To approve or not approve that is this week's question.

[jamiehamy]

16 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

55 billion euro worse by the looks of it.  And that is before we have to default to WTO rules.

If we do, blame the EU. Self serving bunch of idiots to whom the term 'free trade' in alien. What you are seeing live is how a cartel/protectionist racket works in action.  And they don't even realise it. 

[Trw144]

40 minutes ago, jamiehamy said:

If we do, blame the EU. Self serving bunch of idiots to whom the term 'free trade' in alien. What you are seeing live is how a cartel/protectionist racket works in action.  And they don't even realise it. 

 

The 50b would potentially be ok if it means we get what “we” want (free trade, stop movement of people etc.) but, as I see it, they are trying to keep the elements of the divorce bill and future relationship separate - to me they should be connected “Ill pay you 50b but in return we want x,x, and x”.

[jack]

1 hour ago, Trw144 said:

The 50b would potentially be ok if it means we get what “we” want (free trade, stop movement of people etc.) but, as I see it, they are trying to keep the elements of the divorce bill and future relationship separate - to me they should be connected “Ill pay you 50b but in return we want x,x, and x”.

 

Unfortunately, this is what happens when you (we) negotiate from a position of weakness.

[jamiehamy]

1 hour ago, jack said:

 

Unfortunately, this is what happens when you (we) negotiate from a position of weakness.

Weakness? Is that genuinely what you believe? If you look at budgetary contributors for the EU, you realise very very quickly who is in the weak position - hence constant demands for money. Don't take my word for it, have a look. 

 

Also, our significant trade deficit means we are in a strong position (sounds counter intuitive). The EU needs countries to be in a trade Deficits allow its surplus member to thrive - I. E Germany. 

 

Quite literally, we are in a position of strength. If the EU imposes tariffs, it will lose (and our Treasury will gain - see deficit comment). The EU cannot afford to lose a key trading partner. 

 

Also, the UK will be free to setup closer trading ties with true future growth economies - which are not the EU btw. 

 

Tis my view. Putting my tin foil hat on, I'd offer you a copy of 'Journalists for Hire' however it's publication and distribution has quite literally been suppressed. I can forgive people for concluding the UK have made a bonkers decision given media coverage - its pretty abominable. 

[jack]

20 minutes ago, jamiehamy said:

Weakness? Is that genuinely what you believe?

 

Yes, it is what I believe. Admittedly our position isn't helped by our negotiating team being an incompetent shower of gobshites - that's part of our weak negotiating position.

 

28 minutes ago, jamiehamy said:

Tis my view. Putting my tin foil hat on, I'd offer you a copy of 'Journalists for Hire' however it's publication and distribution has quite literally been suppressed. I can forgive people for concluding the UK have made a bonkers decision given media coverage - its pretty abominable. 

 

According to Amazon, it's available from tomorrow.

[MikeSharp01]

When I started this thread I had no idea it would go the way it has gone. One thing I have learned - and in learning I have coined (not BIT) a new word for the dictionary. 'BRENTROPY' after James R Newman, and to a certain extent thermodynamics, in that every conversation tends to Brexit unlike entropy in James's definition where everything tends to "death and disorder". At the core of my definition however lies the concept of uncertainty which seems to not unreasonably sum it up. Ho Hum.

[jack]

It's the modern British equivalent of Godwin's Law.

[daiking]

29 minutes ago, jack said:

It's the modern British equivalent of Godwin's Law.

I much prefer the monty python corollary.

[Nickfromwales]

Back to solar farms it is !?

[TerryE]

On 27/11/2017 at 20:58, JSHarris said:

As a final point, solar farms can still grow some plants around them, and even graze sheep on the land, so all told solar farms are still very much a positive in terms of the productivity of the land.  Whether people like the look of them is another point.  Personally, I'd rather see a field of solar panels than a field of oil seed rape, but that may be because I hate the smell of oil seed rape..............

 

My +1 is for this PoV.  OK, fields of silver can look pretty unattractive if you are living in a village were due to the lie of the land, but looking at Google Earth the line of sight from Faversham seems to be already broken by woodland/ coppiceland.  We are in a similar situation with 3 solar farms  within a few km of our village that you only see if you look in the right direction from the C roads outside the village.   It's very flat from the Seasalter direction so again it won't be really visible. 

 

As to land-loss, most of this looks like rough meadowland, and as Jeremy says the land under our solar farms is grazed by sheep and undisturbed in terms of both ploughing and pesticides / fertilisers, and so is far more wildlife friendly that fields of wheat-rape-wheat-rape...  Given that a quite a lot of our rape goes to making biofuel at incredibly low energy conversion rates, its far more green to harvest the solar energy directly, IMO.

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

Best to just get Godwin's Law over and done with at the start of a conversation

[jamiehamy]

21 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Best to just get Godwin's Law over and done with at the start of a conversation

It's all your fault ya stirrer 

Edited November 29, 2017 by jamiehamy

[jack]

31 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Best to just get Godwin's Law over and done with at the start of a conversation

 

Just the sort of thing Hitler would have said! 

[Nickfromwales]

So what we're all saying is that we're not going to go back to discussing solar farms then ?!?

??

[SteamyTea]

Difficult to discuss a polarising topic.

Every objection can have holes picked in it, as can every positive.

Really down to what people think agriculture.

Edited November 29, 2017 by SteamyTea

[MikeSharp01]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

So what we're all saying is that we're not going to go back to discussing solar farms then ?!

One last blast, if me learned friend pleases. - Godwin's law is perhaps like several forms of speech / conversational signposts that prey on the limited knowledge of people - very few have knowledge of similar despots so the number of options, when a particular situation occurs in conversation is limited to the use of common mode similes such as the person above mentioned. 

 

Returning to Solar farms then we might surmise that this thread has just about exhausted the solar farm discussion. We have ranged from members experience of growing hemp  - purely in the interests of science, to the calorific value of various crops, swung by the general mastication (I hope I spelled that right) of sheep and their propensity to chew on wires, via the visual impact of the farm on the marshes - it will be visible from the main drag the A299, meandered past the need for nuclear power, discussed getting in the bulk cells deal and the  even more burgeoning need for energy storage. All in - with a couple of side tracks into new words and two unmentionable subjects the B word and H word, not a bad  basis for my discussion with will no doubt be a very slick sales team at the consultation next week.

 

Thanks all.    

Edited November 29, 2017 by MikeSharp01

[Jeremy Harris]

22 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

 

 

We have ranged from members experience of growing narcotics  - purely in the interests of science, ........................

 

Just to be clear, the plants being grown were industrial hemp, the tall stuff grown for making rope, coarse fibres, matting and as a biofuel.  In terms of species, it was cannabis sativa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_sativa ), not the narcotic, cannabis indica ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_indica ).

 

Growing cannabis sativa is perfectly legal and it is still grown as a cash crop in many places.  The Royal Navy (and its predecessors) relied upon it for all of the rope for warships for a few hundred years.  I have an elderly sailing friend who still has his boat rigged with hemp rope, as he personally feels that it handles better than synthetic ropes.  Personally I think that has more to do with his hands being like polished leather than anything else..............

Edited November 29, 2017 by JSHarris

[MikeSharp01]

1 minute ago, JSHarris said:

Just to be clear, the plants being grown were industrial hemp

Sorry Jeremy didn't mean to imply anything else, I think your post was clear in setting out the context and the product, I was perhaps too free with the term - I have edited my post.

[Temp]

Ok this is what really bugs me about the renewable industry in the UK..

 

I found this map of the Cleve Hill site on the Daily Mail web site. If you compare it with the area on Google maps you find that most of the site is well away from houses. What looks like development to the south turns out to be a large poly tunnel farm. So far so good...

 

However the south eastern part of the site appears to extend right up to a group of 5 or 6 houses that I've circled in red. So it appears they could easily build 99.9% of the scheme without impacting anyone's house value but oh no they have to use every square inch of land they can get.

 

Even if they don't plan to put panels on that bit the fact that the official site boundary is so close would be enough to put people off buying those houses

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2017 by Temp

[jamiehamy]

On 29/11/2017 at 11:04, jack said:

 

Yes, it is what I believe. Admittedly our position isn't helped by our negotiating team being an incompetent shower of gobshites - that's part of our weak negotiating position.

 

 

According to Amazon, it's available from tomorrow.

 @jack. I can't seem to order it.... 'Temporarily out of stock'  -  fancy that! 

[SteamyTea]

On 11/29/2017 at 16:56, Temp said:

without impacting anyone's house value

If you don't have tractors passing by, or mooing cows, bleating sheep, barley (I am badly allergic the pollen), or basically an industrial process on your door step, how does this affect your house value.

Like windfarms, is there really any evidence that holds up that there is a genuine negative impact.  Or is it just a belief based on nothing.

[daiking]

8 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

If you don't have tractors passing by, or mooing cows, bleating sheep, barley (I am badly allergic the pollen), or basically an industrial process on your door step, how does this affect your house value.

Like windfarms, is there really any evidence that holds up that there is a genuine negative impact.  Or is it just a belief based on nothing.

It’s a belief in the Norse god of NIMBY who would smite you for so much as looking at his house.

[SteamyTea]

10 minutes ago, daiking said:

Norse god of NIMBY

I did see that god's cousin, Furby.  I ran terrified out the room as it attracted children.

Edited December 6, 2017 by SteamyTea

[Temp]

I can't provide evidence that solar farm reduce house valuations but I know I'd rather live next to green fields than a solar farm. 

 

As for wind farms the LSE found upto 12% reduction..

http://personal.lse.ac.uk/gibbons/papers/windfarms and houseprices november 2013 v5.pdf

 

"Wind farms with 20 or more turbines reduce prices by 3% at distances between 8-14km, and by up to 12% within 2km."

 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

I suppose that if you live next to a large windfarm or solar farm, and you believe that it reduces property prices, and the estate agent and buyer does as well, then you have a self fulfilling prophecy.

Now I have not read that preliminary draft paper for the LSE yet, but taking your figures at face value, I would have thought that 12% maximum, and a 3% minimum downward price shift is a combination of things i.e. over optimistic asking price, decor, general aspiration of buyer, interest rates and fixed term loans, value of house for sale, quantity of houses for sale, general over pricing of housing...

Could probably pick holes it is quite easily.

 

To give you an idea of the variation in realism, my neighbour paid  35% more for his house than I did, he still thinks it is worth what he paid for it.

He compares it to some housing that is slightly larger, in a better location and in an area that has sold a few houses.

I on the other hand accept that my house has gone down in value by about 20% and is in an area that is hard to sell in.

There have been no sales here since about 2007, so a decade without data.

Edited December 7, 2017 by SteamyTea