Bristol May Be First English City To Face Monthly Black Bin Collection
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
More than 4,000 Bristolians are opposing the council’s plan to switch to a four-week cycle, which the city says would save money and be better for the environment
I live in Hackney and we still have two-weekly collections for recyclables and weekly for waste food.
These are my thoughts on Bristol.
As a widower, who lives alone , I don’t put much in my black bin, as I do recycle properly and use my waste food bin and green sack recycling fully.
I’ve also noticed, that a lot more items have been marked that they can go in the green sacks.
I am a coeliac and suffer from a vitamin B12 deficiency for which I get three-monthly injections at the GP. But that is not enough and I have found that one of M& S’s Liver and Bacon Ready Meals adds enough B12 to keep be going at full speed.
The trays of M & S’s Ready Meals are now recyclable and I suspect, they’re not the only packaging, that can now be recycled.
So as more and more packing is recycled, we can surely reduce the black bin frequency.
It would appear, that by making packaging more recyclable, we can make rubbish collection more efficient.
Will 2025 Be A Bumper Year For Solar?
The title of this post, is the same as that of a sub title of this this article on Solar Power Portal, which is entitled Two Solar NSIPs Granted Development Consent.
This is the sub heading of the main article.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has granted development consent orders (DCOs) to the Heckington Fen Solar and West Burton Solar solar PV power plants.
This paragraph, gives a brief description of the two projects.
The two developments, both located in Lincolnshire, England, are classified as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Developments (NSIPs) as their proposed generation capacity is over 50MW. Combined, the Heckington Fen Solar and West Burton Solar projects will have a generation capacity of almost 1GW.
But it was the prominent sub-title in the article, that prompted me to write this post.
These were the three paragraphs, the author used to answer their question.
This year so far has already seen significant movement on several large-scale solar projects, with more to come throughout 2025.
Last week, international renewable energy developer Ørsted announced proposals for a 320MW solar PV power plant in East Yorkshire, the Kingfisher Solar Farm, for which public consultations are set to begin on 3 February. Meanwhile, Elements Green has opened the second phase of statutory consultations for its 800MW Great North Road Solar and Biodiversity Park, which will run until 20 February.
Plans for another proposed 800MW development, EDF Renewables UK’s Springwell Solar Farm, will be examined by the planning inspectorate following the successful submission of a DCO application for the project.
I also wrote UK Solar Deployment Poised To Increase 50% YoY, Following Rapid Growth In The Second Half Of 2024, just over a week ago, where I predicted a large growth in steel aolar panels on industrial and architect-designed buildings.
Conclusion
There may be a lot of new solar power generated in the UK in 2025, but because some of it will be roof-mounted and structural, we won’t see as much as we have in the past.
How To Keep The Lights On When The Wind Doesn’t Blow
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
Britain came close to a blackout this month. Gas is being phased out and renewables are intermittent, so can energy storage stop us going dark?
These are the first two paragraphs.
It was 8.29pm on the first Tuesday in January when the alert was issued by the electricity control room. Freezing temperatures had coincided with unusually low wind speeds, and it was making the National Energy System Operator (Neso) jittery.
Engineers forecast a 1.6GW shortfall — the requirement for about 1.5 million homes — for a three-hour period from 4pm the following afternoon. “System operators are requested to notify Neso of any additional megawatt capacity,” the message said.
Luckily, the plea worked.
The article then goes on to describe the various technologies that are being deployed.
The article starts by talking about pumped storage hydroelectricity.
This paragraph gives a superb illustration about how things have changed in energy and energy storage in the UK in the last few decades.
In the past, when coal provided the bulk of British power, this system was used to meet fluctuating demand levels. But now it is also required to meet fluctuating supply levels from renewable sources. Martin Pibworth, chief commercial officer at SSE, started with the company as a trainee in 1998. “Back then, at our Foyers pumped storage plant [at Loch Ness] we would switch modes, from pumping to not pumping and back again, maybe 600 to 700 times a year. Last year we switched modes there 6,500 times. It’s an insight into how the market has changed and how much more flexibility is needed, and how responsive that has to be.”
We have to be more agile, with our handling of storage to back up the various methods of generation.
1.1 GW Inch Cape Wind Farm Entering Offshore Construction Phase
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
ESB and Red Rock Renewables have reached a financial close on the 1,080 MW Inch Cape offshore wind farm in Scotland, and the project will now progress into its offshore construction phase.
Inch Cape will be a 1.1 GW wind farm, which as this web site/data sheet shows could be capable of generating enough green energy to power more than half of Scotland’s homes.
Highlights from the data sheet include.
- Represents an around £3 billion investment in the UK’s electrical infrastructure
- Will contribute significantly to the UK Government’s target of 50 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind installed capacity by 2030
- Constitutes 10% of the Scottish Government’s ambition of 11 GW of offshore wind installed by 2030
- As at Q1 2025, has already invested almost £300 million with 300 UK companies (more than £100 million in Scotland with 120 Scottish companies)
- Is set to spend a further (approx.) £700 million with UK supply chain (and create associated direct and indirect jobs)
- Efficient re-use of a brownfield site in East Lothian (of former coal-fired power station) including existing grid capacity and established transmission infrastructure
- The offshore substation is being built by Siemnens and Smulders at Wallsend on Tyneside.
- On track to deliver at least 50% UK content over life cycle of the project
- Will mean large investment in a new facility in the Port of Montrose and more than 50 long-term skilled local jobs
- Once operational the wind farm will reduce carbon emissions by 2.5 million tonnes per year compared to using fossil-fuels.
I like this project.
- It has a capacity of 1.1 GW.
- The turbines are 15 MW Vestas units.
- The connection to the grid is at the site of the demolished Cockenzie coal-fired power station.
- 50 % of the content of the £ 3 million project is British, spread among three hundred companies. That is certainly spreading the money around.
- I calculate that, when the turbines are fully turning, the Inch Cape wind farm will generate £ 44, 201.38 per hour or just over a million pounds per day.
I suspect we will be seeing lots more wind farms like this in the next thirty or forty years.
These are currently under construction.
- Neart Na Gaoithe – Scotland – 450 MW
- Sofia – England – 1400 MW
- Dogger Bank A – England – 1235 MW
- Dogger Bank B – England – 1235 MW
- Dogger Bank C – England – 1218 MW
- Moray West – Scotland – 882 MW
- East Anglia 3 – England – 1372 MW
- Total – 7792 MW
These are pre-construction.
- Hornsea 3 – England – 2852 vMW
- Inch Cape – Scotland – 1080 MW
- Total – 3932 MW
These are proposed wind farms – Contracts for difference Round 4
- Norfolk Boreas – Round 1 – 1380 MW
- Total – 1380 MW
These are proposed wind farms – Contracts for difference Round 6
- Hornsea 4 – England – 2400 MW
- East Anglia 2 – England – 963 MW
- Greeen Volt – Scotland – 400 MW
- Total – 3763 MW
These are proposed wind farms – Early Planning
- East Anglia 1 North – England – 800 MW
- Rampion 2 Extension – England – 1200 MW
- Norfolk Vanguard East – 1380 MW
- Norfolk Vanguard West – 1380 MW
- Dogger Bank South – England – 3000 MW
- Awel y Môr – Wales – 500 MW
- Five Estuaries – England – 353 MW
- North Falls – England – 504 MW
- Dogger Bank D – England – 1320 MW
- Berwick Bank – Scotland – 4100 MW
- Seagreen Phase 1A – Scotland – 500 MW
- Outer Dowsing – England – 1500 MW
- Morecambe – England – 480 MW
- Mona – England – 1500 MW
- Morgan – England – 1500 MW
- Morven – England – 2907 MW
- Ossian – Scotland – 3610 MW
- Bellrock – Scotland – 1200 MW
- CampionWind – Scotland – 2000 MW
- Muir Mhòr – Scotland – 798 MW
- Bowdun – Scotland – 1008 MW
- Ayre – Scotland – 1008 MW
- Broadshore – Scotland – 900 MW
- Caledonia – Scotland – 2000 MW
- Stromar – Scotland – 1000 MW
- MarramWind – Scotland – 3000 MW
- Buchan – Scotland – 960 MW
- West of Orkney – Scotland – 2000 MW
- Havbredey – Scotland – 1500 MW
- N3 Project – Scotland – 495 MW
- Spiorad na Mara – Scotland – 840 MW
- MachairWind – Scotland – 2000 MW
- Sheringham Shoal and Dudgeon Extensions – England – 719 MW
- Llŷr 1 – Wales – 100 MW
- Llŷr 2 – Wales – 100 MW
- Whitecross – England – 100 MW
- Total – 48262 MW
- Grand Total – 57337 MW
57337 MW would have enough electricity left over to replace Germany’s gas.
Great British Railways And Private Sector To Compete For Ticket Sales
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
This is the introductory paragraph.
The Department for Transport has announced that the future Great British Railways will sell tickets online, while retaining a ‘thriving’ private sector market where third party ticket retailers can compete in an ‘open and fair’ manner.
I would certainly like to see more innovation in the selling of rail tickets.
A few things I would like to see in ticketing include.
Ticketing Machines At Busy Interchanges
When, I wrote My First Trip On The Northumberland Line – 18th December 2024, I bought my Lumo ticket between Kings Cross and Newcastle at King’s Cross and needed to buy my ticket for Ashington at Newcastle station.
There is no ticket machine on the long walk between where Lumo trains arrive and leave and the Northumberland Line.
This is a common problem and someone needs to design a ticketing machine for interchanges to simplify the changing of trains for passengers.
Stations that need such a machine include.
- Clapham Junction on the bridge.
- Ipswich on the central platform.
- Leeds on the bridge.
- Reading on the bridge.
It should be noted, that in some cases train staff will sell you a ticket, which gets round the problem. But other train companies are getting tough on revenue enforcement.
These ticket machines could be provided by Great British Railways or a private company.
Automatic Freedom Pass Extension
If I don’t want to buy a physical ticket for Gatwick Airport, I can use my Freedom Pass to East Croydon. Then I exit the station and come back in using a credit card or my phone. I then exit at Gatwick, using the method I used to reenter at East Croydon.
But wouldn’t it be so much easier, if I could link a credit card to my Freedom Pass, so that the charge for East Croydon and Gatwick Airport was automatically charged to my credit card.
Collection Of Tickets
In Collecting National Rail Tickets, I had a moan at Transport for London about their unwillingness to provide facilities for passengers to pick up National Rail tickets.
This was their unfriendly notice at Tottenham Court Road station.
Facilities should be provided in many more places, where passengers can pick up rail tickets bought on-line.
These ticket collection machines could be provided by Great British Railways or a private company.
Could Highview Power’s Batteries Be Used Offshore?
When I first saw Highview Power’s Liquid Air batteries or Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES), I liked them.
This was partly because I’d investigated large tanks for chemical reactions and I like their mathematics.
But it was mainly because the concept had been developed by a lone inventor in Bishops Stortford.
In Could A Highview Power CRYOBattery Use A LNG Tank For Liquid Air Storage?, I bcalculated, that a 5,000 cubic metre tank could hold about a GWh of electricity as liquid air.
So just as steel and concrete tanks were placed on the sea floor to hold oil and gas, could they be placed on the sea floor to hold compressed air?
I don’t see why not!
I suspect, that it’s all fairly standard offshore engineering.
If you want more storage, you would just add more tanks.
Could They Be Combined With Electrical Substations?
I don’t see why not!
There may be advantages with respect to safety and noise.
Another Possible Reason Not To Buy An Electric Car!
As some will have noticed from this blog; I don’t drive and I don’t even have a car.
But then I wouldn’t buy an electric car.
- The range is pathetic and totally out of my comfort zone after sixty years of driving.
- Like my father I like lightweight vehicles and the weight of an electric car is just too heavy.
- The price of an electric car is totally unsustainable when compared to that of a petrol or diesel car.
- The environmental profile of a large lithium-ion battery is not good and could be improved.
I would say, that an electric car’s payload/price/range/weight profile is totally inferior to that of your average petrol or diesel car today. If petrol or diesel fuel were still available, I wouldn’t give an electric car house room. Luckily because a stroke ruined my eyesight, it’s a choice I don’t have to make.
Yesterday evening, another reason not to buy an electric car reared its ugly head.
Opposite my house is a public charging point for electric vehicles, that was installed by a company in co-operation with Hackney Council.
A driver parked their Tesla by the charger and plugged it in.
When they returned to the car, the charger cable had been stolen.
I suspect that a new cable and getting going again wasn’t very affordable.
I Just Bought A Toilet Brush Set On Ocado
A few minutes ago, I went to the toilet in the facility in my spare bedroom and I noticed that the brush was broken.
Since, I have bought a new one from Ocado for £4.
£4 sounds good value to me.
It will arrive with my groceries on the First of February at 06:30 in the morning.
I tend to start my Ocado order, soon after the previous one is delivered and I then have until 17:25 on the day before to get it right.
Interestingly, the payment for the order I received today from Ocado, is still sitting in the pending queue of my credit card account. I’ve also eaten one of the ready meals I bought. And very nice it was too!
I’
Haventus Chosen To Accelerate Opportunities For Floating Offshore Wind In Scotland
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from Cerulean Winds.
These three bullet points, act as sub-headings.
- The under-construction Ardersier Energy Transition Facility owned by Haventus, is selected by Cerulean, the floating wind company with 3GW under development in the Central North Sea
- Announcement marks major boost to future of offshore floating wind in Scotland, as UK floating offshore wind supply chain takes shape
- Cerulean Winds to leverage its unique experience in floating infrastructure from oil and gas sector, in particular, Alliance Contracting
These four paragraphs add detail to the post.
Haventus, owner of the under-construction Ardersier Energy Transition Facility, located near Inverness, Scotland, has been selected by Cerulean Winds, the lead developer of 3GW+ UK floating offshore wind, as its chosen deployment port.
Ardersier Energy Transition Facility, which has secured £400 million of funding, including a £100 million credit facility from the UK National Wealth Fund & Scottish National Investment Bank, will be Scotland’s largest offshore wind facility on the North Sea coast. Cerulean’s commitment to using the facility marks a major step toward realising the UK and Scottish governments’ vision of creating a world-leading floating offshore wind (FLOW) industrial base.
By 2050, FLOW could contribute more than £47 billion to the UK economy and employ 100,000 people. Ardersier will support achieving these targets by deploying and servicing offshore wind installations, providing green jobs and establishing a UK supply chain to rival international competitors.
The Cerulean alliance’s first project will be the Aspen development, a 1 GW wind farm in the Central North Sea approximately 100km from shore, that is targeting first power between 2028-29. The project is designed to enable Scotland’s supply chain and direct more than £1 billion of investment in FLOW manufacturing and service support in the country, with the Ardersier Energy Transition Facility acting as a strategic hub. This early investment will help establish the industrial foundation needed to maximise domestic economic benefits from ScotWind’s planned buildout from 2030.
The numbers are huge and hopefully the initial returns will provide the capital to develop the later wind farms.
In some ways, I’m disappointed, as this is the sort of project, I’d love to be writing the software for.
I also these days have no family responsibilities and only need to look after myself.
The Anonymous Widower 