This doesn't look unreasonable. At first I balked at the selfconsumption numbers but of course with such a tiny system you are going to get high selfconsumption, and he did model it properly afaict. Overall a capacity factor of 11.7% in the UK seems a bit high but not wildly so.

"key elements of systemic resilience: diversity, redundancy (a systems spare capacity), modularity (its degree of compartmentalisation), backup (other ways of providing food), asynchronicity (which prevents shocks suddenly compounding) & circuit breakers (mostly in the form of effective regulation)"

Panopticon series series readers may recall this was the reason the public panopticon was first introduced in the UK in my novels. The solution to the loss of public privacy was to embrace that loss and the series was about the consequences. I've just finished the finale

Every time there’s a fuel price shock, the same calls emerge: drill the North Sea. New @ukerc.bsky.social analysis cuts through the noise and explains why this argument doesn’t hold up. ukerc.ac.uk/news/drillin...

Spain's renewables build-out has structurally decoupled its electricity prices from gas markets. Gas now sets the price in only 15% of hours, compared to 90% in Italy. Countries that invested early in clean power are far less exposed to fossil fuel price shocks. Those that didn't now pay the price.

The tribes of Britain c. 540 in the time of Gildas.

We have a powerhouse lineup of keynote speakers this year: Rob Hopkins: 'How to Fall in Love with the Future: Time Travel as Activism' Rob will challenge us to use our "imagination infrastructure" to build a future we actually want to live in. @robintransition.bsky.social

When I started working on UK energy in 2007, fossil fuels provided ~78% of electricity. Coal alone: 34%. Wind & solar: less than 2%. Today: wind & solar 33%, fossil fuels 28%, coal 0%. The chart below tells the story better than words can.

Anne Currie: 'Who’s Going to Save the World from AI’s Energy Use? You Are.' AI’s carbon footprint is the elephant in the room. Anne brings a vital, empowering message: the responsibility—and the power—to build sustainable tech lies squarely with us. @annecurrie.bsky.social

Fundamentally I refuse to ever sign up to any version of ‘the public is too stupid to understand the truth’

The only real choice is for the developed world to build out solar on a scale previously unimaginable to do 10m bpd of demand destruction the good way. I get that is far beyond the uk’s power but it’s the position we should be advocating for early, instead of the EU tariffing Chinese solar.

Fundamentally in this world support for UK households means Cambodians who can’t afford to get to work, and Indian farmers who can’t fertilise. Zack going all out for state subsidy given the greens stated preferences is…something. In the Ukraine shock Pakistan had blackouts as Europe bid up cargoes.

Fully agree. Politically difficult but you have to frame it through going to war against energy insecurity...do your bit, put a jumper on, spend the money not on subsidising foreign fossil fuels and energy trading houses, but on crash building stuff.

I hope we see a surge in people getting their passports followed by the largest voter turnout in US history.

UK to get plug-in solar www.gov.uk/government/n... Woohoo!

NEW TECH PODCAST ALERT! Asynchronous & Unreliable In 2026 I'll be hosting Asynchronous & Unreliable, a new podcast on the most interesting concepts driving modern tech including but not limited to AI - because ChatGPT and pals are not the only things going on in technology

What will the closing of the Strait of Hormuz mean for energy? Interesting perspective mliebreich.substack.com/p/thoughts-o...

My local lord, Charles Courtenay the Earl of Devon, who lives in his ancestral castle just outside Exeter, thinks it is "regrettable" that he is losing his seat in the House of Lords. I think it's crazy it's taken this long to get rid of hereditary lords having a say in our laws!

Reaching net zero by 2050 is often framed as a cost burden. The UK Climate Change Committee’s latest analysis suggests the opposite. The real risk is fossil fuel dependency.

Reaching net zero would cost about £4bn a year, @theCCCuk found That's close to £100bn by 2050 Roughly equivalent to the energy-related costs of the fossil fuel shocks that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine www.theguardian.com/environment...

Ha! I do have some sympathy here. The real ale version is utterly English but has a deeper truth ;-) Real ale is amazing if it's fresh but that requires a good turnover. If you have a load of beer options in a pub (the modern way) all of the real ale options are usually poorer because less turnover

I've been busy talking about my new book on the Blair years and what the Starmer government might learn from them. Third: I wrote for @lseblogs.bsky.social about just why New Labour was so popular for so long. blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

Whoah. Got to worry about France being between Greece and Italy near the bottom of this. Not good for the only independent nuclear deterrent in Europe. @jayvanbavel.bsky.social (or anyone) any intuitions on time trajectories on the headline graph here? #democracy #trust

Good morning with good news: Combined solar and battery plant's global average cost is 44% LOWER than the cost of combined-cycle gas turbine plant! Solar & battery: $57/MWh Gas plant: $102/MWh Solar: $39/MWh Land wind: $40/MWh Offshore wind: $100/MWh WOW! about.bnef.com/insights/cle... #energysky

In the second half of 2025, one man accounted for almost 40% of all money donated to political parties in the UK: a crypto-billionaire who lives in Thailand. Britain desperately needs to rewrite its party funding rules. observer.co.uk/news/the-sen...

The mystery of the UK's missing skate may have been solved by the local fishermen (had 2 small ones for dinner last night, which were delicious BTW, but Tony the local fisherman had only caught 4). They are all being eaten by a glut of hungry seals. Basically, there seem to be more seals than usual

Fascinating and matches my experience of "rewilding" half my garden. It is the work-heavy half. Mostly cutting back brambles and other dominant plants otherwise they would literally dominate and I'd have nothing else in there

One you might enjoy @lizrice.com

China is testing a train that will go 280mph, making it the fastest conventional train in the world. The US can't get its shit together to build a single new line.

The nation of Orwell leads in Orwellian. The UK wants to make an industry of "identity checks" including that you shouldn't be able to use @wikipedia.org without a passport. How is this not all over my stream? I only heard it via @conjugateprior.org IRL. internet.exchangepoint.tech/the-dog-that...

Today marks the first day of meteorological spring 🌷 March has arrived, and with it comes longer, lighter days. Over the next few weeks most of us will enjoy around two extra hours of daylight ☀️

Wonderman must be the best thing on Disney+? Genuine tear in my eye at the end there

Europe’s energy transition is well underway but it is far from uniform. In 25 European countries, non-fossil fuel sources now generate the majority of electricity, a clear sign of how deeply clean power has penetrated the system.

Seems an appropriate time to post the Ecologist magazine green parliament edition they used one of my paintings for a few years back (London 2112, Oil on canvas, 2012)

Most weeks, bad climate news feels like a deluge. But even in the midst of the storm, there's always good news too. Hang on to your seats, here we go!

This is a wonderful piece. On how we’ve made mainstream schools far more hostile for many children, and then wonder why those children are struggling and need extra help

Had a customer associated with the BAFTAs a few years back & learned 2 things. The BAFTA theatre is small so the audience is close to the stage. The famous folk on stage are really, really nervous in a way you would never guess. Even stage perfomers are not usually playing themselves

I did a short video on the Electrification Action Plan www.linkedin.com/posts/electr... If you don't want to plumb the depths of LinkedIn...

I've published the first two chapters of a new guide to Agentic Engineering Patterns - coding practices and patterns to help get the best results out of coding agents like Claude Code and OpenAI Codex simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/23/...

A thought I've had a lot recently is was Enid Blyton the most influential modern writer? AMA ;-) @charleshumble.bsky.social I think she is still the most prolific author in English.

Whatever you possibly think this could be, it’s even better. All in the delivery.

The history of gRPC is well worth the read. Thanks for sharing this @danciruli.cloud

New generation record in 2026: As of January, wind and solar have now consistently out-generated fossil gas power for 12-months in a row, for the first time. A threshold has now been crossed where wind and solar have generated more than gas through winter, spring, summer and autumn.

NESO informed us this week that we should finally see batteries as a "fuel type" in live grid data soon, perhaps as early as April. Will be great to see what the ~6 GW of battery energy storage systems in GB are up to in real time

the loss of the World Service would be a tragedy and huge lost of soft power for Britain

I got my MMR about 2 years ago. And the shingles vax last year. Vaccines are amazing

#ITeachPhysics another relative velocity video for you

Fantastic to see my Mini Switzerland idea covered by the BBC. It captures so many people’s imaginations because it’s both obvious, simple and yet - from where we are today - unspeakably radical. Please share! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...