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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...
Maxcady... I note no recent links to 'factual' Russian MoD claims about the failure of the Ukrainian offensive etc... How's it all going? I had heard they said they are withdrawing for tactical reasons. Any thoughts? What's the leaderships next move... to North Korea perhaps?
I am perhaps being premature but it looks to me like the old soviet republics might have had their bacon saved by the Ukrainians. Perhaps regime changes coming in a few of them. Lets hope more Maidan revolutions for less corrupt governance.
To mute.... e.g. to turn off the speaker
To moot.... to propose something.. e.g. it was mooted to as a means to move boards
Why do so many people use the wrong spelling? I see it everywhere
You should also know that Alexander Mercouris was disbarred from being a solicitor here because he made a fake claim about being kidnapped, and is a presenter for RT the Russian state broadcaster, thus he is far from being an unbiased commentator.
@maxcady I watched your youtube link to Alexander Mercouris and did my own research on some of the claims he and his commenters were making. I noted that one of the claims was that the recent rocket attack on Kramatorsk was proven to be by the Ukrainians themselves because the rocket motor lay south west of the explosion zone and the motors always land behind the explosion zone meaning that the rocket must have originated from the south west, u.e. in Ukrainian held territory. Well, on doing research on that claim as an example showed it is not factual. The rocket fires up into the sky and comes tangentially down the way to the impact area, rather than horizontally like a cruise missile. The motor on detaching from the head becomes unstable and has been known to land anywhere around the explosion site. Yes it is more likely to land from the direction of travel, but not guaranteed. The colour of the missile was also the colour that the Russians use for their missiles, not the grey that the Ukrainians use. So I am afraid in my view all you are watching is Russian propaganda made to look like someone who is merely unbiased.
Yes you are absolutely right the war could have so easily been avoided.. after all one of the chief requirements of being allowed to join NATO is that you have no active border disputes at the time. All Russia needed to do was open up a border dispute with Ukraine... No wait, they did that in 2014 and have been keeping it going since then, so there was no way Ukraine could join NATO.. really so no need for the war?.. Why didn't someone mention this to the 1st Tsar of the next Russian empire....in waiting that is if he lives long enough. I for one hope he doesn't.
Why not just use google finance web pages to see the live price.. it's free.