Andrew Thomson

All posts my own opinion etc.
@quantinghome.bsky.social

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@NoContextHumans To be fair, stealing a piano would be a bit tricky in any country.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@CeliaRichards0n It's one of the best. It has stiff competition with Exeter-Plymouth and Edinburgh-Aberdeen. But the West Highland line knocks them all for six.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@thomasforth I wonder how much of it is historical baggage. Pre-industrial revolution the North had a proportionally much lower population than the South so was regarded as a peripheral backwater, an attitude which stuck.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@michael_wheller @afneil Yes, ff from other countries, which we will be more and more reliant on. Thankfully we've already developed the alternatives and we've got huge offshore wind potential which we'd be fools to ignore. But you're right, the full switch will take 20 odd years.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@marcusleech123 @julianHjessop Nobody knows. Literally nobody. No engineers, no academics, no energy company. No one has ever ever thought about it. Literally never crossed their minds. In fact you're the first person ever to raise this as an issue. You should take over as CEO of the national grid right now.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@marcusleech123 @julianHjessop Fair enough. I should have said maximum output.

You're the one claiming that backup makes power prohibitively expensive so I assume you know what it will be. What is it?

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@marcusleech123 @julianHjessop I know exactly how much wind capacity we have. And I know the difference between that and record output. I don't know where you get your figures from. https://t.co/RMTFaBNHh8

You massively overestimate the impact of the cost of backup.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@marcusleech123 @julianHjessop I said record output not the nameplate capacity. And wind has averaged over 17GW in the last 24 hours. It's not dropped much compared to the record.

But that aside, what's your point? Wind power output varies. So what? Everyone knows this.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@Cedders68 @SiOldridge Quantified against similar countries. Of all the large developed economies we've cut our emissions the most and our future targets are more ambitious than other similar countries.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@marcusleech123 @julianHjessop Yeah, that's not true. This is current wind production, about 80% of the record output.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@michael_wheller @afneil Yes, minor plays are available. This is how much they change the picture. We are well into the tail end of UK production.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

The proposed climate and nature bill would have killed the large scale low carbon energy projects we need to get to net zero. Labour are right not to support it.

[Matthew Dalby @MatthewJDalby]

This proposed climate and nature bill looks like it would make the building of all significant low-carbon energy pretty much impossible.

That seems bad for the climate.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@MrMark_James @julianHjessop Facts beat gifs I'm afraid.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@MrMark_James @julianHjessop No, there's not significant gas left, which is why we need to import so much. Fracking was never a serious prospect in the UK. The geology isn't right for it. SMRs are still under development, there's no guarantee they will be economic.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@MrMark_James @julianHjessop Er, really?

You may want to check about our reserves...

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@Nick_Walker12 @julianHjessop Rest assured, that's exactly what is happening.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@MrMark_James @julianHjessop Risky compared to what? I'm sure relying on shipped LNG imports isn't risky at all...

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@WillPinner @thomasforth @julianHjessop Now do gas.

[Andrew Thomson @quantinghome]

@Cedders68 @SiOldridge We are doing that. CBAM is already planned. And we are already doing a heck of a lot to reduce emissions. I don't see how the bill helps.