In todays news...

[Horse]

3rd child is now confirmed dead in the Southport stabbings! From what I can gather the murderer wasn't an illegal migrant, but came here from Rwanda at 1 years old with his parents. Claims are being made he was on Mi5 watchlist, yet its not being treated as a terror attack?! I suspect we'll discover the truth of all this in due course...

BBC say:

A 17-year-old male, arrested on suspicion of murder, remains in custody

He was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and moved to Southport in 2013 - in Cardiff, ex-neighbours remember a "normal family" with "normal kids"

[Saga Lout]

Wind and Solar power generated more electricity than Fossil Fuels for the first 6 months of 2024 in the EU, the first time this milestone has been reached in Europe.

But remember, no-one else is changing anything so you don't need to make any effort

https://ember-climate.org/insights/rese ... sil-fuels/

The UK is doing better than EU

December 2023 was the 15th month in a row where zero-carbon generation produced more than fossil fuel generation, showcasing our growing use of zero-carbon electricity.We’ve reduced coal’s involvement in our generation mix by over 97% since 2013. Coal was responsible for just 1% of generation in 2023. In 2018, coal represented 5.1% of electricity produced, and 39.6% in 2013 - illustrating the significant reduction that is taking place.

Electricity from wind turbines has continued to grow in its contribution to the operation of the national network and accounted for 29.4% of electricity generation. On 10 January we broke the first wind record of the year, with wind generating over 21.6GW, and on 21 December we achieved a new maximum wind record of 21.8GW between 8 – 8:30am. 



Full story...

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/br ... 023-review

And when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine they fire up the old reliables: coal and gas. If they were serious about net zero they'd be going all in on nuclear.

[Taipan]

3rd child is now confirmed dead in the Southport stabbings! From what I can gather the murderer wasn't an illegal migrant, but came here from Rwanda at 1 years old with his parents. Claims are being made he was on Mi5 watchlist, yet its not being treated as a terror attack?! I suspect we'll discover the truth of all this in due course...

BBC say:

A 17-year-old male, arrested on suspicion of murder, remains in custody

He was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and moved to Southport in 2013 - in Cardiff, ex-neighbours remember a "normal family" with "normal kids"

Radicalised? But I'll not trust the BBC anyway.

[Horse]

3rd child is now confirmed dead in the Southport stabbings! From what I can gather the murderer wasn't an illegal migrant, but came here from Rwanda at 1 years old with his parents. Claims are being made he was on Mi5 watchlist, yet its not being treated as a terror attack?! I suspect we'll discover the truth of all this in due course...

BBC say:

A 17-year-old male, arrested on suspicion of murder, remains in custody

He was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and moved to Southport in 2013 - in Cardiff, ex-neighbours remember a "normal family" with "normal kids"

Radicalised? But I'll not trust the BBC anyway.

T'was for the birth location, nothing to do with radicalisation, vampirism, Jones cult, or any other rumour.

[Mr. Dazzle]

And when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine they fire up the old reliables: coal and gas. If they were serious about net zero they'd be going all in on nuclear.

Well...previously your objection was "they'd have to cover the entire UK in wind turbines to generate enough power", so you're coming around

[Horse]

And when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine they fire up the old reliables: coal and gas. If they were serious about net zero ...

Well...previously your objection was "they'd have to cover the entire UK in wind turbines to generate enough power", so you're coming around

And why there should be greater use of tidal generation. If the tides stop, we'll have bigger concerns than no leccy.

[Saga Lout]

And when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine they fire up the old reliables: coal and gas. If they were serious about net zero they'd be going all in on nuclear.

Well...previously your objection was "they'd have to cover the entire UK in wind turbines to generate enough power", so you're coming around

Cover the country with wind turbines and batteries. Don't forget the batteries. You can't just turn a wind turbine on when you need a bit more power so if you're relying on wind and solar you have to have batteries. And enough battery storage to see us through a prolonged calm period. That's going to be expensive (if the world can even produce enough batteries). Then you'll need lots of landfill for the worn out turbines which have an expected lifespan of about 30 years and can't be recycled.

My objection to wind and solar is summed up in the question: How much free energy can we afford to collect?

[Count Steer]

And when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine they fire up the old reliables: coal and gas. If they were serious about net zero they'd be going all in on nuclear.

Nuclear? At least they CAN build turbines in a timescale that's not geological and they work and don't cost umpteen times the budget or have to be commissioned at a suicidal £/mWh (from forrin companies).

The targets for zero carbon are this century....

[Cousin Jack]

And when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine they fire up the old reliables: coal and gas. If they were serious about net zero they'd be going all in on nuclear.

Well...previously your objection was "they'd have to cover the entire UK in wind turbines to generate enough power", so you're coming around

The problem no-one mentions is synch. Big beast power stations, no problem. They are synched carefully before being put on line. Wind and solar are not connected unless they are near synch, and then get pulled in. All fine, as long as the big beasts are there. Take away all the big stuff and ......

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's progress from 'you can't possibly build enough wind turbines' at least.

One has to wonder how places like Denmark and Portugal have 100% renewable days. Doesn't sound possible to me.

[Cousin Jack]

It's progress from 'you can't possibly build enough wind turbines' at least.

One has to wonder how places like Denmark and Portugal have 100% renewable days. Doesn't sound possible to me.

Works as long as the network is up, crash it and you have a MAJOR problem, recovery could take days or weeks.

[Dodgy69]

A normal family with normal kids...those were the days.

[cheb]

All you wanted to know about black starts on the grid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_start

Including a bit about a wind farm in Scotland restarting part of the grid.

[Taipan]

No surprise there...

[MyLittleStudPony]

And when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine they fire up the old reliables: coal and gas. If they were serious about net zero they'd be going all in on nuclear.

Well...previously your objection was "they'd have to cover the entire UK in wind turbines to generate enough power", so you're coming around

Cover the country with wind turbines and batteries. Don't forget the batteries. You can't just turn a wind turbine on when you need a bit more power so if you're relying on wind and solar you have to have batteries. And enough battery storage to see us through a prolonged calm period. That's going to be expensive (if the world can even produce enough batteries). Then you'll need lots of landfill for the worn out turbines which have an expected lifespan of about 30 years and can't be recycled.

My objection to wind and solar is summed up in the question: How much free energy can we afford to collect?

I'd be amazed if wind turbines can't be largely recycled. And I'd also be amazed that if they couldn't, they would be disposed of to landfill.

IIRC the CCGT power station not far from me has a 30 year lifespan and will probably be more challenging to recycle than wind turbines.

[Saga Lout]

I'd be amazed if wind turbines can't be largely recycled. And I'd also be amazed that if they couldn't, they would be disposed of to landfill.

IIRC the CCGT power station not far from me has a 30 year lifespan and will probably be more challenging to recycle than wind turbines.

A quick Google (using DuckDuckGo, of course) took me to Can wind turbine blades be recycled? which has conflicting information:
"What are wind turbine blades made of?
"Around 96% of a wind turbine is made from recyclable materials..."
"The blades are made from different materials, most of which is fibreglass..."

"Are the blades disposed of or reused?
"Fibreglass is not totally recyclable. It’s non-biodegradable and made up of a composite of very fine strands of plastic and glass, which is extremely difficult to process at the point of recycling. Instead, it’s usually discarded as waste at landfills or incinerated."

So it's mostly the blades that go to landfill, so that's all right then.

[MyLittleStudPony]

I'd be amazed if wind turbines can't be largely recycled. And I'd also be amazed that if they couldn't, they would be disposed of to landfill.

IIRC the CCGT power station not far from me has a 30 year lifespan and will probably be more challenging to recycle than wind turbines.

A quick Google (using DuckDuckGo, of course) took me to Can wind turbine blades be recycled? which has conflicting information:
"What are wind turbine blades made of?
"Around 96% of a wind turbine is made from recyclable materials..."
"The blades are made from different materials, most of which is fibreglass..."

"Are the blades disposed of or reused?
"Fibreglass is not totally recyclable. It’s non-biodegradable and made up of a composite of very fine strands of plastic and glass, which is extremely difficult to process at the point of recycling. Instead, it’s usually discarded as waste at landfills or incinerated."

So it's mostly the blades that go to landfill, so that's all right then.

96% is recyclable. I'm not sure how much of a nuclear or gas power station is recyclable but it wouldn't surprise me if it were less.

The blades can go to incineration, which is often a term used to describe modern thermal energy recovery facilities; which are not a terrible option for residual waste.

If the blades are landfilled, I suspect they're not biodegradable, which IMO would make landfilling them not a terrible option.

[Mussels]

I bet the 96% is by mass rather than volume, it makes for a nicer headline by a company that wants to encourage them. I could be wrong.

[irie]

"Angela Rayner has announced an overhaul of the planning system to allow for 1.5 million new homes over the next five years to tackle England’s housing crisis."

Building 1.5 million new houses over the next five years may just about keep pace with annual net immigration of ~600,000 which will increase population by ~3 million over the next five years.

Won't happen, of course. Lack of immigration control will worsen housing shortages particularly in cities which will exacerbate outbreaks of violence and crime.

Ain't gonna be pretty.

[Dodgy69]

They are already building houses as quick as they can, not enough brickies and materials to build faster, been that way for a good while. She's talking shite, like all the others.