Posted on 07/20/2024 5:12:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The peak electricity demand in Britain is in the winter when we need to heat our homes, offices, shops, warehouses, factories etc. But in the winter solar farms produce almost no electricity in Britain. This is because it is dark for around 16 hours a day and when the Sun does appear it is weak and usually hidden behind thick cloud. Solar energy may make sense in some countries, for example the countries of North Africa, but building solar farms in Britain is completely brainless.
The new Energy Secretary Ed Milliband has just given the green light to the biggest solar farm in the U.K. He claims that building the Sunnica solar farm in East Anglia will “cut bills for families”. As is often the case with politicians, the opposite is true. Because solar farms produce almost no electricity in the winter there will need to be back-up electricity generation. So essentially two electricity generation facilities will have to be built and operated, one for the summer and one for the winter. This will increase electricity bills for families not cut them.
Subsidies to companies operating solar farms and wind farms is one of the reasons electricity bills in Britain are already amongst the highest in the world. We pay five times as much for our electricity as China and twice as much as the USA. The pain that these high bills cause British families is of no concern to the small group of eco-zealots in Government and the TV news who peddle scare stories about global warming and tell half-truths about the cost of renewables. They want Britain to be a world leader in Net Zero and don’t care about the price the rest of us have to pay for this utterly pointless ambition. Britain is responsible for only 1% of global CO2 emissions so even if we achieved Net Zero tomorrow it would have no measurable impact on global temperatures.
Household electricity prices worldwide in December 2023, by select country (in U.S. dollars per kilowatt-hour). Source: Statista
Meanwhile the big CO2 emitters, like China (30% of global CO2 emissions) and the USA (10% of global CO2 emissions), move far more slowly towards Net Zero.
They continue to build and operate fossil-fuel power stations. Unlike solar farms and wind farms, these power stations are both cheap and reliable, they work every hour of every day summer and winter.
This is why the electricity bills for Chinese and American families are so much lower than the bills for British families.
RP, which stands for “received pronunciation”, also know as “Oxbridge” or "the Queen's English", is a name for standard British English, especially when spoken with a posh, upper-class accent.
Think John Cleese.
It's a common joke in both countries that Brits who speak in less prestigious dialects are nevertheless fawned over by innocent Yanks for sounding so classy and intelligent.
I think the U.S. entering WWII was inevitable. It’s WWI we should have stayed out of. Just one more way that Woodrow Wilson irreperately damaged our country. (Try saying that quickly three times.)
Yes, bless your heart.
The UK should have stayed out of that war also. They should have let it be the 2nd Franco-Prussian War.
Eisenhower should have provided Patton with gasoline at the Moselle, instead of giving the Krauts time to regroup and fortify their positions.
When you have your enemy on the run, don’t call time out. (Are you listening, Israel?)
“...less prestigious dialects...”
Think “falling-down-drunk Yorkshireman.”
"Ooh, he sounds just like a prince!"
Every winter, the ghouls in the fascist British media publish a guessing contest on how many pensioners will freeze to death.
Eisenhower gave Monty the green light for Operation Market-Garden and it was a spectacular failure. It prolonged the war, the Dutch people suffered horribly for it and the bastard called the whole mess ''An unqualified success''. To which the 33 year old Prince Rupert replied "My country can never again afford the luxury of a Montgomery success''.
Where I live it’s mostly sunny year round, and they have solar panels on parking lots, so they are making electricity, and people have shade for parking.
For the American contingent in Market-Garden Montgomery choose an auspicious date. September 17, 1862 was The Battle Of Antietam. The single worse loss of life in any battle America ever fought.
Build nuclear and geothermal power
‘Build nuclear and geothermal power.’
Both of which are happening right now in the UK.
The article, by the way, is grossly misleading and simplistic. It gives the impression that the UK is largely reliant on solar and wind, whereas in fact solar contributes less than 6% of total generation. The largest single source is gas at 39%, and much of the large increase in prices last year was a consequence of the chaos in the global gas market following the Ukraine war.
Solar does have a useful part to play as a contributor to a diverse energy budget (contrary to the claims of the article, British sunshine hours are plenty to make it viable, as I’ve found myself from my own rooftop array.). But only, as with wind, as indeed with any energy source, fossil or renewable, as one component of the mix. The more different sources in the mix the better, so there are always options if there are problems with any one source.
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