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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 15h

In those cases we should make them have to apply for a licence + justify that need. We must not make it easy to opt for the inefficient option 🙂.
In my past I filmed tube bending machines which heated 400mm dia x 15mm thick steel tubes to red hot in seconds using electric induction coils.

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 18h

Insulation and ventilation go hand in hand.
Insulating houses without managing moisture build-up is a route to disaster. The mechanism is so simple it can be explained to anyone in just a few hours (except maybe politicians seeking short-term fixes).

Chris Baraniuk @chrisbaraniuk.com · 20h

"98% of homes that had external wall insulation installed under the schemes set up by the previous government have problems that will lead to damp and mould if left unaddressed"
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Tens of thousands of homes insulated under government schemes need repairs

Insulation programmes costing billions of pounds have led to widespread problems with damp and mould.

www.bbc.co.uk

Reposted by John Russell

Alasdair Cameron @alasdaircameron.bsky.social · 21h

Tory insulation mess-up latest. Luckily the scheme was such a monumental failure that only 23,000 homes need repair, despite that being 98% of those installed. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Almost all external insulation fitted under Tory scheme needs repair or replacing, report finds

Homeowners who took advantage of government programmes left with cladding likely to cause damp

www.theguardian.com

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 21h

I guess talking about Brexit damage is a start. But insisting we make this shitshow ‘work’ and forcing taxpayers to pay for some of the inevitable and ongoing loss feels like a wildly illogical response to the problem.

Photos of Wes Streeting above article and Farage below…

Text: It comes after The Independent revealed in March that Brexit had cost UK business £37bn a year as the result of a 5 per cent drop in trade with the EU.

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Damian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 20h

Towns may have to be abandoned due to floods with millions more homes in Great Britain at risk

- Every constituency projected to be at greater risk, with many areas likely to be uninsurable, Guardian investigation finds

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Towns may have to be abandoned due to floods with millions more homes in Great Britain at risk

Every constituency projected to be at greater risk, with many areas likely to be uninsurable, Guardian investigation finds

www.theguardian.com

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ECIU @eciu.net · 19h

Marginal Gains: how wind is pushing gas out of the power market and cutting costs

Growth in British renewables cutting electricity prices by up to a quarter.
eciu.net/analysis/re...

Marginal Gains: how wind is pushing gas out of the power market and…

Growth in British renewables cutting electricity prices by up to a quarter.

eciu.net

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

I have no problem if it's used where nothing else will do the job better :-)

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

Looking over towards Yes Tor from the Ice Works.
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Ominous clouds frame the landscape below Yes Tor, Dartmoor. The foreground where the sheep are grazing is in sunshine and the plateau below Black Tor is also lit up by the sun, with blue sky above, but the rest of the landscape is in darkness.

John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

Near the old Ice Works, Sourton Tors.
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Picture taken on Dartmoor today. The foreground grass and rocks are lit up with sunshine but the distant terrain is under heavy, dark cloud.

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

There was amazing light on Dartmoor today.
A thread.
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View from Dartmoor looking towards Lydford and Bridestowe. Heavy cloud above patches of sunshine hit the distant hills.

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

That's the whole of North Devon under that cloud.
Boxing Day 2024. @seismatters.bsky.social

Looking north from Dartmoor. The whole of north Devon is underneath cloud due to temperature inversion.

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

I used to take my kids to Stanage Edge regularly when they were young and we lived in Nottingham. In fact my dad used to take me there when I was a kid and we lived in Sheffield in the '50s. Great place to visit :-)
Later I'll post a pic I took of a temperature inversion seen from Dartmoor 26/12/24.

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

Even better to store it in batteries, or use pumped storage. The losses are a significantly lower.

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HyNot @hynotnw.bsky.social · 1d

New analysis by @influencemap.bsky.social has found that #BigOil majors have systematically lobbied the government to adopt a costly and emissions intensive energy policy agenda dependent on #CarbonCaptureAndStorage and the continued reliance on fossil fuels.

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The UK Oil and Gas Industry's Advocacy on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

New analysis from InfluenceMap suggests that for more than 15 years, the oil and gas industry has systematically pushed the UK government to adopt a costly, emissions-intensive energy policy agenda de...

influencemap.org

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

If instead of putting renewable electricity straight into the grid you use it to make green hydrogen, you lose ~one third of the embodied energy. Burning that hydrogen in a power station increases the losses further and is a fine example of madness. www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2021/6/...

Quote: "Put an energy value of 50 kWh of electricity in and get hydrogen out with an energy value of 33.3 kWh, or 67% efficiency."

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Dr Seán DOOLAN 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇮🇪 @sdinpraxis.bsky.social · 1d

👀 US interference in UK abortion rights, with allies in Trump world. In 2024, Alliance Defending Freedom (UK) received £1.1M from its US parent, to fund buffer‑zone protesters, Westminster lobbying, attending the APPG on Freedom of Religion or Belief, briefing MPs and officials - and citing Farage

Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 1d

Really good piece from Jane Bradley and co at NYT.

Earlier this summer Democracy for Sale revealed how anti abortionists, including ADF, were pumping money into the U.K.

Free Speech Union still hasn’t responded to our queries. Funny that…

democracyforsale.substack.com/p/us-antiabo...

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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 1d

The right-wing campaign group that helped topple Roe v Wade in the US is now working to roll back abortion laws in the UK, with the help of Nigel Farage.

Its first step? Trying to create a debate around "free speech"
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

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Central Bylines @centralbylines.co.uk · 3d

"Persuasion UK presented DeSmog’s findings that the party raised £2.3 million between the 2019 and 2024 elections from climate science deniers and fossil fuel interests – equivalent to 92 percent of its funding over the period."

Exposing Reform’s Oil Ties Significantly Reduces Party Support, New Research Finds

Reform UK’s oil industry interests are a major turn-off for voters, new research reveals. The think tank Persuasion UK tested five anti-Reform messages on 6,000 adults. According to the research, “by ...

www.desmog.com

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

Sustainable aviation fuel is in the same category as the flying cars we imagined in the '60s we'd all be driving by the 2000s—possible, but just not feasible at scale.

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RadReduction (Larry Edwards) @radreduction.bsky.social · 4d

Just published, in Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences:

"Flight from reality: sustainable aviation, Jet Zero, and the technofix"

Open access:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Screen shot:

Flight from reality: sustainable aviation, Jet Zero, and the
technofix

Gareth Dale, Josh Moos and Alistair Bernal Holmes

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that rising aviation emissions, which are disproportionally driven by the wealthy, pose a serious threat to climate goals. Using the UK’s Jet Zero strategy as a case study, it explores how policymakers and industry promote speculative technologies—efficiency gains, electric and hydrogen aircraft, sustainable aviation fuels, carbon capture, and offsetting—to justify continued aviation growth. We critically assess these claims: electric aircraft are limited to short routes; hydrogen faces major storage and infrastructure barriers, and green hydrogen remains scarce. SAFs, often derived from land-intensive crops, risk deforestation, biodiversity loss, and higher net emissions. Second generation SAFs, such as used cooking oil, are scarce, and power-to-liquid is speculative and prohibitively expensive. Carbon capture is unproven at scale, and offsetting enables airlines to claim reductions without cutting actual emissions. These “solutions” align with a political agenda that prioritises economic growth and airport expansion. We argue that this techno-optimism delays real action. Rather than gambling on future breakthroughs that may never materialise, policymakers should pursue immediate demand-reduction strategies and support a just transition—ending frequent-flyer incentives, shifting short-haul flights to rail, removing aviation fuel subsidies, and retraining workers for low-carbon sectors.

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Khashoggi's Ghost @urocklive1.bsky.social · 3d

They're stopping wind and solar because the president is an idiot who doesn't understand how anything works, doesn't try to learn, and assumes he knows more than all the experts about almost everything that he knows nothing about.

Also because Big Oil gives him lots of money.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 3d

Schatz: They’re stopping wind and solar because this guy has some very strange ideas about the energy mix. And it’s consistent with the rest of his political and economic philosophy — if there’s less of everything, it gives him more authority to dole out favors

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John Russell @johnrussell40.bsky.social · 1d

Crazy. Fine in winter but what about May to September when your home is warm enough and you don't want any heating? Homes don't have AC in the UK.

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 1d

This is either clever or crazy or both: a UK company will install, in your home, a miniature data center, about the size of a heat pump, to serve as your home heating.

UK Power Networks helping SHIELD vulnerable customers from Fuel Poverty

Customers struggling with energy bills could soon benefit from low-cost heating, thanks to an award-winning UK Power Networks innovation that re-uses heat from mini data centres.

www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk

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Peter Stefanovic @peterstefanovic.bsky.social · 1d

'Nigel Farage could never be trusted to run Britain after getting Brexit so wrong'

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

'Farage could never be trusted to run Britain after getting Brexit so wrong'

No Brexit champion, particularly Nigel Farage, is worthy of high office after proving so conclusively wrong on such a seismic issue, says Mirror Associate Editor Kevin Maguire

www.mirror.co.uk

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Gaia Vince @wanderinggaia.bsky.social · 2d

The problem

The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 19d

These very true words from Steve Hely have given me tremendous comfort over the years.

Writing a novel— actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs— is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV’s so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it’s damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit.

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Philip Boucher-Hayes @philipb-h.bsky.social · 3d

National Geographic had indicated they would buy the exclusive rights to this series, but new owners Disney decided that “climate and environment are no longer priorities for us”.

Thankfully Al Jazeera saw the value in the series and bought it. But …

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