I see are Scottish friends on the previous thread are taking Trump’s approach: I don’t like what the numbers say so they must be biased.
Here are my unskewed numbers for your reading pleasure.
This is your monthly reminder that the word 'estimate' or derivatives of it appears 135 times in the GERS report. Just because the estimate is 'official' doesn't make it accurate.
Coal is not the cheapest form of power generation, at least certainly not in the UK.
If you have a massive open pit mine full of coal, and you can build a power station next to it, then -yes- it is probably the cheapest power out there. But there are no massive open pit coal mines in the UK. And that's not because of environmental legislation, it's because if there were large deposits available at the surface in an area where land was very cheap, they would have been exploited already.
The problem with coal is that - while a tonne of coal at the pit (especially an open cast mine in Colombia or Australia or South Africa) - is pretty cheap, you have a *lot* of other costs.
For a start, you need to get the coal from the mine. So, you need to ship it (which is quite cheap). Then you need to unload it from your dry bulk ship (not so cheap), and then transport it to a coal fired power plant (now we're getting pretty expensive).
And the coal fired power plant takes up a lot of space, because it needs to store not just coal, but ash too. Which means that you probably can't have it near places that need the electricity because land is quite expensive in those places. (Plus, of course, getting the trucks of coal to the power station is no trivial matter either.)
Then there's maintenance. That coal plant needs complex conveyor belt systems to get the coal into the furnace. The motors on those wear out. They need people to make sure that it's sucking coal from the right place too. (Which again, requires complex machinery.) And the ash gets everywhere.
Compare and contrast with natural gas.
You have a pipe that brings natural gas. (No storage of fuel on site needed! No ash to deal with!). You have a GE or Siemens turbine. And sure, you probably have a secondary thermal cycle. But it doesn't require people or much maintenenance. And it can be spun up and down really quickly compared to coal, so that if there's a spike in power prices (or a dip) you don't lose a bunch of money.
It also costs you a lot less to build the natural gas power plant, it doesn't require much space, and it doesn't annoy the neighbours with trucks full of coal arriving 24 hours a day.
Coal plants in the US - even in States where there are essentially no significant environmental restrictions - are shutting. They simply can't compete with natural gas.
I've been down an interesting rabbit hole with FUKers and Dump Net Zero policy.
They're against wind and all cite the same data to prove that its more expensive than anything else. And they want it switched off tomorrow.
As Wind is a third of our generating capacity, we'd need to replace that with something else.
The best suggestion I've been told by one of their self-proclaimed energy experts? COAL. Specifically domestic coal.
Thing is, back when we had coal being dug from profitable pits, the imported stuff was cheaper, so we closed the pits. Now - so I am told - we can just reopen the pits and burn coal.
OK, lets imagine that we scrap planning laws so no cost from enquiries or any of that. Buy the land. Dig the holes. Erect the surface infrastructure, buy machinery and train men. Just to be able to access coal which used to be more expensive than imports when there was no access costs.
Coal. Is that really what they think can be done? And I used to mock Boris Johnson for "crayon policies". This lot are a whole new level of stupid.
Trouble is that they are half right. In £/Kwh for dispatachable generation* (ignoring taxes and subsidies) coal is cheaper than anything else by a country mile.
We were insane to knock down all our coal burning infrastructure (all that capex already spent), and we are still digging ourselves into an expensive energy hole rather than getting ourselves out of it - eg licensing offshore wind with strike prices greater than the current grid price.
That said, we are where we are now - local deep mined coal isn't coming back at scale - far too expensive to reopen, although there is still some opencast to be had.
Throwing up some big coal fired baseload plants and running on imported coal would probably be the straight up cheapest way forward, if we are determined to get electricity prices down. It's the only realistic way to decouple prices from the gas price any time soon. But I don't see Reform doing it.
What they might do is windfall tax all the CFD cash back - that would reduce prices (or at least, provide a big pile of cash that could be used to reduce prices). But the downside would be that no one would touch another government contract of this sort with someone else's barge pole for a very long time - and we still need people to build some sort of generating capacity.
*dispatchable - ie available when you need it, like after dark on a still winter night. Perfectly technically achievable with wind/solar + batteries, or more cheaply with wind/solar + gas backup, but all of this is more expensive than coal.
"We were insane to knock down all our coal burning infrastructure (all that capex already spent)"
Infrastructure does not last forever. A thermal power station generally has a 25-30 design life; that can be extended, but at increasing cost and reduced reliability. Most coal-fired power stations were at, or past, their lives when they were switched off and replaced (mostly) by CCGT. Mothballing is expensive as well, as is recommissioning afterwards. Any coal power station switched off more than a decade ago, and which has not been properly mothballed, would just be scrap now.
Coal is also *terrible* environmentally. The worst of the worst. The idea of going back to coal is insane. I have nothing against CCGT, though.
Were not most (if not all) coal mines closed down as uneconomic, though. Back in the 90's most of them, so any miners would now be at least in their 40's. Would they really fancy going back down the pit?
This is only partially true.
Yes they were uneconomic compared to importing coal from Poland or elsewhere in the world. But that of course depends on a secure supply and the price of the imported product not shooting through the roof. As with, for example, German gas supplies.
And yes they were uneconomic compared to home grown gas. But again that depends on the supply of home grown gas being secure - which is clearly not the case in the medium term - or on imported gas being both secure and reasonably priced. Again see German gas supplies.
That is not to say I think we should reopen the pits. But coal gasification is certainly something we should look at as part of a spread of energy supply methods.
Thanks.
Coal gasification being technology that doesn't currently exist in the form that is being talked off - underground, in situ.
Among other fun things, it will lead to subsidence on a fairly massive scale. And lots of CO2, unless you spend money on pumping that back down again.
A lot of UK coal reserves are offshore. Subsidance doesn't matter there.
And yes the technology does exist. It has been used successfully in trials for over 50 years. It is just that it has had no purpose until now since conventional mining and O&G provision has been sufficient to meet global needs.
Bear in mind many of the wells we drilled in the central North Sea in the 80s and 90s could not be produced with the technology that existed then because of the ultra high pressures. But once the demand for those hydrocarbons was there people actually started addressing how to produce it and now we can.
In situ gasification is a very interesting technology where I've lost quite a lot of money!
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
Tucker Carlson asks if Israel can hit a suspect from 30,000 feet how can they not see a church with a huge cross on the front? Tucker has had a damacene conversion somewhere along the line. I can see why he gets the big bucks
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
Coal is not the cheapest form of power generation, at least certainly not in the UK.
If you have a massive open pit mine full of coal, and you can build a power station next to it, then -yes- it is probably the cheapest power out there. But there are no massive open pit coal mines in the UK. And that's not because of environmental legislation, it's because if there were large deposits available at the surface in an area where land was very cheap, they would have been exploited already.
The problem with coal is that - while a tonne of coal at the pit (especially an open cast mine in Colombia or Australia or South Africa) - is pretty cheap, you have a *lot* of other costs.
For a start, you need to get the coal from the mine. So, you need to ship it (which is quite cheap). Then you need to unload it from your dry bulk ship (not so cheap), and then transport it to a coal fired power plant (now we're getting pretty expensive).
And the coal fired power plant takes up a lot of space, because it needs to store not just coal, but ash too. Which means that you probably can't have it near places that need the electricity because land is quite expensive in those places. (Plus, of course, getting the trucks of coal to the power station is no trivial matter either.)
Then there's maintenance. That coal plant needs complex conveyor belt systems to get the coal into the furnace. The motors on those wear out. They need people to make sure that it's sucking coal from the right place too. (Which again, requires complex machinery.) And the ash gets everywhere.
Compare and contrast with natural gas.
You have a pipe that brings natural gas. (No storage of fuel on site needed! No ash to deal with!). You have a GE or Siemens turbine. And sure, you probably have a secondary thermal cycle. But it doesn't require people or much maintenenance. And it can be spun up and down really quickly compared to coal, so that if there's a spike in power prices (or a dip) you don't lose a bunch of money.
It also costs you a lot less to build the natural gas power plant, it doesn't require much space, and it doesn't annoy the neighbours with trucks full of coal arriving 24 hours a day.
Coal plants in the US - even in States where there are essentially no significant environmental restrictions - are shutting. They simply can't compete with natural gas.
I agree with all of this but it is of course entirely predicated on the idea that you actually have a reliable source of natural gas. Something that is rapidly becoming a pipe dream in the UK as a result of political decisions.
In never kiss a Tory news, Sydney Sweeney is apparently a registered Republican.
Yes. I wonder now many “never kiss a republican” types would overcome their scruples if confronted by an eager Sydney sweeney - or her male equivalent
I see that the spectator article on this theme is now the most read on the spectator website
Nah, she's all yours mate!
You would not turn down Sydney Sweeney (absent some trivial moral reason like you’re married and faithful or whatever)
Doesn't float my boat.
I have a colleague who is W-A-Y hotter...
Of course you do. Why every woman that every PB-er knows is far hotter than Sydney Sweeney. Of course they are.
Not every woman. But this one just is more attractive. Better body. Better hair. Husky voiced. Whip smart. Great sense of humour.
If only she weren't somewhere between the age of my daughter and grand-daughter.
And gay.
Part of the marketing push around Sydney Sweeney is that in addition to her "assets" that she isn't a super model stick thin unique looker, she is actually an attractive woman that is perhaps somebody you might see around. The "girl next door" vibe as they used to say or in her case they lean into being a more outdoorsy type who likes shooting guns.
Whoever is managing her career is absolutely smashing it.
In what favoured corner of the world is Sydney Sweeney “the girl next door”??
She’s extremely pretty and curvy and blonde and petite and and and - and has that sultry sensuality as well. That come hither look
Where do you live? Coz I’d like to move next door but one
She’s pretty enough, but suspect that she looks less good in person. I happened to have lunch on Saturday with a senior guy in Hollywood (close friends with Jerry Bruckheimer level) and we were discussing this: a lot of it is to do with the angles at which the light reflects off their face - part natural and part really clever camera work - vs spectacular in-person beauty.
Edit: how was that for an unsubstantiated @Leon anecdote ?
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
Coal is not the cheapest form of power generation, at least certainly not in the UK.
If you have a massive open pit mine full of coal, and you can build a power station next to it, then -yes- it is probably the cheapest power out there. But there are no massive open pit coal mines in the UK. And that's not because of environmental legislation, it's because if there were large deposits available at the surface in an area where land was very cheap, they would have been exploited already.
The problem with coal is that - while a tonne of coal at the pit (especially an open cast mine in Colombia or Australia or South Africa) - is pretty cheap, you have a *lot* of other costs.
For a start, you need to get the coal from the mine. So, you need to ship it (which is quite cheap). Then you need to unload it from your dry bulk ship (not so cheap), and then transport it to a coal fired power plant (now we're getting pretty expensive).
And the coal fired power plant takes up a lot of space, because it needs to store not just coal, but ash too. Which means that you probably can't have it near places that need the electricity because land is quite expensive in those places. (Plus, of course, getting the trucks of coal to the power station is no trivial matter either.)
Then there's maintenance. That coal plant needs complex conveyor belt systems to get the coal into the furnace. The motors on those wear out. They need people to make sure that it's sucking coal from the right place too. (Which again, requires complex machinery.) And the ash gets everywhere.
Compare and contrast with natural gas.
You have a pipe that brings natural gas. (No storage of fuel on site needed! No ash to deal with!). You have a GE or Siemens turbine. And sure, you probably have a secondary thermal cycle. But it doesn't require people or much maintenenance. And it can be spun up and down really quickly compared to coal, so that if there's a spike in power prices (or a dip) you don't lose a bunch of money.
It also costs you a lot less to build the natural gas power plant, it doesn't require much space, and it doesn't annoy the neighbours with trucks full of coal arriving 24 hours a day.
Coal plants in the US - even in States where there are essentially no significant environmental restrictions - are shutting. They simply can't compete with natural gas.
I agree with all of this but it is of course entirely predicated on the idea that you actually have a reliable source of natural gas. Something that is rapidly becoming a pipe dream in the UK as a result of political decisions.
I agree that we should do more to improve the security of our natural gas supply.
But it is worth remembering that coal and natural gas prices are essentially 100% correlated, because they both compete to provide electricity.
So places that depended on imported coal saw just the same sized rise in electricity prices when Russia invaded as Ukraine.
Coal is not the cheapest form of power generation, at least certainly not in the UK.
If you have a massive open pit mine full of coal, and you can build a power station next to it, then -yes- it is probably the cheapest power out there. But there are no massive open pit coal mines in the UK. And that's not because of environmental legislation, it's because if there were large deposits available at the surface in an area where land was very cheap, they would have been exploited already.
The problem with coal is that - while a tonne of coal at the pit (especially an open cast mine in Colombia or Australia or South Africa) - is pretty cheap, you have a *lot* of other costs.
For a start, you need to get the coal from the mine. So, you need to ship it (which is quite cheap). Then you need to unload it from your dry bulk ship (not so cheap), and then transport it to a coal fired power plant (now we're getting pretty expensive).
And the coal fired power plant takes up a lot of space, because it needs to store not just coal, but ash too. Which means that you probably can't have it near places that need the electricity because land is quite expensive in those places. (Plus, of course, getting the trucks of coal to the power station is no trivial matter either.)
Then there's maintenance. That coal plant needs complex conveyor belt systems to get the coal into the furnace. The motors on those wear out. They need people to make sure that it's sucking coal from the right place too. (Which again, requires complex machinery.) And the ash gets everywhere.
Compare and contrast with natural gas.
You have a pipe that brings natural gas. (No storage of fuel on site needed! No ash to deal with!). You have a GE or Siemens turbine. And sure, you probably have a secondary thermal cycle. But it doesn't require people or much maintenenance. And it can be spun up and down really quickly compared to coal, so that if there's a spike in power prices (or a dip) you don't lose a bunch of money.
It also costs you a lot less to build the natural gas power plant, it doesn't require much space, and it doesn't annoy the neighbours with trucks full of coal arriving 24 hours a day.
Coal plants in the US - even in States where there are essentially no significant environmental restrictions - are shutting. They simply can't compete with natural gas.
I agree with all of this but it is of course entirely predicated on the idea that you actually have a reliable source of natural gas. Something that is rapidly becoming a pipe dream in the UK as a result of political decisions.
I agree that we should do more to improve the security of our natural gas supply.
But it is worth remembering that coal and natural gas prices are essentially 100% correlated, because they both compete to provide electricity.
So places that depended on imported coal saw just the same sized rise in electricity prices when Russia invaded as Ukraine.
On the Fundamental Interconnectedness of Energy Prices
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
Coal is not the cheapest form of power generation, at least certainly not in the UK.
If you have a massive open pit mine full of coal, and you can build a power station next to it, then -yes- it is probably the cheapest power out there. But there are no massive open pit coal mines in the UK. And that's not because of environmental legislation, it's because if there were large deposits available at the surface in an area where land was very cheap, they would have been exploited already.
The problem with coal is that - while a tonne of coal at the pit (especially an open cast mine in Colombia or Australia or South Africa) - is pretty cheap, you have a *lot* of other costs.
For a start, you need to get the coal from the mine. So, you need to ship it (which is quite cheap). Then you need to unload it from your dry bulk ship (not so cheap), and then transport it to a coal fired power plant (now we're getting pretty expensive).
And the coal fired power plant takes up a lot of space, because it needs to store not just coal, but ash too. Which means that you probably can't have it near places that need the electricity because land is quite expensive in those places. (Plus, of course, getting the trucks of coal to the power station is no trivial matter either.)
Then there's maintenance. That coal plant needs complex conveyor belt systems to get the coal into the furnace. The motors on those wear out. They need people to make sure that it's sucking coal from the right place too. (Which again, requires complex machinery.) And the ash gets everywhere.
Compare and contrast with natural gas.
You have a pipe that brings natural gas. (No storage of fuel on site needed! No ash to deal with!). You have a GE or Siemens turbine. And sure, you probably have a secondary thermal cycle. But it doesn't require people or much maintenenance. And it can be spun up and down really quickly compared to coal, so that if there's a spike in power prices (or a dip) you don't lose a bunch of money.
It also costs you a lot less to build the natural gas power plant, it doesn't require much space, and it doesn't annoy the neighbours with trucks full of coal arriving 24 hours a day.
Coal plants in the US - even in States where there are essentially no significant environmental restrictions - are shutting. They simply can't compete with natural gas.
"it doesn't require much space,"
I was quite surprised how small the footprint of my local 700 MW CCGT is. The car park and switchgear are about as large as the actual generating buildings and cooling towers.
I've been down an interesting rabbit hole with FUKers and Dump Net Zero policy.
They're against wind and all cite the same data to prove that its more expensive than anything else. And they want it switched off tomorrow.
As Wind is a third of our generating capacity, we'd need to replace that with something else.
The best suggestion I've been told by one of their self-proclaimed energy experts? COAL. Specifically domestic coal.
Thing is, back when we had coal being dug from profitable pits, the imported stuff was cheaper, so we closed the pits. Now - so I am told - we can just reopen the pits and burn coal.
OK, lets imagine that we scrap planning laws so no cost from enquiries or any of that. Buy the land. Dig the holes. Erect the surface infrastructure, buy machinery and train men. Just to be able to access coal which used to be more expensive than imports when there was no access costs.
Coal. Is that really what they think can be done? And I used to mock Boris Johnson for "crayon policies". This lot are a whole new level of stupid.
Trouble is that they are half right. In £/Kwh for dispatachable generation* (ignoring taxes and subsidies) coal is cheaper than anything else by a country mile.
We were insane to knock down all our coal burning infrastructure (all that capex already spent), and we are still digging ourselves into an expensive energy hole rather than getting ourselves out of it - eg licensing offshore wind with strike prices greater than the current grid price.
That said, we are where we are now - local deep mined coal isn't coming back at scale - far too expensive to reopen, although there is still some opencast to be had.
Throwing up some big coal fired baseload plants and running on imported coal would probably be the straight up cheapest way forward, if we are determined to get electricity prices down. It's the only realistic way to decouple prices from the gas price any time soon. But I don't see Reform doing it.
What they might do is windfall tax all the CFD cash back - that would reduce prices (or at least, provide a big pile of cash that could be used to reduce prices). But the downside would be that no one would touch another government contract of this sort with someone else's barge pole for a very long time - and we still need people to build some sort of generating capacity.
*dispatchable - ie available when you need it, like after dark on a still winter night. Perfectly technically achievable with wind/solar + batteries, or more cheaply with wind/solar + gas backup, but all of this is more expensive than coal.
"We were insane to knock down all our coal burning infrastructure (all that capex already spent)"
Infrastructure does not last forever. A thermal power station generally has a 25-30 design life; that can be extended, but at increasing cost and reduced reliability. Most coal-fired power stations were at, or past, their lives when they were switched off and replaced (mostly) by CCGT. Mothballing is expensive as well, as is recommissioning afterwards. Any coal power station switched off more than a decade ago, and which has not been properly mothballed, would just be scrap now.
Coal is also *terrible* environmentally. The worst of the worst. The idea of going back to coal is insane. I have nothing against CCGT, though.
Were not most (if not all) coal mines closed down as uneconomic, though. Back in the 90's most of them, so any miners would now be at least in their 40's. Would they really fancy going back down the pit?
This is only partially true.
Yes they were uneconomic compared to importing coal from Poland or elsewhere in the world. But that of course depends on a secure supply and the price of the imported product not shooting through the roof. As with, for example, German gas supplies.
And yes they were uneconomic compared to home grown gas. But again that depends on the supply of home grown gas being secure - which is clearly not the case in the medium term - or on imported gas being both secure and reasonably priced. Again see German gas supplies.
That is not to say I think we should reopen the pits. But coal gasification is certainly something we should look at as part of a spread of energy supply methods.
Thanks.
Coal gasification being technology that doesn't currently exist in the form that is being talked off - underground, in situ.
Among other fun things, it will lead to subsidence on a fairly massive scale. And lots of CO2, unless you spend money on pumping that back down again.
A lot of UK coal reserves are offshore. Subsidance doesn't matter there.
And yes the technology does exist. It has been used successfully in trials for over 50 years. It is just that it has had no purpose until now since conventional mining and O&G provision has been sufficient to meet global needs.
Bear in mind many of the wells we drilled in the central North Sea in the 80s and 90s could not be produced with the technology that existed then because of the ultra high pressures. But once the demand for those hydrocarbons was there people actually started addressing how to produce it and now we can.
In situ gasification is a very interesting technology where I've lost quite a lot of money!
I've been down an interesting rabbit hole with FUKers and Dump Net Zero policy.
They're against wind and all cite the same data to prove that its more expensive than anything else. And they want it switched off tomorrow.
As Wind is a third of our generating capacity, we'd need to replace that with something else.
The best suggestion I've been told by one of their self-proclaimed energy experts? COAL. Specifically domestic coal.
Thing is, back when we had coal being dug from profitable pits, the imported stuff was cheaper, so we closed the pits. Now - so I am told - we can just reopen the pits and burn coal.
OK, lets imagine that we scrap planning laws so no cost from enquiries or any of that. Buy the land. Dig the holes. Erect the surface infrastructure, buy machinery and train men. Just to be able to access coal which used to be more expensive than imports when there was no access costs.
Coal. Is that really what they think can be done? And I used to mock Boris Johnson for "crayon policies". This lot are a whole new level of stupid.
Trouble is that they are half right. In £/Kwh for dispatachable generation* (ignoring taxes and subsidies) coal is cheaper than anything else by a country mile.
We were insane to knock down all our coal burning infrastructure (all that capex already spent), and we are still digging ourselves into an expensive energy hole rather than getting ourselves out of it - eg licensing offshore wind with strike prices greater than the current grid price.
That said, we are where we are now - local deep mined coal isn't coming back at scale - far too expensive to reopen, although there is still some opencast to be had.
Throwing up some big coal fired baseload plants and running on imported coal would probably be the straight up cheapest way forward, if we are determined to get electricity prices down. It's the only realistic way to decouple prices from the gas price any time soon. But I don't see Reform doing it.
What they might do is windfall tax all the CFD cash back - that would reduce prices (or at least, provide a big pile of cash that could be used to reduce prices). But the downside would be that no one would touch another government contract of this sort with someone else's barge pole for a very long time - and we still need people to build some sort of generating capacity.
*dispatchable - ie available when you need it, like after dark on a still winter night. Perfectly technically achievable with wind/solar + batteries, or more cheaply with wind/solar + gas backup, but all of this is more expensive than coal.
"We were insane to knock down all our coal burning infrastructure (all that capex already spent)"
Infrastructure does not last forever. A thermal power station generally has a 25-30 design life; that can be extended, but at increasing cost and reduced reliability. Most coal-fired power stations were at, or past, their lives when they were switched off and replaced (mostly) by CCGT. Mothballing is expensive as well, as is recommissioning afterwards. Any coal power station switched off more than a decade ago, and which has not been properly mothballed, would just be scrap now.
Coal is also *terrible* environmentally. The worst of the worst. The idea of going back to coal is insane. I have nothing against CCGT, though.
Were not most (if not all) coal mines closed down as uneconomic, though. Back in the 90's most of them, so any miners would now be at least in their 40's. Would they really fancy going back down the pit?
This is only partially true.
Yes they were uneconomic compared to importing coal from Poland or elsewhere in the world. But that of course depends on a secure supply and the price of the imported product not shooting through the roof. As with, for example, German gas supplies.
And yes they were uneconomic compared to home grown gas. But again that depends on the supply of home grown gas being secure - which is clearly not the case in the medium term - or on imported gas being both secure and reasonably priced. Again see German gas supplies.
That is not to say I think we should reopen the pits. But coal gasification is certainly something we should look at as part of a spread of energy supply methods.
Thanks.
Coal gasification being technology that doesn't currently exist in the form that is being talked off - underground, in situ.
Among other fun things, it will lead to subsidence on a fairly massive scale. And lots of CO2, unless you spend money on pumping that back down again.
A lot of UK coal reserves are offshore. Subsidance doesn't matter there.
And yes the technology does exist. It has been used successfully in trials for over 50 years. It is just that it has had no purpose until now since conventional mining and O&G provision has been sufficient to meet global needs.
Bear in mind many of the wells we drilled in the central North Sea in the 80s and 90s could not be produced with the technology that existed then because of the ultra high pressures. But once the demand for those hydrocarbons was there people actually started addressing how to produce it and now we can.
In situ gasification is a very interesting technology where I've lost quite a lot of money!
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
RefUK figures are walking closer to the edge. A senior public figure putting out that information *after* a trial has started when it is not in the public domain already - assuming it is true - is surely something a Defence Lawyer would have to raise as part of the duty to the client when it comes to trial?
That's very similar to the Lee Anderson one before the demonstration in Ashfield.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
RefUK figures are walking closer to the edge. A senior public figure putting out that information *after* a trial has started when it is not in the public domain already - assuming it is true - is surely something a Defence Lawyer would have to raise as part of the duty to the client when it comes to trial?
That's very similar to the Lee Anderson one before the demonstration in Ashfield.
Perhaps it's one to watch?
They didn't put it out after, they put it out before. The letter that claimed this was made public over the weekend, Sat to be precise.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
Could you take a pic of the stated standards applied to e-bike batteries. What certification process do they go through and is it self-certified or independent test house. Got rid of my ebike a few months ago so I would have checked myself.
But I do have some skin in this game as we bought our new grandson an e-pram. The pram will provide assist at certain speeds. We'd like to know the pram is safe. (It's weird watch the pram move back and forwards on one setting. It's like watching the Omen.)
I've been down an interesting rabbit hole with FUKers and Dump Net Zero policy.
They're against wind and all cite the same data to prove that its more expensive than anything else. And they want it switched off tomorrow.
As Wind is a third of our generating capacity, we'd need to replace that with something else.
The best suggestion I've been told by one of their self-proclaimed energy experts? COAL. Specifically domestic coal.
Thing is, back when we had coal being dug from profitable pits, the imported stuff was cheaper, so we closed the pits. Now - so I am told - we can just reopen the pits and burn coal.
OK, lets imagine that we scrap planning laws so no cost from enquiries or any of that. Buy the land. Dig the holes. Erect the surface infrastructure, buy machinery and train men. Just to be able to access coal which used to be more expensive than imports when there was no access costs.
Coal. Is that really what they think can be done? And I used to mock Boris Johnson for "crayon policies". This lot are a whole new level of stupid.
Trouble is that they are half right. In £/Kwh for dispatachable generation* (ignoring taxes and subsidies) coal is cheaper than anything else by a country mile.
We were insane to knock down all our coal burning infrastructure (all that capex already spent), and we are still digging ourselves into an expensive energy hole rather than getting ourselves out of it - eg licensing offshore wind with strike prices greater than the current grid price.
That said, we are where we are now - local deep mined coal isn't coming back at scale - far too expensive to reopen, although there is still some opencast to be had.
Throwing up some big coal fired baseload plants and running on imported coal would probably be the straight up cheapest way forward, if we are determined to get electricity prices down. It's the only realistic way to decouple prices from the gas price any time soon. But I don't see Reform doing it.
What they might do is windfall tax all the CFD cash back - that would reduce prices (or at least, provide a big pile of cash that could be used to reduce prices). But the downside would be that no one would touch another government contract of this sort with someone else's barge pole for a very long time - and we still need people to build some sort of generating capacity.
*dispatchable - ie available when you need it, like after dark on a still winter night. Perfectly technically achievable with wind/solar + batteries, or more cheaply with wind/solar + gas backup, but all of this is more expensive than coal.
"We were insane to knock down all our coal burning infrastructure (all that capex already spent)"
Infrastructure does not last forever. A thermal power station generally has a 25-30 design life; that can be extended, but at increasing cost and reduced reliability. Most coal-fired power stations were at, or past, their lives when they were switched off and replaced (mostly) by CCGT. Mothballing is expensive as well, as is recommissioning afterwards. Any coal power station switched off more than a decade ago, and which has not been properly mothballed, would just be scrap now.
Coal is also *terrible* environmentally. The worst of the worst. The idea of going back to coal is insane. I have nothing against CCGT, though.
Were not most (if not all) coal mines closed down as uneconomic, though. Back in the 90's most of them, so any miners would now be at least in their 40's. Would they really fancy going back down the pit?
This is only partially true.
Yes they were uneconomic compared to importing coal from Poland or elsewhere in the world. But that of course depends on a secure supply and the price of the imported product not shooting through the roof. As with, for example, German gas supplies.
And yes they were uneconomic compared to home grown gas. But again that depends on the supply of home grown gas being secure - which is clearly not the case in the medium term - or on imported gas being both secure and reasonably priced. Again see German gas supplies.
That is not to say I think we should reopen the pits. But coal gasification is certainly something we should look at as part of a spread of energy supply methods.
Uneconomic is not the same as unprofitable. I wouldn’t expect the media to understand that, but I would expect folks on here to know the difference.
3 local by elections again this week 2 Labour defences - Cannock Chase which i think Reform should gain, they got 20% here in 2024 to Con 24% and Lab 41% before the Reformgasm and Carmarthenshire- Lab beat Plaid 62 38 here last time but lots more have stood this time. Reform have slightly underwhelmed in Wales recently so I'll go Lab hold (from Plaid) And Reform defend another resignation from May, In Durham (Easington) - they took this 50 to 22 from an Indy and 19 Lab so I think this should be their first successful seat defence/hold but watching what majority they can command will be interesting
Further to the PB discussion about WWI the other day:
Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah · 2h Today is the 111th anniversary of the suicide of the British Empire, which needlessly joined in the Russo-German war of 1914, losing huge numbers of lives, naval supremacy and solvency, defaulting on its US debts(still unpaid today) in 1934.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
Could you take a pic of the stated standards applied to e-bike batteries. What certification process do they go through and is it self-certified or independent test house. Got rid of my ebike a few months ago so I would have checked myself.
But I do have some skin in this game as we bought our new grandson an e-pram. The pram will provide assist at certain speeds. We'd like to know the pram is safe. (It's weird watch the pram move back and forwards on one setting. It's like watching the Omen.)
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
I see are Scottish friends on the previous thread are taking Trump’s approach: I don’t like what the numbers say so they must be biased.
Here are my unskewed numbers for your reading pleasure.
This is your monthly reminder that the word 'estimate' or derivatives of it appears 135 times in the GERS report. Just because the estimate is 'official' doesn't make it accurate.
Doubt the idiot has ever seen it , he got his info from the SUN so it must be true . Surprised it is only 135 "estimates". A fairy tale for sure.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
My guess is that you'd hit pushback couched as "Trade barriers".
The real issues would be that this would require wholesale testing and certification of lithium batteries. The problem is that self test works for reputable brands. But there will be a howl from China et al, if you don't allow them the same courtesy as Apple or Brompton.
The quality producers will be upset if nothing is done to stop the shitbags - because the shitbags are cheaper and will take the market.
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
I think that's cumulative capex on the railways, rather than annual.
Peak railway capex was 1847, when it was a nominal 50m GBP out of a 600m GDP, so peaked at 8%.
There was an enormous crash too though, and a massively inefficient set of outcomes (e.g. Queen Street and Central not lining up). Maybe a lesson there for the AI bros - along with the transformative but enormously disruptive agricultural revolution.
I completely agree that the Tories need to recover their UasP which historically was a clear commitment to sound finances.
Of course that was often more honoured in word than deed, but nonetheless always went down well.
It involves telling some hard truths, not least that tax cuts come after rather than before the economy stabilises. Most of all it means an end to things like the Triple Lock and indexing of things like benefits. There will be increases, but only when the national finances can take it.
It may well not win the next election, but may well win the one after.
Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr are backing a new blank cheque investment vehicle targeting US manufacturers and looking to benefit from government spending.
The launch of New America Acquisition I Corp marks the latest Trump family foray into public markets. The vehicle will seek to buy a US company that plays “a meaningful role in revitalising domestic manufacturing, expanding innovation ecosystems, and strengthening critical supply chains”, the group said on Monday.
GB News have 80,000 viewers on average and that's the most watched news service?
I met a girl yesterday who's an influencer who models and sells lingerie online and she has 220,000 followers.
I'm surprised GB News on those figures can keep running
They've been bleeding money since launch, but have deep-pocketed backers. A broadcast news channel is mostly a vanity project now.
In the same reports that talked about viewership said they are now break even.
However, from the get go it was obviously there is no massive pot of gold like in the US for tv news, it has never got massive viewership outside those 30 mins primetime slots on BBC / ITV. We aren't like the US were Fox can get 3 million viewers for a late night satire show.
The big loser in all this is Sky News, they are getting absolutely hammered.
Agreed, Sky News was the future once in 24 hour news broadcasting, and now its a shadow of itself.
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
I completely agree that the Tories need to recover their UasP which historically was a clear commitment to sound finances.
Of course that was often more honoured in word than deed, but nonetheless always went down well.
It involves telling some hard truths, not least that tax cuts come after rather than before the economy stabilises. Most of all it means an end to things like the Triple Lock and indexing of things like benefits. There will be increases, but only when the national finances can take it.
It may well not win the next election, but may well win the one after.
It was always smoke and mirrors promoted by Tory newspapers whose owners didn't/ don't like taxation to spend on public services and poor people. I believe the newspapers call that profligacy.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
Could you take a pic of the stated standards applied to e-bike batteries. What certification process do they go through and is it self-certified or independent test house. Got rid of my ebike a few months ago so I would have checked myself.
But I do have some skin in this game as we bought our new grandson an e-pram. The pram will provide assist at certain speeds. We'd like to know the pram is safe. (It's weird watch the pram move back and forwards on one setting. It's like watching the Omen.)
I'll have a look.
A new Baby Face Finlayson, eh?
Had a quick look at the guidance and you're probably aware of these
I was involved in producing electrical components for the UK grid / power stations all of which required a lot of independent testing/certification. Lots of cost.
But in looking at the consumer level there is much less rigour applied as it looks like self-certification / inhouse testing. The issue here would be that you can't quite be sure if the foreign supplier actually carried out the test and the foreign test house actually did the work. Evidenced by the issue you are now facing. Looks like the government's response would be to resort to threats/fines if negligence/fraud results in injury rather than 'overburdening industry with regulation'. So since the self-regulating genie is out of its bottle, everyone is scrambling to deal with the quality control problem (as defined by the GPSR 2005) by reaching for a ban.
Global manufacturers know their markets well and know where they can send B-grade items without much comeback. Perhaps the UK is now a B-grade market.
Coal is not the cheapest form of power generation, at least certainly not in the UK.
If you have a massive open pit mine full of coal, and you can build a power station next to it, then -yes- it is probably the cheapest power out there. But there are no massive open pit coal mines in the UK. And that's not because of environmental legislation, it's because if there were large deposits available at the surface in an area where land was very cheap, they would have been exploited already.
The problem with coal is that - while a tonne of coal at the pit (especially an open cast mine in Colombia or Australia or South Africa) - is pretty cheap, you have a *lot* of other costs.
For a start, you need to get the coal from the mine. So, you need to ship it (which is quite cheap). Then you need to unload it from your dry bulk ship (not so cheap), and then transport it to a coal fired power plant (now we're getting pretty expensive).
And the coal fired power plant takes up a lot of space, because it needs to store not just coal, but ash too. Which means that you probably can't have it near places that need the electricity because land is quite expensive in those places. (Plus, of course, getting the trucks of coal to the power station is no trivial matter either.)
Then there's maintenance. That coal plant needs complex conveyor belt systems to get the coal into the furnace. The motors on those wear out. They need people to make sure that it's sucking coal from the right place too. (Which again, requires complex machinery.) And the ash gets everywhere.
Compare and contrast with natural gas.
You have a pipe that brings natural gas. (No storage of fuel on site needed! No ash to deal with!). You have a GE or Siemens turbine. And sure, you probably have a secondary thermal cycle. But it doesn't require people or much maintenenance. And it can be spun up and down really quickly compared to coal, so that if there's a spike in power prices (or a dip) you don't lose a bunch of money.
It also costs you a lot less to build the natural gas power plant, it doesn't require much space, and it doesn't annoy the neighbours with trucks full of coal arriving 24 hours a day.
Coal plants in the US - even in States where there are essentially no significant environmental restrictions - are shutting. They simply can't compete with natural gas.
I agree with all of this but it is of course entirely predicated on the idea that you actually have a reliable source of natural gas. Something that is rapidly becoming a pipe dream in the UK as a result of political decisions.
Hello from the dark ages, where SSE advise that we will get power restored in 24 hours...
I cannot keep up with the amount of roads now closed due to fallen trees in Aberdeen and the Shire, and the biggest surprise for me (fingers crossed), is that we still have power right now. Usually the power goes off here at the first strong gust of wind on a stormy day, the irony is that SSE had planned a five hour power cut for us today to carry out work which was quickly cancelled over the weekend due to the incoming storm.
It such a regular thing in the North East that when my son and his girlfriend bought their first home a couple of years ago they were given an emergency power cut kit as a present!
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
The 80s saw an (estimated - GDP stats are sketchy for back then, even more so in the 70s) 6% annual spending. Which was clearly an over allocation of capital.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
I think that's cumulative capex on the railways, rather than annual.
Peak railway capex was 1847, when it was a nominal 50m GBP out of a 600m GDP, so peaked at 8%.
I've never quite worked out why railways aren't complete money machines. Obviously they're not, but to me it seems they should be.
Even at the peak, the return on investment was quite low. Expensive to build, expensive to run.
Which is why they got slaughtered by cars. And require subsidy, universally, for passenger services.
Of course yes. And it seems a bit obvious in hindsight. Nonetheless, if I'd been alive at the time, I'd have been as keen as mustard to invest.
(I'm still convinced that somebody, somewhere will make a fortune on the railways. In an otherwise rather difficult book the glamour the the railways shines through in Atlas Shrugged)
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
My guess is that you'd hit pushback couched as "Trade barriers".
The real issues would be that this would require wholesale testing and certification of lithium batteries. The problem is that self test works for reputable brands. But there will be a howl from China et al, if you don't allow them the same courtesy as Apple or Brompton.
The quality producers will be upset if nothing is done to stop the shitbags - because the shitbags are cheaper and will take the market.
The price of batteries is coming then so fast, and the technology is improving at a sufficient rate to make the prospect of differentiation by safety etc quite attractive, including for China, who have the best tech anyway.
The EU is certainly a large enough market for such industry standards to happen fairly soon.
Hello from the dark ages, where SSE advise that we will get power restored in 24 hours...
I cannot keep up with the amount of roads now closed due to fallen trees in Aberdeen and the Shire, and the biggest surprise for me (fingers crossed), is that we still have power right now. Usually the power goes off here at the first strong gust of wind on a stormy day, the irony is that SSE had planned a five hour power cut for us today to carry out work which was quickly cancelled over the weekend due to the incoming storm.
It such a regular thing in the North East that when my son and his girlfriend bought their first home a couple of years ago they were given an emergency power cut kit as a present!
Large chunks of Scotland now with a powercut. It is extremely gusty here but no issues so far - the mature trees at the end of the street are taking a hammering.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
My guess is that you'd hit pushback couched as "Trade barriers".
The real issues would be that this would require wholesale testing and certification of lithium batteries. The problem is that self test works for reputable brands. But there will be a howl from China et al, if you don't allow them the same courtesy as Apple or Brompton.
The quality producers will be upset if nothing is done to stop the shitbags - because the shitbags are cheaper and will take the market.
Let them howl, their substandard products are not only burning houses down and killing people, but are also easily modifiable as to be be dangerous on the roads, killing more people.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
What do you mean? They haven't announced the race or resident status of the accused, have they? Just his name, age and address.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
I won't post it, but Google shows the suspect has quite the surprising middle name.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski · 5h The Texas governor is threatening to arrest Texas Democrats for refusing to participate in a special session he has called to virtually eliminate representation in Congress for 8 million Texas Democrats.
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
I think that's cumulative capex on the railways, rather than annual.
Peak railway capex was 1847, when it was a nominal 50m GBP out of a 600m GDP, so peaked at 8%.
I've never quite worked out why railways aren't complete money machines. Obviously they're not, but to me it seems they should be.
Even at the peak, the return on investment was quite low. Expensive to build, expensive to run.
Which is why they got slaughtered by cars. And require subsidy, universally, for passenger services.
Of course yes. And it seems a bit obvious in hindsight. Nonetheless, if I'd been alive at the time, I'd have been as keen as mustard to invest.
(I'm still convinced that somebody, somewhere will make a fortune on the railways. In an otherwise rather difficult book the glamour the the railways shines through in Atlas Shrugged)
For that you need to reduce the cost of railways massively. Or raise the prices people will pay.
If you could automate tunnel boring - imagine you could drill a tunnel from anywhere to anywhere at a trivial cost. Dead straight.
Mind you, the same technology would work for cars - electric cars would be trivial (massively reduced ventilation requirements). Cars don't need a zillion pounds in signalling and wiring.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
My guess is that you'd hit pushback couched as "Trade barriers".
The real issues would be that this would require wholesale testing and certification of lithium batteries. The problem is that self test works for reputable brands. But there will be a howl from China et al, if you don't allow them the same courtesy as Apple or Brompton.
The quality producers will be upset if nothing is done to stop the shitbags - because the shitbags are cheaper and will take the market.
Let them howl, their substandard products are not only burning houses down and killing people, but are also easily modifiable as to be be dangerous on the roads, killing more people.
Why would China (as opposed to a few of their more dodgy suppliers) howl ? For now, they're the ones most able to meet any such standards at the most competitive price.
I see are Scottish friends on the previous thread are taking Trump’s approach: I don’t like what the numbers say so they must be biased.
Here are my unskewed numbers for your reading pleasure.
It would make for some great computer games..... You're playing Hearts of Iron, and you click on the 10 divisions of troops, motorised and panzer led by one Felix Steiner. Strength 90, Organisation 110 and order them to attack the Soviet troops approaching Berlin.
Once the 'attack' begins, suddenly the troop stack becomes 1 division, entirely militia of strength 56 and organisation 12.
One might say we also got to see a more modern example in February 2022.
If the numbers are fake, the decisions you make are worthless and certainly worse than that you would arrive at if you knew the true facts. If someone had told Putin, "Attack, and you'll manage to take less than 20% of Ukraine, see Russian soft power destoyed and the economy put in the toilet and no one will ever trust you again, not even your so called 'friends' the Chinese." I do wonder if a different decision he might've taken.
Same with economic stats. If inflation is rising you might raise interest rates..... but if it's falling then the other way around. But if you don't actually know what inflation is.... or worse, are being lied to, the decision you make might as well just be a dart board with sticky notes on it to do this or do that.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
What do you mean? They haven't announced the race or resident status of the accused, have they? Just his name, age and address.
"Chas Corrigan, 21, of Holbrook Road, Cambridge"
Other case, you aren't allowed to know address or housing status, its nowhere in the BBC articles. Nobody will mention it or confirm it. Normally it is reported as above or "as no fixed adobe" if they are homeless.
Councillor told don't say anything to anybody about this crime because....
Openly call for Jihad on the streets of London, hmm, yeah we aren't sure, many meaning, its very tricky...have your bike or car nicked, sorry we don't have the resources...shoplifting, yeah sorry not much we can do. Facebook post, blue light job....
Tucker Carlson asks if Israel can hit a suspect from 30,000 feet how can they not see a church with a huge cross on the front? Tucker has had a damacene conversion somewhere along the line. I can see why he gets the big bucks
Another answer, of course, is that he's a paid Russian shill. As Russia doesn't like what happened to its ally Iran by Israel, then Carlson is suddenly against the murder of civilians by Israel. The murder of Ukrainian civilians is, of course, still a-okay in his book.
(Yes, I do realise you were very much tongue in cheek, but I couldn't miss an opportunity to call Carlson a grade A shit.)
Tucker Carlson asks if Israel can hit a suspect from 30,000 feet how can they not see a church with a huge cross on the front? Tucker has had a damacene conversion somewhere along the line. I can see why he gets the big bucks
Another answer, of course, is that he's a paid Russian shill. As Russia doesn't like what happened to its ally Iran by Israel, then Carlson is suddenly against the murder of civilians by Israel. The murder of Ukrainian civilians is, of course, still a-okay in his book.
(Yes, I do realise you were very much tongue in cheek, but I couldn't miss an opportunity to call Carlson a grade A shit.)
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
What do you mean? They haven't announced the race or resident status of the accused, have they? Just his name, age and address.
"Chas Corrigan, 21, of Holbrook Road, Cambridge"
Other case, you aren't allowed to know address or housing status, its nowhere in the BBC articles. Nobody will mention it or confirm it. Normally it is reported as above or "as no fixed adobe" if they are homeless.
Councillor told don't say anything to anybody about this crime because....
Tinfoil hats are very easy to make, aren't they?
In the case above, they gave name, age, and *approximate* address. People in other cases have complained about them not giving the settled status, religion, and probably even shoe size of the suspect.
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
I think that's cumulative capex on the railways, rather than annual.
Peak railway capex was 1847, when it was a nominal 50m GBP out of a 600m GDP, so peaked at 8%.
I've never quite worked out why railways aren't complete money machines. Obviously they're not, but to me it seems they should be.
Even at the peak, the return on investment was quite low. Expensive to build, expensive to run.
Which is why they got slaughtered by cars. And require subsidy, universally, for passenger services.
Of course yes. And it seems a bit obvious in hindsight. Nonetheless, if I'd been alive at the time, I'd have been as keen as mustard to invest.
(I'm still convinced that somebody, somewhere will make a fortune on the railways. In an otherwise rather difficult book the glamour the the railways shines through in Atlas Shrugged)
For that you need to reduce the cost of railways massively. Or raise the prices people will pay.
If you could automate tunnel boring - imagine you could drill a tunnel from anywhere to anywhere at a trivial cost. Dead straight.
Mind you, the same technology would work for cars - electric cars would be trivial (massively reduced ventilation requirements). Cars don't need a zillion pounds in signalling and wiring.
"If you could automate tunnel boring - imagine you could drill a tunnel from anywhere to anywhere at a trivial cost. Dead straight." - well you can, sort of. The costs are not the costs of boring the tunnel.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
My guess is that you'd hit pushback couched as "Trade barriers".
The real issues would be that this would require wholesale testing and certification of lithium batteries. The problem is that self test works for reputable brands. But there will be a howl from China et al, if you don't allow them the same courtesy as Apple or Brompton.
The quality producers will be upset if nothing is done to stop the shitbags - because the shitbags are cheaper and will take the market.
Let them howl, their substandard products are not only burning houses down and killing people, but are also easily modifiable as to be be dangerous on the roads, killing more people.
Why would China (as opposed to a few of their more dodgy suppliers) howl ? For now, they're the ones most able to meet any such standards at the most competitive price.
Indeed, so China needs to clamp down on suppliers of dodgy batteries and e-bikes, to the satisfaction of Western authorities.
Apple and Brompton almost certainly get their batteries from China, but they are built to Western standards. Then the same factory runs a dodgy night shift making substandard parts that look identical to the originals. That’s before we get to the many factories that pay no attention to Western standards whatsoever.
I’m a free market kinda guy in general, but when it comes to things that kill people when they go wrong there obviously needs to be regulation in place, along with enforcement by customs and trading standards.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
What do you mean? They haven't announced the race or resident status of the accused, have they? Just his name, age and address.
"Chas Corrigan, 21, of Holbrook Road, Cambridge"
Other case, you aren't allowed to know address or housing status, its nowhere in the BBC articles. Nobody will mention it or confirm it. Normally it is reported as above or "as no fixed adobe" if they are homeless.
Councillor told don't say anything to anybody about this crime because....
Tinfoil hats are very easy to make, aren't they?
In the case above, they gave name, age, and *approximate* address. People in other cases have complained about them not giving the settled status, religion, and probably even shoe size of the suspect.
Its not tinfoil hat. The council have said they were told not to talk about the case. It not like we haven't had a whole laundry list of cases that we aren't allowed to talk about where the same things have gone on. Southport, we have the same behaviour, within hours the police and government knew the SP, instead we got a whole load of dancing around the facts. We still get this weird statements from the police about well its wasn't terrorism, but he was convicted using terrorism legislation. Just bizarre limbo dancing.
And of course that left a vacuum which was filled by lies on social media and knuckle draggers.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
Could you take a pic of the stated standards applied to e-bike batteries. What certification process do they go through and is it self-certified or independent test house. Got rid of my ebike a few months ago so I would have checked myself.
But I do have some skin in this game as we bought our new grandson an e-pram. The pram will provide assist at certain speeds. We'd like to know the pram is safe. (It's weird watch the pram move back and forwards on one setting. It's like watching the Omen.)
I can't take a pic, since it is £300 or so from the BSI and I don't need it that much.
If I did I would get the EN-ISO version from Estonia, where they are available in English at about 10-15% of the price. That was the hack I suggested to Wheels for Wellbeing when they lamented not having a copy. And that they should get themselves on board with BSI as a reviewing body, which would be free copies of everything relevant when reviewed.
It is this one I think: BS EN 15194:2017+A2:2023 specifies requirements and test methods for engine power management systems, electrical circuits, including the charging system for the design and assembly of electrically power assisted bicycles, and sub-assemblies for systems having a rated voltage up to and including 48 V d.c. or integrated battery charger with a nominal 230 V a.c. input.
It specifies safety and safety related performance requirements for the design, assembly, and testing of EPAC bicycles and subassemblies intended for use on public roads, and lays down guidelines for instructions on the use and care of such bicycles.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
What do you mean? They haven't announced the race or resident status of the accused, have they? Just his name, age and address.
"Chas Corrigan, 21, of Holbrook Road, Cambridge"
Other case, you aren't allowed to know address or housing status, its nowhere in the BBC articles. Nobody will mention it or confirm it. Normally it is reported as above or "as no fixed adobe" if they are homeless.
Councillor told don't say anything to anybody about this crime because....
Tinfoil hats are very easy to make, aren't they?
In the case above, they gave name, age, and *approximate* address. People in other cases have complained about them not giving the settled status, religion, and probably even shoe size of the suspect.
Its not tinfoil hat. The council have said they were told not to talk about the case. It not like we haven't had a whole laundry list of cases that we aren't allowed to talk about where the same things have gone on.
Ah, you edited your response. What information do you think was withheld that legally should have been released at that stage - especially ones that would have stopped the 'knuckle draggers'.
(Hint: the knuckle draggers will invent stuff even if given reams of information...)
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
What do you mean? They haven't announced the race or resident status of the accused, have they? Just his name, age and address.
"Chas Corrigan, 21, of Holbrook Road, Cambridge"
Other case, you aren't allowed to know address or housing status, its nowhere in the BBC articles. Nobody will mention it or confirm it. Normally it is reported as above or "as no fixed adobe" if they are homeless.
Councillor told don't say anything to anybody about this crime because....
Tinfoil hats are very easy to make, aren't they?
In the case above, they gave name, age, and *approximate* address. People in other cases have complained about them not giving the settled status, religion, and probably even shoe size of the suspect.
Its not tinfoil hat. The council have said they were told not to talk about the case. It not like we haven't had a whole laundry list of cases that we aren't allowed to talk about where the same things have gone on.
Which is quite reasonable imo since it is Sub Judice, and inflammatory talk is likely to generate ASB and potentially prejudice the trial. That's what Lee Anderson was told, but he very publicly and deliberately ignored the advice.
My view is that RefUK people are trying to create a summer of unrest, as that is to their political advantage. You may disagree.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
What do you mean? They haven't announced the race or resident status of the accused, have they? Just his name, age and address.
"Chas Corrigan, 21, of Holbrook Road, Cambridge"
Other case, you aren't allowed to know address or housing status, its nowhere in the BBC articles. Nobody will mention it or confirm it. Normally it is reported as above or "as no fixed adobe" if they are homeless.
Councillor told don't say anything to anybody about this crime because....
Tinfoil hats are very easy to make, aren't they?
In the case above, they gave name, age, and *approximate* address. People in other cases have complained about them not giving the settled status, religion, and probably even shoe size of the suspect.
Its not tinfoil hat. The council have said they were told not to talk about the case. It not like we haven't had a whole laundry list of cases that we aren't allowed to talk about where the same things have gone on.
Further to the PB discussion about WWI the other day:
Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah · 2h Today is the 111th anniversary of the suicide of the British Empire, which needlessly joined in the Russo-German war of 1914, losing huge numbers of lives, naval supremacy and solvency, defaulting on its US debts(still unpaid today) in 1934.
"Men" in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl
Ahmad Mulakhil faces two rape charges, while Mohammad Kabir is accused of kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting the rape of a girl aged under 13.
Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch has alleged the two men were asylum seekers, which the BBC has been unable to verify independently, and accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up their immigration status.
Police refused to disclose further details, saying: "Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status."
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
Interestingly, they are being very clear and upfront about the victim and the arrested man. No worry about "community relations". Which is the way it should be. Not covering things up, be upfront, give all the relevant information.
What do you mean? They haven't announced the race or resident status of the accused, have they? Just his name, age and address.
"Chas Corrigan, 21, of Holbrook Road, Cambridge"
Other case, you aren't allowed to know address or housing status, its nowhere in the BBC articles. Nobody will mention it or confirm it. Normally it is reported as above or "as no fixed adobe" if they are homeless.
Councillor told don't say anything to anybody about this crime because....
Tinfoil hats are very easy to make, aren't they?
In the case above, they gave name, age, and *approximate* address. People in other cases have complained about them not giving the settled status, religion, and probably even shoe size of the suspect.
Its not tinfoil hat. The council have said they were told not to talk about the case. It not like we haven't had a whole laundry list of cases that we aren't allowed to talk about where the same things have gone on.
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ? No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Hmmm
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or $3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds provided by investors.)"
I think that's cumulative capex on the railways, rather than annual.
Peak railway capex was 1847, when it was a nominal 50m GBP out of a 600m GDP, so peaked at 8%.
I've never quite worked out why railways aren't complete money machines. Obviously they're not, but to me it seems they should be.
They are, but all the profits go into absurd processes, terrible manpower management and gold plated safety systems.
I'm a minor supplier to a contractor to London Underground (it's not my main line of business, they just have some very old locos used for maintenance with some obscure old tech which overlaps with my specialist skillset). Their ability to insist on (and cheerfully pay for) the mechanical engineering equivalent of digging holes and filling them in again, whilst also not letting us make small design changes which would solve most of their recurring problems is quite incredible. (Their engineers agree my design change would fix the problem, but aren't willing to upset the grandad rights situation by changing anything).
Everything I know about the railway industry (at least in the UK) suggests that my experience with LU/TfL is just a microcosm of the rest of it.
A friend, living in a 5th storey council flat, has 2 folding e-cycles for mobility, an e-Brompton and a Gocycle; both are long established British brands. Her Council have just totally banned all e-scooter and e-bike batteries from the lifts.
Their stance is absolute, and to cite safety concerns and their legal duty to residents i.e. that they could go to prison if they don't take appropriate steps and there's a fire caused by an e-battery. Laptop batteries have not been banned.
It's a strange one with lots of angles. Standards exist. Fires would start when plugged in and charging in the main, surely? And AFAIK there are no stats collected distinguishing laptop batteries from e-bike batteries (does anyone know?) - there is not much difference, so how is the policy justified?
A totally separate angle is cycle storage as part of the residents parking for the block.
And calls for regulation of batteries have been being made consistently for a number of years. This is what happens when appropriate regulation is not done at the appropriate time.
The reason that they have banned e-bike batteries and not laptops, is volume of material. Same on airlines. A laptop battery letting go* is a small danger. An e-bike battery can threaten a whole building. Such fires have already happened and caused massive amounts of damage.
Fires are primarily during charging - but can happen after damage and are often time delayed from the damage - hours later.
After Grenfell, no one is going to take a chance. If they don't ban them and there is a fire, then they would be answering question in the dock. And the government el al will hang them out to dry - a useful scapegoat.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits.
Personally, I would go for staggering fines for importing, possession and use of dangerous batteries. Scaled by the capacity of the battery. Plus criminal liability.
We actually have such rules for dangerous ICEs - but it's a non-existent problem, since the cheapest and worst petrol car conforms to all the regulations about safety with petrol. Petrol contains more energy per kilo than TNT.....
*Increasing problem - people are buying ancient laptops, second hand and replacing the batteries with cheap shite from guess where. There is a whole market in replacement batteries for laptops going back a decade or more.
(Not having a go at you; I'm just exploring the details.)
For me that doesn't convince. It's not purely about capacity and fire risk. It's more broad brush than that.
The 20 mile range battery on my Axxon Rides E-folder is 180Wh. That is exactly the same size as batteries for power tools I have. For my E-Brompton I have batteries of size (checks) 90Wh and 180Wh, the former specced to go on an airline.
Apple currently supply laptop batteries of 100Wh.
Electric wheelchair lithium batteries go from ~250Wh to ~700Wh, including those available on Motability. The airline limit for those is 300Wh.
If the risk profile was so stark electric wheelchair batteries would be banned or required to be small; as far as I know they are not banned or size limited.
I'm not sure that we can say much around "there have already been fires" to justify bans, when data about which categories of battery caused how many fires has just not been collected. The alleged data is probably hearsay.
To me this feels like lazy and easy decisions that do not reflect actual risk.
Regulating the batteries would require strict import control. Which would upset China and all the poorer people using cheap e-bike kits. I think this is important. Where are all these cheap batteries kept? We regulate other things; of course we can regulate these.
Campaign groups in this area need to point the finger at the actual problem, which is cheap and substandard Chinese imports.
HMRC and Trading Standards need to up their game, because it’s not Brompton e-bikes and Apple laptops causing house fires. There need to be businesses shut down and people prosecuted for the sale and import of these incendiary devices. Perhaps then there will be less of an aversion to large batteries in general.
At the moment *my* campaign group are looking for case studies as evidence of Disabled people facing mobility difficulties due to unreasonable restriction of Li-ion battery powered devices, or, as they elucidate it:
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
What's your idea for the mitigation of fire risk?
I need to distinguish here between my view, and the organisation's policy position. This is my personal view.
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
My guess is that you'd hit pushback couched as "Trade barriers".
The real issues would be that this would require wholesale testing and certification of lithium batteries. The problem is that self test works for reputable brands. But there will be a howl from China et al, if you don't allow them the same courtesy as Apple or Brompton.
The quality producers will be upset if nothing is done to stop the shitbags - because the shitbags are cheaper and will take the market.
Let them howl, their substandard products are not only burning houses down and killing people, but are also easily modifiable as to be be dangerous on the roads, killing more people.
Why would China (as opposed to a few of their more dodgy suppliers) howl ? For now, they're the ones most able to meet any such standards at the most competitive price.
Indeed, so China needs to clamp down on suppliers of dodgy batteries and e-bikes, to the satisfaction of Western authorities.
Apple and Brompton almost certainly get their batteries from China, but they are built to Western standards. Then the same factory runs a dodgy night shift making substandard parts that look identical to the originals. That’s before we get to the many factories that pay no attention to Western standards whatsoever.
I’m a free market kinda guy in general, but when it comes to things that kill people when they go wrong there obviously needs to be regulation in place, along with enforcement by customs and trading standards.
Just how many people are dodgy batteries killing? We typically have a lot of pushback on regulations (or speed limits) on PB - interested in the relative benefits and costs of additional rules/enforcement.
Comments
This is insane.
AI capex might account for a larger share of GDP than basically any technology since the railroad.
Basically it’s a mini-wartime economy, but the guns are chips and the tanks are databases
https://x.com/DKThomp/status/1951268018878661067
Was railroad capex in the 1880s really 6% of GDP ?
No wonder there was a crash in 1893.
Coal is not the cheapest form of power generation, at least certainly not in the UK.
If you have a massive open pit mine full of coal, and you can build a power station next to it, then -yes- it is probably the cheapest power out there. But there are no massive open pit coal mines in the UK. And that's not because of environmental legislation, it's because if there were large deposits available at the surface in an area where land was very cheap, they would have been exploited already.
The problem with coal is that - while a tonne of coal at the pit (especially an open cast mine in Colombia or Australia or South Africa) - is pretty cheap, you have a *lot* of other costs.
For a start, you need to get the coal from the mine. So, you need to ship it (which is quite cheap). Then you need to unload it from your dry bulk ship (not so cheap), and then transport it to a coal fired power plant (now we're getting pretty expensive).
And the coal fired power plant takes up a lot of space, because it needs to store not just coal, but ash too. Which means that you probably can't have it near places that need the electricity because land is quite expensive in those places. (Plus, of course, getting the trucks of coal to the power station is no trivial matter either.)
Then there's maintenance. That coal plant needs complex conveyor belt systems to get the coal into the furnace. The motors on those wear out. They need people to make sure that it's sucking coal from the right place too. (Which again, requires complex machinery.) And the ash gets everywhere.
Compare and contrast with natural gas.
You have a pipe that brings natural gas. (No storage of fuel on site needed! No ash to deal with!). You have a GE or Siemens turbine. And sure, you probably have a secondary thermal cycle. But it doesn't require people or much maintenenance. And it can be spun up and down really quickly compared to coal, so that if there's a spike in power prices (or a dip) you don't lose a bunch of money.
It also costs you a lot less to build the natural gas power plant, it doesn't require much space, and it doesn't annoy the neighbours with trucks full of coal arriving 24 hours a day.
Coal plants in the US - even in States where there are essentially no significant environmental restrictions - are shutting. They simply can't compete with natural gas.
https://x.com/MattCartoonist/status/1952409640219640027
UK Railway Manias - "The two railway manias of the 1840s and 1860s involved
capital investments of 15 to 20% of GDP, comparable to £300 to 400 billion for UK or
$3 to 4 trillion for USA today. (These were not stock market valuations, but actual funds
provided by investors.)"
https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/mania18.pdf
Daaaaaaaaaamn
EDIT : can't find data for the US for 1893....
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BhSpH7lpM8w
We know lots of people are facing problems including restricting their own mobility aid choices because of Li-ion battery issues and outdated "invalid carriage" laws, but because people are completely understandably worried about enforcement, or don't realise what the current laws actually are, it's hard to get case studies!
The context is that the DFT are currently consulting directly at Ministerial level, and this is one issue that my group wants to raise.
At present I'm putting together some words to put in more public fora than the Campaign Network itself; I suspect this is like so many other things - it just gets accepted as an inevitable imposition (see "unlawful obstructions on footpaths").
but only to the extent that my brain is in my living room and my dreams are in my brain.
Edit: how was that for an unsubstantiated @Leon anecdote ?
https://x.com/TalkTV/status/1952365153133199806
But it is worth remembering that coal and natural gas prices are essentially 100% correlated, because they both compete to provide electricity.
So places that depended on imported coal saw just the same sized rise in electricity prices when Russia invaded as Ukraine.
https://robertsmithson1.substack.com/p/the-fundamental-interconnectedness
My first target for change would be acceptance of known safe batteries - that is to British (or whatever) Standard, and from known good brands, used by disabled people. We certify mobility scooters and power wheelchairs with Lithium Ion batteries (some are even on Motability) ; so we can do it for mobility aids which are not currently in the "formally recognised" bucket, such as sit-down scooters and clip on e-assist handcycles. That's not really a big change, and you can see how it ties in to the existing .. er .. process, rather than challenging it.
I'd push it further in some directions - eg certified / tested folding or non-folding e-bikes, but I'd call that step 2.
That's not really relevant to the Chinese battery fire risk. My approach to that would be marketplace regulation - which is just the normal way of doing things. We do it with every other product category (eg kettles, furniture) without throwing our hands up in despair, so I don't see that this one is impossible. Trading Standards would need some rebuilding.
Comments, including hostile ones, are welcome of course. One reason for me to put this thinking here is exactly to get a range of considered opinions - which, amongst everything else, is one good feature of PB.
I was quite surprised how small the footprint of my local 700 MW CCGT is. The car park and switchgear are about as large as the actual generating buildings and cooling towers.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/dtdE5RYvWQ4C8boBA
That's very similar to the Lee Anderson one before the demonstration in Ashfield.
Perhaps it's one to watch?
But I do have some skin in this game as we bought our new grandson an e-pram. The pram will provide assist at certain speeds. We'd like to know the pram is safe. (It's weird watch the pram move back and forwards on one setting. It's like watching the Omen.)
2 Labour defences - Cannock Chase which i think Reform should gain, they got 20% here in 2024 to Con 24% and Lab 41% before the Reformgasm and
Carmarthenshire- Lab beat Plaid 62 38 here last time but lots more have stood this time. Reform have slightly underwhelmed in Wales recently so I'll go Lab hold (from Plaid)
And Reform defend another resignation from May, In Durham (Easington) - they took this 50 to 22 from an Indy and 19 Lab so I think this should be their first successful seat defence/hold but watching what majority they can command will be interesting
Peter Hitchens
@ClarkeMicah
·
2h
Today is the 111th anniversary of the suicide of the British Empire, which needlessly joined in the Russo-German war of 1914, losing huge numbers of lives, naval supremacy and solvency, defaulting on its US debts(still unpaid today) in 1934.
https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1952381753412206662
A new Baby Face Finlayson, eh?
The real issues would be that this would require wholesale testing and certification of lithium batteries. The problem is that self test works for reputable brands. But there will be a howl from China et al, if you don't allow them the same courtesy as Apple or Brompton.
The quality producers will be upset if nothing is done to stop the shitbags - because the shitbags are cheaper and will take the market.
I completely agree that the Tories need to recover their UasP which historically was a clear commitment to sound finances.
Of course that was often more honoured in word than deed, but nonetheless always went down well.
It involves telling some hard truths, not least that tax cuts come after rather than before the economy stabilises. Most of all it means an end to things like the Triple Lock and indexing of things like benefits. There will be increases, but only when the national finances can take it.
It may well not win the next election, but may well win the one after.
The launch of New America Acquisition I Corp marks the latest Trump family foray into public markets. The vehicle will seek to buy a US company that plays “a meaningful role in revitalising domestic manufacturing, expanding innovation ecosystems, and strengthening critical supply chains”, the group said on Monday.
https://www.ft.com/content/a4e6d16e-b8fa-40f4-8dce-fed902566cf2
Those two are have fingers in so many pies. Of course no conflict of interest in any of them....
Which is why they got slaughtered by cars. And require subsidy, universally, for passenger services.
1. Statutory guidelines
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/statutory-guidelines-on-lithium-ion-battery-safety-for-e-bikes#regulatory-position-on-safe-products-under-gpsr
2. The General Product Safety Regulations 2005
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/1803/contents
3. British Standard and *Test Method* (£££)
https://knowledge.bsigroup.com/products/secondary-lithium-batteries-for-light-ev-electric-vehicle-applications-general-safety-requirements-and-test-methods-1
I was involved in producing electrical components for the UK grid / power stations all of which required a lot of independent testing/certification. Lots of cost.
But in looking at the consumer level there is much less rigour applied as it looks like self-certification / inhouse testing. The issue here would be that you can't quite be sure if the foreign supplier actually carried out the test and the foreign test house actually did the work. Evidenced by the issue you are now facing. Looks like the government's response would be to resort to threats/fines if negligence/fraud results in injury rather than 'overburdening industry with regulation'. So since the self-regulating genie is out of its bottle, everyone is scrambling to deal with the quality control problem (as defined by the GPSR 2005) by reaching for a ban.
Global manufacturers know their markets well and know where they can send B-grade items without much comeback. Perhaps the UK is now a B-grade market.
It such a regular thing in the North East that when my son and his girlfriend bought their first home a couple of years ago they were given an emergency power cut kit as a present!
With one’s wife when referring to other women, perhaps not so much.
Top woman.
The 80s saw an (estimated - GDP stats are sketchy for back then, even more so in the 70s) 6% annual spending.
Which was clearly an over allocation of capital.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4e2q12nz2o
It couldn't possibly be that the race of the victim (and potentially the arrested man) is wrong? No, surely not.
The multiplier for the economy overall (more so for the continental US vs the UK), was enormous.
(I'm still convinced that somebody, somewhere will make a fortune on the railways. In an otherwise rather difficult book the glamour the the railways shines through in Atlas Shrugged)
The EU is certainly a large enough market for such industry standards to happen fairly soon.
@RonFilipkowski
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5h
The Texas governor is threatening to arrest Texas Democrats for refusing to participate in a special session he has called to virtually eliminate representation in Congress for 8 million Texas Democrats.
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1952355840150880346
If you could automate tunnel boring - imagine you could drill a tunnel from anywhere to anywhere at a trivial cost. Dead straight.
Mind you, the same technology would work for cars - electric cars would be trivial (massively reduced ventilation requirements). Cars don't need a zillion pounds in signalling and wiring.
For now, they're the ones most able to meet any such standards at the most competitive price.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/04/met-arrest-woman-after-facebook-posts-about-her-ex-partner-a-serving-officer
You're playing Hearts of Iron, and you click on the 10 divisions of troops, motorised and panzer led by one Felix Steiner. Strength 90, Organisation 110 and order them to attack the Soviet troops approaching Berlin.
Once the 'attack' begins, suddenly the troop stack becomes 1 division, entirely militia of strength 56 and organisation 12.
One might say we also got to see a more modern example in February 2022.
If the numbers are fake, the decisions you make are worthless and certainly worse than that you would arrive at if you knew the true facts. If someone had told Putin, "Attack, and you'll manage to take less than 20% of Ukraine, see Russian soft power destoyed and the economy put in the toilet and no one will ever trust you again, not even your so called 'friends' the Chinese." I do wonder if a different decision he might've taken.
Same with economic stats. If inflation is rising you might raise interest rates..... but if it's falling then the other way around. But if you don't actually know what inflation is.... or worse, are being lied to, the decision you make might as well just be a dart board with sticky notes on it to do this or do that.
Other case, you aren't allowed to know address or housing status, its nowhere in the BBC articles. Nobody will mention it or confirm it. Normally it is reported as above or "as no fixed adobe" if they are homeless.
Councillor told don't say anything to anybody about this crime because....
(Yes, I do realise you were very much tongue in cheek, but I couldn't miss an opportunity to call Carlson a grade A shit.)
In the case above, they gave name, age, and *approximate* address. People in other cases have complained about them not giving the settled status, religion, and probably even shoe size of the suspect.
Apple and Brompton almost certainly get their batteries from China, but they are built to Western standards. Then the same factory runs a dodgy night shift making substandard parts that look identical to the originals. That’s before we get to the many factories that pay no attention to Western standards whatsoever.
I’m a free market kinda guy in general, but when it comes to things that kill people when they go wrong there obviously needs to be regulation in place, along with enforcement by customs and trading standards.
And of course that left a vacuum which was filled by lies on social media and knuckle draggers.
If I did I would get the EN-ISO version from Estonia, where they are available in English at about 10-15% of the price. That was the hack I suggested to Wheels for Wellbeing when they lamented not having a copy. And that they should get themselves on board with BSI as a reviewing body, which would be free copies of everything relevant when reviewed.
It is this one I think:
BS EN 15194:2017+A2:2023 specifies requirements and test methods for engine power management systems, electrical circuits, including the charging system for the design and assembly of electrically power assisted bicycles, and sub-assemblies for systems having a rated voltage up to and including 48 V d.c. or integrated battery charger with a nominal 230 V a.c. input.
It specifies safety and safety related performance requirements for the design, assembly, and testing of EPAC bicycles and subassemblies intended for use on public roads, and lays down guidelines for instructions on the use and care of such bicycles.
These are useful W4W things:
https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/e-cycles-fire-safety-and-disabled-peoples-mobility/
https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/wheels-for-wellbeing-position-statement-on-statutory-guidelines-on-lithium-ion-battery-safety-for-e-bikes/
https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/briefing-on-mobility-aids-policy-status-and-use-of-devices/
HTH
Incidentally, I've just been reading the following:
https://www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/insights/blogs/criminal-law-blog/when-should-the-police-name-a-suspect
Ah, you edited your response. What information do you think was withheld that legally should have been released at that stage - especially ones that would have stopped the 'knuckle draggers'.
(Hint: the knuckle draggers will invent stuff even if given reams of information...)
My view is that RefUK people are trying to create a summer of unrest, as that is to their political advantage. You may disagree.
You also know we can't talk about a massive list of cover-ups by the authorities.
I'm a minor supplier to a contractor to London Underground (it's not my main line of business, they just have some very old locos used for maintenance with some obscure old tech which overlaps with my specialist skillset). Their ability to insist on (and cheerfully pay for) the mechanical engineering equivalent of digging holes and filling them in again, whilst also not letting us make small design changes which would solve most of their recurring problems is quite incredible. (Their engineers agree my design change would fix the problem, but aren't willing to upset the grandad rights situation by changing anything).
Everything I know about the railway industry (at least in the UK) suggests that my experience with LU/TfL is just a microcosm of the rest of it.