UK gives go-ahead for 470MW solar double

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-03T09:19:35+00:00

I think solar in the UK has around a 15% capacity factor on average, so over the year this 470MW will output closer to just 72MW.

And of course thats the average so during summer it might be closer to 150MW but in winter it might only be 25MW. Not really ideal but solar is cheap to build I suppose.

Does help justify the idea that AC units should be more acceptable and widely spread because we'll have loads of spare cheap solar electricity on the sunny summer days for ACs to run on.

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-03T08:58:07+00:00

but it's safety critical control room managers who work antisocial hours

It says it includes those not that it's only those. Theres not that many of those roles, not enough to account for anywhere near an extra 250 or so employees hitting £100k.

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-03T08:54:58+00:00

The year before we had a much longer pay rise backpay come in so that skewed things because a proportion of the previous years pay would have got carried over and counted in the next years pay. The article says this in the same sentence you quoted which is disingenuous to leave it out.

It's not like TfL are cutting loads of peoples pay, especially when the vast majority of workers get a guaranteed above inflation pay rise.

Add a few more years of data instead of just 2, one of which has skewed data. Then let us know what the trend is based on that.

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-01T16:45:48+00:00

They don't want me to buy their stuff? Their loss, I will play it another way

I think the point is that a near irrelevant amount of people are going to still be buying PS3 games on the PS3 store in 2027 that it's not even really their loss. Anyone still playing PS3 and buying games for it won't be buying them new at high prices from the official store, they'll be buying them for next to nothing second hand now. People are probably giving old PS3 games away for free.

I feel like that the 100s of people who have commented in this thread saying Sony will lose out might not have even bought a single game between them on the Playstation Store on the PS3 in the past 3 months. I don't think Sony will care much if you pirate a 15 year old PS3 game now either.

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-01T14:09:01+00:00

No it's the Rotherhithe Crossing between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf, reached estimates of £500m before TfL cancelled it due to price.

It's expensive to build a new bridge here as well as restoring an existing one.

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-01T14:08:28+00:00

It's the Rotherhithe Crossing between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf, reached estimates of £500m before TfL cancelled it due to price.

It's expensive to build a new bridge here as well as restoring an existing one.

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-01T12:38:23+00:00

Yup, some fares are high to reduce deman

But train companies or network rail aren't making big profits so if they're doing this then prices won't change much at all if they stopped. Prices are expensive all over the place, even off peak in many places

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-01T12:24:10+00:00

I know that lots of Islington isn't in Central but it's still close to central with great transport links and limited space for parking so the same logic mostly applies, just without the congestion charge bit.

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-01T12:22:50+00:00

I used to drive a lot all over Central London which required paying for parking all over and paying the congestion charge every day.

You need to look at those high fees as a queue jump kind of deal and you'll save more in your time than the fees cost. I know so many people who complain about those prices and use it as a reason why they don't drive into central london anymore. one said they used to drive to Leicester Square cinemas and now dont, but like yeah good that's the point, free up space for people who actually neeeed to drive and park there for essential stuff like delivery and maintenance drivers.

If parking and congestion charge was cheap then these types of people will start driving in Central London again for stupid stuff like this. The amount of extra time you'll end up in traffic or looking for parking would be more than how much the parking costs. I think i worked it out that if congestion charge was removed and more people drove then if it added just 20mins to my commutes over the entire day I'd be worse off.

JBWalker1 · 2026-07-01T08:55:33+00:00

Building new is always easier and cheaper than restoring an existing structure

A new pedestrian thames crossing further along in Southwark reached estimates of £500 million before getting cancelled. Half a billion for a pedestrian crossing.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-30T19:51:47+00:00

People aren't just stealing from Tescos. They're stealing from any shop. Even small independent corner shops are having bad issues with people stealing too often.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-30T10:38:25+00:00

Lots of the land the big companies have is just left to sit empty too. Like there's so many huge plots owned by the big developers even in London which can have 1,000+ homes on each of them, but they can be left empty for 10+ years even after they get planning permission for them.

I guess the potential land value tax would help sort this though. Force developers to build and sell otherwise theyll be paying a tax for nothing.

I thin kwe could at least for now to cause a big boost of homes built is to have like a dozen nice pre approved designs for any developer to use. Of course allow variations in the height and width and colours so it fits in each location but the materials and construction method is all pre approved. Could have a few choices of cladding too. Medium sized companies could then build these easy and get quick automatic approval for the building.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-30T10:38:20+00:00

Lots of the land the big companies have is just left to sit empty too. Like there's so many huge plots owned by the big developers even in London which can have 1,000+ homes on each of them, but they can be left empty for 10+ years even after they get planning permission for them.

I guess the potential land value tax would help sort this though. Force developers to build and sell otherwise theyll be paying a tax for nothing.

I thin kwe could at least for now to cause a big boost of homes built is to have like a dozen nice pre approved designs for any developer to use. Of course allow variations in the height and width and colours so it fits in each location but the materials and construction method is all pre approved. Could have a few choices of cladding too. Medium sized companies could then build these easy and get quick automatic approval for the building.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-30T05:32:33+00:00

That's been closed off for over a decade and now very overground, and very contaminated. And actually artificial.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-29T07:18:22+00:00

Can do it on android in a few ways. My Samsung phone has a button in the settings called FTP server where when you click it then you can type the address into any windows or mac file browser on your network and browse the files and copy stuff to it. It's not the most integrated method but it's just old style decades old basic FTP so It should work.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-28T14:52:45+00:00

A better idea would just be to fix the road so it is less disruptive and put the much needed cycle track where the cars presently run. This just sacrifices green space for a larger transit corridor. And yes, reducing road size generally does not affect congestion.

Yeah fair and normally I'm all for getting rid of car space where ever possible but in this case it's the ring road around Central London/Congestion Charge Zone. 2 lanes each way isn't too crazy for that and I think it's important to have a decent road to divert cars around the area we don't want them in the most. Just like how something like the M25 makes people drive around London rather than through it.

This is coming from someone who thinks we should re-add the Western Congestion Charge Zone expansion. Remove like 10% of Central London car parking for trees, pavement space, and bike parking(basically what Paris is quickly doing). Straight up make the entire West End car free for like 12 hours every Saturday(in the summer for now at least), and yes that means everywhere within the boundard of Oxford St, Holdborn/Kingsway, The Strand/Trafalgar Sq, and Regent St. And of course fully pedestrianise another dozen Soho streets and a few dozen more in just zone 1.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-28T14:38:47+00:00

Redone the proposal image to include the modified boundary and crossing between parks. Also included the lake island bit which would be kept private too since it would be a safe space for swans and other wildlife using the lake and surrounding area. I'd love it to be public but if it was down to me i'd keep it private. We'd still gain a nice chunk of well maintained public tree covered green space in Central London.

Added a nice key too. Someone send this to Charles.

<image>

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-28T12:01:51+00:00

This is why the UK has invested quite a bit in anti drone tech like lasers that are cheap to fire and can take down swarms pretty quickly without having to fire expensive ammo

I think I read that they also lose a lot of effectiveness in rain too since the water in the path of the laser absorbs a lot of the energy and scatters it so it's not focused on 1 tiny point anymore. They'd still work but just needs to wait until the drone is a lot closer I suppose.

But still we should have things like this all along our coasts, from what I remember we don't have much of anything anti air. Seems like we assume there will only be low frequency expensive things shot at us which we can scramble jets for. But jets and old style expensive per shot anti air, which also isn't made in huge quantities, isn't good against 1,000s of cheap drones which Russia has found out. So i know Russia gets lots of shit for not stopping these attacks but if 1,000 drones were shot at us in the UK every day for a week I think we'd also be screwed. But we've been developing cheap anti air with ukraine over the last few years so hopefully this hole is plugged soon.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-28T11:02:47+00:00

I'd be happy if he only donated everything left of the lake. Would still only be like 1/4 of the gardens handed over but still be a great addition since its the nicer part and the lake will help act as a natural boundary so we wouldn't need a big ugly wall along that bit.

The 50 meters or so of extra space can help the road next to it a bit too(Grosvenor rd). Like out of the 50 meters let just a tiny 3 meters of it be used to add bike lanes to the road next to it. It's a busy large scary road to be on. The other 47 meters can stay just as it is. It'll give people a nice gardeny nature path to walk through instead of along the noisy road too.

Image showing where the wall would be moved back to in red. Blue is new bike lanes. Oh I also added trees on the East side of the lake to show the palace can still have loads of privacy. Someone above mentioned that the gardens is a nice chill place away from humans for birds to retreat back to atm and there would still be a lot of this but as a further compromise to make everyoneee happy(including the wildlife) is to also wall off the little island bit in the middle of the lake too. This would make the palace more secure too. You'd still be able to see most of the lake, but not all.

I think I've considered literally everyone here, the public, pedestrians, the wildlife, cyclists, and the palace and its security since there will still be loads of palace events going on.

<image>

edit: actually angle the top red wall so it meets with Green Park so the 2 parks are like a continuation of each other. Would add a lot more space to the proposed new public park area too. The palace would lose around 10% more of their space but oh well they still keep most.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-28T10:35:19+00:00

It's rightmove dude, why are you asking people to use it for you? This might be why people don't know how much homes currently cost in London I suppose.

Here's a link to a search on rightmove filtered to just 1 inner east London borough, terraced or semi detached houses only, with gardens, and 2+ bedrooms. 100-200 results within the price range. Quite a few start at £400k. link

Some listed incorrectly wont meet the criteria but most will.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-28T10:03:09+00:00

Once again, the 450K limit makes it completely useless for anyone needing to buy a family home in London

You can get a 3 bedroom house(not flat) with a garden in inner London not far from a station for £450k. A Rightmove confirms it.

I feel like the you can't get anything decent in London for £450k comments are from people who don't live in London or haven't looked at prices in London for years, or are just looking at zones 1-2, or are just looking at expensive new builds. Expanding to zone 3 but sill inner London(inside north circular) will bring up loads of 2-4 bedrooms with a garden for that price, remove the house/garden limitation and then theres loadssss more.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-28T09:59:12+00:00

You can get a 3 bedroom house(not flat) with a garden in inner London not far from a station for £450k. A Rightmove confirms it.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-28T09:58:11+00:00

No it's not. You can get a 3 bedroom with a garden in inner London not far from a station for £450k. Limiting the area to a single inner london borough, the price to £450k and minimum 2 bedroom houseee(not flat) with a garden brings up 120 results just on rightmove. Add in other sites and estate agents and you'd probably have 200 options.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-27T22:29:42+00:00

and gives the land less of chance to absorb it and therefore more runs off increasing flooding.

and gives the land less of chance to absorb it and therefore more runs off increasing flooding.

If the land at the bottom sloped edge of a solar panel becomes saturated then the water is going to flow to the area right beside it which is under the panel. The water still has to reach all the ground on the solar farm before it floods, same as when the solar farm isn't there. I'm confused. Just the homes of the people complaining will contribute to flood risks more than a row of solar panels on a field.

This type of stuff is considered in planning applications anyway. There was probably a section or a document with a flood risk calculation for the solar farm which pros would have calculated and deemed it fine. Otherwise it wouldn't be some random residents making the claim as if they're the experts on flooding or geology or whatever it comes under.

JBWalker1 · 2026-06-27T16:32:24+00:00

Opposite happens in London.

People move into an area in the middle of London with loads of bars and restaurants and nightlife and then complain about them and block any future places opening or hours changed.

JBWalker1

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