Member Info for julianb1234

I wasn't aware of it, thanks. Am listening to the debate now.

My point being that if just some of you spent half the amount of time you comment on here, in research on who your local MP, Planning chief, and HSEx representatives were and wrote to them instead, explaining the advantages of VRFB's, perhaps we would see the end of Lithium batteries and the start of VRFB's in the UK.

It's not dead until there is a clear winner. As I pointed out the West is seemingly going the route of Lithium despite all the obvious problems as highlighted by that fire, other countries have seen sense. The problem seems to be that the people who influence the decisions about battery farms and either make or audit the rules are largely unaware of VRFB's.

So I'm curious, am I the only one on this board who has done anything positive to try and further the cause of VRFB's in the UK, or is just sitting back and whinging about the share price the way forward?

Which do we think VRFB's will be and should we just sit back and hope for the best?

Well China are betting on VRFB's, they are installing shedloads of GWhrs. The West has blindly followed Musk with his GigaBatteries. thing is they are prone to fire, have limited lifespans and are not easily recyclable... whereas VRFB's solve all those issues.

Technically VRFB's make more sense, but will the West see sense? Or will it in fact end up being the technically better one that loses out as was the case with Betamax.

I sure hope the West will see sense, and I have written to various MP's, Planning chiefs and HSEx reps to try and raise the perception of VRFB's in this country at least, where those who can influence choices (by way of risk reduction at least) don't currently seem to be aware of them.

Where is your swimming pool in the UK? If it is in southern UK then yes you should have equal or lower bills, however if you are in the northern UK your costs would be higher. I made this point in my post. That is of course on top of your point about timescales.

I have no idea why the Finnish takeup of heat pumps is so much higher than ours. But if you look at the basic economics and efficiencies of existing air source heat pumps they typically have a CoP that drops to around the same as the price differential between gas and electricity (in the UK) at somewhere around 8 deg C ambient temp. So on that basis when the average temp here is less than that you are paying more to run a heat pump than to run a gas boiler. If the period you use heating has more time at an average of less than 8C than above it then you will be paying more annually if you are using a Heat Pump. In southern England that won't be the case, but in Scotland it very definitely is. New designs of Heat Pump are around the corner, and they may change that calculation. The only other impact on the calculation would be if the UK changed the pricing structure of electricity and did not lock it into the price of gas. This is all independent of the level of insulation you have, which impacts significantly on your total annual bill, and also negatively impacts on the CoP you can get from your heat pump because you need to run it at a higher temp.

ARCM You keep forgetting the point that was made by one of the other posters a few days ago that 90 odd % vanadium extraction is a by-product of iron ore extraction, so vanadium demand for steel is more or less self fulfilled in extraction terms. Thus when iron ore demand drops vanadium production drops in sync. So there isn't much of an excess to meet the non steel demands. That is where vanadium producers such as BMN et al fit in and why VRFB demand can keep the price up despite steel demand dropping..

I very rarely post on here, but I do read peoples posts fairly regularly. What I would say is you are ALL behaving like badly behaved adolescents. Would you speak the way you write on here to someone's face? If you would then I would be surprised if you haven't had a broken nose or two. Why don't you ALL think about how you address others, there is no need for such insulting or antagonistic language.

“On Friday, 23 September, Peel received a further letter from SYMCA and Doncaster Council, which was supported by the Mayor of South Yorkshire and the Mayor of Doncaster, along with the Leaders of Barnsley and Rotherham, which included a proposal to provide public money to DSA to fund its operating losses until 31 October 2023. The grant was described as providing DSA with free cashflow to sustain losses that may occur over thirteen months while the Peel Group and South Yorkshire partners jointly explore the future potential of DSA and the GatewayEast site. In the absence of any actual proposals to address the lack of viability of DSA, even those at an early stage of development, or any identified potential acquirers or operators of DSA, Peel’s Board has concluded that it cannot responsibly accept public money for this highly uncertain process against the backdrop of an unviable, loss-making operating business.

....Actually seems to be a fairly responsible attitude, many companies would just have taken the money.

@Lindon Thanks for that, well spotted. I shall write to Ms Miller to make sure she is aware of the alternatives, from one statement from her in the article -"We need lithium ion battery storage facilities" it would appear she may not realise that lithium ion isn't the only option.

Pdub, thanks for the extract, which I have to point out does not endorse solar, merely says that they expect more interest.
Re the improvements in technology, yes they will increase efficiency of panels from the current levels of (typically) less than 20% but will never obviate the fact that that efficiency is merely the % of the solar radiation it can convert. So one is always hampered by that underlying issue,meaning that in the UK we can expect at best 20% of the design output in winter (for the south) and under 10% (for the north) of the isles. So as I said earlier that leaves a very substantial and long lasting hole in our energy supplies if we lean heavily on solar, a hole that batteries cannot fill, so you have to fall back on alternative baseload supplies which then would only be operating for part of the year, a particularly inefficient way of operating.
Wind power has a much better spread of supply that suits batteries far better as it is rarely universally calm across the nation, and is also rarely calm for weeks/months on end which solar in effect is during the winter. I believe there is a place for solar, but not a big one, so we should not be losing our much needed agricultural land over it. By all means use it on non productive land, or areas where land is set aside for environmental wilding etc (as long as it does not impact that), but not productive land. So the push to increase the oversight by planning departments is in my view a good thing, I just wish they would also recognise the issue of lithium battery storage as well, and require that to have greater planning oversight.

Here's another website you can put in your address and get monthly variation in the solar radiation, and you can even add in factors for dirt on the panels if you wish. https://www.fabhabs.com/solar-insolation-calculator It doesn't allow for weather factors, and clouds can make a huge difference.

Note that I am NOT saying the solar panels aren't worth having, they are for us as individuals, but they are not a great solution for the UK's overall energy needs due to the seasonal variance. You still have a huge hole to fill for too long a period, which means mothballed generation stations coming into service every winter. Not ideal.

Pdub - love the links from websites that are in the business of selling solar to justify your PoV.

I have a 3kW installation, and can advise that it produces virtually zilch from Nov to Feb.

Look up websites that define the solar radiation available at your latitude over the seasons. You might get a surprise. And bear in mind that is the best you can achieve with perfectly aligned panels. Try this one for a simple graph Https://streets.mn/2014/11/04/chart-of-the-day-daily-incoming-solar-radiation-by-latitude/ bearing in mind that London is at 51deg and Edinburgh at 56deg, so both not far of the 60deg curve.

I completely agree, using land already taken out of agricultural use is by far the best option for solar. Every south facing industrial or retail centre roof for example should be required to be covered, etc etc.

However they will be far more effective in southern regions of the UK. The northern regions have such a huge disparity between summer and winter outputs that it means you have to almost completely discount their output for 3 months of the year, and you only get anything approaching the design output for around 4 months. No storage battery will be designed for that duration. Even in southern regions of the UK I expect there is probably not much better than 20% output in the winter months. Wind power is far more suitable in that respect as it tends to only have minimal output for a few days at a time, and spread over the UK there is usually something.

Here in the UK we have a massive green resource, and it isn't solar, that's for desert areas and they can then export it. Wind, offshore preferably, is our resource. And for this who say it doesn't always blow, well surprise surprise it isn't always sunny either, and as someone who has solar panels (I'm in the northern parts of these isles) the winter output is one tenth of the summer output at best, just when you need it most. So wind power wins out there too.

For those of you who think that putting solar panels on grazing land is efficient... really? What effect do you think having the amount of sunlight reaching the land itself reduced dramatically will have on the ability of the grass to grow and thus its ability to support grazing? I am willing to bet that putting solar panels on grazing land will reduce the ability of it to support any livestock by well over 50%, probably nearer 80% reduction.
Personally I think solar panels should only be allowed on unproductive land. My farmer neighbour was talking to me about this very subject as he had been called by some company wanting him to sign up to get the 'possibility' of a grid connection for a solar farm. The key issue that bugged him was that they wouldn't tell him the small print, merely offered bait of 'potential 1/4M sum'.. he was rightly dubious. On doing some research it seems these unscrupulous companies sucker the farmers with promises of big payouts to get them to sign the lease away and then find they get a pittance. Also having a lease on their land means it badly affects their inheritance tax liabilities.

Is it just wishful thinking (being a long term holder) that they expect the price to go up and are thus only selling small amounts from their stock, keeping the bigger sells to when the price has gone up.

What games are the MMs playing?

Just tried to by 20k, my dealer couldn't get a quote from the MM.

I would say he is posturing to take over, not change sides...