This blog had 91,200 unique visitors last month, which is the second best ever. It makes me feel all warm and sociable.
Hello, everybody! Please join in and comment – it does make it much more fun.
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glenn
There is an incentive for microgeneration in the UK. You can sell electricity to the grid at 41p a unit while you can buy electricity at 8p a unit.
Trouble is it makes no sense at all. Domestic wind and PV is so inefficient in the UK it needs such a massive subsidy.
We should be getting together with other European countries and North African nations to develop large scale solar projects in the desert areas and high voltage DC transmission systems to transport the energy to Europe.
That is the only form of solar power that makes economic sense and everyone is a winner. We get the energy and the technology jobs, the North African nations get much needed income.
George Monbiot wrote a good piece on why domestic solar makes no sense at
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/01/a-great-green-rip-off/
I’m very much with derek on the issue of micro generation and CSP plans for in cooperation with the magreb countries, the wat forward.
rather than making up some pretext to attack Iran for its oil, diplomacy should steer us towards more cooperation and economic mutuality, far better. Such longterm projects would also undermine the reasoning for terrorist outrage.
Well done Craig for running this popular site, long may it last and hopefully, it will be an inspiration to many.
ScouseBilly, asking for scientific help against the left-wing? Wooo. Now, ScouseBilly, that is what I call ‘machine football’. Shame about the game. Shame about the name.
I got my knickers in a twist over wind ‘farms’. I spent a lot of time trying to find out the truth of the matter – I don’t want nuclear, but the more I looked into wind the more it looked like a racket to generate money rather than energy. My own summary of the situation is that at best (i.e. using the most optimistic estimates of the pro-wind lobby) wind can supply only about 25% of our total requirement. This is a result of its unpredictable intermittency, which the national grid cannot absorb beyond that level. There must exist baseline generation capacity to backup wind, almost on a gigawatt for gigawatt basis, so the question remains as to how this baseload will be generated.
I understand that the interest in thorium is principally from India, which is rich in thorium. From memory, the thorium process is related to the fast breeder technology, considered dangerous, currently being dismantled at Dounreay – or at any rate they’re removing what little hasn’t already seeped into the surrounding landscape or blown away across the beaches.
I think JD Monkey’s concerns on energy security are well-founded. Soon all our gas will come from Russia, and remember what happened to Ukraine. It was no accident – an old pal of mine is CEO of a Russian gas company, and over a pint of beer he bragged about the squeezing of the Ukrainians.
“Cries Not Unheard”
http://tinyurl.com/32chhnm
James Lovelock, the lifetime environmental scientist has persuaded me that the energy situation is so dire, that my lifelong aversion to nuclear energy is no longer tenable. I wish it was not so, but things are that bad. Renewables like solar panel and wind farms can help a little, but the major changes needed are down to US to change our unsustainable, over consumptive lifestyles.
“but the major changes needed are down to US to change our unsustainable, over consumptive lifestyles.”
http://tinyurl.com/2vakfp
My personal view is that:
The issues with nuclear energy are more political than practical; so far, every nation (bar Iran?) that’s had nuclear power has made nuclear weapons. So the first equates to the second. I guess making the weapons is technically easier than making controlled power, so it stands to reason.
It seems similar to the issues with Genetically Modified seeds – it’s the copyrighting of their DNA and the tying-in to specific weedkiller products, all controlled by Monsanto or similar, that is the real problem. That is, a political problem rather than a practical one.
I wouldn’t necessarily get too excited by the large number of hits. Some people think think you’re a cunt, like me.
Your nemesis – Speaking the truth makes you a cunt in this society eh ? You must be of the spin-doctored, PR, ad-agency, PC, lies, bullshit and deceitful political classes.
Thinking people don’t mind hearing truth.
Clark, it was the wired article I read:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/
These may also be of interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/16/news/16iht-atomen.ttt.html?pagewanted=1
http://cavendishscience.org/bks/nuc/thrupdat.htm
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090029904_2009029422.pdf
P.S. No, I don’t have any contact with DT mods nor did I claim to be an expert on energy but I was both intrigued and disappointed by Craig’s response. George doesn’t debate but merely links to propoganda and clearly doesn’t comprehend metaphorical language.
Craig
Why did you delete the comment that I made yesterday? Its not as if it could be regarded as off-topic because there isn’t really a topic is there.
MarkU
I am not aware I deleted any comment by you. Have been deleting literally thousands of bits of spam throughout the older posts. This involves tracking it down by key words (as an example, I once deleted everything with “cialis” – a viagra style drug advertised by spam – and quite accidentally deleted all comments with the word “racialist” in. Possibly some similar accident.
ScouseBilly,
thanks for the links.
George Dutton isn’t so bad, ScouseBilly. There is so much right-leaning propaganda that it doesn’t even get recognised as propaganda. I don’t agree with all of George’s links, but they provide a healthy balance, I think.
Anyway, there’s nowt wrong with being socialist.
Craig, I run a small business. I like many others that have this incessant spam problem.
Any “business” minister that proposed a hard line, worldwide “war on spam” would certainly have a lot of support.
If anyone is interested in finding out where the damn things come from, check out spamcop.net.
Clark, I’m sure you are right and I’m sorry for my use of DT vernacular. Truth is there are plenty of good people over there too (engneers etc.) who are concerned that we face a huge energy crisis. In turn, many of us are concerned that many “green” initiatives are making the poorest suffer. Take good agricultural land being used for bio-fuel crops as just one example.
There are some seriously nasty anti-islamist and BNP-leaning posters there too. For what it’s worth I do tackle them for it. I also posted links for people there to Craig’s posts on Straw’s latest “treating”. I think in the end the more people are aware the better. We all can do our little bit.
Glad you liked the links and I grew up a socialist btw 😉 Now, I’m hoping for a hung parliament so that Lib-Dems (and others) can finally get PR.
“Craig”
“Why did you delete the comment that I made yesterday? Its not as if it could be regarded as off-topic because there isn’t really a topic is there.”
He does that a lot these days even when they are on topic. He has lost some regular bloggers already…About to lose another one and I don’t mean you.
“George doesn’t debate but merely links to propoganda and clearly doesn’t comprehend metaphorical language.”
ScouseBilly
Unlike you I do comprehend that when I disagree with someone I don’t go around inciting people to come and physically harm them.
Aw come off it, George.
I mean you no physical harm whatsoever, and I sincerely hope you know that, too.
“I once deleted everything with “cialis” – a viagra style drug advertised by spam – and quite accidentally deleted all comments with the word “racialist” in.”
*laughter*. That’s a neat variation on the Scunthorpe Problem.
I wonder how long it’ll be before people start designing product-names with a view to taking advantage of it (if they’re not already) ?
There are many lanes in England named in the old days after various sexual manoeuvres but which were re-named in more self-conscious (?hypocritical) Victorian times. It’s a deeply fascinating subject, the exploration of which renders to the explorer a whiff of Pan and coal-scuttles of Cowper Powys and
D.H. Lawrence.
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Gropecunt_Lane
George Dutton,
please don’t go. I, for one, follow your links. I was rather shocked at what ScouseBilly wrote on the DT blog, but he’s also made some good posts, and I’m convinced that he just used unduly harsh language and does not really mean you harm.
ScouseBilly,
you probably know this trick already, but anyway… Any e-mail address published on a website in plain text will get spammed. Publish it as an image instead; it won’t work as a “mailto” and can’t be copy-and-pasted, but people can type it and it won’t get spammed.
If you want to help fight spamming, you can add a honeypot to your website:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_(computing)
Clark/George,
I didn’t mean any real harm.
The Dellingpole blog is essentially a “sceptical site” with regard to AGW.
Recently a lot of Guardian “trolls” have been winding up the regulars. It can be something of a bear-pit and if you’ll accept my apologies, my intemperate language was for someone to argue the toss with George from a sceptics pov.
I have no doubt George is a good bloke and though we may not agree on everything, I would never wish him any real harm.
Although I consider myself neither left nor right, that DT blog can be one of the most stimulating talking shops I’ve yet to come across. In fact, the real attraction is a character called “captainsherlock” real name David Hawkings, an englishman in the states. His “research” claims massive global insurance fraud. He sees the “fake AGW science” as a distraction from said fraud. Facinating and I have an uneasy feeling he really is onto something. He posts several times daily for anyone interested.
Thanks Clark. Nothing to do with ScouseBilly, you don’t think the likes of ScouseBilly scare me.
I will leave you with my last links brother, all the best to all, even ScouseBilly.
“Spodden Valley, asbestos scandal (part 1)”…
http://tinyurl.com/37mnmtm
“Spodden Valley, Rochdale’s asbestos scandal. (Part 2)”…
tinyurl.com/ydoerup
“Cyril Smith defends killer asbestos”…
tinyurl.com/yaoko2l
@George
Thanks. I wish you well.
CaptainSherlock’s website btw is:
http://abeldanger.blogspot.com/
“Any e-mail address published on a website in plain text will get spammed. Publish it as an image instead; it won’t work as a “mailto””
You can use a link to an image as (part of) the text for a mailto: link.