By-election betting – politicalbetting.com

40 to 45 looks value to me

TheScreamingEagles said:

As I am going to be in an area with no broadband or mobile signal for the next few days, the spam trap has been updated. so avoid talking about verboten topics, also don't use bad language, even if it is asterisked.

If you're good, Robert will publish my piece that discusses AV.

That sounds horrid....what torture.

So this is a Holyrood by-election, NOT a proper Westminster by-election?

Gallowgate said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

As I am going to be in an area with no broadband or mobile signal for the next few days, the spam trap has been updated. so avoid talking about verboten topics, also don't use bad language, even if it is asterisked.

If you're good, Robert will publish my piece that discusses AV.

I hope you enjoy Sunderland

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/tyne-and-wear-metro-washington-loop-extension.287134/

FF43 said:

FPT

Andy_JS said:

Malmesbury said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Read up on the howling that occurring if someone thinks about thinking about maybe suggesting a hydro-electric scheme in the U.K.

You'd think there would be plenty of remote areas in Scotland they could use.

There are at least four pumped storage schemes with preliminary planning consent in the Highlands eg Coire Glas above Loch Ness. They are massive projects with complicated geology that will costs billions and take a decade or so to build. If they are all built they will hold about a third of a day's total UK electricity generation.

FPT:

You could of course create a few more of these by working in tandem with extracting the rock required for tidal lagoon power stations. As long as it is of the correct quality for the "armour rock " cladding required to withstand the tides (and perhaps, acid rain) for 120/180 years.

Just sayin'...

Awks....

Mike Turner of Freshwater Strategy, who conducted the Liberals’ polling returned research that wildly overstated the Coalition’s support, according to Liberals insiders who had access to the campaign research.

He did not respond to The Nightly’s calls but has written in the Australian Financial Review about how he had missed Labor’s landslide, including wrongly believing that voters who voted No to the Voice referendum would switch to the Coalition.

His errors meant party strategists were left in the dark that they were under threat in their own seats and wrongly believed they were capable of taking out Labor heartland seats such as Werriwa.

https://thenightly.com.au/politics/federal-election-2025/who-will-replace-peter-dutton-wa-mp-andrew-hastie-pulls-out-of-liberal-leadership-contention-c-18590888

TheScreamingEagles said:

As I am going to be in an area with no broadband or mobile signal for the next few days, the spam trap has been updated. so avoid talking about verboten topics, also don't use bad language, even if it is asterisked.

If you're good, Robert will publish my piece that discusses AV.

Approval Voting vs Alternative Vote cage match?

FrancisUrquhart said:

Awks....

Mike Turner of Freshwater Strategy, who conducted the Liberals’ polling returned research that wildly overstated the Coalition’s support, according to Liberals insiders who had access to the campaign research.

He did not respond to The Nightly’s calls but has written in the Australian Financial Review about how he had missed Labor’s landslide, including wrongly believing that voters who voted No to the Voice referendum would switch to the Coalition.

His errors meant party strategists were left in the dark that they were under threat in their own seats and wrongly believed they were capable of taking out Labor heartland seats such as Werriwa.

https://thenightly.com.au/politics/federal-election-2025/who-will-replace-peter-dutton-wa-mp-andrew-hastie-pulls-out-of-liberal-leadership-contention-c-18590888

Now of course the Liberals have gone in a radically different direction after Dutton's defeat, electing Sussan Ley their new leader, a moderate in the Turnbull mode and more open to action on climate change who could almost be a Teal.

It would be like the Tories replacing a defeated Jenrick with Tugendhat or Stride

MarqueeMark said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

As I am going to be in an area with no broadband or mobile signal for the next few days, the spam trap has been updated. so avoid talking about verboten topics, also don't use bad language, even if it is asterisked.

If you're good, Robert will publish my piece that discusses AV.

And if we are not good? Asking for a friend...

That Farage photo gets used in a header every day for the rest of the year.

Here's an edited version of that photo.

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

The “15 minute cities are woke” brigade are not going to want the government charging and discharging from their cars based on the whims of the power grid.

TheScreamingEagles said:

MarqueeMark said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

As I am going to be in an area with no broadband or mobile signal for the next few days, the spam trap has been updated. so avoid talking about verboten topics, also don't use bad language, even if it is asterisked.

If you're good, Robert will publish my piece that discusses AV.

And if we are not good? Asking for a friend...

That Farage photo gets used in a header every day for the rest of the year.

Here's an edited version of that photo.

We'll be good then...

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

Sadly most current EVs can’t do Vehicle to Grid supply & the majority of home EV chargers aren’t capable of it either. You need the right control circuitry in the EV that talks the standardised protocol (ISO 15118 apparently) and you need a suitably powerful DC to AC converter in the charger which makes the charger more expensive.

It’s something that will might be worthwhile for people who can garage their cars & have the vehicle at home during peak demand hours (4-7pm most days) but the extra expense probably makes it marginal at best for individual car owners. Large battery plants that can take advantage of economies of scale & use cheaper batteries are in a much better position I suspect.

TheScreamingEagles said:

As I am going to be in an area with no broadband or mobile signal for the next few days, the spam trap has been updated. so avoid talking about verboten topics, also don't use bad language, even if it is asterisked.

If you're good, Robert will publish my piece that discusses AV.

Adult Videos?

TheScreamingEagles said:

MarqueeMark said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

As I am going to be in an area with no broadband or mobile signal for the next few days, the spam trap has been updated. so avoid talking about verboten topics, also don't use bad language, even if it is asterisked.

If you're good, Robert will publish my piece that discusses AV.

And if we are not good? Asking for a friend...

That Farage photo gets used in a header every day for the rest of the year.

You just use it to illustrate his poll leads, like the Smiling Gordons of old.

Ben Walker says Britain Elects will be doing a forecast for this by election Thurs AM in case anyone wants to use it to inform a late bet

Andy_JS said:

FPT

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

There's probably a technical reason, but if we have too much energy today why are we still generating around 15% from nuclear power stations and 8% from gas turbines?

Punting, perhaps it's the distribution not having been built yet between regions?

MarqueeMark said:

After the nuclear bombers....

The Crimean Bridge is in a state of emergency, after the Ukrainians detonated "the first" 1.1 tonnes of explosives underwater on the bridge supports.

I doubt just one of those would do enough damage to bring the bridge down. It might seriously reduce the weight loading, though. As a comparison, the Dambuster's bouncing bombs were 3,000kg of explosive (Torpex).

Also, there are two bridges: the road and the rail one. I'm still unsure whether they've got the rail bridge back up to full loading/capacity after the explosion a couple of years ago.

BartholomewRoberts said:

Andy_JS said:

FPT

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

There's probably a technical reason, but if we have too much energy today why are we still generating around 15% of power from nuclear power stations and 8% from gas turbines?

Can nuclear be safely turned off on demand? I thought it was safer to keep it running, even if its power isn't required.

Gas . . . I'm assuming because our grid isn't capable of spreading the power where its needed well enough yet, so we may have too much in some locations but not enough elsewhere, which requires gas there? But that's just a guess.

Re nuclear: that's right, it's pretty inflexible.

I mean, you can choose to slow the fissionable process (and do when you need to refuel the reactor), but you want to avoid excess thermal cycles as much as possible. Every time you go through a heat-cool-heat cycle, you go through a process of expansion and contraction, and that means that metal weakens and the risk of leaks increases. And this is a particular issue because the metal in nuclear reactors tends to become brittle over time due to it being bombarded with neutrons. That combination of thermal cycles and brittle material means that nuclear power plants become increasingly expensive to maintain as they get older.

And the consequence of this is that nuclear operators would often rather sell electricity for negative prices (particularly for older plants), than turn the power on and off.

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

Not entirely.
There are a number of utility scale battery storage projects, totalling over 100GWh, in some sort of planning:
https://www.renewableuk.com/energypulse/blog/battery-storage-capacity-in-the-uk-the-state-of-the-pipeline/

Presumably quite a few businesses think it worthwhile.

Cars will of course contribute an enormousl amount of storage over the next decade, but most of that won't be dispatchable.

Afternoon all

Met for lunch with an ex-colleague with whom I shared many a laugh and joke in the office over a number of years.

He is now squarely in the Reform camp - his line is not just the traditional "boats" but the notion the indigenous population (and, to be fair, never said "White", just British) were being disadvantaged in terms of welfare and housing provision by migrants "coming over here, taking every handout and living off our taxes".

This is a refrain I've heard before - there was a scintilla of admiration for "the Romanians, they grew up in a Communist society and know how to play the system. They come over here and we're wide open and they take everything". On the assumption, that's everything to which they are entitled, yes. Perhaps the issue, as we saw with winter fuel payments, is British people aren't taking the things to which they are entitled either through ignorance or a mistaken sense of pride.

The illegals have to go through a process but the legal migrants do all they need to do and ask for everything to which they are entitled. If they are considered British citizens and have entered the country legally and have been given permanent permission to stay, do they not have the right to certain benefits or to register with a GP?

Nigelb said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

Not entirely.
There are a number of utility scale battery storage projects, totalling over 100GWh, in some sort of planning:
https://www.renewableuk.com/energypulse/blog/battery-storage-capacity-in-the-uk-the-state-of-the-pipeline/

Presumably quite a few businesses think it worthwhile.

Cars will of course contribute an enormousl amount of storage over the next decade, but most of that won't be dispatchable.

I get the case for battery storage attached to a wind farm (or solar) or whatever: but I think the business case for dedicated battery storage away from either supply or demand is pretty weak. (Or rather, it's pretty fleeting, because as we add vehicles and home storage to the network, then the need for this kind of on grid backup diminishes sharply.)

stodge said:

Afternoon all

Met for lunch with an ex-colleague with whom I shared many a laugh and joke in the office over a number of years.

He is now squarely in the Reform camp - his line is not just the traditional "boats" but the notion the indigenous population (and, to be fair, never said "White", just British) were being disadvantaged in terms of welfare and housing provision by migrants "coming over here, taking every handout and living off our taxes".

This is a refrain I've heard before - there was a scintilla of admiration for "the Romanians, they grew up in a Communist society and know how to play the system. They come over here and we're wide open and they take everything". On the assumption, that's everything to which they are entitled, yes. Perhaps the issue, as we saw with winter fuel payments, is British people aren't taking the things to which they are entitled either through ignorance or a mistaken sense of pride.

The illegals have to go through a process but the legal migrants do all they need to do and ask for everything to which they are entitled. If they are considered British citizens and have entered the country legally and have been given permanent permission to stay, do they not have the right to certain benefits or to register with a GP?

The real issue surely is that we're taking so long to process the "boat people's", and indeed everyone else's, applications. Which means that the applicants whether eventually successful or not have to be put somewhere.

OldKingCole said:

stodge said:

Afternoon all

Met for lunch with an ex-colleague with whom I shared many a laugh and joke in the office over a number of years.

He is now squarely in the Reform camp - his line is not just the traditional "boats" but the notion the indigenous population (and, to be fair, never said "White", just British) were being disadvantaged in terms of welfare and housing provision by migrants "coming over here, taking every handout and living off our taxes".

This is a refrain I've heard before - there was a scintilla of admiration for "the Romanians, they grew up in a Communist society and know how to play the system. They come over here and we're wide open and they take everything". On the assumption, that's everything to which they are entitled, yes. Perhaps the issue, as we saw with winter fuel payments, is British people aren't taking the things to which they are entitled either through ignorance or a mistaken sense of pride.

The illegals have to go through a process but the legal migrants do all they need to do and ask for everything to which they are entitled. If they are considered British citizens and have entered the country legally and have been given permanent permission to stay, do they not have the right to certain benefits or to register with a GP?

The real issue surely is that we're taking so long to process the "boat people's", and indeed everyone else's, applications. Which means that the applicants whether eventually successful or not have to be put somewhere.

Probably true but the other issue seems to be the numbers getting some form of protection whether directly or on appeal.

https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/stay-informed/explainers/top-facts-from-the-latest-statistics-on-refugees-and-people-seeking-asylum/

Reportedly-"Ukrainian sea drones are now crashing into the defensive structures around the Kerch Bridge to clear the path for subsequent sea drones to reach the bridge itself."
https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/1929882892861116902

Nigelb said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

Not entirely.
There are a number of utility scale battery storage projects, totalling over 100GWh, in some sort of planning:
https://www.renewableuk.com/energypulse/blog/battery-storage-capacity-in-the-uk-the-state-of-the-pipeline/

Presumably quite a few businesses think it worthwhile.

Cars will of course contribute an enormousl amount of storage over the next decade, but most of that won't be dispatchable.

I get the case for battery storage attached to a wind farm (or solar) or whatever: but I think the business case for dedicated battery storage away from either supply or demand is pretty weak. (Or rather, it's pretty fleeting, because as we add vehicles and home storage to the network, then the need for this kind of on grid backup diminishes sharply.)

Not a few of these projects will be adjacent to demand - datacentres for example.

Fair: given that both power cost and guaranteed uptime are key to datacenter profitability, that makes sense.

Nigelb said:

Reportedly-"Ukrainian sea drones are now crashing into the defensive structures around the Kerch Bridge to clear the path for subsequent sea drones to reach the bridge itself."
https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/1929882892861116902

Losing the Bridge would be a horror show for Putin.

Maybe half a dozen Taurus missiles will finish it off.

I may be misremembering, but I thought I'd heard Ukraine planning FOUR high profile assaults?

MarqueeMark said:

Nigelb said:

Reportedly-"Ukrainian sea drones are now crashing into the defensive structures around the Kerch Bridge to clear the path for subsequent sea drones to reach the bridge itself."
https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/1929882892861116902

Losing the Bridge would be a horror show for Putin.

Maybe half a dozen Taurus missiles will finish it off.

I may be misremembering, but I thought I'd heard Ukraine planning FOUR high profile assaults?

Shhhh! Don't tip Hegseth off. He'll be straight on the blower to the Kremlin.

rcs1000 said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

On the couple of occasions over the last few decades where there's been an issue with the fuel supply for domestic motor vehicles, we always see cases of people dangerously storing fuel in their sheds, etc.

This is because in a situation of scarcity people do not behave economically rationally, they hoard scarce resources rather than sell them.

The same would be true of fully charged car batteries. If there's a high pressure forecast for a week, and even if a fully charged battery would normally last a person for a month of driving, rather than sell their excess energy for a profit, most people will want to hang onto it, just in case.

That is ultimately why there will be a market for grid scale storage owned by people willing to sell their energy at a profit when energy is scarce.

With that said... if power was properly priced, then people would make economically rational decisions
about when to use it too.

If it costs you £5 to run the dishwasher now, then maybe you'll postpone it.

You’d need a smart meter for that but @Luckyguy1983 thinks they’re woke

Gallowgate said:

rcs1000 said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

On the couple of occasions over the last few decades where there's been an issue with the fuel supply for domestic motor vehicles, we always see cases of people dangerously storing fuel in their sheds, etc.

This is because in a situation of scarcity people do not behave economically rationally, they hoard scarce resources rather than sell them.

The same would be true of fully charged car batteries. If there's a high pressure forecast for a week, and even if a fully charged battery would normally last a person for a month of driving, rather than sell their excess energy for a profit, most people will want to hang onto it, just in case.

That is ultimately why there will be a market for grid scale storage owned by people willing to sell their energy at a profit when energy is scarce.

With that said... if power was properly priced, then people would make economically rational decisions
about when to use it too.

If it costs you £5 to run the dishwasher now, then maybe you'll postpone it.

You’d need a smart meter for that but @Luckyguy1983 thinks they’re woke

Smart meters? The b@stards are always taking the knee!

rcs1000 said:

On the previous thread, there was a discussion about why we don't have more pumped storage.

And the answer is that there actually aren't that many suitable sites. You need to have two reservoirs that are very close, of sufficient size, and which have enough vertical drop between them.

That's a pretty rare combination.

They also take up a lot of space, are not inexpensive to build, are more convenient if they are close to existing intermittent power sources (and ideally demand) so as to avoid the need to build out transmission capacity, and are far from maintenance free.

Plus they often involve having to compulsory purchase order a bunch of people's property, because the chance that all the space is going to belong to a single landowner is really small.

The pumped storage schemes I mentioned in the Highlands use existing lochs (Ness and Awe) as the lower reservoir. You need to build the upper reservoirs, which are about 1km wide, on the mountain tops, land has no economic value. Drop is 500m. They are close to existing power lines that are being upgraded to handle additional wind farms. They are definitely expensive to build, but on current estimates a fraction of Hinckley C and probably more useful.

rcs1000 said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

On the couple of occasions over the last few decades where there's been an issue with the fuel supply for domestic motor vehicles, we always see cases of people dangerously storing fuel in their sheds, etc.

This is because in a situation of scarcity people do not behave economically rationally, they hoard scarce resources rather than sell them.

The same would be true of fully charged car batteries. If there's a high pressure forecast for a week, and even if a fully charged battery would normally last a person for a month of driving, rather than sell their excess energy for a profit, most people will want to hang onto it, just in case.

That is ultimately why there will be a market for grid scale storage owned by people willing to sell their energy at a profit when energy is scarce.

With that said... if power was properly priced, then people would make economically rational decisions
about when to use it too.

If it costs you £5 to run the dishwasher now, then maybe you'll postpone it.

This is the cost of my electricity right now. It's been negative most of the day, but now we're into peak hours it's just tipped up to 10p /kwH. Hence why I boiled the kettle half an hour ago:
https://agile.octopushome.net/dashboard

I thought this would be a good tariff to be on: actually it is, but not THAT good: in summer, when I am generating a lot of my own electricity through solar panels anyway it is cheap, and in winter when I am not it is expensive. And the times when I am generating the most correspond when the time when import prices and export prices are both lowest. I am in the fortunate position that most of my panels face just south of west, so I am still generating quite a lot during the 4-7pm peak, but even so: I need to find a way of using all this free but unexportable electricity. (My solution so far: hot tub (only an inflatable one; I'm not some plutocrat)).

Solar panels are great, but for saving money what you really want is a battery (I have a 5kw battery - I should have got a 10kw one).

rcs1000 said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

On the couple of occasions over the last few decades where there's been an issue with the fuel supply for domestic motor vehicles, we always see cases of people dangerously storing fuel in their sheds, etc.

This is because in a situation of scarcity people do not behave economically rationally, they hoard scarce resources rather than sell them.

The same would be true of fully charged car batteries. If there's a high pressure forecast for a week, and even if a fully charged battery would normally last a person for a month of driving, rather than sell their excess energy for a profit, most people will want to hang onto it, just in case.

That is ultimately why there will be a market for grid scale storage owned by people willing to sell their energy at a profit when energy is scarce.

With that said... if power was properly priced, then people would make economically rational decisions
about when to use it too.

If it costs you £5 to run the dishwasher now, then maybe you'll postpone it.

"Lower energy costs make retirement less expensive"

What was all that about pensioners freezing because there was no WFA? Wouldn't be surprised if the young started revolting over the amount they have to pay for rent and tax.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj42022gqzwo

FF43 said:

rcs1000 said:

On the previous thread, there was a discussion about why we don't have more pumped storage.

And the answer is that there actually aren't that many suitable sites. You need to have two reservoirs that are very close, of sufficient size, and which have enough vertical drop between them.

That's a pretty rare combination.

They also take up a lot of space, are not inexpensive to build, are more convenient if they are close to existing intermittent power sources (and ideally demand) so as to avoid the need to build out transmission capacity, and are far from maintenance free.

Plus they often involve having to compulsory purchase order a bunch of people's property, because the chance that all the space is going to belong to a single landowner is really small.

The pumped storage schemes I mentioned in the Highlands use existing lochs (Ness and Awe) as the lower reservoir. You need to build the upper reservoirs, which are about 1km wide, on the mountain tops, land has no economic value. Drop is 500m. They are close to existing power lines that are being upgraded to handle additional wind farms. They are definitely expensive to build, but on current estimates a fraction of Hinckley C and probably more useful.

"No economic value"

The Highlands of course do have economic value, and also value beyond economics.

I vote for paving over Surrey with solar farms and batteries instead. After all, the deer aren't the ones using the power.

rcs1000 said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

On the couple of occasions over the last few decades where there's been an issue with the fuel supply for domestic motor vehicles, we always see cases of people dangerously storing fuel in their sheds, etc.

This is because in a situation of scarcity people do not behave economically rationally, they hoard scarce resources rather than sell them.

The same would be true of fully charged car batteries. If there's a high pressure forecast for a week, and even if a fully charged battery would normally last a person for a month of driving, rather than sell their excess energy for a profit, most people will want to hang onto it, just in case.

That is ultimately why there will be a market for grid scale storage owned by people willing to sell their energy at a profit when energy is scarce.

With that said... if power was properly priced, then people would make economically rational decisions
about when to use it too.

If it costs you £5 to run the dishwasher now, then maybe you'll postpone it.

I dunno. I think that would be very unpopular and wouldn't last long in most democracies.

...

Nigelb said:

MarqueeMark said:

Nigelb said:

Reportedly-"Ukrainian sea drones are now crashing into the defensive structures around the Kerch Bridge to clear the path for subsequent sea drones to reach the bridge itself."
https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/1929882892861116902

Losing the Bridge would be a horror show for Putin.

Maybe half a dozen Taurus missiles will finish it off.

I may be misremembering, but I thought I'd heard Ukraine planning FOUR high profile assaults?

Blimey.
That's the head of the SBU ?
https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1929879402432610724

The dog looks scary too. I wonder which one could tear a head off with just their teeth quickest.

stodge said:

Afternoon all

Met for lunch with an ex-colleague with whom I shared many a laugh and joke in the office over a number of years.

He is now squarely in the Reform camp - his line is not just the traditional "boats" but the notion the indigenous population (and, to be fair, never said "White", just British) were being disadvantaged in terms of welfare and housing provision by migrants "coming over here, taking every handout and living off our taxes".

This is a refrain I've heard before - there was a scintilla of admiration for "the Romanians, they grew up in a Communist society and know how to play the system. They come over here and we're wide open and they take everything". On the assumption, that's everything to which they are entitled, yes. Perhaps the issue, as we saw with winter fuel payments, is British people aren't taking the things to which they are entitled either through ignorance or a mistaken sense of pride.

The illegals have to go through a process but the legal migrants do all they need to do and ask for everything to which they are entitled. If they are considered British citizens and have entered the country legally and have been given permanent permission to stay, do they not have the right to certain benefits or to register with a GP?

Many people think there ought to be a contributory element to welfare etc. So you can only claim after you have paid in enough. I seem to recall some countries give people made redundant different amounts of support depending on what their salary (and thus their tax) was.

There are for sure a lot of myths out there, but I'd imagine if you have been on the waiting list for a council house for a decade and you saw a recent immigrant getting ahead in the queue, you would be annoyed. Does this happen? Is it a myth?

BartholomewRoberts said:

Casino_Royale said:

Gallowgate said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

Andy_JS said:

"DW Politics
@dw_politics

JUST IN: A German court rules government's move to turn away asylum seekers at border is unlawful- in a blow to Chancellor Merz."

https://x.com/dw_politics/status/1929550116957860323

The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.

The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent

That's a great analogy.

But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.

Who wants this shit?

I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.

Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?

All companies are like this now. All of them.

The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.

So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.

That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.

I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.

No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.

It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.

You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.

Which one is it?

Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.

The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.

So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?

If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?

You really don't get this, do you?

You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.

This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.

[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]

Cookie said:

rcs1000 said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

On the couple of occasions over the last few decades where there's been an issue with the fuel supply for domestic motor vehicles, we always see cases of people dangerously storing fuel in their sheds, etc.

This is because in a situation of scarcity people do not behave economically rationally, they hoard scarce resources rather than sell them.

The same would be true of fully charged car batteries. If there's a high pressure forecast for a week, and even if a fully charged battery would normally last a person for a month of driving, rather than sell their excess energy for a profit, most people will want to hang onto it, just in case.

That is ultimately why there will be a market for grid scale storage owned by people willing to sell their energy at a profit when energy is scarce.

With that said... if power was properly priced, then people would make economically rational decisions
about when to use it too.

If it costs you £5 to run the dishwasher now, then maybe you'll postpone it.

This is the cost of my electricity right now. It's been negative most of the day, but now we're into peak hours it's just tipped up to 10p /kwH. Hence why I boiled the kettle half an hour ago:
https://agile.octopushome.net/dashboard

I thought this would be a good tariff to be on: actually it is, but not THAT good: in summer, when I am generating a lot of my own electricity through solar panels anyway it is cheap, and in winter when I am not it is expensive. And the times when I am generating the most correspond when the time when import prices and export prices are both lowest. I am in the fortunate position that most of my panels face just south of west, so I am still generating quite a lot during the 4-7pm peak, but even so: I need to find a way of using all this free but unexportable electricity. (My solution so far: hot tub (only an inflatable one; I'm not some plutocrat)).

Solar panels are great, but for saving money what you really want is a battery (I have a 5kw battery - I should have got a 10kw one).

I’m on intelligent octopus because I couldn’t get the maths to work on agile

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Casino_Royale said:

Gallowgate said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

Andy_JS said:

"DW Politics
@dw_politics

JUST IN: A German court rules government's move to turn away asylum seekers at border is unlawful- in a blow to Chancellor Merz."

https://x.com/dw_politics/status/1929550116957860323

The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.

The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent

That's a great analogy.

But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.

Who wants this shit?

I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.

Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?

All companies are like this now. All of them.

The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.

So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.

That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.

I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.

No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.

It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.

You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.

Which one is it?

Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.

The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.

So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?

If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?

You really don't get this, do you?

You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.

This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.

[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]

I am afraid you’re just simply wrong. You’re lying to yourself to justify your hatred and in the process self-limiting yourself.

Believe it if you want but it won’t do you any favours other than building pointless resentment for absolutely no reason.

Nigelb said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

Not entirely.
There are a number of utility scale battery storage projects, totalling over 100GWh, in some sort of planning:
https://www.renewableuk.com/energypulse/blog/battery-storage-capacity-in-the-uk-the-state-of-the-pipeline/

Presumably quite a few businesses think it worthwhile.

Cars will of course contribute an enormousl amount of storage over the next decade, but most of that won't be dispatchable.

But that further reinforces the point, it doesn't diminish it. That's equivalent to 11 Dinorwigs being built over the next decade, even without the fact that vehicles are equivalent to 200 more Dinorwigs.

In which case, why spend billions on a new Dinorwig? Its redundant.

turbotubbs said:

Nigelb said:

Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years.

What are we doing?
https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1929868372705235253

20 years? He's 57 now, his best years are behind him. You need to poach the 30 year olds.

I think the argument is that one / some of those 30 year olds are in his lab

Gallowgate said:

rcs1000 said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

On the couple of occasions over the last few decades where there's been an issue with the fuel supply for domestic motor vehicles, we always see cases of people dangerously storing fuel in their sheds, etc.

This is because in a situation of scarcity people do not behave economically rationally, they hoard scarce resources rather than sell them.

The same would be true of fully charged car batteries. If there's a high pressure forecast for a week, and even if a fully charged battery would normally last a person for a month of driving, rather than sell their excess energy for a profit, most people will want to hang onto it, just in case.

That is ultimately why there will be a market for grid scale storage owned by people willing to sell their energy at a profit when energy is scarce.

With that said... if power was properly priced, then people would make economically rational decisions
about when to use it too.

If it costs you £5 to run the dishwasher now, then maybe you'll postpone it.

You’d need a smart meter for that but @Luckyguy1983 thinks they’re woke

Woke people don't get Woke.

That's you, btw.

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Casino_Royale said:

Gallowgate said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

Andy_JS said:

"DW Politics
@dw_politics

JUST IN: A German court rules government's move to turn away asylum seekers at border is unlawful- in a blow to Chancellor Merz."

https://x.com/dw_politics/status/1929550116957860323

The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.

The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent

That's a great analogy.

But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.

Who wants this shit?

I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.

Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?

All companies are like this now. All of them.

The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.

So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.

That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.

I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.

No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.

It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.

You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.

Which one is it?

Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.

The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.

So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?

If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?

You really don't get this, do you?

You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.

This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.

[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]

Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.

turbotubbs said:

Nigelb said:

Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years.

What are we doing?
https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1929868372705235253

20 years? He's 57 now, his best years are behind him. You need to poach the 30 year olds.

Not if he knows how to put together a research team.

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Casino_Royale said:

Gallowgate said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

Andy_JS said:

"DW Politics
@dw_politics

JUST IN: A German court rules government's move to turn away asylum seekers at border is unlawful- in a blow to Chancellor Merz."

https://x.com/dw_politics/status/1929550116957860323

The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.

The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent

That's a great analogy.

But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.

Who wants this shit?

I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.

Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?

All companies are like this now. All of them.

The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.

So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.

That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.

I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.

No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.

It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.

You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.

Which one is it?

Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.

The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.

So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?

If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?

You really don't get this, do you?

You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.

This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.

[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]

I've never championed this stuff and its never afflicted my career. I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

In the past year I've had invitations to Easter events, Christmas events, Ramadan ones, Iftar (sp?), Diwali, Halloween, Valentine's and plenty of other stuff. Just pick and choose what you're interested in and ignore any you're not . . . which since I'm not especially keen on engaging in events at work means I tend to ignore everything but I have no objection to those who want to do stuff doing it.

Pride is just one of a plethora of stuff that happens. Get over it.

Eabhal said:

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Casino_Royale said:

Gallowgate said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

Andy_JS said:

"DW Politics
@dw_politics

JUST IN: A German court rules government's move to turn away asylum seekers at border is unlawful- in a blow to Chancellor Merz."

https://x.com/dw_politics/status/1929550116957860323

The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.

The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent

That's a great analogy.

But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.

Who wants this shit?

I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.

Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?

All companies are like this now. All of them.

The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.

So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.

That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.

I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.

No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.

It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.

You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.

Which one is it?

Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.

The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.

So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?

If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?

You really don't get this, do you?

You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.

This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.

[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]

Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.

And go where? If you're in an industry which supplies the public sector, there aren't any companies which aren't like this. Because it tends to be a condition of supplying the public sector.
Indeed, IME, companies which supply the public sector - whose business depends on them being woke - are rather more aggressively woke than the public sector itself - most of whom are just going through the motions.

Dopermean said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Nigelb said:

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

£-28 per mwh electricity price currently. Another day where our lack of storage, grid connections, electrified heavy industrial base and interconnector capacity means we’re leaving money on the table.

I don't understand why we haven't built more hydro-electric reservoirs over the last 30 years which could be used to store energy.

Because they're nosebleedingly expensive in relation to the power generated, in most cases.

If you dammed a very large Scottish valley, then it might be cost effective, but the (by a very long way) most attractive location for a mega project has been repeatedly vetoed (for understandable reasons).

This is an amazing project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

It is, but I doubt anything similar will be built again as it will very soon be cheaper to replicate its capabilities with a large battery storage facility.

I believe it cost around £425m, forty years ago. It would be nearer £1.5bn today, I think ?

Large battery storage isn't even that necessary when we're transitioning to lots of small battery storage.

Dinorwig's 9.1 GWh of storage is the equivalent of 140,000 vehicles with a 65 kWh battery, or the equivalent of 0.4% of the vehicles on the road.

Why spend billions on that, when we're transitioning anyway?

The amount of storage we will have in this country in a few years time utterly dwarfs anything imaginable today.

This is also spot on.

On the couple of occasions over the last few decades where there's been an issue with the fuel supply for domestic motor vehicles, we always see cases of people dangerously storing fuel in their sheds, etc.

This is because in a situation of scarcity people do not behave economically rationally, they hoard scarce resources rather than sell them.

The same would be true of fully charged car batteries. If there's a high pressure forecast for a week, and even if a fully charged battery would normally last a person for a month of driving, rather than sell their excess energy for a profit, most people will want to hang onto it, just in case.

That is ultimately why there will be a market for grid scale storage owned by people willing to sell their energy at a profit when energy is scarce.

With that said... if power was properly priced, then people would make economically rational decisions
about when to use it too.

If it costs you £5 to run the dishwasher now, then maybe you'll postpone it.

I dunno. I think that would be very unpopular and wouldn't last long in most democracies.

You can do it now with octopus, you just set your dishwasher/washing machine to start in x hours which all new ones can do. Just like you set your car to charge

People are used to the convenience of being able to use electricity when they want. A few geeks will enjoy playing the system and looking at the numbers, but most people will see it as a nuisance and a step backwards.

Household chores are enough of a hassle without having to plan them with the aid of the weather forecast. That's why people pay for a dishwasher, or a robot vacuum cleaner/lawnmower. They don't want to micromanage the whole thing.