I don't hate Europe, or the future trading relationship we will have......just the domination of a non-elected institution over our own Laws and Practices.
Tesla are not part of the EU, but they have charging stations all over Europe, sell plenty of cars there and Powerwalls as well.
A simple analogy would be Notts signing a Partnership deal with Forest (something that nobody on here would like) .....or simply borrowing a few players from time to time like Yates and Grant.......in the former we effectively become their B team, the latter we keep our autonomy and pride, but cooperate occasionally.
Solar panel costs are falling rapidly every month as more and more companies join the production race.....plus the technology is getting better at harvesting the energy ie the panels themselves become more efficient......Germany is the 2nd biggest producer of Solar Energy, despite getting the same amount of sun as Alaska.....as more and more EVs are produced, more solar roofs are installed and more and more Powerwalls installed, then the World storage of electricity will become greater.....plus we are only at the very start of battery technology, there are extremely exciting developments being made in the field of Graphene and salt-water batteries.
Lithium itself is usually mined from poorer countries like Peru and Bolivia who would love the spare cash....plus it is basically a waste product from desert areas where nothing grows anyway....no idea on disposal, but I guess it will have a recycling value
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50rXYrFCQMw
ps - On one of the gardening Youtube guys I follow, his motto is "changing the World, one garden at a time".......maybe the Solar motto should be "Changing the World, one rooftop at a time"
Last edited by tarquinbeech; 17-11-2017 at 06:04 PM.
Don't care how many solar panels we have - have a look at the Solar Output for today, note the relative expensive and on-standby CCGT plus Coal - at least Nuclear hasn't quite maxed out and a good job there's a bit of wind today.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php
The whole World only needs 100 Gigafactorys to produce the whole of their electric needs......the first is nearing completion and is the 2nd biggest factory in the USA......it is possible and we have started
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZm_NohNm6I
Sounds too good to be true, Tarky. As did all that middle eastern oil till the Arabs cottoned on to their virtual monopoly of the stuff, we are now held to ransom at the whim of the Sheiks.
Old_pie is on to something when he talks about our hours of daylight actually preventing us from producing enough of our own electricity, we will have to turn to some country who get lots of sun, eh? more than they need, eh? Whoever it is, they can't bring it here in buckets, it will have to be fed to us along a system of power-lines similar to the national grid and THAT means across the Europe we have just turned our backs on; Italy, Greece, Spain, France, all get far more sunshine than the UK - so do the Arabs. In my opinion we will just be adding to the list of countries we depend on.
.....but I don't think we are "turning our backs on them"....we've practically begged them for a Trade Deal but they want 60 billion or 40 billion upfront to settle the EU credit card bill for the planned expansion of the Eastern Bloc members....expansion that we will never apparently benefit from....it ain't fair but they've put the proverbial gun to our heads and the Remainers love it.
Hopefully common sense prevails, we lob them 30/35 billion and carry on trading.....including free sunshine from Spain....if not then we need to develop Western Sahara (disputed territory) and agree a deal with them....not sure of the costs though.......I'm actually ambivalent to Nuclear Power, but coal, oil and gas has to disappear in the future sustainable world.
A simple easy remedy to all this Tarks. You and I simply get together.....design and produce a sea water combustion engine with obviously a world wide patent and become multi billionaires overnight by selling the patent.
Yawn ......... just woken up after a pleasant dream.