Brian retweeted
Power is Power
The chart below shows electricity prices in Europe just now, priced per MWh. Just horrific and economically ruinous for any modern economy.
The world spends about $4.2 trillion on electricity and this is split between:
• Generation (2/3
• Transmission & Distribution (1/3)
The world spends around $1.5 trillion on capex and $2.7 trillion on opex. The $1.5 trillion capex gets you 1-2% capacity growth each year. So a rough rule of thumb is that every 1% of GDP you spend on power infrastructure gets you 1-2% more electricity.
If you wanted to grow your power supply by eg 8%, you might expect that to cost 6% of GDP. Nobody has the supply chain to do that, if you want to grow this particular supply chain it will cost you more GDP points on second order things.
Now…
Demand for power around the world is booming, because of 3 big technology trends.
1. Air Conditioning (yes still) +20% consumption
2. Electric Vehicles +80% consumption
3. AI Data Centers +XYZ% consumption
Different regions have different progress on these three trends. US has a lot of AC, little EV and a lot of DC, Europe has little AC, lots of EV little DC. China has a lot of AC and EV.
Now generation splits into fixed costs for the generator plant (site and technology specific) and variable costs for fuel.
Dispatchable Power Cost, by Fuel Type
1. $6 / MWh - Uranium
2. $19 / MWh - Nat Gas 🇺🇸
3. $22 / MWh - Coal 🇺🇸
4. $40 / MWh - Coal 🇨🇳
5. $90 / MWh - LNG
6. $130 / MWh - Biomass
7. $160 / MWh - Nat Gas 🇪🇺 🇯🇵
8. $200 / MWh - Oil
Fracking has given the US a structural energy cost advantage. If you talk to people in China about what is the most impressive thing the US has done they say “fracking”. The challenge with US Nat Gas is that it’s now fully developed and expansion is sort of tapped out.
What the 21st Century demands is a lot of power, you either have it or you don’t. When you look at planetary scale energy and compute trends you see myriad gigantic arbitrage opportunities.
Interesting times!
Brian retweeted
Matthew Perry’s sister, Mia Perry Bowick, has told a new documentary about her brother’s life that his 2013 #Newsnight debate with Peter Hitchens was a “huge moment” in his decision to speak publicly about addiction and “show himself”.
You can watch some of the debate here.
Brian retweeted
TODAY - BRIXTON PRISON LONDON:
The Terence MacSwiney Committee (London) today commemorated the death of Cork man Terence MacSwiney outside Brixton Prison where he died on hunger strike in October 1920 at the age of 41.
Terence is buried in the Republican Plot in St Finnbarr's Cemetry, Cork.
@MacSwineyCCLdn
Brian retweeted
My open letter to Conservative Party MP David Davis regarding his dangerous & disgraceful IRA lawyer comments.
Brian retweeted
Al Jazeera Investigates: Contract Killers and the Far Right.
Watch in full here: aje.news/contractkillers
Brian retweeted
Man City scandal tip of the iceberg as football erodes from the top || Stephen McGowan
"In Scotland people know how toxic the stench of scandal can be. Fourteen years have passed since Employee Benefits Trusts and side letters entered the national vocabulary and Rangers fell off a financial cliff. The bitter scars from those events still weep, angry and raw.
"Former Ibrox chairman Sir David Murray popped up on the podcast Graeme Souness Tackles the other week to rouse sleeping dogs from their slumber.
"Murray used his recent autobiography to appeal to Rangers supporters to remember him only for the good times. He was pushing the same line on the podcast, telling old mucker Souness that the Ibrox club were ‘targeted’ by an HMRC witch hunt.
“'It hurts me very badly,' said Murray. 'Okay, I’m remembered for the end, but I would like to think I’m remembered for Laudrup, Gascoigne and 35 trophies.'
"A bit like the captain of the Titanic asking people to remember him for a smooth push-off at Southampton, Murray knows better than anyone why HMRC used Rangers as a high-profile test case.
"EBT arrangements were used between 2001 and 2010 as a form of disguised remuneration to avoid tax and national insurance contributions on player earnings. In 2017 even he had to admit that EBTs and the non-disclosure of side letters to the SFA or the SPL gave Rangers the ‘opportunity to get players that we perhaps would not be able to afford”.
"While some still get misty eyed over Gazza and nine-in-a-row, then, plenty of Rangers fans blame the former owner for Craig Whyte, administration, Charles Green, Mike Ashley, liquidation, Sevco, Duff and Phelps and the recurring issues which led to just three trophies in 14 years. That’s David Murray’s legacy right there." 👇
𝘐𝘔𝘈𝘎𝘌: 𝘈𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘸 𝘔𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘯/𝘗𝘈 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦/𝘗𝘈 𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴
Brian retweeted
It is important that everyone who stands against Israel's genocide realises what the government is doing here.
A major reason they want to scrap the Triple Lock is so they can send IRISH DEFENCE FORCES on an EU MISSION to LEBANON, where Israel has carried out scorched earth land-grabs - genocidal destruction - and refuses to leave.
This will not be a peacekeeping mission. They are pretending it will continue our record of UN peacekeeping in Lebanon. It will not. It won't be a UN mission, but an EU mission. The EU supports Israel. It has covered for Israel at every stage of the genocide. An EU presence in Lebanon will help normalise Israel's occupation in Lebanon. They will pretend that's not the case, but it is.
WE MUST HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. Irish soldiers MUST NEVER BE SENT to serve in Lebanon under an EU command.
Only the Triple Lock prevents this. The campaign to save it must be a first priority of the solidarity movement. If we condemn genocide - if we claim solidarity with people in Palestine and Lebanon - we HAVE TO STOP THE GOVERNMENT doing this. We have to save the Triple Lock.
The Triple Lock is outdated and no longer fit for purpose when it comes to peacekeeping
The legislation underpinning it was introduced in 1960, before the EU and OSCE even existed.
In @businessposthq, I shared my thoughts on the need for reform.
businesspost.ie/politics/tho…
Brian retweeted
The last time the Orangemen didn’t get to walk down the Catholic Garvaghy Road, it lead to 22 murders.
Protestants burned three boys alive in their beds because their Catholic mother moved into a Protestant area for retaliation over not being allowed to march. Evil scum!
Brian retweeted
Just leaving the residents of Garvaghy Road - the salt of the earth.
Good, decent people who simply want to live in peace, free from sectarian harassment and intimidation.
Thank you for your dignity, courage and for standing up for us all.
Solidarity, always. ✊
#NoGoingBack
Brian retweeted
A lot of you from outside Ireland are probably hearing about the Garvaghy Road and wondering what all the fuss is about.
1998 -
After the parade was banned from marching on the Garvaghy Rd, ten Catholic churches were set on fire across Ulster in one night.
In the following days, loyalists attacked Catholic homes, schools and businesses. Multiple houses were petrol-bombed, resulting in the murder of 3 young boys, the Quinn brothers. Their home was targeted because their mother was Catholic.
She mother woke to the sound of her children screaming in fear and the house full of smoke. Sadly the boys, Jason, Mark and Richard, did not make it out.
Garfield Gilmour was sentenced to life in prison after he admitted to driving three members of a UVF unit to the house, but later that was reduced to manslaughter.
Johnny McKay and brothers Raymond and Ivan Parke were named by Gilmour as the killers, but were never charged because of a lack of evidence.
In the days following the murders, loyalist bands defied orders not to play music while marching passed the home of the Quinn boys grandmother.
Tonight, a court overturned an earlier ruling banning the parade from marching on the Garvaghy Road, crowds have gathered and confrontation now seems inevitable with that march set to go ahead early Sunday morning.
The courts allowing this march to go ahead is absolute madness!
Brian retweeted
Marie-Therese Murray protests on Garvaghy Rd. She holds a photo of her 12 yr-old son Darren, who was knocked down and killed 30 years ago after being chased by loyalists. She rarely speaks about her loss but felt she had to protest today for “next generation” @IrishTimes
Brian retweeted
Momentum is growing. The sporting boycott is what the entity fears most. Ireland cannot, must not dignify the child killers by standing shoulder to shoulder with them on a football pitch Sunday. Keep pushing 🇮🇪🇵🇸 #StopTheGame
Brian retweeted
Irish radio station Classic Hits Radio has said it will remove Ed Sheeran’s music from its playlists “for the foreseeable future”, amid the controversy surrounding US rapper Macklemore's removal from the British singer-songwriter's tour. jrnl.ie/7164895
Brian retweeted
I was in S5 when 9/11 happened. We were let go early and I remember hearing what had happened, then going back to watch the news...
Even that young, you got a sense of how awful it was for the people in the towers.
Looking back, I'm grateful to my parents for not projecting any agenda on to me. Indeed I simply remember my mother saying, in the days that followed, 'there are evil people in this world, some days they fly planes into buildings, other days they abuse children, other days they commit genocide'.
Of course then, she was talking about Hitler with the genocide, but what she said has always stuck with me. Sadly, there are always going to be evil people in this world.
The only thing we can do on days like this, is take a moment to remember the victims and remember that we each have an opportunity, every day, to make thinks better for our communities - even if it's the smallest thing, they will all add up.