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This thread is a shit show, and I’m not seeing any winners.
It keeps the shit in one place so there are lots of winners.
If we were actually discussing the subject of the thread title instead of the same spirit-crushingly tedious posters going on and on and on and on about their present hobby horse, there are a number of other issues this morning, outside the lefty bubble:
There's Labours anouncement this morning on energy generation, acccelerating the net zero target? - Offshore wind to power 20m homes within five years, Starmer to pledge. We could talk about that?
In complete contrast to this, Tom Tugendhat, who is apparently the 'moderate' candidate is already wooing the nutters by a continuation of the culture wars and rubbishing net zero, and advocating withdrawal from the ECHR. So much for 'moderate'. So anyone thinking the Tory party isn't about to disapear off to the far right is in for a reality intrusion. Looks like the next incarnation of HM Opposition is going to just be an extension of Reform. Shall we talk about that?
https://Twitter.com/13sarahmurphy/status/1816231571021537779
In other exciting news, for those who like their insular, self-absorbed comfort zone, it looks like theres soon to be a new 'Rebel Alliance' you can all join. What fun!
https://Twitter.com/theipaper/status/1816226121219747882
And, even more excitingly, theres a catchy new slogan and an internet petition you can all sign. Of course there is...
https://Twitter.com/JessicaLBarnard/status/1816213034949386542
The 'thread is a shit show' response - appears when it's not going with a consensus of the centre right on here that believe they're the progressives.
We've heard it all before.
If Starmer keeps up with his conservative authoritarian ways then expect heavy criticism.
#Standwiththe7
There’s Labours anouncement this morning on energy generation, acccelerating the net zero target? – Offshore wind to power 20m homes within five years, Starmer to pledge. We could talk about that?
8 3bn of public money in the hope of 60bn of private money. What a plan.
What happens when the private money doesn't appear?
These are such flacid and pointless ideas. There's either a problem that needs fixing or not.
Standwiththe7
As opposed to being on the side of Tory policy that you hate when it suits.
rone, you are not supposed to look past the headlines. The headlines are to keep the likes of binners happy.
Given that the labour manifesto committed to green energy with GBE by 2030, I'm not sure that it's really news to say lots of houses will be powered by wind in 2029. That much was obvious. The real news will be when they decide how they will keep the grid up when the wind isn't blowing.
No interest in discussing anything else other than you present hobby horse then? No? Didn't think so, but it was worth a punt, I suppose.
Where I live there's a place down by the river where the local nutters get together to drink cider and shout at buses. This thread, like every other politics threads on here, has just become that.
Again.
The ‘thread is a shit show’ response – appears when it’s not going with a consensus of the centre right on here that believe they’re the progressives.
No, it's when the same handful of posters dominate political threads with increasing vehemence in circulsr arguments over EXACTLY how many angels are dancing on the head of that pin.
You can see it on any political thread on here.
The ‘thread is a shit show’ response – appears when it’s not going with a consensus of the centre right on here that believe they’re the progressives.
No, it happens when the same voices outweigh everyone else on thread to the point where everyone else just gives up. Honestly I reckon the best things that the big hitters could do would be to take a sabbatical and let other folks get a word in edge ways for a change.
I’m not sure that it’s really news to say lots of houses will be powered by wind in 2029
That and it seems to be linked to the existing plans by the crown estate. Seems like they might be trying a variant on PFI with crown estate which could be interesting.
The real news will be when they decide how they will keep the grid up when the wind isn’t blowing.
Yes. Beyond hydrostorage this doesnt seem to come up much unlike elsewhere in Europe with the various salt heat storage and release.
The real news will be when they decide how they will keep the grid up when the wind isn’t blowing.
Do we know the stats for average days when the wind isn't blowing with offshore wind? Serious question?
Purely anecdotal I know, but when I open my curtains every morning, the first thing I see are the wind urbines over the valley on Scout Moor. I often hear (mostly Daily Mailish) people object to them say that 'what happens when the wind doesn't blow?', but I know from experience (we've been here 14 years) that you can literally count the days per year that the turbines aren't turning on the fingers of one hand. I would imagine that out in the North Sea thats reduced even further
Heres the view of the turbines from our house (taken with a zoom lense in a cloud inversion in the valley). Lovely isn't it? I just don't get the objections at all to them, but for the last 10 years the NIMBY's have been winning. I find it quite refreshing that the ban on onshore wind has been lifted as it was complete insanity, especially somewhere like this where its a post-industrial landscape full of disused quarries etc, so it seems a bit late in the day to be objecting to wind turbines
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They are more likely to be generating too much electricity rather than none. The grid upgrades are the most important factor in all this, and I’d like to hear more about that. There was some info as regards planning changes, but it’s all down to the implementation.
I’m not sure that it’s really news to say lots of houses will be powered by wind in 2029
Oh I don't know, it did seem unlikely to happen a short while ago, so it is an improvement. But the private finance segment of the commitment does seem a bit of bait and switch from the state owned clean energy company promised before the election. And 8 billion is considerably less than 28 billion, I know they had already backed away from that but cutting it to less than a third is worse than feared.
Battery storage will be important in the UK re renewables. Planning constraints even for that, have been tricky in recent years.
Yeah there's plenty of data on low/no wind days. In part solar can mitigate. It's all quite complex though, and maintaining a constant base load is a challenge.
It's not the biggie though, grid capacity is by far the bigger problem. Installing it is both expensive and hard to counter the nimbyism. That'll be a big political problem for Labour in the years ahead.
It's why for me a reduction in consumption is also incredibly important. Insulating out absolutely dire housing stock can really help here. Which hopefully Labour will be picking up on. Then moving to things such as circular economy models to utilise waste heat etc can also mitigate.
Probably a separate thread on cc/green transition could be an idea.
The ‘thread is a shit show’ response – appears when it’s not going with a consensus of the centre right on here that believe they’re the progressives.
No, it's when you don't respond to reasonable questions about your qualifications and the evidence that you have to opine about modern monetary theory.
"There's loads of evidence for it" isn't a real answer, especially when you're making unorthodox claims.
I've looked for the evidence myself, as far as I can see, it's a theory that could work if it weren't for the fact of human behaviour. Just like many other discredited economic theories.
Do we know the stats for average days when the wind isn’t blowing with offshore wind?
There dont seem to be many good recent figures. Its made more difficult that since the farms are distributed you are unlikely to get them all off at the same time.
However its worth noting they can still be turning and not producing either because its too slow or because its too fast. The latter its either because they need to be disengaged to avoid damage (very high winds) or the grid cant handle the power being produced.
No interest in discussing anything else other than you present hobby horse then? No? Didn’t think so, but it was worth a punt, I suppose.
Where I live there’s a place down by the river where the local nutters get together to drink cider and shout at buses. This thread, like every other politics threads on here, has just become that.
Again.
Not disagreeing with any of that, but we ALL need to take a moment before pressing "submit" to try and make sure we are not adding to the problem.
Sometimes it's best to know when to stop wasting bandwidth, shrug our shoulders and accept that what we want to type isn't helping the discussion, and is just to make us feel good.
@dissonance - again purely anecdotally, the times they're not turning tend to be when its REALLY windy and I've presumed its so they're not damaged. I remember riding up there one Saurday morning and as we got up to the turbines you literally couldn't stand up, even though it'd felt ok in the valley. We got down off there pretty sharpish 😀
I love the things and love riding up there and always saw the effective ban on onshore wind as the absolute height of idealogically driven madness..
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I’m quite enjoying the opinions on windless days, batteries, solar and grid capacity.
I’ve worked in the area for 30 years, occasionally speak on national stages on the subject etc so I know a little.
A lot of the misconceptions are down to assuming energy balance means power balance, and annual energy use is meaningful when annual energy storage is yet to be practically available (the recent call for long term storage was based around 4 hours I think, though I may have misremembered that).
Windless days across the UK are exceedingly rare and present battery technology probably offers a solution if we throw enough money at it.
Interseasonal production and use is more challenging, solar in the summer, heating in the winter. Batteries are unlikely to sort that. Over-production of electricity with associated hydrogen production in the summer, followed by hydrogen CCGT (or other generation) and heat pumps in the winter might. Hydrogen boilers in homes have logistical problems.
Grid capacity is an issue if you want to run a 1950s style grid. So don’t do that. There are other cheaper and better grid models.
Feel free to look me up (Iain Miller) - some of my ranting is probably available via reputable channels on the web.
I certainly don’t know all the answers, though I have a better handle on what the questions are than most.
And if we have sense, we don’t wait until we have all the answers before we start implementing solutions.
The government are probably looking at the right installation actions at present - whether best as a nationalised company I will leave to your political preferences.
Is a good port of call for decent data on these things.
@igm clearly has a lot of expertise. I'm far lower down the food chain, completely new to the field, but am researching some of the political problems of the move to net zero.
What's your stance on what the grid mix will look like in 2050 @igm? A very broad and probably impossible to answer question I know!
Honestly I reckon the best things that the big hitters could do would be to take a sabbatical and let other folks get a word in edge ways for a change.
And there we have it. Any lefty types should shut the f*** up. I've always known there's an active effort on here - mostly lead by binners - to silence any opinions that don't fit in with the centrist-establishment consensus so it's nice to have it in black and white.
What’s your stance on what the grid mix will look like in 2050 @igm?
Ha. Accurate predictions of the future are always difficult. And just looking at generation doesn’t work, demand, storage and timing, plus social changes need thinking about.
Less nuclear than people think - even though I think we probably need some.
Plenty of wind, plenty of solar.
Lots of diversified generation locations - homes, businesses etc - because it gets round some of the grid capacity issue.
Storage moving to point of generation or demand rather than half way up the system which merely exacerbates the grid capacity issue (note that homes and businesses will be both generation and demand points - play with that).
Hydrogen will have a role, but probably not what people think.
More efficient solar installations (both cell performance and where you can put them).
More efficient heat pumps - that’s starting already.
Some reasonable insulation - maybe?
And change in usage habits - transport in particular will become expensive so it will change.
The actively balanced “grid” becoming about the 400V and 11kV systems not the 400kV system which will become more passive.
Machines taking over from people in designing and operating the energy system - and we’re starting to do that now.
Chose any of the above, ignore others, add your own.
Just do not pretend that wind by wire will replace coal by wire in a 1950s style.
The only one acting like a child here is you Ernie. You’ve picked one sentence from a rather lengthy post and decided that’s what it is that everyone is liking. I’ll go out on a limb here and say you’re wrong. In fact I know you are because I’m one of the people that liked his post and it had nothing to do with you and the Tory-lite bit. Perhaps go back and read the entire post and have a think about why people might have given it a like that wasn’t anything to do with you.
I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about Funkmasterp. The post that I quoted was not lengthy, it was two sentences long. Here is the entire post:
So anyone to the right of Marx is aTory-lite? I’ve read some delusional arguments on here but that’s right up there.
I did not claim that anyone to the right of Marx is a Tory-lite, what a daft and ridiculous allegation. How can you have a grown up discussion when you have to respond to nonsense like that?
And how about sticking to talking about politics about the UK government?
And there we have it. Any lefty types should shut the f*** up. I’ve always known there’s an active effort on here – mostly lead by binners – to silence any opinions that don’t fit in with the centrist-establishment consensus so it’s nice to have it in black and white.
QED.
Have you ever not had the chance to say exactly what you want? Do you think that yours (and other) virtual monopoly on these sorts of threads dissuades others from joining in? D'you honestly think that yours is the only 'lefty-type' voice out of the hundreds of members of this forum? if you didn't post d'you think others might feel more emboldened to contribute?
And there we have it. Any lefty types should shut the f*** up. I’ve always known there’s an active effort on here – mostly lead by binners – to silence any opinions that don’t fit in with the centrist-establishment consensus so it’s nice to have it in black and white.
Mate - please just leave it with the persecution complex. Take your tinfoil helmet off for a bit, eh? Nobody is trying to silence ayone. People are asking for certain other people to just stop endlessly repeating the same post about single issues, ad nauseam
Now... at the moment we're presently discussing - or at least trying to - the investment in offshore wind and the end of the ban on onshore wind, which is a huge shift away from the previous Tory policy.
Have you anything to say about that?
Do you think that yours (and other) virtual monopoly on these sorts of threads dissuades others from joining in?
I've barely posted on this thread. In fact I've been relatively quiet recently as I actually have some work to do ATM. What I'm talking about is the pattern where someone posts an opinion, binners replies with a load of monty python abuse, then everyone else piles in and complains about the thread being destroyed. It's fairly obvious what the source of the problem is.
Have you anything to say about that?
Funnily enough I do. There's a plan to put a 76 turbine windfarm up on the Walshaw Estate above Hebden Bridge. It's a bloody stupid idea*, has massive local opposition, but will probably still happen because the Labour party - especially the local councillors and our new labour MP - have decided that the blanket policy of building more onshore wind overrides any local specifics which mean some windfarms aren't a good idea as in this case.
*It's going to be built on deep peat which will release a load of carbon reducing the effectiveness of the windfarm as a source of carbon savings. All this is going to do is destroy a unique landscape and habitat, whilst releasing lots of carbon, and making a local landowner very rich while everyone else is pissed off and even more opposed at any action towards net zero.
igm
Full Member
I’m quite enjoying the opinions on windless days, batteries, solar and grid capacity........
Interesting post mate! Thanks for sharing.
Do you think that yours (and other) virtual monopoly on these sorts of threads dissuades others from joining in?
How about sticking to talking about politics? That might help. And maybe tolerate the views of those who are not necessarily Labour Party supporters.
Or would that be a step too far?
This thread feels like Binners vs the world - the world being those of us who may (or may not) share the same opinion but would it exhausting to maintain a debate (argument) all day.
Storage moving to point of generation or demand rather than half way up the system which merely exacerbates the grid capacity issue
That seems to be one of the more interesting areas currently but doesnt seem to get much political interest in the UK vs elsewhere in Europe where they are building out local(ish) storage facilities.
One question is how closely this will all be tied to the 1.5 million new homes idea especially the "new towns" and also high density housing parts.
Surely it's time for another hilarious Monty Python image isn't it?
All this is going to do is destroy a unique landscape and habitat
It's an intensively farmed mono culture designed for grouse shooting. 1. Not unique, and 2, a stretch to even call it a habitat (I doubt even the spagnum has survived up there), and the only 'wild' things growing up there are destined to be shot.
edit: I get what you're saying about peat, but they've burnt off the heather so often, I doubt the peat is even wet anymore.
The power for new towns is going to be an interesting challenge and speaks to the wider underinvestment in the grid.
My personal opinion in working in sustainability and energy management at a larger user level for a number of years - renationalise the grid.
It's currently operated by a number of localised monopolies. They are a nightmare to deal with and have to generate a profit for shareholders. They aren't totally shit, we have a relative stable and reliable grid system, but there's quite often a catch 22 when it comes to enhancing or upgrading the grid. End users can't commit to projects because there isn't the power availability, and the NGO won't commit to the upgrade because the end users haven't committed.
In my job I'm looking at decarbonisation of an industrial manufacturing facility, this may need a lot of power in the future to move away from using fossil fuels
How about sticking to talking about politics? That might help. And maybe tolerate the views of those who are not necessarily Labour Party supporters.
Or would that be a step too far?
Again.
I get what you’re saying about peat, but they’ve burnt off the heather so often, I doubt the peat is even wet anymore.
It is, there's some local ecologists and grassland experts have checked it out and confirmed that it's still a major carbon sink. Yes it's a very degraded environment thanks to the grouse shooting but it could easily be restored (as they're doing up at the Bridestones - https://bridestones.love/ ). If the upper Calder valley wants to contribute to saving carbon, the best way of doing that is to protect and expand the deap peat moorland, not destroying it.
And of couse there is the local sentiment argument. Whether we like it or not local people simply don't want it. It's easy to cry 'Nimby' but all that does is alienate people in these areas and set them against the wider effort towards net zero. As I've always said, if net zero is going to happen it needs the support of working people. Imposing stuff like windfarms on them in their local communities isn't going to result in these communities supporting policy towards net zero, in fact it drives them towards the populists like Farage who want to see it all burned down.
This is probably going to get lost amidst the arguments but ho hum.
Really interesting response @igm....pretty much what my instincts were. I tend to stay away from the discussions on nuclear as it all gets a bit like this thread in general very quickly! I'm also not convinced by the arguements around hydrogen. Last government were very reliant on hydrogen for home heating in their plans, much to the dismay of the CCC. Hopefully that, alongside a big insulation push will change in this parliament.
Whether we like it or not local people simply don’t want it.
I hear you, but I reckon that's largely because of who the landowner is rather than nimby-ism about windfarms, let's be honest here, they dominate the landscape whichever direction you look in from Heb.
The funny thing is that, in 2019, Corbynism* was put to the country against a known liar, bit of a laugh, hide in a fridge, don't engage in debate, joke candidate in Boris ****ing Johnson.
And Corbyn got thumped. The scores were literally on the doors. We can bemoan press bias, dumbing down of politics, FPTP, whatever. But Corbyn got hammered. Rogered. Trounced. Whipped.
That's all you need to remember when folk start down the ideological purity route. I liked Corbyn. I liked most of his policies. I voted Labour in 2019. Nowhere near enough other people did. I guess we could go back and have another crack at it in 2029, but deep down we all know what would happen if we did.
*For want of a better term.
I voted Labour in 2019
Me too. And got mocked in the barbers for saying that I was going to do so. And since July we now have a Labour MP.
The ‘thread is a shit show’ response – appears when it’s not going with a consensus of the centre right on here that believe they’re the progressives.
We’ve heard it all before.
If Starmer keeps up with his conservative authoritarian ways then expect heavy criticism.
@rone No, wrong take, IMO.
The problem is how posters are choosing to interact with other posters, political alignment isn't really the problem although it may act as a catalyst.
Whether the negative interactions are direct or indirect, intentional or accidental. Its the choice in how responses are made that are the issue.
100% not something I'm innocent of on this forum.