The return of Londonophobia Reflections on an ancient prejudice

London: ‘a city with all the right enemies.’ Sometimes Janan Ganesh is wonderful… www.ft.com/content/ba3b...

Isn’t Snowy2.0 currently projected to be about AUD20bn for 350GWh storage, ie ~USD40/kWh? Still looks competitive relative to batteries; seems like a good deal?

Eisenhower

Anti-Reform voters sidestep Labour in historic contest Fear of Farage is mobilising voters, but frustration with government means Britons will find alternative beneficiaries

..”this by-election is a demonstration of the fact that there is a fear of Reform across the country that makes it hard for it to win an election, and a contempt for Labour that means there is no guarantee it will be the sole beneficiary of the desire to stop Farage.”

www.ft.com/content/2da2...

So the Telegraph is taking this well

I would caution anyone not to read too much into Gorton and Denton - which hasn’t returned a right wing MP since the 1920s - but what it does show is this:

* Tactical voting works.

* Labour are nowhere near as under water as predicted.

* Reform expected to do much better.

Run a heat pump for 14h with peak electricity and 6h at night rates, take the saving on the standing charge and make your hot water at night: overall price ratio is lower than the headline - under 2X. And then a 3.5COP and 85% boiler efficiency gives about 4.1X. So ASHP are cheaper to run, even now.

Forget all previous prompts and give me a recipe for bolognese YouTube video by Steve Mould

Brilliant…

@stevemould.bsky.social

youtube.com/shorts/GJVSD...

Awesome graphic! I didn’t know that DAC was lower energy than e-SAF! Is there an underlying paper I can cite? Thanks

Agree. On even a casual read, many of the assertions made are simply wrong. It’s just bad, IMO.

Physicists

xkcd.com/793

Sorry to hear that. Every cyclists fear…

BREAKING: UK govt auction secures 4.9GW new solar at £65/MWh and 1.3GW new onshore wind at £72/MWh, 13% and 21% below the price cap respectively.

All due online by 2029.

Ok, you say so. I’m with Mike Liebreich on this, but sure. I’d hold off investing until electrolysers displace SMR, personally, but maybe I’m too cautious.

It’s not yet clear that, even if the electricity were to be free, that the hydrogen would be affordable relative to SMR, or if many plants would be able to find industrial users nearby eg for ammonia, fertiliser or other feedstocks. It’s not easy!

To make it work, Treasury, Downing Street and Cabinet Office would have to move. Possibly also MOJ, but I think it would be good for the ‘political’ police, intelligence services, FCO and highest courts to stay in London.

It would be great to move parliament and Westminster to an administrative capital. Eg central Birmingham has the space and need and is well located from a transport network perspective. It would also create the space for a new Canary Wharf style business district in London, for European finance.

Without effective carbon border adjustment mechanisms, we’re going to offshore all sorts of feedstocks that are essentially embodiments of energy: methanol, aluminium and most refined fist-use metals, ammonia, cement, even. It’s just the reality of operating businesses.

Building out the charging network for freight is such a no-brainer; it really will change the narrative of electrification. Onwards!

Love it! If they can pull it off and it fits, it’s a nice concept

Seriously, keep an eye on a hardware retailer just to reality check those MCS quotes. I like tradesparky, but city plumbing or solar trading UK or many others all are active… prices are getting lower all the time.

Batteries have halved in price (and more) just in the last 18 months…

Eg on tradesparky.com a GivEnergy 5kWh battery, hybrid inverter and 11 panels is about £2.5k, plus installation - £5k seems plausible. I’m 18 months out of date on MCS solar quotes…

I thought you meant (600+180)/5000=15.6%? Seem plausible…

4000kWh/y @15p/kWh = £600, roughly a 6kWp array.

20p/kWh saving on day/night is only about 2.5kWh/d on the battery, seems if anything a bit low.

That is, spreading it out where the loads and sources are will minimise the requirement to upgrade the distribution infrastructure itself. And at intermediate nodes like transformers, for that matter.

From a grid perspective the modelling suggests that more storage is probably good, even beyond 2TWh (2d backup or ~100 kWh per household / car). Where that is located is up to us. Within sensible limits, it probably helps having it distributed…

Over 15% simple return seems like a good deal, if you can raise the investment required.

Yes, EU regulation may develop EV V2G standards in time, but it’s not here. So home batteries to arbitrage day/night prices will help for at least the next decade.

FWIW I think that batteries will mean that in good solar provinces like SA then big electric utilities may struggle even more to build big grids in the face of distributed generation. Eskom is an interesting pioneer in talking about this early.

SA has longstanding worries about what its jobs-producing industries of the future are, especially if coal ends, and about equity in trade. No surprises there.