The serious alternative is to probably share a nuclear deterrent system with France.
Yes, I think that is the obvious solution. Europe needs a credible nuclear deterrent to protect itself from the hegemoni as Carney described them. Doing it alone is possible but prohibitively expensive. We need a partner and that partner can no longer be the USA.
When the original Trident decision was being made, back in the 80s, the French were asked for their terms for cooperation.
The French offer was
1) All the missiles would be built in France. No workshare 2) UK would share all nuclear weapons design data in violation of the agreement with the US 3) The UK would turn over a Polaris missile to France for examination - another violation. 4) The cost per missile would higher than Trident
And that was a deeply shite offer. Typical France. They are not fun to negotiate with. But we both have too much to lose.
Are you actually f*ing serious?
The whole issue is that our deterrent is dependent on a foreign power, with its own democracy, with differing foreign policy aims, and that is 'crazy' enough to elect people we don't like, and your whizzbang idea to solve this is that we cobble together a new partnership, with foreign power, with its own democracy, with differing foreign policy aims, and that is crazy enough to elect the National Front.
Jesus wept.
I don't suggest dependency. I suggest a combined effort with costs shared.
How do you combine the effort and share costs without creating dependencies?
And why would France agree to that, when they already have their own independent system?
Either we want an independent system, or we don't. If we do, we should develop it, independently. We have the technology, the materials, all we lack is the manufacturing so get on with it and move on.
Because their own system is due replacement.
Collaboration without dependency on either side isn't impossible (though this is the French we're talking about).
There's certainly a large overlap in interests when it comes to deterrence, and it would be entirely possible (as an example) to coordinate on times at sea.
No need to share operational details beyond that, but it might considerably reduce the cost of maintaining a continuous at sea deterrent for both countries. Should we fall out, we simply cease that coordination.
Similar considerations might apply to tech and other cost sharing.
There is no way that France would fire a nuclear weapon, thus putting its own country in-line for obliteration, in response to a nuclear attack on the UK. And there is no way that the UK would do the same for France. It wouldn't be right for either country to be asked to do that for the other, nor would it be credible to an enemy that we would.
You're missing the point. No one need know whose submarines were at sea.
There is no way to hide which submarine is at sea. They are highly visible things, when in port.
NEW: Trump admin as soon as this week plans to announce that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition that will escort ships through Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said.
They are still discussing whether those operations would begin before or after hostilities end.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Storage is the big item here, I think.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
I did the calculation and IRC land equivalent to 0.5% of current farmland would cover the entire electricity demand of the UK through solar - not that anyone would do that of course.
The supposedly "impressive" Coutinho is one of those tilting at that particular windmill, so to speak.
Interesting note re Farmers.
A number round Devon reducing Cattle, increasing lamb and pork as can sit along side solar farms
Apart from solar having a very marginal requirement on land that could be used for farming, I don't even understand why people object in principle. A field used to generate electricity is a highly productive field.
They're as ugly as hell. A total blot on the landscape.
Plus, they generate leccy during periods of low demand, and fail to generate during periods of high demand.
When I get elected*, I will be putting a stop to them at every opportunity.
*This is not going to happen.
That argument doesn't really hold - if they only produced electricity during periods of low demand then there would no demand for them in the first place. The real "problem" here is there are now so cheap it's impossible to beat them as an investment. If you think the value of the fields from a landscape or food security perspective isn't reflected in the price, then the only fair thing to do is subsidise farmers to reflect that value.
On the other hand, I think the regulations around forcing new builds to have them is a bit crazy - the technology is so good now we should really let the market decide. Indeed if we had nodal pricing then all new builds in the SE of England would have them anyway because of the gigantic relative cost savings, while no-one in Scotland would get them because we already have so much excess wind.
I'm surprised that none of the UAE's power and desal plants have been hit yet.
Those drones that hit* the oil storage tanks at Fujairah would have had a greater impact** if they'd hit F1, F2 or F3 just up the coast.
BTW, you can escape the intense, dry heat of Dubai or Abu Dhabi by going to Fujairah. And suffer the stifling humid heat instead.
*Sorry, I should have said "Those intercepted drones, debris from which hit..."
**Pun intended.
My guess is - for the moment - both sides are holding back from the most awful things they are capable of.
If the Iranians start hitting power and desalination plants, the US and Israel will do likewise.
The Gulf States do not want any escalation for obvious reasons.
The Iranians do not need it because, assuming their military capabilities are still intact, a blocked Strait of Hormuz meets their needs to ramp up pressure on the world and the Gulf States, and Manly Men Trump and Hegseth look more helpless every day. At the moment time is on the side of Iran. Until Hegseth and Trump demonstrate an ability to actually do something in the SoH, rather than making windy declarations on social media, the USA is self-marginalising.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Storage is the big item here, I think.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
I did the calculation and IRC land equivalent to 0.5% of current farmland would cover the entire electricity demand of the UK through solar - not that anyone would do that of course.
The supposedly "impressive" Coutinho is one of those tilting at that particular windmill, so to speak.
Interesting note re Farmers.
A number round Devon reducing Cattle, increasing lamb and pork as can sit along side solar farms
Apart from solar having a very marginal requirement on land that could be used for farming, I don't even understand why people object in principle. A field used to generate electricity is a highly productive field.
They're as ugly as hell. A total blot on the landscape.
Plus, they generate leccy during periods of low demand, and fail to generate during periods of high demand.
When I get elected*, I will be putting a stop to them at every opportunity.
*This is not going to happen.
The idea is low demand is still demand, so other forms could be turned down, such as gas. If the worse comes to the worse battery storage could be used. We do need to develop that more though.
We certainly need a heck of a lot of batteries in order to load shift intermittent renewables.
But when it comes to inter-seasonal shifting, you need a bulk storage vector such as Green Hydrogen. Produce it from surplus solar in the summer and use it in gas turbines or fuel cells on those winter days with no sun and no wind.
Bulk storage of hydrogen over the long term?
Pressurised doesn’t work (leakage) and cryo loses a non trivial percentage. Per day.
Batteries are cheaper and work.
Batteries don't work that well on seasonal timescales, certainly not economically.
The easiest way to store hydrogen might be to convert it into methane. We know how to store that. Britain would have to build a lot more methane storage, though. The other advantage is that, if you're generating methane from excess renewable electricity, then you don't need to replace everyone's gas boiler and cooker.
Turning captured CO2 into methane, burning the methane, and releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere is, however, a fecking stupid thing to do.
Instead of dicking about with electrolysis and methanation, just store the captured CO2 and burn natural gas. Same net carbon impact, at lower cost.
The idea is that the excess renewable electricity is essentially free. Britain is chucking GWs away regularly because the grid can't move it to where it's needed, and the intermittent nature of renewables means you're only going to have more excess energy in the future as more renewables are built.
So the methane you produce could be very cheap, if you set up the energy market with the right incentives. And then, if you really want to, you can capture the CO2 and try and store it, and then you have a carbon negative process. Which is probably the only way you stop the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets from melting, and having to rebuild all global coastal infrastructure and rehouse several hundred million people.
No, the hydrogen is produced at minimal marginal cost, but you still need to cover the capex and fixed opex of the electrolysis plant (and associated power grid supply, water supply and water treatment plant. Then if you want to turn it into methane, you need a source of (ideally biogenic) captured CO2 and a methanation plant. Again, you need to cover the capex and fixed opex of this.
If you are using methane for domestic heating, you can't capture the CO2. Hence the need to switch to hydrogen or the dreaded air source heat pumps in order to decarbonise our homes.
My understanding is that making the gas network fully hydrogen is not economically viable, roadworks needed every few hundred metres. So electrification of heating is the solution .
There was a study done a few years ago taking Leeds as a case study to consider what would need to be done to switch the network to hydrogen. While some reinforcement would be required, it wasn't huge, and once the cast iron main replacement programme is complete then the hydrogen wouldn't be missing out all over the place.
Heh. These Farage/Lowe supporters are something else.
Now you've reminded me of an old friend who volunteered at a homeless shelter telling me a tragic story.
The local Sikh temple would donate loads of gorgeous, nutritious food night after night. But right at the end of the evening. And the local council reg's said it had to go in the bin (though the volunteers could nab it 'at their own risk'). And all the volunteers being too young, polite and thankful never had the heart to tell the good folk dropping the food off that they were a couple of hours too late.
There's a parable for our time in there somewhere.
Instead of fighting over a 21-mile-wide bottleneck forever, we cut a new channel through friendly territory. A dozen thermonuclear detonations and you’ve got a waterway wider than the Panama Canal, deeper than the Suez, and safe from Iranian attacks.
Should be ready for use by the end of tomorrow!!
The Soviets and Americans did programs on civilian uses of nuclear power/bombs. They considered making harbours with them.
I'm surprised that none of the UAE's power and desal plants have been hit yet.
Those drones that hit* the oil storage tanks at Fujairah would have had a greater impact** if they'd hit F1, F2 or F3 just up the coast.
BTW, you can escape the intense, dry heat of Dubai or Abu Dhabi by going to Fujairah. And suffer the stifling humid heat instead.
*Sorry, I should have said "Those intercepted drones, debris from which hit..."
**Pun intended.
My guess is - for the moment - both sides are holding back from the most awful things they are capable of.
If the Iranians start hitting power and desalination plants, the US and Israel will do likewise.
The Gulf States do not want any escalation for obvious reasons.
The Iranians do not need it because, assuming their military capabilities are still intact, a blocked Strait of Hormuz meets their needs to ramp up pressure on the world and the Gulf States, and Manly Men Trump and Hegseth look more helpless every day. At the moment time is on the side of Iran. Until Hegseth and Trump demonstrate an ability to actually do something in the SoH, rather than making windy declarations on social media, the USA is self-marginalising.
Odds on Hegseth being one of the many to take the fall for the mid-term election failures?
Just to cheer everybody up on a Sunday night in March, the usually reliable and cautious Preston Stewart is saying that the Russians are afraid of a "large Ukrainian breakthrough" soon because the Ukrainians have been able to isolate much of the Russian front line from supplies using drone swarms and the quality of Russian soldiers has been dropping dramatically. I'm surprised he didn't mention Starlink as a third factor.
I'm surprised that none of the UAE's power and desal plants have been hit yet.
Those drones that hit* the oil storage tanks at Fujairah would have had a greater impact** if they'd hit F1, F2 or F3 just up the coast.
BTW, you can escape the intense, dry heat of Dubai or Abu Dhabi by going to Fujairah. And suffer the stifling humid heat instead.
*Sorry, I should have said "Those intercepted drones, debris from which hit..."
**Pun intended.
My guess is - for the moment - both sides are holding back from the most awful things they are capable of.
If the Iranians start hitting power and desalination plants, the US and Israel will do likewise.
The Gulf States do not want any escalation for obvious reasons.
The Iranians do not need it because, assuming their military capabilities are still intact, a blocked Strait of Hormuz meets their needs to ramp up pressure on the world and the Gulf States, and Manly Men Trump and Hegseth look more helpless every day. At the moment time is on the side of Iran. Until Hegseth and Trump demonstrate an ability to actually do something in the SoH, rather than making windy declarations on social media, the USA is self-marginalising.
Odds on Hegseth being one of the many to take the fall for the mid-term election failures?
That can only happen if the mid terms aren't cancelled.
I'm surprised that none of the UAE's power and desal plants have been hit yet.
Those drones that hit* the oil storage tanks at Fujairah would have had a greater impact** if they'd hit F1, F2 or F3 just up the coast.
BTW, you can escape the intense, dry heat of Dubai or Abu Dhabi by going to Fujairah. And suffer the stifling humid heat instead.
*Sorry, I should have said "Those intercepted drones, debris from which hit..."
**Pun intended.
My guess is - for the moment - both sides are holding back from the most awful things they are capable of.
If the Iranians start hitting power and desalination plants, the US and Israel will do likewise.
The Gulf States do not want any escalation for obvious reasons.
The Iranians do not need it because, assuming their military capabilities are still intact, a blocked Strait of Hormuz meets their needs to ramp up pressure on the world and the Gulf States, and Manly Men Trump and Hegseth look more helpless every day. At the moment time is on the side of Iran. Until Hegseth and Trump demonstrate an ability to actually do something in the SoH, rather than making windy declarations on social media, the USA is self-marginalising.
Odds on Hegseth being one of the many to take the fall for the mid-term election failures?
That can only happen if the mid terms aren't cancelled.
They are trying to bring back "Firefly" as an animated series (which would explain why Wash is in it and get around the fact that the cast are twenty years' older). For real.
Just to cheer everybody up on a Sunday night in March, the usually reliable and cautious Preston Stewart is saying that the Russians are afraid of a "large Ukrainian breakthrough" soon because the Ukrainians have been able to isolate much of the Russian front line from supplies using drone swarms and the quality of Russian soldiers has been dropping dramatically. I'm surprised he didn't mention Starlink as a third factor.
The US-Israeli combined force will need time to achieve its military objectives and prevent Iran from inflicting further political and economic pain upon the United States and its allies in the region, but the campaign remains incomplete, and it is too soon to forecast its outcome. Declaring it an operational failure is unquestionably premature.
Iran isn't hurting America as much as America is hurting Iran. You can make a case for "operational success" provided you ignore, as the ISW does in the tweet, the indefinite closure of the main shipping channel for O&G, the severe economic damage to Gulf economies, and to the world economy generally.
Just to cheer everybody up on a Sunday night in March, the usually reliable and cautious Preston Stewart is saying that the Russians are afraid of a "large Ukrainian breakthrough" soon because the Ukrainians have been able to isolate much of the Russian front line from supplies using drone swarms and the quality of Russian soldiers has been dropping dramatically. I'm surprised he didn't mention Starlink as a third factor.
NEW: Trump admin as soon as this week plans to announce that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition that will escort ships through Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said.
They are still discussing whether those operations would begin before or after hostilities end.
"OK Donald, when we've had 48 hours with no missile launches by Iran - we'll start mobilising vessels. Deal?"
For decades many people have refused to the Iranian regime as a “death cult”. Perhaps if they were correct it might be wise to factor that in that they would rather die and collapse in some sort of Armageddon than meekly bed the knee to the great satan.
There will be groupings there with access to money and arms who will just become another ISIS if the country is technically overcome. They have the mindset, the skills and the resources to make global terrorism worse than the last 20+ years.
NEW: Trump admin as soon as this week plans to announce that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition that will escort ships through Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said.
They are still discussing whether those operations would begin before or after hostilities end.
How many warships does North Korea and Venezuela have between them?
Just to cheer everybody up on a Sunday night in March, the usually reliable and cautious Preston Stewart is saying that the Russians are afraid of a "large Ukrainian breakthrough" soon because the Ukrainians have been able to isolate much of the Russian front line from supplies using drone swarms and the quality of Russian soldiers has been dropping dramatically. I'm surprised he didn't mention Starlink as a third factor.
Just to cheer everybody up on a Sunday night in March, the usually reliable and cautious Preston Stewart is saying that the Russians are afraid of a "large Ukrainian breakthrough" soon because the Ukrainians have been able to isolate much of the Russian front line from supplies using drone swarms and the quality of Russian soldiers has been dropping dramatically. I'm surprised he didn't mention Starlink as a third factor.
The videos of drones attacking individual soldiers are depressing. This is now semi-automated. Guess what is being used to automate the guidance?
Yeah, while I was cheered by the reported success of Ukrainian drone tactics, the targetting of individual and isolated Russian soldiers is scary and dismal
Just to cheer everybody up on a Sunday night in March, the usually reliable and cautious Preston Stewart is saying that the Russians are afraid of a "large Ukrainian breakthrough" soon because the Ukrainians have been able to isolate much of the Russian front line from supplies using drone swarms and the quality of Russian soldiers has been dropping dramatically. I'm surprised he didn't mention Starlink as a third factor.
Phew! The Iran project couldn't have been more timely then. Trump providing Putin with a late get out of jail free card by switching resources earmarked for Ukraine to the Middle East.
That “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is the only England rugby union song is, I reckon, the greatest tribute to any pun nickname, ever
Do you all know the story behind it?
Other than Wales most Rugby songs are utterly naff.
It's one area where football wins hands down.
Sounds like a no from you..
The song was first sung at Twickenham during the 1987 Middlesex Sevens
A young winger called Martin Offiah scored several scintillating tries for Rosslyn Park. Their fans gave him the nickname Chariots (Chariots Offiah; geddit?)
So they sang the chariots song
(Offiah was so good that the Widnes scouts made sure he never played Union again)
The next year Chris Oti scored a hat trick for England, and the song was reprised
Now it’s the England Rugby song
"Swing Low" was a rugby song well before the 80s. I remember singing it in the school minibus when I played for my school's under-15s, in the mid-70s. Even our (Welsh) rugby teacher joined in (he had a good voice). He preferred us singing that to other songs such as the one about the two dozen young ladies from the Highlands who made lots of friends during the war.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Storage is the big item here, I think.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
I did the calculation and IRC land equivalent to 0.5% of current farmland would cover the entire electricity demand of the UK through solar - not that anyone would do that of course.
The supposedly "impressive" Coutinho is one of those tilting at that particular windmill, so to speak.
Interesting note re Farmers.
A number round Devon reducing Cattle, increasing lamb and pork as can sit along side solar farms
Apart from solar having a very marginal requirement on land that could be used for farming, I don't even understand why people object in principle. A field used to generate electricity is a highly productive field.
They're as ugly as hell. A total blot on the landscape.
Plus, they generate leccy during periods of low demand, and fail to generate during periods of high demand.
When I get elected*, I will be putting a stop to them at every opportunity.
*This is not going to happen.
The idea is low demand is still demand, so other forms could be turned down, such as gas. If the worse comes to the worse battery storage could be used. We do need to develop that more though.
We certainly need a heck of a lot of batteries in order to load shift intermittent renewables.
But when it comes to inter-seasonal shifting, you need a bulk storage vector such as Green Hydrogen. Produce it from surplus solar in the summer and use it in gas turbines or fuel cells on those winter days with no sun and no wind.
Bulk storage of hydrogen over the long term?
Pressurised doesn’t work (leakage) and cryo loses a non trivial percentage. Per day.
Batteries are cheaper and work.
Batteries don't work that well on seasonal timescales, certainly not economically.
The easiest way to store hydrogen might be to convert it into methane. We know how to store that. Britain would have to build a lot more methane storage, though. The other advantage is that, if you're generating methane from excess renewable electricity, then you don't need to replace everyone's gas boiler and cooker.
Turning captured CO2 into methane, burning the methane, and releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere is, however, a fecking stupid thing to do.
Instead of dicking about with electrolysis and methanation, just store the captured CO2 and burn natural gas. Same net carbon impact, at lower cost.
The idea is that the excess renewable electricity is essentially free. Britain is chucking GWs away regularly because the grid can't move it to where it's needed, and the intermittent nature of renewables means you're only going to have more excess energy in the future as more renewables are built.
So the methane you produce could be very cheap, if you set up the energy market with the right incentives. And then, if you really want to, you can capture the CO2 and try and store it, and then you have a carbon negative process. Which is probably the only way you stop the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets from melting, and having to rebuild all global coastal infrastructure and rehouse several hundred million people.
Or you could just store it in batteries instead.
Batteries lose a bit of charge over time, and they make economic sense when used to timeshift solar from day to evening, so that they go through one money-making charge/discharge cycle a day, but would they make economic sense for storing renewable electricity on seasonal timescales? I doubt it.
That “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is the only England rugby union song is, I reckon, the greatest tribute to any pun nickname, ever
Do you all know the story behind it?
Other than Wales most Rugby songs are utterly naff.
It's one area where football wins hands down.
Sounds like a no from you..
The song was first sung at Twickenham during the 1987 Middlesex Sevens
A young winger called Martin Offiah scored several scintillating tries for Rosslyn Park. Their fans gave him the nickname Chariots (Chariots Offiah; geddit?)
So they sang the chariots song
(Offiah was so good that the Widnes scouts made sure he never played Union again)
The next year Chris Oti scored a hat trick for England, and the song was reprised
Now it’s the England Rugby song
"Swing Low" was a rugby song well before the 80s. I remember singing it in the school minibus when I played for my school's under-15s, in the mid-70s. Even our (Welsh) rugby teacher joined in (he had a good voice). He preferred us singing that to other songs such as the one about the two dozen young ladies from the Highlands who made lots of friends during the war.
That is a deeply, deeply offensive song.
I mean, given the Ball was in Kirriemuir, why would you not keep it grammatically correct and say 4 and 20 fewer? The proper rhyme was just there for the taking.
That “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is the only England rugby union song is, I reckon, the greatest tribute to any pun nickname, ever
Do you all know the story behind it?
Other than Wales most Rugby songs are utterly naff.
It's one area where football wins hands down.
Sounds like a no from you..
The song was first sung at Twickenham during the 1987 Middlesex Sevens
A young winger called Martin Offiah scored several scintillating tries for Rosslyn Park. Their fans gave him the nickname Chariots (Chariots Offiah; geddit?)
So they sang the chariots song
(Offiah was so good that the Widnes scouts made sure he never played Union again)
The next year Chris Oti scored a hat trick for England, and the song was reprised
Now it’s the England Rugby song
"Swing Low" was a rugby song well before the 80s. I remember singing it in the school minibus when I played for my school's under-15s, in the mid-70s. Even our (Welsh) rugby teacher joined in (he had a good voice). He preferred us singing that to other songs such as the one about the two dozen young ladies from the Highlands who made lots of friends during the war.
That is a deeply, deeply offensive song.
I mean, given the Ball was in Kirriemuir, why would you not keep it grammatically correct and say 4 and 20 fewer? The proper rhyme was just there for the taking.
Inverness / less indeed!
If the girls had been black they would have been baked in a pie
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Storage is the big item here, I think.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
I did the calculation and IRC land equivalent to 0.5% of current farmland would cover the entire electricity demand of the UK through solar - not that anyone would do that of course.
The supposedly "impressive" Coutinho is one of those tilting at that particular windmill, so to speak.
Interesting note re Farmers.
A number round Devon reducing Cattle, increasing lamb and pork as can sit along side solar farms
Apart from solar having a very marginal requirement on land that could be used for farming, I don't even understand why people object in principle. A field used to generate electricity is a highly productive field.
They're as ugly as hell. A total blot on the landscape.
Plus, they generate leccy during periods of low demand, and fail to generate during periods of high demand.
When I get elected*, I will be putting a stop to them at every opportunity.
*This is not going to happen.
The idea is low demand is still demand, so other forms could be turned down, such as gas. If the worse comes to the worse battery storage could be used. We do need to develop that more though.
We certainly need a heck of a lot of batteries in order to load shift intermittent renewables.
But when it comes to inter-seasonal shifting, you need a bulk storage vector such as Green Hydrogen. Produce it from surplus solar in the summer and use it in gas turbines or fuel cells on those winter days with no sun and no wind.
Bulk storage of hydrogen over the long term?
Pressurised doesn’t work (leakage) and cryo loses a non trivial percentage. Per day.
Batteries are cheaper and work.
Batteries don't work that well on seasonal timescales, certainly not economically.
The easiest way to store hydrogen might be to convert it into methane. We know how to store that. Britain would have to build a lot more methane storage, though. The other advantage is that, if you're generating methane from excess renewable electricity, then you don't need to replace everyone's gas boiler and cooker.
Turning captured CO2 into methane, burning the methane, and releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere is, however, a fecking stupid thing to do.
Instead of dicking about with electrolysis and methanation, just store the captured CO2 and burn natural gas. Same net carbon impact, at lower cost.
The idea is that the excess renewable electricity is essentially free. Britain is chucking GWs away regularly because the grid can't move it to where it's needed, and the intermittent nature of renewables means you're only going to have more excess energy in the future as more renewables are built.
So the methane you produce could be very cheap, if you set up the energy market with the right incentives. And then, if you really want to, you can capture the CO2 and try and store it, and then you have a carbon negative process. Which is probably the only way you stop the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets from melting, and having to rebuild all global coastal infrastructure and rehouse several hundred million people.
Or you could just store it in batteries instead.
Batteries lose a bit of charge over time, and they make economic sense when used to timeshift solar from day to evening, so that they go through one money-making charge/discharge cycle a day, but would they make economic sense for storing renewable electricity on seasonal timescales? I doubt it.
Though in a UK context, where there are reasonable solar and wind resources to exploit, you don't need to store for seasons- just over the duration of a worst-case Dunkelflaute. That's an awful lot more manageable. And the economic question boils down to how cheap the collection, storage and transmission can become, and I dont think anyone knows where the limits are there.
That “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is the only England rugby union song is, I reckon, the greatest tribute to any pun nickname, ever
Do you all know the story behind it?
Other than Wales most Rugby songs are utterly naff.
It's one area where football wins hands down.
Sounds like a no from you..
The song was first sung at Twickenham during the 1987 Middlesex Sevens
A young winger called Martin Offiah scored several scintillating tries for Rosslyn Park. Their fans gave him the nickname Chariots (Chariots Offiah; geddit?)
So they sang the chariots song
(Offiah was so good that the Widnes scouts made sure he never played Union again)
The next year Chris Oti scored a hat trick for England, and the song was reprised
Now it’s the England Rugby song
"Swing Low" was a rugby song well before the 80s. I remember singing it in the school minibus when I played for my school's under-15s, in the mid-70s. Even our (Welsh) rugby teacher joined in (he had a good voice). He preferred us singing that to other songs such as the one about the two dozen young ladies from the Highlands who made lots of friends during the war.
That is a deeply, deeply offensive song.
I mean, given the Ball was in Kirriemuir, why would you not keep it grammatically correct and say 4 and 20 fewer? The proper rhyme was just there for the taking.
Inverness / less indeed!
If the girls had been black they would have been baked in a pie
For decades many people have refused to the Iranian regime as a “death cult”. Perhaps if they were correct it might be wise to factor that in that they would rather die and collapse in some sort of Armageddon than meekly bed the knee to the great satan.
There will be groupings there with access to money and arms who will just become another ISIS if the country is technically overcome. They have the mindset, the skills and the resources to make global terrorism worse than the last 20+ years.
That's a depressing angle I hadn't considered before. Safer to let the religious zealots have a country where they can occupy themselves oppressing the locals so that they aren't at a loose end seeking to bring terrorism to the rest of the world instead. Kinda dark.
I was in the hall at Eastbourne that Tuesday afternoon in 1986 when the Alliance basically committed suicide. I don't think I heard a more passionate debate in all my time as a Liberal and Liberal Democrat.
David Owen had spoken the day before and in not his finest speech argued for the Liberals to back the pro-deterrent policy but for the Liberals this was highly emotive. Those especially from the Methodist and Quaker sides of the party could not accept nuclear deterrence and wanted unilateral disarmament.
The leadership tried to rally the party to the pro-deterrence side and I've always wondered whether, had he spoken in the debate, David Penhaligon could have made the difference.
The fundamental problem which no amount of fudge could obscure, was the irreconciliable difference between those who supported nuclear weapons and had left a pro-disarmament Labour Party to form the SDP (that was one of the totemic policies, Europe was another) and those Liberals who for reasons of conscience wanted disarmament.
From a personal perspective, I was torn throughout the 80s on this - I came to realise it was much more nuanced (as it always is). Having the Bomb and being ostensibly prepared to use it had kept the peace and brought prosperity to western Europe. Had there been no nuclear weapons, we would either have had to maintain a huge conventional force in Europe on relied on chemical/biological weapons which would have been equally effective in terms of destroying the human part of civilisation though probably less effective in terms of infrastructure.
The fact civilisation (in all its forms) ends when the missiles are fired is sobering in extremis for all sides. I think the scenario in Threads is actually optimistic for post-war Britain - why would anyone seek to reduce humanity to that? I think the Trumps, Putins, Xis and all the others with access to "the button" enjoy the trappings of life too much to risk losing it all and, for what, to spend the rest of existence in a bunker?
Those who talk glibly about "dropping a nuke on Tehran" forget the consequences of letting that particular genie out of the bottle.
I think the points Stodge makes in the first half of his post are going to play out Bigley in the Lib Dems over the next few months. This new initiative from Ed Davey is not going to go down well with many Party activists, who are already fed up with party policy being made on the hoof by the leadership. There is still a very large "ban the bomb" contingent in the Lib Dems, and they are the ones who deliveer the leaflets. I must say, I was staggered to hear about this on the radio this morning. (As it happens, I think it's OK as a policy, but it's a kick in the erogenous zones for many party activists.)
Surely the simplest solution, which could unite the LibDems, would simply to put Fujitsu in charge of the British Bomb Project.
This would ensure that (a) Britain was committed to its own independent nuclear deterrent, and (b) that it would never actually have said deterrent.
I was in the hall at Eastbourne that Tuesday afternoon in 1986 when the Alliance basically committed suicide. I don't think I heard a more passionate debate in all my time as a Liberal and Liberal Democrat.
David Owen had spoken the day before and in not his finest speech argued for the Liberals to back the pro-deterrent policy but for the Liberals this was highly emotive. Those especially from the Methodist and Quaker sides of the party could not accept nuclear deterrence and wanted unilateral disarmament.
The leadership tried to rally the party to the pro-deterrence side and I've always wondered whether, had he spoken in the debate, David Penhaligon could have made the difference.
The fundamental problem which no amount of fudge could obscure, was the irreconciliable difference between those who supported nuclear weapons and had left a pro-disarmament Labour Party to form the SDP (that was one of the totemic policies, Europe was another) and those Liberals who for reasons of conscience wanted disarmament.
From a personal perspective, I was torn throughout the 80s on this - I came to realise it was much more nuanced (as it always is). Having the Bomb and being ostensibly prepared to use it had kept the peace and brought prosperity to western Europe. Had there been no nuclear weapons, we would either have had to maintain a huge conventional force in Europe on relied on chemical/biological weapons which would have been equally effective in terms of destroying the human part of civilisation though probably less effective in terms of infrastructure.
The fact civilisation (in all its forms) ends when the missiles are fired is sobering in extremis for all sides. I think the scenario in Threads is actually optimistic for post-war Britain - why would anyone seek to reduce humanity to that? I think the Trumps, Putins, Xis and all the others with access to "the button" enjoy the trappings of life too much to risk losing it all and, for what, to spend the rest of existence in a bunker?
Those who talk glibly about "dropping a nuke on Tehran" forget the consequences of letting that particular genie out of the bottle.
I think the points Stodge makes in the first half of his post are going to play out Bigley in the Lib Dems over the next few months. This new initiative from Ed Davey is not going to go down well with many Party activists, who are already fed up with party policy being made on the hoof by the leadership. There is still a very large "ban the bomb" contingent in the Lib Dems, and they are the ones who deliveer the leaflets. I must say, I was staggered to hear about this on the radio this morning. (As it happens, I think it's OK as a policy, but it's a kick in the erogenous zones for many party activists.)
Surely the simplest solution, which could unite the LibDems, would simply to put Fujitsu in charge of the British Bomb Project.
This would ensure that (a) Britain was committed to its own independent nuclear deterrent, and (b) that it would never actually have said deterrent.
All the nuclear workers being unjustly imprisoned might affect operational safety though.
The serious alternative is to probably share a nuclear deterrent system with France.
Utterly loony. You make duff calls on occasion, but this takes the cake.
I rarely agree with Casino, but Casino is on the money this time.
Yes, Casino is spot on. Britain and France are only a few miles apart so one would suffer equally if the other was nuked; therefore a shared nuclear deterrent makes absolute strategic and economic sense.
Is that true? I mean Paris and London are reasonably close, but Edinburgh and Nice are not. If Nice was nuked, we'd barely notice.
“At a meeting in the Oval Office last week, a frustrated Mr. Trump pressed Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about why the United States could not immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz.”
“At a meeting in the Oval Office last week, a frustrated Mr. Trump pressed Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about why the United States could not immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz.”
The fact he had to ask that question shows why he’s a complete imbecile.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Storage is the big item here, I think.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
I did the calculation and IRC land equivalent to 0.5% of current farmland would cover the entire electricity demand of the UK through solar - not that anyone would do that of course.
The supposedly "impressive" Coutinho is one of those tilting at that particular windmill, so to speak.
Interesting note re Farmers.
A number round Devon reducing Cattle, increasing lamb and pork as can sit along side solar farms
Apart from solar having a very marginal requirement on land that could be used for farming, I don't even understand why people object in principle. A field used to generate electricity is a highly productive field.
They're as ugly as hell. A total blot on the landscape.
Plus, they generate leccy during periods of low demand, and fail to generate during periods of high demand.
When I get elected*, I will be putting a stop to them at every opportunity.
*This is not going to happen.
The idea is low demand is still demand, so other forms could be turned down, such as gas. If the worse comes to the worse battery storage could be used. We do need to develop that more though.
We certainly need a heck of a lot of batteries in order to load shift intermittent renewables.
But when it comes to inter-seasonal shifting, you need a bulk storage vector such as Green Hydrogen. Produce it from surplus solar in the summer and use it in gas turbines or fuel cells on those winter days with no sun and no wind.
Bulk storage of hydrogen over the long term?
Pressurised doesn’t work (leakage) and cryo loses a non trivial percentage. Per day.
Batteries are cheaper and work.
Batteries don't work that well on seasonal timescales, certainly not economically.
The easiest way to store hydrogen might be to convert it into methane. We know how to store that. Britain would have to build a lot more methane storage, though. The other advantage is that, if you're generating methane from excess renewable electricity, then you don't need to replace everyone's gas boiler and cooker.
Turning captured CO2 into methane, burning the methane, and releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere is, however, a fecking stupid thing to do.
Instead of dicking about with electrolysis and methanation, just store the captured CO2 and burn natural gas. Same net carbon impact, at lower cost.
The idea is that the excess renewable electricity is essentially free. Britain is chucking GWs away regularly because the grid can't move it to where it's needed, and the intermittent nature of renewables means you're only going to have more excess energy in the future as more renewables are built.
So the methane you produce could be very cheap, if you set up the energy market with the right incentives. And then, if you really want to, you can capture the CO2 and try and store it, and then you have a carbon negative process. Which is probably the only way you stop the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets from melting, and having to rebuild all global coastal infrastructure and rehouse several hundred million people.
Or you could just store it in batteries instead.
Batteries lose a bit of charge over time, and they make economic sense when used to timeshift solar from day to evening, so that they go through one money-making charge/discharge cycle a day, but would they make economic sense for storing renewable electricity on seasonal timescales? I doubt it.
100% agreed. Batteries are amazingly wonderful on a repeated, cycle basis but not a seasonal one.
The UK is a country that needs heating much more than it needs air conditioning, we use considerably more energy in winter than summer. Solar generates considerably less energy in winter than summer.
Either we will never generate the energy we need in winter, or we will have far more energy than we need in summer so need something (like electrolysis) to absorb that energy and put it to productive use.
Ipsos poll broken down by voters by financial wellbeing and wealth. Starmer Labour lead with the comfortably off but Reform lead with all other social groups with Farage's party polling highest with the financially precarious/extremely vulnerable followed by the financially stable and also leading with the just about coping.
Kemi's Tories like Starmer Labour poll best with the comfortably off while the LDs do best with the financially stable. The Polanski led Greens like Reform do best with the financially precarious/extremely vulnerable https://x.com/Ipsos_in_the_UK/status/2033147506322772415?s=20
It begins lawyerly and philosophical, turns darkly religous, and then ends with this astonishing paragraph:
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
(I should have posted this on March 4th, but was away from home at the time.)
John Bright was of great help to Lincoln, something not mentioned in Bright's Wikipedia biography. I am not rich, but I would contribute to a memorial to him -- or, even better -- matching memorials in the US and the UK.
As were many workers in the UK, in spite of the damage the war did to the cotton trade.
The serious alternative is to probably share a nuclear deterrent system with France.
Utterly loony. You make duff calls on occasion, but this takes the cake.
I rarely agree with Casino, but Casino is on the money this time.
Yes, Casino is spot on. Britain and France are only a few miles apart so one would suffer equally if the other was nuked; therefore a shared nuclear deterrent makes absolute strategic and economic sense.
Is that true? I mean Paris and London are reasonably close, but Edinburgh and Nice are not. If Nice was nuked, we'd barely notice.
Completely agreed. This is like the Yes, Minister Grand Design 'salami tactics'. Hacker would not use nuclear weapons if the Russians went into West Germany, would a Le Pen or De Gaulle type President use them if Manchester or Edinburgh were hit as a first strike?
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Storage is the big item here, I think.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
I did the calculation and IRC land equivalent to 0.5% of current farmland would cover the entire electricity demand of the UK through solar - not that anyone would do that of course.
The supposedly "impressive" Coutinho is one of those tilting at that particular windmill, so to speak.
Interesting note re Farmers.
A number round Devon reducing Cattle, increasing lamb and pork as can sit along side solar farms
Apart from solar having a very marginal requirement on land that could be used for farming, I don't even understand why people object in principle. A field used to generate electricity is a highly productive field.
They're as ugly as hell. A total blot on the landscape.
Plus, they generate leccy during periods of low demand, and fail to generate during periods of high demand.
When I get elected*, I will be putting a stop to them at every opportunity.
*This is not going to happen.
The idea is low demand is still demand, so other forms could be turned down, such as gas. If the worse comes to the worse battery storage could be used. We do need to develop that more though.
We certainly need a heck of a lot of batteries in order to load shift intermittent renewables.
But when it comes to inter-seasonal shifting, you need a bulk storage vector such as Green Hydrogen. Produce it from surplus solar in the summer and use it in gas turbines or fuel cells on those winter days with no sun and no wind.
Bulk storage of hydrogen over the long term?
Pressurised doesn’t work (leakage) and cryo loses a non trivial percentage. Per day.
Batteries are cheaper and work.
Batteries don't work that well on seasonal timescales, certainly not economically.
The easiest way to store hydrogen might be to convert it into methane. We know how to store that. Britain would have to build a lot more methane storage, though. The other advantage is that, if you're generating methane from excess renewable electricity, then you don't need to replace everyone's gas boiler and cooker.
Turning captured CO2 into methane, burning the methane, and releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere is, however, a fecking stupid thing to do.
Instead of dicking about with electrolysis and methanation, just store the captured CO2 and burn natural gas. Same net carbon impact, at lower cost.
The idea is that the excess renewable electricity is essentially free. Britain is chucking GWs away regularly because the grid can't move it to where it's needed, and the intermittent nature of renewables means you're only going to have more excess energy in the future as more renewables are built.
So the methane you produce could be very cheap, if you set up the energy market with the right incentives. And then, if you really want to, you can capture the CO2 and try and store it, and then you have a carbon negative process. Which is probably the only way you stop the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets from melting, and having to rebuild all global coastal infrastructure and rehouse several hundred million people.
Or you could just store it in batteries instead.
Batteries lose a bit of charge over time, and they make economic sense when used to timeshift solar from day to evening, so that they go through one money-making charge/discharge cycle a day, but would they make economic sense for storing renewable electricity on seasonal timescales? I doubt it.
100% agreed. Batteries are amazingly wonderful on a repeated, cycle basis but not a seasonal one.
The UK is a country that needs heating much more than it needs air conditioning, we use considerably more energy in winter than summer. Solar generates considerably less energy in winter than summer.
Either we will never generate the energy we need in winter, or we will have far more energy than we need in summer so need something (like electrolysis) to absorb that energy and put it to productive use.
I guess that's the reason for focusing on wind rather than solar in the UK. It tends to be windier in the winter when we need the power, and batteries that are able to bridge lulls in the wind lasting a few days may be feasible.
For decades many people have refused to the Iranian regime as a “death cult”. Perhaps if they were correct it might be wise to factor that in that they would rather die and collapse in some sort of Armageddon than meekly bed the knee to the great satan.
There will be groupings there with access to money and arms who will just become another ISIS if the country is technically overcome. They have the mindset, the skills and the resources to make global terrorism worse than the last 20+ years.
This is something that was highlighted in the recent 'Rest is History' podcast series on the 1979 Iranian revolution. The Shia Muslims believe we are living in the End of Times awaiting the return of the 'Hidden Imam' or Mahdi. The 12th and last of the Imams. Basically the world since the assassination of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Son in Law of Muhammad (and in the eyes of Shia Muslims the rightful heir and First Imam) has been in rebellion against God and only the return of the Mahdi and the Day of Judgement will set things right.
This is a very strong belief particularly in the IRGC and is something the West generally and the US in particlar have completely failed to understand.
"The testing of Eric Olthwaite": Eric's father pretends to be French to avoid conversation...
(Scarily, now 49 years old...)
Brilliant series but as a non league football supporter the one about Barnestoneworth United is particularly poignant.
I love Denholm Elliot's louche British diplomatic in 'Across the Andes by Frog'. "Come up and have a woman, I mean drink". The commentary track on the Ripping Yarns DVDs are fascinating. Palin and Jones are clearly very proud of it but are consistently annoyed by the BBC treating it as light entertainment meaning they had to film in the studio a lot. Palin also gets frustrated as being the main star he always has to play the straight man.
Comments
NEW: Trump admin as soon as this week plans to announce that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition that will escort ships through Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said.
They are still discussing whether those operations would begin before or after hostilities end.
On the other hand, I think the regulations around forcing new builds to have them is a bit crazy - the technology is so good now we should really let the market decide. Indeed if we had nodal pricing then all new builds in the SE of England would have them anyway because of the gigantic relative cost savings, while no-one in Scotland would get them because we already have so much excess wind.
The Iranians do not need it because, assuming their military capabilities are still intact, a blocked Strait of Hormuz meets their needs to ramp up pressure on the world and the Gulf States, and Manly Men Trump and Hegseth look more helpless every day. At the moment time is on the side of Iran. Until Hegseth and Trump demonstrate an ability to actually do something in the SoH, rather than making windy declarations on social media, the USA is self-marginalising.
Fitz Bogie means my bet Young now joint leader
Exciting finish on the cards
Need to stay dry
I,had it played at my Dads funeral
Edgbaston with the Barmy Army and Tilton Zulus is awesome.
I've never had the pleasure of an Away Cricket Tour to Oz preferably.
The local Sikh temple would donate loads of gorgeous, nutritious food night after night. But right at the end of the evening. And the local council reg's said it had to go in the bin (though the volunteers could nab it 'at their own risk'). And all the volunteers being too young, polite and thankful never had the heart to tell the good folk dropping the food off that they were a couple of hours too late.
There's a parable for our time in there somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-d-ADKA0sk&t=935s
Let's hope he's right anyway.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DV6Js56jT3F/?hl=en
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/2033265931984544161
https://x.com/edwardjdavey/status/2033234333821997437?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
There will be groupings there with access to money and arms who will just become another ISIS if the country is technically overcome. They have the mindset, the skills and the resources to make global terrorism worse than the last 20+ years.
@carlbildt
·
1h
Continued shut down of mobile internet in Moscow 🇷🇺. The regime seems to be afraid of something.
Also soldiers with machine guns are observed in Moscow 🇷🇺. This is distinctly unusual.
https://x.com/carlbildt/status/2033273321660273135
"The testing of Eric Olthwaite": Eric's father pretends to be French to avoid conversation...
(Scarily, now 49 years old...)
I mean, given the Ball was in Kirriemuir, why would you not keep it grammatically correct and say 4 and 20 fewer? The proper rhyme was just there for the taking.
Inverness / less indeed!
Blades aren't all bad
This would ensure that (a) Britain was committed to its own independent nuclear deterrent, and (b) that it would never actually have said deterrent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOF2AFh_sGE
“At a meeting in the Oval Office last week, a frustrated Mr. Trump pressed Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about why the United States could not immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz.”
The UK is a country that needs heating much more than it needs air conditioning, we use considerably more energy in winter than summer.
Solar generates considerably less energy in winter than summer.
Either we will never generate the energy we need in winter, or we will have far more energy than we need in summer so need something (like electrolysis) to absorb that energy and put it to productive use.
Kemi's Tories like Starmer Labour poll best with the comfortably off while the LDs do best with the financially stable. The Polanski led Greens like Reform do best with the financially precarious/extremely vulnerable
https://x.com/Ipsos_in_the_UK/status/2033147506322772415?s=20
Whereas "Yes, Sir, I can boogie" would have a certain panache as a national anthem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln's_second_inaugural_address
It begins lawyerly and philosophical, turns darkly religous, and then ends with this astonishing paragraph: (I should have posted this on March 4th, but was away from home at the time.)
He can fxck right off !
As were many workers in the UK, in spite of the damage the war did to the cotton trade.
This is a very strong belief particularly in the IRGC and is something the West generally and the US in particlar have completely failed to understand.