Two ace shows on BBC iPlayer at the moment.
Metal Britannia - charting the history of British Heavy Metal.
Metal at the BBC - featuring classic performances. So far? Deep Purple, Judas Priest and Budgie.
Tune in folks. This is educational!
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Two ace shows on BBC iPlayer at the moment.
Metal Britannia - charting the history of British Heavy Metal.
Metal at the BBC - featuring classic performances. So far? Deep Purple, Judas Priest and Budgie.
Tune in folks. This is educational!
Apparently the "flesh" tone is actually "gold" and was designed by one of the team.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darren Richardson
Who'd have thought regulation would be a bad thing...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Mystery
Solar is a dead horse, Germany, worlds largest solar country, is currently building dirty coal plants and making a whooping 4.5% of its energy from the solar plants.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirsten
It is always abotu the moniesQuote:
Originally Posted by Al Shut
Rockumentaries ftw.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Mystery
not so, it can be incredibly useful. if everybody had solar panels we would be in a far better situation than we are now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfshade
Here's an article on the men's cycling outfits:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfshade
[url]http://metro.co.uk/2014/09/15/so-it-wasnt-sexism-mens-cycling-team-kit-is-just-as-striking-as-the-womens-4869568/[/url]
I'm pro-nuclear myself but we need to look at more advanced fuels and more advanced reactors. Generally, we need to reduce our carbon and other emissions and our dependency on more volatile regions. Renewables just can't take up the necessary burden and should be part of our supply mix but unfortunately I don't think they can do the whole job.
Personally I would do my part to make the world a better place by burning them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychosplodge
- - - Updated - - -
Somehow I don't think these look the way the team intended in photos.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfshade
Oh certainly, and how would this be paid for? Like in germany a 47% increase in "green surcharges" €15bn or about £200 per person per year. Then on top of that you will also need to roll out massive energy storage facilities so that you can use energy during the night, like when the sun isn''t shining when we need lighting etc. and most people are at home.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirsten
Indeed, the german experiment has shown that it is bad for consumers (high electricity prices [0.3million cut off last year alone]), bad for producers (excessive feed-in tarriffs) and bad for the environment, indeed, to cover the cost of the solar power and to keep the energy going they are investing in cheap dirty, dirty coal which is pushing up CO2 emissions at a rate faster than the de-carbonisation process.
Indeed, the cost is such that it would be cheaper for Germany to import their electricity which for them would be carbon neutral.
and yet so many people are benefiting from solar panels and are having them installed all over the place, but clearly they must be terrible :rolleyes:
sorry but it just isn't true, panels are getting cheaper and cheaper every year, and more and more efficient, and plenty of people are massively reducing their electricity bills.
Here in the states they work really well for individual homeowners in sunny locations. Some people generate enough power to supply their needs and contribute to the overall grid. I don't know how well they would supply metro areas where the population density and power usage are both really high.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirsten
1st Generation solar panels (those big rigid silicon ones) have a place, but probably won't solve energy issues.
3rd Generation solar panels, often called organic solar panels or poly panels are more likely to be successful. Slightly lower efficiencies (averaging 10% vs 20% in active use) but vastly cheaper and easier to make, since you can print them using similar technology to fancy newspapers. Unfortunately not getting any sort of subsidies and not all that much research interest due to the older panels getting in first.
Still, I think they'll take off in about 5 years. Add some decent hydrogen cell batteries and it should be helpful.
(For completion's sake, yes there are 2nd gen solar cells and they're the ones you find in stuff like cheap battery-less calculators. Lightweight, flexible, not too expensive, and utterly useless for large scale power generation because they start breaking down within a couple of years.)
So, the experiance of individuals, vs the experiance of Germany, hmm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirsten
The experiance of Germany is that bills have gone up, even for indivduals selling electricity to the state owing to the high feed in charges and the low unit price such producers get.
But yes, let us move the burden of panels from the state to the individuals and see how well that works. So we eliminate the £200/per head per year from everyone and instead require a person to benefit if they own their own home and said home isn't listed.
Next for it to be anywhere near efficient it requires to roofs to be south facing with a pitch at about 45 degrees. However, certain councils in some areas will refuse to let this be installed if they can be seen from the road.
A typical installation is in the region of what 4kWp? Which with the feed in tariff in this country slashed equates to somewhere in the region of £125 per year saved and that is over 20 years, which gives a massive saving of £2,500 over the lifetime. Unfortunately, such a typical build would cost £7,000 so that is over all a grand saving of -£225 per year. Which is a massive saving :rolleyes:
Then ontop of this you have the massive issue that if you come to sell your house within those initial 20 years it creates all kinds of logistical nightmares, since in some installations the solar pannel firm actually lease your roof so mortgage firms won't (or didn't do very attractively) mortgage the property since you have a lease running on it.
So yeah, private solar panels benefiting the private individual are great....
I do actually wish that this were not true and with more and more people using solar pannels feeding electricity in the feedin price is only set to reduce..
Well solar is good at an invidual level, it's just not good enough to power a whole nation. Great to reduce reliance on other energy forms, never going to be the main generator.
Yay! Inadvertent day off!
Woke up well late, having slept through alarm. But, worked 10 hours extra last week. Quick (slightly grovelling) call to boss, and boof, LIEU DAY!
Now, what to do with it?
Sit about undressed all day in the house watching boxsets and surfing the web...
I have day off also, on account of falling down two steps and spraining ankle badly.
Buy a keg of ale and acquire the services of some ladies of negotiable affection? Or paint some miniatures or something I guess.
Sadly back at work tomorrow, so no drinking. And I'm into paying for it. Far rather obtain it freely and openly, or go without.
Painting miniatures I could do. But thinking about it, some of my LARP kit has a bit of mould. Should probably sort that out today.
I shall go and fetch my marigolds!
I am spending all day training people :)
And all kit de-skanked.
Leather offcuts bought to made into IC Ming Pouches cleansed, and now drying atop the car.
Weapons wiped down, and box of stuff likewise. Lovely.
One of my least favorite activities. Hopefully you at least got a group that is trainable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfshade
Surely they should be housetrained by the time they become employable?
Maybe in the old country, but in the states walking erect is about the only prerequisite... and if the price is right that one can be waived off too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychosplodge
you say this as though it is a bad thing. I am really struggling to understand your point of view here, renewable energy sources are the only viable solution to the energy crisis. the sun provides more energy than the entire human race could ever possibly use, and will exist long after humanity has utterly died out. solar technology improves year on year, and prices continue to drop. in a few years people will be printing their own solar panels, and we will see solar windows, roofs, not just panels, driveways, you could stick the stuff on walls. saying it used to be expensive and inefficient is pointless, do you complain that nobody will ever want a computer because they weight a tonne and take up an entire room? the US could have been energy independent two decades ago if Reagan hadn't come along and screwed over the entire country's future for the sake of short term political gains.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfshade
"Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, Arnulf Jaeger-Waldau of the European commission's Institute for Energy, said it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts to meet all of Europe's energy needs."
I think from reading your back and forths he's suggesting they're only profitable for the individual as they're heavily subsidised and in our climate don't actually ever cover their production costs in actual savings.
but they don't have to be, they can cover costs in our climate, and it doesn't just have to be our climate anyway. just because Germany charged people for installing them and bills went up doesn't everywhere else will. it is very backwards thinking to declare 'solar power is dead' before it has even started.
That's a side issue.
If the panel never producers as much electricity in £s as the cost of manufacture + installation it's a pointless exercise.
yet they frequently do, and will continue to get better and better, that is the nature of progress.
In practice volume and production advances should decrease the cost per panel while the cost of fossil fuels is doomed to forever increase as supplies are depleted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychosplodge
The decision to put that much of the cost of the "energy turnaround" on private electricity consumers is political and cane be done in a lot of different ways, for example less exemptions for the industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfshade
And 200 pounds per person per year seems ridiculously high. Adding up the surcharges that are related to renewable energy I come up with short under 8 cent/kWh, which means for additional 250€ (or 200 pounds) you would have to consume over 3100 kWh a year. That's closer to an average 3 person household than a single person.
basically the main complaints against solar are a) too expensive and b) not efficient enough. yet both of those things are improving year on year, so it is not really valid grounds for dismissal.
anyway, the far more important news is that the Isle of Man's Wallaby population has increased steadily since the 70s.
These cute little fellas?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirsten
Attachment 11166
them's the fellas
I'm jealous.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirsten
they are pretty awesome. we have wallabies, yet no venomous creatures, it is like Australia but better :p
Are these wild or in some sort of enclosure!
wild
Now I'm even more jealous! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirsten
Why on earth are there wallabies on the Isle of Man?!
A pair escaped the wildlife park in the 70s and nobody bothered to recapture them. There are about 120 now apparently.
Shouldnt that lead to genetic bottlenecking and inbred wallabies?
They're also apparently in the peak district, the Norfolk broads, and a London park.Quote:
Originally Posted by Morgrim
But what do they taste like?