation. Most coffee brands reduced the size of their packs of ground coffee/beans from 250g to 200g without advertising it, or reducing the price, so that was an overnight increase of 25%. I have refused to buy any of those brands since on principle.
Yes, Kemi is a dud. But no idea why this should surprise anyone. She was useless, absent and cowardly as BizSec, as many of us pointed out repeatedly.
What on Earth commended her to the top job? What credentials did/does she have?
The whole episode is weird beyond measure.
Partly, an incredible amount of ambition. She give the impression of really, really wanting the job. That helps you get to the top in politics, even if it is a huge red flag in terms of being suitable.
Mostly, that most of the alternatives are visibly worse. Jenrick is too cynical in his nastiness, Morduant too not-an-MP, Hunt too past it. Cleverly would probably be better, but mostly because I think he would appreciate the absurdity of the situation more.
The next few years are where the purges of 2019 threaten to really come back and bite the Conservatives on the bottom. Even if they want to change direction fundamentally, they don't really have the people to do so.
So who was lost in the 'purges of 2019' ?
Here are the names:
Guto Bebb Ken Clarke David Gauke Sam Gyimah Justine Greening Dominic Grieve Philip Hammond Olly Letwin Anne Milton Antoinette Sandbach Rory Stewart
Give their ages and the loss of seats this year how many would even still be MPs ?
Every single one of those would make a better LOTO, and together as a force, a front bench that could win voters back.
The first thing they would do is acknowledge the moment Boris promised sunlit uplands where everyone’s incomes was much higher, the Conservative Party had lost touch with reality, so make clear that they would be a clear break from all that. Instead Badenoch’s party is in “we were doing the right thing and turning it round - take illegal migration, Rwanda was a deterrent and Starmer unilaterally scrapped it” mode. 🤦♀️
I think I'd only rate Kenneth Clarke and Oliver Letwin among them.
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
Anybody who goes into a shop knows inflation is not dropping , quite the opposite.
Really? I watch prices in Tesco and Sainsburys like a hawk, these being the biggest part of my outgoings. My view is that there was a steep rise in prices which coincided with the end of covid/start of Ukraine, which stabilised (i.e. food inflation dropped back to about zero) after about 16 months (i.e. about a year ago) and that prices ha e in anything dipped since then. Supermarket food prices are still higher thanin 2020, but my perception is that food price inflation is downwards.
Restauarant food prices may still be increasing, but that forms a much smaller part of my experience. Even here, the impression I get is that these have stabilised lately.
Its hard to tell with shrinkflation and drops in quality. Absolute price paid per item probably stable, maybe even falling but price per kg for same quality probably rising still.
One of the things that irks me is shrinkflation. Most coffee brands reduced the size of their packs of ground coffee/beans from 250g to 200g without advertising it, or reducing the price, so that was an overnight increase of 25%. I have refused to buy any of those brands since on principle.
A very important point. Also skimpflation - deterioration in quality, lesser quality ingredients etc.
'Perhaps most blatant of all is the reformulation of Sainsbury’s ‘Clotted Cream Rice Pudding’, in which the clotted cream has actually been replaced with whipping cream, meaning no clotted cream is used in the pudding at all.
The product packaging was renamed but it was still listed as 'Clotted Cream Rice Pudding' online until we pointed it out to Sainsbury's.'
However, I'm determined to turn the economy around so it works for working people once again.
That's why we are building 1.5 million homes, creating the National Wealth Fund and reforming our pensions market to make Britain better off.
So where do the builders needed to build those houses come from What is the foundation of the wealth fund (given that the Government borrows money every month to keep things going) And what is the pension reform going to do because I would want to keep my money as far away from it as possible
NHS news. Well, not news. Elon Musk tweeted (or retweeted with comment) this handy table showing American healthcare admin costs are out of this world.
Perhaps Musk sympathises with the murder of Brian Thompson.
Suspect that every CEO in the US is taking a very big look at their personal security at the moment. Many healthcare companies have deleted “management team” biographies from websites in the past week.
I’m genuinely interested if the incoming administration can un-fcuk healthcare in the US. Where I live the system is roughly similar, an insurance-based model, but without the total fcukery seen in the US, and it generally works well, without the massively inflated prices and contractual terms that are common Stateside.
Hardly given the GOP opposition to socialised medicine
No, the sandpit has pretty much the US system at a high level, an insurance-based model mostly sponsored by employers.
Except that the pharmacy will tell you the price of any given drug, and the hospital will tell you the price of any given treatment, telling the pharmacist I have insurance doesn’t make a $10 drug suddenly have a $20 copay and a $200 bill sent somewhere that gets rebated $150 back to the “Pharmacy Benefit Manager” that’s owned by the insurance company.
That’s all before we start on Medicare and Medicaid not being allowed to negotiate prices on drugs, they either have to pay the list price or not carry them, as the manufacturers spend literally billions on end-user TV advertisements and billions more on marketing drugs to doctors with commissions on prescription.
Oh, and every doctor needs to spend $250k per year on professional indemnity insurance, because you’ll need a lawyer on rentention to be an American doctor.
The US healthcare system is actually that fcuked.
AIUI Medicare and Mecaid ARE allowed to negotiate prices of drugs, and have saved hundreds of millions already, under the Biden reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act, ... which I think Trump has promised to roll back.
I'm not all over this though, so I'd welcome others commenting.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
Anybody who goes into a shop knows inflation is not dropping , quite the opposite.
Really? I watch prices in Tesco and Sainsburys like a hawk, these being the biggest part of my outgoings. My view is that there was a steep rise in prices which coincided with the end of covid/start of Ukraine, which stabilised (i.e. food inflation dropped back to about zero) after about 16 months (i.e. about a year ago) and that prices ha e in anything dipped since then. Supermarket food prices are still higher thanin 2020, but my perception is that food price inflation is downwards.
Restauarant food prices may still be increasing, but that forms a much smaller part of my experience. Even here, the impression I get is that these have stabilised lately.
I had a discombobulating experience at the shops yesterday. Blueberries, there were two choices, Tesco own brand (basic not "Tesco Finest") or something very bespoke and classy called "Rosedene Farms". Same poundage, and the optics supported the obvious conclusion that the latter must be superior, ie the berries looked firm and plump and even in size/colour compared to the own brand which were of variable size, smaller on average, a bit mottled. Ok, but check the price delta right? Weigh it up. You owe it to yourself to do that regardless of how much you've got in the bank. Well get this. There was a significant price difference (of 85p) but it was the boutique offering that was cheaper. Hmmm. Totally thrown. Past its sell-by so on special? Checked that, and nope. Now what on earth was going on there? How are you meant to process something like that?
Rosedene is own brand Tesco, used to be called Tesco Value. Probably just their source farm was better than the other that particular week due to weather or whatever.
Ah, didn't know that. That could explain it then. I thought it might be a blueberry equivalent of the house sale trick whereby you get a colluding neighbour to list theirs for a stupidly high price at the same time as you put yours on so as to make yours look great value.
Long periods of silence interspersed with gobble, gobble. No wonder Thiel prefers capering monkey Musk to do the out loud stuff.
Jim Stewartson, Antifascist 🇺🇸🇺🇦🏴☠️ @jimstewartson · 13h Piers Morgan asked Antichrist Peter Thiel what he would say to people who celebrated Luigi Mangione — who was a fan of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk — murdering an insurance CEO.
If someone can find a worse answer to any question, I’d love to see it. This is excruciating.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
Long periods of silence interspersed with gobble, gobble. No wonder Thiel prefers capering monkey Musk to do the out loud stuff.
Jim Stewartson, Antifascist 🇺🇸🇺🇦🏴☠️ @jimstewartson · 13h Piers Morgan asked Antichrist Peter Thiel what he would say to people who celebrated Luigi Mangione — who was a fan of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk — murdering an insurance CEO.
If someone can find a worse answer to any question, I’d love to see it. This is excruciating.
I promised @Andy_Cooke some opinions on the NPPF and Planning.
This is some of my thoughts so far, but I'd say we can currently only see the first 14 feet of 100 on the centipede. There's a lot more to come, in strategy and in detail. And I have more thinking still to do to come to a more thorough assessment.
As I see it, what we have so far is certain moves towards putting a more strategic, longer term process in place under Council control, and significant pressure to make Councils be in control and get it in place according to re-established mandatory targets - to make sloping shoulders by Councils more difficult.
My phrase for this would be "clearing the planning slipway", removing or reducing some things currently used as obstacles, whether by developers, landowners, Councils + their local politicians, residents, and campaign groups (think eg CPRE).
In terms of incentivising delivery, we have:
Mandatory housing targets, and pressure to get local plans in quickly. In my area they were rushing a local plan through for 2012, and it still isn't here.
Changes to what happens if a local plan is not in place around the "preference to approve" (whatever the wording is), which means development is done on a piece by piece basis according to which developments come forward, rather than through any strategic multiyear process.
For first elements of a downward on planning gain, we have more demanding affordable housing requirements arriving, and limitations on potential use of "viability assessments" - which are a profitability modelling process currently used as a lever by developers to force affordable housing levels to be reduced.
Given that increased affordable housing may undermine the total of sales revenue developers may get, I expect to see things to reduce potential or actual land prices somewhere in this - to help reduce costs at the other end. One mechanism could be Councils having a stronger right to purchase land at a regulated price and then supply to developer at a price including a defined margin; that would put some pressure on the market even for land sold privately, and reduce landowner windfalls. Other ways are possible. For that to work there would need also to be some mechanism by which pressure is put on developers to implement planning permissions in a reasonable time.,
One thing to watch is the possibility that there may be features of the Planning Act 1948, which included provisions beyond what has ever been implemented, used. I'd need to check detail, but there's stuff there.
I'm still thinking about the NPPF, and Andy's comments to my original points (later). The NPPF is a document where a very small seeming change can have major implications.
I also note that "Grey Belt" has not been defined.
And the rebalancing of housing targets away from cities is very interesting - but I think that the previous numbers may be skewed, which would mean that the rebalancing has little meaning.
Yes, Kemi is a dud. But no idea why this should surprise anyone. She was useless, absent and cowardly as BizSec, as many of us pointed out repeatedly.
What on Earth commended her to the top job? What credentials did/does she have?
The whole episode is weird beyond measure.
Partly, an incredible amount of ambition. She give the impression of really, really wanting the job. That helps you get to the top in politics, even if it is a huge red flag in terms of being suitable.
Mostly, that most of the alternatives are visibly worse. Jenrick is too cynical in his nastiness, Morduant too not-an-MP, Hunt too past it. Cleverly would probably be better, but mostly because I think he would appreciate the absurdity of the situation more.
The next few years are where the purges of 2019 threaten to really come back and bite the Conservatives on the bottom. Even if they want to change direction fundamentally, they don't really have the people to do so.
The rot started when The Clown purged anyone who did not agree with his cynical conversion to the Brexit cause. It essentially removed a large part of the more credible part of the Conservative Party so that it is now a shadow of its former self and a kind of Reform-Lite. I am inclined to think the party is doomed, though the incompetence of Toolmakerson and the Complaints Support Manager just might offer a glimmer of hope for them.
The rot started a generation before that. The calibre of Conservative MP’s (as with MP’s generally, and journalists), is far worse than 30-40 years ago.
Who would become an MP? It's a shit, pretty poorly paid job.
MPs pay is almost three times the average voters pay, plus expenses, so plenty will still want to do it
Even if many KCs and investment bankers and company directors who might have considered it in the past can't be bothered to take the pay cut as well as social media abuse now
But you need people who can earn ten times that - if you want the best. To make it worth enduring the social media abuse.
Or you could better protect them with some meaningful policing of the bile spewed on social media.
I still wouldn't be an MP for all the tea in China.
Maybe we should just select people to be MPs/Lords for a one year stint. Make it like jury service. Choose to sit for a party or as a crossbencher.
All the tea in China must be a few billion quid, Ill do it for half the tea in China myself.
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
Anybody who goes into a shop knows inflation is not dropping , quite the opposite.
Really? I watch prices in Tesco and Sainsburys like a hawk, these being the biggest part of my outgoings. My view is that there was a steep rise in prices which coincided with the end of covid/start of Ukraine, which stabilised (i.e. food inflation dropped back to about zero) after about 16 months (i.e. about a year ago) and that prices ha e in anything dipped since then. Supermarket food prices are still higher thanin 2020, but my perception is that food price inflation is downwards.
Restauarant food prices may still be increasing, but that forms a much smaller part of my experience. Even here, the impression I get is that these have stabilised lately.
Its hard to tell with shrinkflation and drops in quality. Absolute price paid per item probably stable, maybe even falling but price per kg for same quality probably rising still.
One of the things that irks me is shrinkflation. Most coffee brands reduced the size of their packs of ground coffee/beans from 250g to 200g without advertising it, or reducing the price, so that was an overnight increase of 25%. I have refused to buy any of those brands since on principle.
A very important point. Also skimpflation - deterioration in quality, lesser quality ingredients etc.
'Perhaps most blatant of all is the reformulation of Sainsbury’s ‘Clotted Cream Rice Pudding’, in which the clotted cream has actually been replaced with whipping cream, meaning no clotted cream is used in the pudding at all.
The product packaging was renamed but it was still listed as 'Clotted Cream Rice Pudding' online until we pointed it out to Sainsbury's.'
About a year or so ago we noticed double cream, which you'd imagine as a fairly standard commodity product, had stopped indicating on the product carton that it is suitable for whipping. It happened across all supermarket brands over the course of a few months.
And the product had changed. We'd whipped double cream for years and noticed that, brand by brand, we could no longer do so - it was only still possible with a luxury brand or you had to resort to actual whipping cream.
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
LOL Broken Britain - we cant even get decent trolls any more.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
But even those challenge s are utterly predictable, on a daily basis, decades out.
You need to read some more, I'd suggest.
Oh, and read more about the down time of the nuclear baseload while you're at it.
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
One of the labour staffers posing as @Shecorns88 was born in 1988, not ALL of them...
Not according to her post on cricket given she played to a very high standard in the 70's and also watched the Windies series in 76.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Hydrogen cell storage is probably the long term answer. Use excess wind energy for water electrolysis and then burn the hydrogen and oxygen when there's not enough power generation.
Long periods of silence interspersed with gobble, gobble. No wonder Thiel prefers capering monkey Musk to do the out loud stuff.
Jim Stewartson, Antifascist 🇺🇸🇺🇦🏴☠️ @jimstewartson · 13h Piers Morgan asked Antichrist Peter Thiel what he would say to people who celebrated Luigi Mangione — who was a fan of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk — murdering an insurance CEO.
If someone can find a worse answer to any question, I’d love to see it. This is excruciating.
I promised @Andy_Cooke some opinions on the NPPF and Planning.
This is some of my thoughts so far, but I'd say we can currently only see the first 14 feet of 100 on the centipede. There's a lot more to come, in strategy and in detail. And I have more thinking still to do to come to a more thorough assessment.
As I see it, what we have so far is certain moves towards putting a more strategic, longer term process in place under Council control, and significant pressure to make Councils be in control and get it in place according to re-established mandatory targets - to make sloping shoulders by Councils more difficult.
My phrase for this would be "clearing the planning slipway", removing or reducing some things currently used as obstacles, whether by developers, landowners, Councils + their local politicians, residents, and campaign groups (think eg CPRE).
In terms of incentivising delivery, we have:
Mandatory housing targets, and pressure to get local plans in quickly. In my area they were rushing a local plan through for 2012, and it still isn't here.
Changes to what happens if a local plan is not in place around the "preference to approve" (whatever the wording is), which means development is done on a piece by piece basis according to which developments come forward, rather than through any strategic multiyear process.
For first elements of a downward on planning gain, we have more demanding affordable housing requirements arriving, and limitations on potential use of "viability assessments" - which are a profitability modelling process currently used as a lever by developers to force affordable housing levels to be reduced.
Given that increased affordable housing may undermine the total of sales revenue developers may get, I expect to see things to reduce potential or actual land prices somewhere in this - to help reduce costs at the other end. One mechanism could be Councils having a stronger right to purchase land at a regulated price and then supply to developer at a price including a defined margin; that would put some pressure on the market even for land sold privately, and reduce landowner windfalls. Other ways are possible. For that to work there would need also to be some mechanism by which pressure is put on developers to implement planning permissions in a reasonable time.,
One thing to watch is the possibility that there may be features of the Planning Act 1948, which included provisions beyond what has ever been implemented, used. I'd need to check detail, but there's stuff there.
I'm still thinking about the NPPF, and Andy's comments to my original points (later). The NPPF is a document where a very small seeming change can have major implications.
I also note that "Grey Belt" has not been defined.
And the rebalancing of housing targets away from cities is very interesting - but I think that the previous numbers may be skewed, which would mean that the rebalancing has little meaning.
I would be interested to hear what Mrs @eek thinks about this. IIRC she is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute - especially how she thinks this will impact the current complex and secretive system of how land is brought forward for development over decades.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Hydrogen cell storage is probably the long term answer. Use excess wind energy for water electrolysis and then burn the hydrogen and oxygen when there's not enough power generation.
Awful efficiency but it’s the best approach for the days when it’s dark and there is zero wind
I promised @Andy_Cooke some opinions on the NPPF and Planning.
This is some of my thoughts so far, but I'd say we can currently only see the first 14 feet of 100 on the centipede. There's a lot more to come, in strategy and in detail. And I have more thinking still to do to come to a more thorough assessment.
As I see it, what we have so far is certain moves towards putting a more strategic, longer term process in place under Council control, and significant pressure to make Councils be in control and get it in place according to re-established mandatory targets - to make sloping shoulders by Councils more difficult.
My phrase for this would be "clearing the planning slipway", removing or reducing some things currently used as obstacles, whether by developers, landowners, Councils + their local politicians, residents, and campaign groups (think eg CPRE).
In terms of incentivising delivery, we have:
Mandatory housing targets, and pressure to get local plans in quickly. In my area they were rushing a local plan through for 2012, and it still isn't here.
Changes to what happens if a local plan is not in place around the "preference to approve" (whatever the wording is), which means development is done on a piece by piece basis according to which developments come forward, rather than through any strategic multiyear process.
For first elements of a downward on planning gain, we have more demanding affordable housing requirements arriving, and limitations on potential use of "viability assessments" - which are a profitability modelling process currently used as a lever by developers to force affordable housing levels to be reduced.
Given that increased affordable housing may undermine the total of sales revenue developers may get, I expect to see things to reduce potential or actual land prices somewhere in this - to help reduce costs at the other end. One mechanism could be Councils having a stronger right to purchase land at a regulated price and then supply to developer at a price including a defined margin; that would put some pressure on the market even for land sold privately, and reduce landowner windfalls. Other ways are possible. For that to work there would need also to be some mechanism by which pressure is put on developers to implement planning permissions in a reasonable time.,
One thing to watch is the possibility that there may be features of the Planning Act 1948, which included provisions beyond what has ever been implemented, used. I'd need to check detail, but there's stuff there.
I'm still thinking about the NPPF, and Andy's comments to my original points (later). The NPPF is a document where a very small seeming change can have major implications.
I also note that "Grey Belt" has not been defined.
And the rebalancing of housing targets away from cities is very interesting - but I think that the previous numbers may be skewed, which would mean that the rebalancing has little meaning.
I would be interested to hear what Mrs @eek thinks about this. IIRC she is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute - especially how she thinks this will impact the current complex and secretive system of how land is brought forward for development over decades.
I find it bizarre that English councils have been allowed not to have local plans. There's been one here in my bit of Scotland for (I think) well over a decade now, maybe two, complete with maps of designated areas for housing etc.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Hydrogen cell storage is probably the long term answer. Use excess wind energy for water electrolysis and then burn the hydrogen and oxygen when there's not enough power generation.
...and meanwhile you have one massive tank of hydrogen. And one massive tank of oxygen. On the same site. With a big sign overhead saying ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN.
Quite - I had a look at someone else's massive discovery and the bloody thing had a flashing red light in formation with it, shining along the wing leading edge ...
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Sure, but it all helps.
That's true. I just think you have to be quite hard-nosed about this stuff. If it's cheaper, all things considered, than solar + wind + batteries combo - go for it! Otherwise, no.
There's also imports from Europe and - whisper it - emergency gas generation. Miliband isn't completely mad - our gas capacity is set to remain 35GW into the 2030s.
I promised @Andy_Cooke some opinions on the NPPF and Planning.
This is some of my thoughts so far, but I'd say we can currently only see the first 14 feet of 100 on the centipede. There's a lot more to come, in strategy and in detail. And I have more thinking still to do to come to a more thorough assessment.
As I see it, what we have so far is certain moves towards putting a more strategic, longer term process in place under Council control, and significant pressure to make Councils be in control and get it in place according to re-established mandatory targets - to make sloping shoulders by Councils more difficult.
My phrase for this would be "clearing the planning slipway", removing or reducing some things currently used as obstacles, whether by developers, landowners, Councils + their local politicians, residents, and campaign groups (think eg CPRE).
In terms of incentivising delivery, we have:
Mandatory housing targets, and pressure to get local plans in quickly. In my area they were rushing a local plan through for 2012, and it still isn't here.
Changes to what happens if a local plan is not in place around the "preference to approve" (whatever the wording is), which means development is done on a piece by piece basis according to which developments come forward, rather than through any strategic multiyear process.
For first elements of a downward on planning gain, we have more demanding affordable housing requirements arriving, and limitations on potential use of "viability assessments" - which are a profitability modelling process currently used as a lever by developers to force affordable housing levels to be reduced.
Given that increased affordable housing may undermine the total of sales revenue developers may get, I expect to see things to reduce potential or actual land prices somewhere in this - to help reduce costs at the other end. One mechanism could be Councils having a stronger right to purchase land at a regulated price and then supply to developer at a price including a defined margin; that would put some pressure on the market even for land sold privately, and reduce landowner windfalls. Other ways are possible. For that to work there would need also to be some mechanism by which pressure is put on developers to implement planning permissions in a reasonable time.,
One thing to watch is the possibility that there may be features of the Planning Act 1948, which included provisions beyond what has ever been implemented, used. I'd need to check detail, but there's stuff there.
I'm still thinking about the NPPF, and Andy's comments to my original points (later). The NPPF is a document where a very small seeming change can have major implications.
I also note that "Grey Belt" has not been defined.
And the rebalancing of housing targets away from cities is very interesting - but I think that the previous numbers may be skewed, which would mean that the rebalancing has little meaning.
I would be interested to hear what Mrs @eek thinks about this. IIRC she is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute - especially how she thinks this will impact the current complex and secretive system of how land is brought forward for development over decades.
I find it bizarre that English councils have been allowed not to have local plans. There's been one here in my bit of Scotland for (I think) well over a decade now, maybe two, complete with maps of designated areas for housing etc.
IMO he thing that needs to be reduced is the rats-in-a-sack syndrome which comes into play in every aspect of planning, at every stage, by every party - and make sure that interests are aligned, and incentives to disrupt are reduced or removed.
But one key to making whatever we get work will be adequate resourcing and upskilling for Local Planning Authorities to enable them to get things reasonably right, and to have the resources and skilled professionals to do so.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Hydrogen cell storage is probably the long term answer. Use excess wind energy for water electrolysis and then burn the hydrogen and oxygen when there's not enough power generation.
...and meanwhile you have one massive tank of hydrogen. And one massive tank of oxygen. On the same site. With a big sign overhead saying ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN.
Hydrogen is a fabulous resource as long as you remember at all times it is insanely dangerous.
A gas that can find a way out of unimaginably tiny gaps.
Long periods of silence interspersed with gobble, gobble. No wonder Thiel prefers capering monkey Musk to do the out loud stuff.
Jim Stewartson, Antifascist 🇺🇸🇺🇦🏴☠️ @jimstewartson · 13h Piers Morgan asked Antichrist Peter Thiel what he would say to people who celebrated Luigi Mangione — who was a fan of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk — murdering an insurance CEO.
If someone can find a worse answer to any question, I’d love to see it. This is excruciating.
That is so not the persona I'd have expected (first time I've seem him).
The popping eyes and SS Das Reich haircut quite on brand, but the mimsy incoherence very surprising. Quite comforting in a way.
It is kind of. He didn't appear very omnipotent. Seemed like he might have "taken something" to get through the conversation, but it was Piers Morgan so I guess that is understandable.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Hydrogen cell storage is probably the long term answer. Use excess wind energy for water electrolysis and then burn the hydrogen and oxygen when there's not enough power generation.
...and meanwhile you have one massive tank of hydrogen. And one massive tank of oxygen. On the same site. With a big sign overhead saying ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN.
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Hydrogen cell storage is probably the long term answer. Use excess wind energy for water electrolysis and then burn the hydrogen and oxygen when there's not enough power generation.
...and meanwhile you have one massive tank of hydrogen. And one massive tank of oxygen. On the same site. With a big sign overhead saying ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN.
Accident waiting to happen you say…
So long as it's LOLER certified and risk assessed it'll be fine.
It'll be the next inflation news that's key. If that's benign then the BoE might lower interest rates quicker than they previously would. Happy days (Well sort of)
If the inflation figures are poor then we're in a real gordion knot.
Also don't forget Labour's jobs tax hasn't come in yet.
I don't think they'll come down much and it will take a while to feed back into household income as well.
Right now we have a confidence problem, and I'm not sure many companies or people want to invest when they're being squeezed heavily by tax in a stagnant economy, with very likely more to come.
As well as an incoming US government promising a serious bonfire of regulations and taxes.
...and tariffs
Does anyone think Trump will actually implement the tarrifs on Canada and Mexico? It's one thing to say it...
Generally speaking, he does what he says he will do, or at least tries.
Err. No.
Two obvious examples are the renegotiation of NAFTA and the creation of the Space Force. I'd also argue he did try to get the wall built.
And the 25,843 court cases against him where he went back on his word?
Trump had 2 campaign slogans in 2016:
“Lock her up” - Trump didn’t even try “Build the wall” - he only got a pretty short section built and Mexico definitely didn’t pay for it
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
About 200 GW?
Which has to be completely rebuilt in 30 years time, from the ground/seabed up.
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
The tidal lagoons wouldn't provide enough storage to help out with wind and tidal intermittency, IIRC. The more I read about them the less I'm convinced tbh.
Why would you need that ? Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
Just do batteries then. If it's cheaper than wind and solar, fair enough. Otherwise it doesn't add any value - a spring tide would generate 4x as much energy as a neap tide, so it has it's own intermittency challenges.
Bear in mind that in principle tidal lagoons could *store* excess wind power as well.
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
My original point was that I don't think the tidal lagoons could store very much. I'm trying to find the paper demonstrating it, but it would only be worth a few Dinorwigs (9 GWh), when we really need hundreds of GWh.
Hydrogen cell storage is probably the long term answer. Use excess wind energy for water electrolysis and then burn the hydrogen and oxygen when there's not enough power generation.
...and meanwhile you have one massive tank of hydrogen. And one massive tank of oxygen. On the same site. With a big sign overhead saying ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN.
Accident waiting to happen you say…
In the past I've spent a fair amount of time at the top of scissor lifts / Simons boom lifts. The thing you don't realise until you're thirty or forty feet up in one is how much they sway, despite the hydraulics. With ones you can move around from the top, every little pebble a wheel runs across feels like you've just gone over a massive boulder. Especially with boom lifts.
It's really off-putting for the first couple of hours you're up one. You're glad of the safety harness...
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
LOL Broken Britain - we cant even get decent trolls any more.
In the past I've spent a fair amount of time at the top of scissor lifts / Simons boom lifts. The thing you don't realise until you're thirty or forty feet up in one is how much they sway, despite the hydraulics. With ones you can move around from the top, every little pebble a wheel runs across feels like you've just gone over a massive boulder. Especially with boom lifts.
It's really off-putting for the first couple of hours you're up one. You're glad of the safety harness...
I discovered that only one set of wheels is braked. If you lean far enough out of the basket you can lift them enough for the whole machine to set off down a hill...
“A friend in Latakia tells me they're very scared by what they're seeing.
Since yesterday heavily armed men, including some foreigners speaking languages they've never heard before, have been parading through and patrolling the streets.
These men are behaving like religious extremists. They are shouting at unveiled women and demanding they wear a hijab. They are asking with hostility any men and women who walk together if they are married or not. There is no more alcohol, shops that have alcohol have been vandalized, burned and closed.
"Latakia and Tartous have never been Islamic cities and this is very dangerous for them because the majority is Alawis and Christians," says my friend.
Still, some of the armed men are trying to comfort people. HTS guys are insisting everything will be fine and fair in the future, people just need to wait. But it feels like a massive gaslight as people are afraid by what they see as a rapidly changing Syria they don't recognize and perhaps don't have a place in.
There are also complaints about the media portraying everything as rosy and free when people feel a different kind of scared under these emerging authorities.
My friend did not want this attributed to their name out of fear. Reminds me of the old Syria.”
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
LOL Broken Britain - we cant even get decent trolls any more.
"1,000 days of tears and buck-passing: the evidence from the Post Office inquiry’s key witnesses As the long-running inquiry into one the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history wraps up, we review the evidence from key players"
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
LOL Broken Britain - we cant even get decent trolls any more.
Don't undersell yourself.
I have 15 years of hard earned experience on PB
Did I ever mention Rachel Reeves is really shit ?
REMEMBER THE PROMISE
“The highest growth rate in the G7”
There must be a real chance that under this government we will actually have the LOWEST growth rate in the G7, underperforming even Germany
That, alone, would condemn them to being a one-term government
“A friend in Latakia tells me they're very scared by what they're seeing.
Since yesterday heavily armed men, including some foreigners speaking languages they've never heard before, have been parading through and patrolling the streets.
These men are behaving like religious extremists. They are shouting at unveiled women and demanding they wear a hijab. They are asking with hostility any men and women who walk together if they are married or not. There is no more alcohol, shops that have alcohol have been vandalized, burned and closed.
"Latakia and Tartous have never been Islamic cities and this is very dangerous for them because the majority is Alawis and Christians," says my friend.
Still, some of the armed men are trying to comfort people. HTS guys are insisting everything will be fine and fair in the future, people just need to wait. But it feels like a massive gaslight as people are afraid by what they see as a rapidly changing Syria they don't recognize and perhaps don't have a place in.
There are also complaints about the media portraying everything as rosy and free when people feel a different kind of scared under these emerging authorities.
My friend did not want this attributed to their name out of fear. Reminds me of the old Syria.”
Was is ever going to be any different. We traded a secularish tyrant for Islamists and terrorists. The best case scenario is an Egypt style government, the worst case is Afghanistan.
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
LOL Broken Britain - we cant even get decent trolls any more.
Don't undersell yourself.
I have 15 years of hard earned experience on PB
Did I ever mention Rachel Reeves is really shit ?
REMEMBER THE PROMISE
“The highest growth rate in the G7”
There must be a real chance that under this government we will actually have the LOWEST growth rate in the G7, underperforming even Germany
That, alone, would condemn them to being a one-term government
There is a noticeable lack of enthusiasm from the PB Lefties. No more "competent government " or "adults in the room " posts.
I said pre election that the biggest problem would be Starmer had next to zero scrutiny and that not taking positions would come to bite him in the arse. The omerta approach was great for getting elected and terrible for government. It's now quite clear that Starmer had no real plan for government he's just started doing the groundwork now.
The sheer scale is bewildering. On the one hand you’ve got dozens of supposedly credible reports from “security sources” - police, pilots, etc - across the USA, Europe, Oz. But on the other hand not a single clear vid or pic that isn’t obvs a plane or copter or drone
Blimey, Leccy peaked at £369/MwH wholesale yesterday.
Not enough wind.
Plenty of wind, just the fact the last government was so distracted by Nimbys that we can't generate enough of it.
Miliband is doing 100% the right thing
Increasing solar capability, increasing offshore and onshore wind capability, ensuring we have a gas back up, talking about limited small nuclear back up.
2030 is very ambitious, 2035 the end of a second Labour term is very achievable.
He coukd define his political career as the Minister who built A renewable energy platform for the 21st century in the same way Bevan built the NHS after Ww2
He must revisit the Seven Boom and look again at Hydro like Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, a concept sadly ignored for too long.
Wind generation for the previous day was 2.36 GW. On the 5th December we hit 22 GW for the first time, so 10.7% capacity of the system. Just how much wind capacity do you propose we build to produce significant wind power on days like yesterday ?
No need for England to bat deep when they have Root and Brook.
Bookmarked for this time tomorrow....
Look Brook is better than Bradman and Root is our greatest ever batter, plus they are from Yorkshire.
I know (ok, at least I hope) that you are joking about Brook, but Root is certainly the best I’ve watched in my 50+ years watching England.
But Bradman was something else. For the wanted a couple of runs he would have ended with a three figure average in test cricket. Think on that. Every time he strode to the wicket he’s on for a ton. (I know not outs distort that some, but I doubt he had that many not outs). And for context that’s double Joe Roots average. And I always believe in Joe.
Bradman never scored a ODI hundred/T20i hundred, his genius was limited to just tests, Brook is an all format player.
LOL.
Having played cricket to a decent level in the 70s,80s and early 90s I passionately believe we have to quantify excellence in the pre helmet and covered pitch era and the modern era.
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
Perhaps I'm misremembering but didn't you tell us that you were born in 1988 ?
LOL Broken Britain - we cant even get decent trolls any more.
Don't undersell yourself.
I have 15 years of hard earned experience on PB
Did I ever mention Rachel Reeves is really shit ?
REMEMBER THE PROMISE
“The highest growth rate in the G7”
There must be a real chance that under this government we will actually have the LOWEST growth rate in the G7, underperforming even Germany
That, alone, would condemn them to being a one-term government
Nah, they'd really have to fuck up to come up behind Germany. In a disastrous manner.
Comments
But at least we finally have an Energy Secretary who understands that and has plans and proposals to deliver it and also the massive increase to grid capacity required
But you're right it's a huge mess.
So far, Trump's most consequential proposal is to defund Veterans' healthcare entirely. Which is unlikely to happen - and would lose the GOP the next election in a landslide if it did.
The small two-and-three storey blocks of flats do not appear to have them, despite having sloped rooves.
There seems to be no connection between rooves with panels and south-facing.
Incidentally though, they all have electric charging points (which I think is law now?)
And all the contracts renegotiated.
Or you could build tidal lagoon power stations that will last 180 years.With sinking funds to replace turbines at years 60 and 120.
180 years of the certainty of the tides, versus...?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/13/rapid-spread-of-bee-killing-asian-hornets-halted-in-uk
Uncovered pitches, proper lightweight bats, a box, sausage gloves... Limited sight screens no lights, green wickets and MORE bowlers bowling week in week out at 90mph than we see now.
Watch Brian Close facing WINDIES quicks bowling 90 mph all day with some carpet inside his shirt.
Thats batting
And how many of these hypothetical 'lost' Conservative politicians would have been elected this year ? Single digits at most and possibly zero.
And why would they be any different to other Conservative MPs in any case ?
Now I know there's a yearning from nice, centrist people for a 'proper' Conservative party and a desire to blame Boris for its 'disappearance'.
But it really doesn't exist and never could have existed.
The first thing they would do is acknowledge the moment Boris promised sunlit uplands where everyone’s incomes was much higher, the Conservative Party had lost touch with reality, so make clear that they would be a clear break from all that. Instead Badenoch’s party is in “we were doing the right thing and turning it round - take illegal migration, Rwanda was a deterrent and Starmer unilaterally scrapped it” mode. 🤦♀️
He paid ten million quid
To someone who he'd never met
For something he never did.
Gabbard struggles to woo senators ahead of confirmation fight
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5038091-tulsi-gabbard-struggles-senators/
Tulsi Gabbard is struggling through her meetings with senators this week, sources told The Hill, highlighting the difficult path she faces in winning confirmation to be director of national intelligence.
Nearly a half dozen sources, including senators and individuals close to the situation, indicated that Gabbard is having trouble during meetings with lawmakers, with one source familiar describing the sit-downs as “not going well.”
“She was proving to be a little shallow, like a House member talking at a hearing and not someone who needs to provide the president’s daily intelligence briefing,” the source familiar said.
Two Senate Republicans also echoed the concerns, with one noting that multiple members who have sat down with her have come away unimpressed thus far.
“I’ve heard that she’s not very well prepared,” the Senate GOP member said, describing them as “BS sessions.” “I’ve heard not great things.”
The second Senate Republican added there have been “a lot of eyerolls” from members who have sat down with the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman early on...
In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA
https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html (from 2016)
Tidal intermittency would be easily addressed with batteries, so tidal plus storage could be pretty reliable baseload. The only real issue is cost.
They aren't in the main, giants among statesmen.
'Perhaps most blatant of all is the reformulation of Sainsbury’s ‘Clotted Cream Rice Pudding’, in which the clotted cream has actually been replaced with whipping cream, meaning no clotted cream is used in the pudding at all.
The product packaging was renamed but it was still listed as 'Clotted Cream Rice Pudding' online until we pointed it out to Sainsbury's.'
https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/honey-they-shrunk-the-groceries-which-reveals-more-victims-of-shrinkflation-and-skimpflation-azOV07Q5FC5r
The issue is with the activists who have a political agenda not with often troubled young people
What is the foundation of the wealth fund (given that the Government borrows money every month to keep things going)
And what is the pension reform going to do because I would want to keep my money as far away from it as possible
Jim Stewartson, Antifascist 🇺🇸🇺🇦🏴☠️
@jimstewartson
·
13h
Piers Morgan asked Antichrist Peter Thiel what he would say to people who celebrated Luigi Mangione — who was a fan of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk — murdering an insurance CEO.
If someone can find a worse answer to any question, I’d love to see it. This is excruciating.
https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/1867339031257981264
Just thinking of the week Mrs C and I spent exploring Shropshire, staying in a B&B just on the other side of the road from the eponymous Iron Bridge. There was an energy storage system c. 1750-80 converting excess coal from the adjacent mine to water power - to keep the water power system running longer. Newcomen engine in an engine house next to a big pond at the top of Coakbrookdale proper (next to the boat lift incline, the unrestored one).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62zgyr8ne7o
This is some of my thoughts so far, but I'd say we can currently only see the first 14 feet of 100 on the centipede. There's a lot more to come, in strategy and in detail. And I have more thinking still to do to come to a more thorough assessment.
As I see it, what we have so far is certain moves towards putting a more strategic, longer term process in place under Council control, and significant pressure to make Councils be in control and get it in place according to re-established mandatory targets - to make sloping shoulders by Councils more difficult.
My phrase for this would be "clearing the planning slipway", removing or reducing some things currently used as obstacles, whether by developers, landowners, Councils + their local politicians, residents, and campaign groups (think eg CPRE).
In terms of incentivising delivery, we have:
Mandatory housing targets, and pressure to get local plans in quickly. In my area they were rushing a local plan through for 2012, and it still isn't here.
Changes to what happens if a local plan is not in place around the "preference to approve" (whatever the wording is), which means development is done on a piece by piece basis according to which developments come forward, rather than through any strategic multiyear process.
For first elements of a downward on planning gain, we have more demanding affordable housing requirements arriving, and limitations on potential use of "viability assessments" - which are a profitability modelling process currently used as a lever by developers to force affordable housing levels to be reduced.
Given that increased affordable housing may undermine the total of sales revenue developers may get, I expect to see things to reduce potential or actual land prices somewhere in this - to help reduce costs at the other end. One mechanism could be Councils having a stronger right to purchase land at a regulated price and then supply to developer at a price including a defined margin; that would put some pressure on the market even for land sold privately, and reduce landowner windfalls. Other ways are possible. For that to work there would need also to be some mechanism by which pressure is put on developers to implement planning permissions in a reasonable time.,
One thing to watch is the possibility that there may be features of the Planning Act 1948, which included provisions beyond what has ever been implemented, used. I'd need to check detail, but there's stuff there.
I'm still thinking about the NPPF, and Andy's comments to my original points (later). The NPPF is a document where a very small seeming change can have major implications.
I also note that "Grey Belt" has not been defined.
And the rebalancing of housing targets away from cities is very interesting - but I think that the previous numbers may be skewed, which would mean that the rebalancing has little meaning.
And the product had changed. We'd whipped double cream for years and noticed that, brand by brand, we could no longer do so - it
was only still possible with a luxury brand or you had to resort to actual whipping cream.
We were very displeased by this.
Why are these always filmed on a potato by someone having a grand mal seizure
https://x.com/the_engi_nerd/status/1867249487095431207
(It is pretty obviously a plane.)
You need to read some more, I'd suggest.
Oh, and read more about the down time of the nuclear baseload while you're at it.
There's also imports from Europe and - whisper it - emergency gas generation. Miliband isn't completely mad - our gas capacity is set to remain 35GW into the 2030s.
But one key to making whatever we get work will be adequate resourcing and upskilling for Local Planning Authorities to enable them to get things reasonably right, and to have the resources and skilled professionals to do so.
A gas that can find a way out of unimaginably tiny gaps.
He's my Mountbatten in the event of the ghost of Peter Wright upcoming coup.
In that case my titular Prime Minister will have to be Johnson.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2013-08-29/division/13082928001474/SyriaAndTheUseOfChemicalWeapons?outputType=Party#party-yesLiberalDemocratAyes
after 300 years” news item you were weeping over, the other day? It’s a fake
https://x.com/seamus_malek/status/1867079782879428619?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
https://x.com/spiritofho/status/1867226196628365632?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
https://x.com/maitelsadany/status/1867188165276020745?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
The original CNN clip has even been Community Noted
“Lock her up” - Trump didn’t even try
“Build the wall” - he only got a pretty short section built and Mexico definitely didn’t pay for it
But his client media said he was great.
It's really off-putting for the first couple of hours you're up one. You're glad of the safety harness...
Only the laundry can tell the full story
Murdering Christians
Ordering women into hijabs
Smashing up all alcohol
Jolani says he will impose sharia by force if necessary
All female judges dismissed in Aleppo
https://x.com/dd_geopolitics/status/1867210529259074025?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
One perspective:
https://x.com/raniakhalek/status/1866901180787360007?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
“A friend in Latakia tells me they're very scared by what they're seeing.
Since yesterday heavily armed men, including some foreigners speaking languages they've never heard before, have been parading through and patrolling the streets.
These men are behaving like religious extremists. They are shouting at unveiled women and demanding they wear a hijab. They are asking with hostility any men and women who walk together if they are married or not. There is no more alcohol, shops that have alcohol have been vandalized, burned and closed.
"Latakia and Tartous have never been Islamic cities and this is very dangerous for them because the majority is Alawis and Christians," says my friend.
Still, some of the armed men are trying to comfort people. HTS guys are insisting everything will be fine and fair in the future, people just need to wait. But it feels like a massive gaslight as people are afraid by what they see as a rapidly changing Syria they don't recognize and perhaps don't have a place in.
There are also complaints about the media portraying everything as rosy and free when people feel a different kind of scared under these emerging authorities.
My friend did not want this attributed to their name out of fear. Reminds me of the old Syria.”
Did I ever mention Rachel Reeves is really shit ?
As the long-running inquiry into one the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history wraps up, we review the evidence from key players"
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/13/1000-days-of-tears-and-buck-passing-the-evidence-from-the-post-office-inquirys-key-witnesses
“The highest growth rate in the G7”
There must be a real chance that under this government we will actually have the LOWEST growth rate in the G7, underperforming even Germany
That, alone, would condemn them to being a one-term government
I said pre election that the biggest problem would be Starmer had next to zero scrutiny and that not taking positions would come to bite him in the arse. The omerta approach was great for getting elected and terrible for government. It's now quite clear that Starmer had no real plan for government he's just started doing the groundwork now.
“Unidentified drones spotted over US air base in Germany, report says
“German security authorities reportedly flag numerous sightings over Ramstein and sensitive industry locations”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/13/germany-drones-air-base
The sheer scale is bewildering. On the one hand you’ve got dozens of supposedly credible reports from “security sources” - police, pilots, etc - across the USA, Europe, Oz. But on the other hand not a single clear vid or pic that isn’t obvs a plane or copter or drone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zgwiQ6BoLA&t=981s
See the Clean Energy U Curve at about 9.10