Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖

Creator of good books such as Trans Britain and Pressing Matters. Lifetime Achievement Award PrideOfManchester 2021. Drove two Nissan LEAF EVs for ten years and is now enjoying a BYD Dolphin called Hattie. Posts about #climate mitigation, #trans moral panic, #books and now #fascism.  #Retired. She/Her.

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Last Notes

2026-04-25 08:05:11 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq And are the cleaning staff expected to ‘act up’ to backfill the nurses who are backfilling the doctors?

2026-04-03 07:10:09 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq @nprofile…cz6y I see this as a living experiment into how well a saloon bar bore fares with their views outside the pub. These are people who’ve been cosseted in their own little extremist hate bubble. Being isolated in that bubble means they’ve developed the mistaken impression that everyone thinks the way they do. It’s why they’re careless. They think gibbing off can only give them more clout. They’re really badly mistaken and too dozy to even hide the hate.

2026-04-01 05:49:23 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq Indeed. I’m not denying that. And (unless I’m mistaken) China doesn’t have indigenous supplies of gas to perform a quick conversion to halve the CO2 emissions or run the plants in a rapid desptatch mode. Coal plants can’t be idled and brought back to operating temperature and pressure at the speed that gas plants can run. That’ll be important for backing up the intermittency of renewables in the long r7n.

2026-04-01 05:38:09 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq It’s all down to how fast they displace that coal. The good news in that respect is that, even though some of the coal plants are quite new, they’re not saddled by the capitalist imperative to wring every last penny of profit out of the coal generation assets.

2026-03-02 06:56:45 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq ..so the renewable generation coming online is able to stretch further. The bottom line for me is that there are so many factors in play in a complete transformation of our energy use (how we make it, how efficiently it’s used) that there’s no simple explanation for the emergent result. But still we’d have even more dramatic results if we consumed less stuff made and grown abroad but also built the stuff to last. My current washing machine lasted 25 years but the next may..

2026-03-02 06:51:11 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq There is still a great more efficiency to be had too. One vast change has been the replacement of street lighting with LEDs at such a vast scale that the reduction in power demand has almost completely offset the new load of having 2m EVs. But also, few analysts factored the wastefulness of what we are replacing. You don’t need as much energy to do mechanical work or make heat with our replacement technologies. Renewables don’t have to replace every kWh previously required..

2026-03-02 06:42:39 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq Regarding manufacturing, I regard the offshoring as a product of Thatcherism. The big examples since the early 90s tend to make the headlines (eg Dyson taking his manufacturing to the far east) but you don’t buy cars and white goods every week or even every year. Likewise, although supermarkets have undoubtedly caused a rise in us consuming non seasonal foods, that’s a trend going back much further. New Zealand lamb? Danish bacon? These were long embedded trends.

2026-03-02 06:36:49 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq As far as I can see, the most dramatic drop in CO2 from 2012 onwards came from the rapid replacement of coal with gas for electricity generation. That’s a drop from the 800s of grams per kWh to the 500s. Wind and solar coming online since 2016 have then rapidly displaced the gas in turn. The offshoring of manufacturing and food growing came far earlier. And, yes, efficiency is a big factor too. Tens of millions of incandescent lamps (60-100W each) replaced by LEDs (<10W)

2026-02-17 09:11:59 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq The deception was staggering. The Tories had run for election in 2010 specifically promising no big changes to the NHS (which was at the height of its public approval). The need for coalition released them from the obligation to follow their own manifesto and the LibDems helped them exploit that.

2026-02-17 09:08:17 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq And we know that this was set up quite blatantly by Andrew Lansley, who sprung a complete redisorganisation of the system on us early in the life of the Con-LibDem coalition, and the crucial weasel words changing the Secretary of State’s responsibility were buried inside the Bill which Parliament was dragooned into passing. Having done his job, Lansley was promoted to a lifelong job in the Lords.

2026-01-28 06:56:14 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq I’ve felt for a long time that the west has been deluded by the myths of Russian power. I vividly remember back in the seventies/eighties all those diagrams of soviet missiles and tanks and warships and inventory. That Cold War fear is deeply ingrained. But Russia alone is a shadow of the USSR. My biggest shock was the realisation that (for all its apparent size on the Mercator map) Russia is only about 135 million people — less than two UKs and a minnow against EU’s 500m..

2026-01-21 07:02:08 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq The crying shame is that he’s not alone in continuing as though nothing’s really changed. It’s as though the entire establishment is stuck on rails, unable to conceive that the basis for their (our) entire world has changed and this moment won’t just ‘blow over’. It’s gone and they can’t accept it. It’s mind boggling. It’s like a collective denial. An unswerving institutional momentum. Does this train stop or crash into the reality buffers at the terminus?

2026-01-16 08:10:35 GMT

The weirdest excavator I’ve ever seen! I think they’re referred to as spiders and they can lift each leg independently and widen or narrow their track whilst the cabin does a full 360. There must be a temptation for the driver to play all day. One was in action this week, clambering down into the bed of the breached Llangollen Canal to help dig out narrowboats that had been washed into the void.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/903/762/623/375/027/original/5c736b7765b86192.png

2026-01-09 08:17:09 GMT

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@nprofile…x9tq @nprofile…cgvr I’m pleased to see people have already put a name to the hyped up gun toting murderer. He got careless with his mask and the internet is very resourceful.

2025-12-17 07:36:27 GMT

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@nprofile…hzyj The OPEC part is almost like a map of the worst places in the world and (excepting Canada) the non-OPEC part is not much better. If there are future historians they will surely conclude that the 150 year reign of oil brought out the worst in humanity and almost killed us.

2025-10-12 20:14:55 GMT

Watching the Muppets do Bohemian Rhapsody reminds me of watching the original show on Sunday evenings at my research supervisor’s house almost fifty years ago. https://youtu.be/H1z0XLqSDzQ?si=LoAAAtWbsRKKp8FT

2025-10-10 18:14:49 GMT

Today I learned that there are only three English cities with an electrical consumption greater than 200 megawatts: London, Manchester and Birmingham. By comparison, the people who want to build AI data centres here, which nobody asked for, want a supply of up to 1 gigawatt (1,000 megawatts) for each one. That’s how skewed this whole nonsense is.

2025-10-08 12:14:36 GMT

If you’re a pound shop politician desperately angling for populist clout by claiming you’ve seen no white faces in some place you visited then I have some advice: If that’s truly what you’ve observed then it’s not evidence that BME migrants don’t “integrate”. It’s evidence that the whites won’t integrate. It’s evidence all the whites moved away when visibly “foreign” newcomers tried to move in alongside them. By trying for racist clout you’ve shown prima facie evidence of whites being racist.

2025-10-04 19:11:46 GMT

I’ve just been looking at a rather fun-looking long distance electric bus service covering (so far) the north half of Scotland. To use it you select the route you want on the web site and pay in advance. The bus only stops at the designated stops where people have said they want to get on or off. You need to book at least 10 minutes beforehand. The fares look very reasonable and the bus is QUIET! The service is at https://www.ember.to and the picture here is from a live tracker of all buses
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/317/231/941/866/198/original/ee4a07219e7be77f.jpeg

2025-10-01 06:23:25 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…” a true anthem for our age.

2025-09-07 11:13:39 GMT

A lovely ITV documentary from ten years ago, focussed on the amazing diversity of the men and women working at Stockwell Bus Garage in London. Lots of drivers and cleaners with stories to tell of their lives in Britain. Includes a 73 year old bus driver and a tribal chief. Quite a reminder of how very recently Britain still celebrated immigrants and diversity. Our dark turn is very recent and nakedly political.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mi6dNcCYwbs&si=bPvGi77NIdIXWkFR

2025-08-25 07:13:57 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz The worst part is that the AI overviews come from having already scraped (I.e. stolen) the sites that are now losing traffic. Sites really ought to agree on techniques to poison the well so that all the LLMs become progressively more absurd.

2025-08-15 15:35:41 GMT

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@nprofile…rh2x And some see that event in 1990 as the inciting action that sealed the fate of Thatcher.

2025-08-15 07:25:35 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz I couldn’t help noting a degree of relief in the media that boys had done better than girls this year. They really can’t cope when girls are ahead.

2025-08-11 15:23:18 GMT

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@nprofile…rr0q @nprofile…60lz @nprofile…sjjc They really ought to oppose the roads first. And the hedges that enclose the fields. And do something about the farm machinery. So much to oppose, so little time. (And yes, I do know farm mechanisation and enclosures and cars were all at some time violently opposed — often with better reason)

2025-08-11 15:16:04 GMT

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@nprofile…rr0q @nprofile…sjjc @nprofile…60lz Call me old fashioned but unless one or more legs of a 275Kv pylon are actually in your garden (as I saw once of twice in London) I think the traditional lattice pylons are themselves quite elegant to look at.

2025-08-11 05:55:25 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz It’s enough to make your eyes water! £667.5 million https://wind-curtailment-app-ahq7fucdyq-lz.a.run.app
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/008/551/553/331/827/original/8ea0fbe80ff05442.jpeg

2025-08-05 15:00:09 GMT

Another 31,000 electric cars and vans came on UK roads in July. Also 327 electric motorcycles and 57 electric HGVs https://storage.googleapis.com/public_download_assets/ecc_pdfs/20250805%20ECC%20July%202025.pdf
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/976/734/017/077/437/original/a2747d70369df59c.jpeg

2025-08-05 10:29:12 GMT

Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations – Wikimedia Foundation
This is a UK censorship attack on knowledge but also on the privacy of the anonymous volunteers who maintain it.
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/07/17/wikimedia-foundation-challenges-uk-online-safety-act-regulations/

2025-08-03 16:08:45 GMT

The long promised housing project for ageing LGBTQ+ people in Greater Manchester is finally seeing bricks in the ground and is promised for summer 2027. I first attended a consultation on this back in 2019. The site was occupied by a vacated private hospital so that had to be demolished first. Then the ground needed cleaning up and the lockdowns appeared. Then, I assume, it probably had to get the funding secured again and everybody with their ducks in a row. Anyway, serious building now.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/965/672/807/025/929/original/ec6daf900ebf34cd.jpeg

2025-08-03 16:00:24 GMT

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Direct link to the report bypassing BlueSky https://theconversation.com/critics-claim-gender-clinics-are-seeing-an-excess-of-trans-boys-but-new-data-suggest-otherwise-257817

2025-08-03 15:35:52 GMT

New study shows vast "over-representation of trans boys" turns out to be vast _under-representation of trans girls bec. they: a) come out ~10 years later; b) start puberty later; & c) delay transitioning longer because of deep social animus towards AMAB femininity.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:lvgofxnakofmb4aoxxjgyayc/post/3lvirckka4c25
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/965/563/491/697/714/original/0957f693119594c3.jpeg

2025-08-03 10:00:03 GMT

The Online Safety Act is Forcing Brits to Hand Over Personal Data to 'Unregulated' Overseas Corporations With Questionable Privacy Records – Byline Times
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/07/31/the-online-safety-act-is-forcing-brits-to-hand-over-personal-data-to-unregulated-overseas-corporations-with-questionable-privacy-records/

2025-08-02 15:46:44 GMT

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For context, Britain now has just six major oil refineries remaining as demand continues to fall. Petroleum refining in the United Kingdom produced around 51.45 million tonnes of petroleum products in 2023, down 16% from 2015 and 32% from 2011.

2025-08-02 15:29:47 GMT

An oil refinery at Immingham in NE England has closed for good after it went into receivership and the official receiver was unable to find a buyer for it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg50ye7pj6no

2025-07-26 08:08:43 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz I feel that way every morning when I come on here.

2025-07-25 07:01:38 GMT

My recommendation to Scotland is this: Take the felon on a state visit to the middle of the Galloway Forest. It’s 400 square miles with hardly any habitation. Just trees. Lots of trees. The logging roads have no signs and I almost got lost there a few years back, thinking I could cut a corner off the peninsula. Leave him and then drive away.

2025-07-19 20:59:17 GMT

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This phase of the larger project appears to be divided into five 240Mb units for management purposes and three of those are producing power right now. Still, it’s progress. Dogger Bank B and C are both under construction as well and, when complete, each phase will produce 1,200 MW, making 3,600 MW rated output overall. That’s comparable to a sizeable part of Britain’s entire nuclear power fleet.

2025-07-19 20:43:59 GMT

At last! Although somewhat delayed during construction it looks as though the first phase of the gigantic Dogger Bank wind farm in the North Sea is now officially producing electricity and feeding it into the grid. I’d not seen any announcements (you’d expect an official opening) but one of the web sites that tracks wind farm output has started showing some power. https://renewables-map.robinhawkes.com/#5.06/54.77/1.91
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/881/817/025/829/618/original/4012116ef392f1dc.jpeg

2025-07-19 15:57:40 GMT

Trump may be doing his best to obstruct progress but a record number of EVs were sold in the US in the first half of the year. A fall in sales of Teslas was more than compensated by healthy sales of other brands. Of course this may be helped by the ending of tax credits in September but let’s cross our fingers that buying an EV becomes an iconic way for half the country to stick a finger up to the regime.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=e0R8Y6BXRPU&si=T1lLcj_rF-8hbJUG

2025-07-18 07:29:48 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz I detect a pattern:
Labour claims to know more about racism than a prime target of racism.
Labour thinks it knows more about disability than disabled people.
Labour believes it knows more about conversion therapy than LGBT folk.
It’s the party that vilified a critic of Israeli oppression of Palestinians by starting an ‘antisemitism’ witch hunt.
And I’ll leave another one hanging awkwardly unmentioned because I hate being predictable.

2025-07-08 15:35:16 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz Lansley’s redisorganisation put a damper on management action for two years whilst administrators focussed on keeping their hands clean and jockeying for new opportunities. The physical reorganisation then scattered institutional knowledge, shut off reporting paths, shut down good systems and left everyone waiting for new orders from a structure nobody yet understood. Sheer vandalism cosplaying as management science.

2025-07-08 10:33:56 GMT

An interesting psychiatric theory for why demonstrative cruelty appeals so much to the right.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4T8jF8BEeCM&si=socCp7-CxQjSEOdp

2025-07-02 08:55:45 GMT

I don’t know whether this is one of those legendary ’Brexit Benefits’™️ but, for weeks now, I’ve not been able to find any John West sardines in any of the Tescos I’ve visited. There are a few own brand ones but the absence feels notable, especially as there are shelves full of tinned Mackerel (which we Brits have plenty of in coastal waters but famously don’t eat).

2025-07-01 06:28:48 GMT

“The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security would like to bring attention to and condemn recent judicial and governmental developments in the United Kingdom, which attempt to harm transgender and intersex people in the UK by stripping them of privacy and segregating them as ‘others.’ The Lemkin Institute believes these moves are part of a broader process of erasure.”
https://www.lemkininstitute.com/red-flag-alerts/red-flag-alert-on-anti-trans-and-intersex-rights-in-the-uk

2025-06-30 09:09:40 GMT

Anti-gender backlash: How Europe’s ultra-conservatives are going after abortion and LGBTQ+ rights
A new report reveals how groups critical of so-called gender ideology across Europe raised $1.18 billion to target abortion, sex education and LGBTQ+ rights.
https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/inside-europes-billioneuro-antigender-movement

2025-06-29 15:24:11 GMT

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@nprofile…zccm It’s like with the Daleks. In fifty years the rebooted Tesla will fly.

2025-06-29 06:28:37 GMT

Apparently Tesla is introducing a feature where your new car delivers itself to your home. I just hope the new owners realise that this means their new car can also at any time leave them and run away as well. Another addition to the list of things people never asked for or wanted.

2025-06-28 15:03:45 GMT

Peter Dynes: Paris could see temperatures of 45°C next week, taking into account the heat island effect, with tropical nights also. Europe and the Mediterranean are experiencing the fastest warming in recorded human history. Hard not to ask: what will 2035 look like at this rate?
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/761/593/131/711/174/original/bf5edc6ae8340cb8.jpeg

2025-06-22 13:48:52 GMT

I don’t normally give advice to fossil car drivers (other than ‘get an EV’) but now seems like a very good moment to go and top up your tank.

2025-06-18 15:18:18 GMT

Looking at the western English speaking world it’s hard not to conclude that a small but powerful part of the population has developed a full-on psychosis brought about by the latterday visibility of trans people. The abundant evidence that humans are not strictly unalterably binary has set in train such a concern for the viability of patriarchal sex roles that a rage results, intensifying into violent desires to somehow literally erase the people causing their cognitive dissonance.

2025-06-17 15:37:42 GMT

Good Law Project forces EHRC to backtrack…
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/699/440/259/505/186/original/96ac5213d67deb7b.jpeg

2025-06-13 18:34:52 GMT

Unbelievable! I just learned that the electricity retail industry still has about 350,000 consumers with what we used to call ‘White Meter’s or ‘Economy 7’. That’s where you have two old fashioned meters and the system switches between them for seven hours overnight to charge storage heaters and immersion heaters on cheap rate. The switchover relies on the old Radio 4 Long Wave radio signal. But the signal is being switched off on 30th Jun. When the signal goes consumers will either be stuck..

2025-06-06 06:58:15 GMT

Dublin’s Custom House flying the LGBT+ Progress flag next to the Irish flag
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/635/104/449/062/303/original/cd22de35b963c3d2.jpeg

2025-05-31 09:08:55 GMT

The Scottish Parliament must retract its transphobic toilet rules | Good Law Project
Please take a few seconds to add your name to a letter to the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. It is not enough for officials to say they won’t enforce the humiliating rule they’ve created.
https://action.goodlawproject.org/stop-scottish-parliament-toilet-police

2025-05-30 07:40:49 GMT

J.K. Rowling is personally funding attacks on trans women’s rights with her Harry Potter money - LGBTQ Nation
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/05/j-k-rowling-is-personally-funding-attacks-on-trans-womens-rights-with-her-harry-potter-money/

2025-05-29 09:07:52 GMT

Thought I’d come and explore Highgate cemetery. Karl Marx must be so delighted that there are fees to get in and see his grave
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/590/325/121/496/945/original/a184fe3c176977cc.jpeg

2025-05-27 06:43:25 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz You have to laugh. I don’t know about you Prof but here I am looking back on seventy years of embracing progress and changing norms (sometimes MAKING those changes) — always managing to feel relevant and comfortable — and yet there are boys and young men in their twenties moaning that life has changed and left their cherished attitudes behind. And what? Are we supposed to stop moving for them?

2025-05-26 12:11:08 GMT

Given the great interest that I got yesterday for my post about a low carbon day on Britain’s electricity grid I thought I’d share a post emphasising just how much wind power has to be wasted because the system doesn’t yet have the configuration to be able to use it all. This month alone the grid operator has had to pay wind farm operators £41.5 million to turn down their output. This process of ordering generators to turn down their contracted output is called ‘Curtailment’. Cont…
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/574/002/638/241/545/original/ee6c513fc2a84a0d.jpeg

2025-05-26 12:11:08 GMT

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In the meantime this site shows how much wind generators are paid to turn off their turbines daily, monthly and in total over the last few years https://wind-curtailment-app-ahq7fucdyq-lz.a.run.app

2025-05-26 12:11:08 GMT

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There are two big reasons for curtailment: One reason is because the grid’s backbone of high voltage cables doesn’t have sufficient capacity to carry some of the power from where it is generated to where it is consumed. This happens for wind power from Scotland, for instance, because there are only three big connections from that country into northern England (one each down the east and west coasts and one down the Irish Sea from Stranraer to North Wales). The other reason for turning wind down

2025-05-26 12:11:08 GMT

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..is because of the need to make room in the mix for a minimum of gas, nuclear, hydro etc… to provide the inertia to stabilise the grid. As discussed yesterday, the need for mechanical inertia is being designed out of the grid by building new renewables with so-called “grid forming” inverters to make the alternating current reliable. So-called “green inertia” will mean we can soon do without having to connect gas power stations when there is more than enough wind and solar.

2025-05-25 11:24:27 GMT

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…What this means is that their power electronics are designed to mimic the frequency and voltage stabilisation the the old spinning turbines produce mechanically. Massive batteries being built around the country will do the same. That means that soon, on a day like this, we will see the grid run exclusively on renewables and nuclear.

2025-05-25 11:24:27 GMT

Right now, mainland Britain has got almost enough wind and solar power to meet our electricity demand. Add in the power from nuclear and a small dash of gas (used solely to maintain enough mechanical inertia to stabilise the grid) and we are having to export 4.4GW to neighbouring countries. The need for that safety inertia will fall away with new renewable sites like Dogger Bank, whose inverters are capable of ‘grid forming’ as opposed to merely grid following…
https://grid.iamkate.com
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/568/156/501/809/181/original/b04e9327335d208c.jpeg

2025-05-23 12:41:53 GMT

Trump: “The EU has rules and sales taxes and the people don’t want our bloated cars or crappy adulterated food.”
What a whiny man baby.

2025-05-10 12:10:49 GMT

The largest part of mainland Britain’s electricity generation right now is solar.
2.3 GW gas
11.59 GW solar
4.31 GW wind
0.06 GW hydro power
3.84 GW nuclear
1.04 GW ‘biomass’
An additional 4.3GW comes from net imports through our undersea connectors to surrounding countries
https://grid.iamkate.com
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/483/445/600/360/482/original/aee25856073a6227.jpeg

2025-05-09 07:14:03 GMT

Nothing sums up the feeling that we are a faded, broken, has-been nation like being mugged by a sociopathic geriatric imbecile and having an uninspiring technocrat leader tell us we got a good deal out of abandoning our standards.

2025-05-05 07:59:50 GMT

A Guide On How To Write A Letter To Parliament - TransLucent
As a colleague of Stephen Whittle for fifteen years, and having helped utilise the approach he describes here (along with my other key colleague Claire McNab) I thoroughly endorse the step-by-step advice he lays out here for really getting key messages across to your MP.
Writing physical letters may seem awfully retro these days but they’re vital.
https://translucent.org.uk/a-guide-to-how-to-write-a-letter-to-parliament/

2025-05-01 11:06:16 GMT

FA to ban transgender women from women’s football under new rules - ITV News
"The FA says among the 10-plus million who play recreational or grassroots football in England, only 20 transgender players are registered. There are no trans women in the professional game. It adjusted its policy only a few weeks ago, introducing marginally stricter eligibility rules, but those changes have now been superseded."
20 in 10 Million. Says it all.
https://apple.news/A0IWL5z8jR3qb_qeKRO8H0A

2025-04-28 06:57:46 GMT

Help us challenge the Supreme Court’s judgment on trans rights | Good Law Project
The Crowdfunder for a legal challenge is now up to £209K.
Justice isn't for the meek since billionaires got into the business of overturning liberal order by sheer might.
https://goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/supreme-court-human-rights-for-trans-people/

2025-04-26 11:52:38 GMT

I've not actually seen what purports to be EHRC guidance yet but these notes apply regardless of anything they say, given that the ambit of their role is limited...
1. The guidance is just that: guidance. It's not compulsory. Some statutory guidance COULD be compulsory but not on people with protected characteristics (see 2.)

2025-04-26 11:52:38 GMT

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2. The Equality Act is not criminal law. Nobody can be arrested for using spaces they normally use. As I was taught over fifty years ago there is no law mandating how a particular toilet is used and by whom. The thing that matters is that there have always been existing laws that deal with either causing a nuisance/breach of the peace or committing an assault in a place where the public go. However, those conduct laws apply to anyone, including anyone acting as a vigilante.

2025-04-26 09:02:23 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz Were it not for the deliberate ambiguity over what you can and can't do without a license, and being in the demographic that had free licenses withdrawn and is now a target, I wouldn't pay for a subscription any more than I really want to buy a license (though I do). The quality just isn't there. I consumed radio comedy but last week BBC Sounds regurgitated a show from 1992. On TV I sometimes watch repeats on BBC Scotland because they are more interesting than the pap..

2025-04-26 08:52:26 GMT

Guardian: "Rights can be lost in a second -- Older trans people reveal their fears after supreme court ruling"
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/403/380/796/052/586/original/64f39f88cf9d79c2.jpeg

2025-04-26 05:18:20 GMT

An hour's coverage of the sheer variety of well made attractive Chinese EVs for low-low prices at the Shanghai Motor Show and it's clear both European and US manufacturers are far behind. If erecting tariff barriers is all we've got we are toast.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0zq-qjHayxg&si=HYQ6pzkBTI53Eqy4

2025-04-25 16:57:59 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz Apparently (and this isn't widely known), Europe is very close, we have a rail tunnel and it is a bigger market than the US with somewhat more stable prospects. (Echoing the Tory minister who shocked us all with his damascene discovery that our trade with Europe goes through the channel ports)

2025-04-25 10:22:33 GMT

Court ruling on ‘woman’ at odds with UK Equality Act aim, says ex-civil servant
‘Clear premise’ was to give trans and biological women same sex discrimination rights, says official who helped draft act
Now, what was I saying a couple of days ago?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/18/ruling-on-woman-definition-at-odds-with-uk-equality-acts-aim-says-ex-civil-servant?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-04-25 06:22:24 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz Maybe it's because the state doesn't have to handle it? Banks and large businesses like supermarkets have to sort the stuff, bag it, weigh it, transport it, keep it secure. For the treasury it's just macro economic philosophy and numbers.

2025-04-25 06:06:28 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz Thanks. All I can say from looking at the mintage for 10p and 20p is that, although it looks like fewer are made these days than a decade ago, there are still a heck of a lot and there is no obvious linear trend. The Coin hunt gimmick with 10p coins also suggests the treasury is trying to keep people using (and looking at) change.

2025-04-25 05:56:16 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz An analysis of the coinage would help determine the explanation. £20 and £50 notes are money storage units -- handy for stashing reserves in that tin under the sink. Notes are also, as you say, the tender for the local drug dealer (no change given) and the rate for casual cash in hand jobs. But coinage is mainly used for small legit purposes. It's also how you get change from legit purchases, which hardly ever come to round pound amounts.

2025-04-23 11:48:45 GMT

One thing that beats me about the Supreme Court's shenanigans is this. The Equality Act is just fifteen years old. I still have my copy of the massive 'Discrimination Law Review' report that constitutes the policy starting point for every aspect of it. The people who drafted it are still alive. Many of those who voted for it are still in Parliament. The extensive debates and committee meetings are all in Hansard. The Bill Managers can be interviewed. So why did the SC resort to 'guessing'..

2025-04-19 18:11:43 GMT

A number of news outlets are reporting the line that the Supreme Court decision may mean that trans women may be excluded from single sex spaces IF PROPORTIONATE but I've not seen a single one explain that (a) that's not the thing that's changed (the change is that it could be applied to people who have GRCs) but, more importantly, they're not explaining that "proportionate" has a specific meaning in law. It means you have to have a legitimate reason and it can't be a blanket exclusion...

2025-04-19 17:46:43 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz I'm interested in how the Guardian changes without having their wayward sibling leading them away from lefty decency. If they don't change then we'll know what's left is beyond redemption.

2025-04-19 10:29:25 GMT

What fun! Sunday's weather forecast has the temperature and time of day nicely synchronised!
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/364/145/850/083/096/original/0773ef168279888b.jpeg

2025-04-17 08:47:35 GMT

Having had a really long and peaceful sleep on yesterday's disappointing and potentially contradictory Supreme Court ruling on the question "What is a woman for the purposes of the law", here are some thoughts. First off, the superficial and self serving part, because it's hard not to be dismayed by a ruling that appears to disregard the nuanced history of what my colleagues and I sought to achieve with the Gender Recognition Act a generation ago. The Equality Act, passed six years later..

2025-04-16 13:08:19 GMT

Statement from Jo Maughan of the Good Law Project following today's Supreme Court decision re trans women. Jo says rights have been put back 20 years but, personally, I think it could be argued to be 26 years, since Labour enacted the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999, protecting trans people under the Sex Discrimination Act (and, crucially, trans women as women). If you can afford to support GLP go here: https://goodlawproject.org/donate/?utm_source=Good+Law+Project&utm_campaign=00b8d6504d-EMAIL_ForSomeWomenScotland_2025_04_16_12_03
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2025-04-14 06:49:11 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz Careful though.. There comes a point where those of us who think your ideas are jolly good and worth sharing pause to think "Well everyone's following this anyway so I don't need to share it any more". It's a paradox and I don't imagine I'm alone in thinking that with accounts I boost a lot. 😀

2025-04-12 06:50:12 GMT

Carole Cadwalladr went back and did another TED event...
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TZOoT8AbkNE&si=craRvC0nhsGCwmjA

2025-04-09 11:22:32 GMT

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@nprofile…dwh5 @nprofile…60lz Starmer can't have a better cover/excuse than now, when even many on the right are practically begging for him to come up with something that gives Britain some collective defence against the Orange toddler. What's a better response to 10% tariffs by the US than dismantling the export tariffs we imposed on ourselves in a larger, closer market?

2025-04-05 11:44:23 GMT

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@nprofile…2qax The Americans are going to just love it when waiters, hotel receptionists and policemen affect an inability to speak English. (Parisian waiters don't need to change their standard operating procedures)

2025-04-04 10:38:45 GMT

China has just whacked 34% tariffs on all US goods coming in.

2025-04-01 08:13:25 GMT

Apple's iOS 18.4 has released today but the release notes don't tell you that, in a craven example of 'compliance in advance' to the whims of the orange tyrant, all the female versions of Siri are removed and your phone or iPad will now speak in an AI generated simalacrum of the big man himself.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/261/682/783/482/905/original/763eeed726178d14.jpeg

2025-03-30 13:20:22 GMT

Britain is getting SO close to generating electricity without fossil fuels today -- in fact gas went down to just 1.6 GW this morning whilst I was enjoying an 80 mile round trip to Chester on electricity costing MINUS 50 pence. I suspect wind is getting constrained (paid to turn down its output) as the system managers aren't yet ready to let the system run on just wind, solar, hydro and a bit of nuclear. https://grid.iamkate.com
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2025-03-27 07:46:09 GMT

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@nprofile…2qax They don't understand supply chains do they. It's the tariffs on the parts that'll be the killer. And that will hit the domestic factories.

2025-03-26 13:20:10 GMT

Apple TV+ needs to do a speculative drama series called "For All That's Decent" based on the premise that Donald Trump was never born.

2025-03-26 08:42:26 GMT

Y'know I'm no investment wizard but I can't help suspecting someone is making a helluva lot of profit this week if they bailed on Tesla stock before the big fall and bought back in at the low point, which was reached mere days ago. As data continues to show plummeting sales of the cars themselves, the big investors in the overvalued company seem to be defying gravity to drive the price back up. A reminder that stock markets are gambling dens based on 'feels' and chicanery, not real value.
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2025-03-26 08:32:50 GMT

So it turns out that Heathrow WASN'T reliant on a single substation. National Grid, having let Heathrow go all in on their excuse for chaos, explain that the airport is served by THREE substations and that two are more than capable of supplying all the power needs. And, in other news, someone [some say a disgruntled airline] leaked that the CEO went to bed and had a good night's sleep at the outset of the crisis, leaving one of two 'gold teams' to sort it out..l

2025-03-22 10:01:11 GMT

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@nprofile…akyc @nprofile…60lz Thanks for that piece of the jigsaw. Unfortunately, all those planned reinforcements to the high voltage grid and delivery networks face potential opposition from folk who are incensed by a pylon but still want the lights to work. Fortunately some of the reinforcement can be done with technical trickery (more modern cables, higher voltages) but perhaps the best outcome would be more renewables and batteries close to where the loads are, reducing the..

2025-03-22 10:01:11 GMT

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@nprofile…akyc @nprofile…60lz ..need for long distance transmission. After all, the only reason we have this particular system topology is because of the way thermal power plants were placed in relation to the coal fields and cities. Towns and cities, meanwhile, have experience in being rewired before: there was the natural gas rollout in the late sixties and I remember London's streets being dug up in the fifties for the big switch from DC to AC electricity and greater demand.

2025-03-22 08:47:46 GMT

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@nprofile…60lz And yesterday there was the news that London's ULEZ (which really affected only a small number of the worst polluting vehicles) has reduced air pollution in ways that were once pronounced to be impossible for decades. Cycle use is booming too because of LTNs. Imagine if we'd taken these approaches to the motor car from the outset and we'd all grown up to view 20mph as the universal urban speed limit rather than breed selfish culture warriors who think 30mph is a right.