‘Decoupling from fossil fuel shocks’: Europe’s electricity made 25% cheaper thanks to solar and wind

https://www.euronews.com/2026/04/24/decoupling-from-fossil-fuel-shocks-europes-electricity-made-25-cheaper-thanks-to-solar-and

World’s greenest countries eye drilling as fix for Iran crisis

The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Mexico and the U.K. are debating whether to expand or restart domestic fossil fuel production. 

https://www.politico.eu/article/worlds-greenest-countries-eye-drilling-as-fix-for-iran-crisis/

Amid Energy Crisis, Chinese Solar Exports Double

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/china-solar-exports-iran-war

Cool future “fashion” for a hot planet

https://faculty.engineering.asu.edu/konrad/research/cool-future-fashion-for-a-hot-planet/

On 28/04/2026 at 18:53, lenny said:

Wars don't affect adversely the rich. As a matter of facts, price of BP stock went from 475 at the start of the war in Iran to 606

BBC News

'We will kill you and burn your house': Council staff und...

Dozens of Trading Standards officers describe intimidation from criminals running mini-marts and vape shops.

Why do we have Kurdish crime gangs in Britain?

Oh yes - all cultures are equal.

Edited yesterday at 08:171 day by Tony1951

30 minutes ago, Woosh said:

Wars don't affect adversely the rich. As a matter of facts, price of BP stock went from 475 at the start of the war in Iran to 606

For someone who dabbles in share trading, you don't seem to understand who owns BP.

About 80% of BP's shares are held by institutional investors such as Pension Funds, Insurance companies and other large asset managers who hold shares as part of their portfolio of assets that they manage on behalf of small investors and clients.

Maybe you yourself hold some of these shares as part of a pension plan. Maybe not.

James Bond Villain types and cigar smoking 'fat cats' do not hold anything like a majority of these shares and even if some do, they will be taxed on their profits, assuming that they are not tax criminals.

This anti profit stuff you post is simply a hard left dogma repeated without wondering if it is right or wrong.

Edited yesterday at 08:261 day by Tony1951

1 hour ago, Tony1951 said:

For someone who dabbles in share trading, you don't seem to understand who owns BP.

About 80% of BP's shares are held by institutional investors such as Pension Funds, Insurance companies and other large asset managers who hold shares as part of their portfolio of assets that they manage on behalf of small investors and clients.

Maybe you yourself hold some of these shares as part of a pension plan. Maybe not.

James Bond Villain types and cigar smoking 'fat cats' do not hold anything like a majority of these shares and even if some do, they will be taxed on their profits, assuming that they are not tax criminals.

This anti profit stuff you post is simply a hard left dogma repeated without wondering if it is right or wrong.

My point is aimed first at the rich who make their money without sweating for it and will still complaining they pay too much taxes, second, those who donate large sums to politicians who are more than willing to promise tax cuts and third, corrupt politicians who accept large donations, especially cryptos.

More left wing hyperbole without foundation.

It is just a mantra of nonsense.

How many people do you think there are in this country who are rich and yet do nothing to get the money?

No doubt there are some, but so few as to make no difference at all for the tax take, in which case, since penalising them is a matter of spite and jealousy, rather than a practical measure to improve the conditions of anyone else in a serious way. This is typical hard left nonsense.

The post I responded to was one of yours which stated clearly that the rich do well out of wars, and contained a video link to a BBC piece about the profit surge at BP.

I pointed out that 80% of BP shares are held by large investors like pension funds and insurance companies in which ordinary everyday working people store their savings, often held there until they retire, to pay them an income in their old age. BP's profits are not about rich fat cats, but ordinary people in the main. Fat cats are taxed to destruction anyway unless they leave this country and move to Dubai or the Cayman Islands or Cyprus. High tax rates encourage migration of capital and so are counter productive. We have seen this over and over again, never more so than in the 1970s when stupid old fashioned Labour demonised those who were successful in making wealth and drove them abroad. When Thatcher cut the penal rates of taxation at the top of the income scale, they came back, paid tax here and the exchequer was far better off. Lower top rates of tax bring in more money than higher rates of tax.

Fiscal drag - the failure to raise higher rate tax thresholds (and lower ones) means that because of inflation, more and more people lose more and more of their money in income tax. This has been going on for some time and both Labour and the Conservative governments have sneakily taken more and more tax.

Take a look at how fiscal drag has impacted the tax burden on ordinary people as well as the better off.

https://share.google/aimode/9k8eyda8Pwg555jP2

Fusion Energy - when will we have it?

All the energy we use already comes from nuclear fusion.

The oil, gas and coal that we burn for energy is only the naturally stored energy produced by fusion in the sun and locked up by plants and marine creatures millions of years ago and now fossilised in the fossil fuel we use.

Even if we resort to good old muscle power like the Romans and all earlier generations of people did, we are still using nuclear fusion power, because that muscle power, be it from a horse, a bullock or a person, came from food grown with solar energy, and entirely dependent on that energy - fusion power in fact.

So what about us creating our own nuclear fusion technology for making clean limitless power, and why for the last eighty years have we been told it is just 30 years away, but it never seems to happen.

This video is maybe the best one I have ever seen about fusion power and it details the key issues which are problems INCLUDING the fact that the only practical possible method of making nuclear fusion on earth rather than inside a star like the sun, involves using tritium which will make radio active waste.

Probably the best treatment of the subject you are ever likely to see.

Edited 22 hours ago22 hr by Tony1951

1 hour ago, Tony1951 said:

Take a look at how fiscal drag has impacted the tax burden on ordinary people as well as the better off.

Do you know that taxes on property income, investment and dividend are all going up by 2% next April?

Here are the justifications from hmrc. I didn’t write it but it explains the why.

From hmrc:

The government is raising rates of tax on property, savings and dividend income to ensure income from assets is taxed more fairly. Those with property, savings or dividend income pay less tax than those whose income comes from employment or self-employment as they do not pay National Insurance. The government is increasing taxes on property, savings and dividend income to help to narrow this gap between tax paid on work and tax paid on income from assets.

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by Woosh

5 hours ago, Woosh said:

My point is aimed first at the rich who make their money without sweating for it and will still complaining they pay too much taxes, second, those who donate large sums to politicians who are more than willing to promise tax cuts and third, corrupt politicians who accept large donations, especially cryptos.

Did you think about the guys in France, who just swan arround enjoying themselves getting money without sweating, while working people work hard in shops to make profits for them?

6 minutes ago, D8veh said:

Did you think about the guys in France, who just swan arround enjoying themselves getting money without sweating, while working people work hard in shops to make profits for them?

That's why I talked about it to ease my conscience.

38 minutes ago, Woosh said:

Do you know that taxes on property income, investment and dividend are all going up by 2% next April?

Here are the justifications from hmrc. I didn’t write it but it explains the why.

From hmrc:

The government is raising rates of tax on property, savings and dividend income to ensure income from assets is taxed more fairly. Those with property, savings or dividend income pay less tax than those whose income comes from employment or self-employment as they do not pay National Insurance. The government is increasing taxes on property, savings and dividend income to help to narrow this gap between tax paid on work and tax paid on income from assets.

The thing is that those properties savings and investments were bought with money that was already taxed. It would be no different to somebody coming to your house and taxing everything you bought - the flowers in your garden, the pictures on the wall, your rake and lawnmower, the fridge. Why should somebody be allowed to have a fridge that makes ice cubes, when all I can afford is a normal one that I bought used Facebook for £30? What about clothes. I buy my jeans, tee-shirts and underpants and trainers, which are more or less all I wear, from Aliexpress. Some people buy designer clothes and Nike trainers that cost £300. Should they be taxed?

9 minutes ago, D8veh said:

The thing is that those properties savings and investments were bought with money that was already taxed.

The income that you make by investing (eg letting a house that you don't live in or buying silver ETFs) is fresh income, net yet taxed so it's only fair that any new income is taxed.

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by Woosh

14 hours ago, Woosh said:

The income that you make by investing (eg letting a house that you don't live in or buying silver ETFs) is fresh income, net yet taxed so it's only fair that any new income is taxed.

But it already is taxed. When he does his tax return, he declares the income and pays the tax.

We are paying a greater proportion of our income in tax than ever before, and much of the rise is done in a sly way, by not adjusting the tax thresholds higher in a time of inflation. Reeves has frozen the thresholds at which the poor begin to pay tax and the better off go into the higher tax brackets until 2030. This drags millions into higher tax brackets because of inflation, not because they are getting more spending power. Thus, the government gets more money when the people are not getting more spending power.

One of the worst taxes is capital gains. You buy a house in 2010 for £150,000, and rent it out to people who can't get a mortgage. This is a public service really, otherwise a substantial proportion of the population would be homeless. So - you pay your tax on the rental income every year, then, when you sell the house in 2026 for £220,000 you are liable for capital gains tax. The REAL (inflation proof value against wages) is probably about the same as when you bought the house even though the actual value in devalued pounds is more. You didn't really gain money in real terms over the ownership period, because inflation has reduced the value of the gain when inflation is counted, but the tax gangsters claim you made a real profit of £70,000 and demand 40% of that. So the tax man demands about £28,000. I say 'about' because my simple calculation does not take account of the capital gains allowance - the numbers are just illustrative - not exact.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Tony1951

We obviously need to pay some tax to provide for essential community spending. Defence, Education, protection of people like Woosh's Downes syndrome nephew, who obviously must be looked after properly, and for health spending. However - a vast and ever increasing proportion of the spending goes on supporting people who have simply decided they are not going to work and that invented 'mental problems', justify them being paid enhanced benefits and free cars and so on. Then huge amounts are thrown at foreign aid, much of which now goes on housing people who arrived uninvited in small boats. We spent £4.76 BILLION on asylum seekers in 2024/2025.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Tony1951

39 minutes ago, Tony1951 said:

But it already is taxed. When he does his tax return, he declares the income and pays the tax.

I think D8veh implied that because the flats he bought with his savings should be treated like ISA, income from those savings should be tax free.
I think the current tax regime regarding investment and letting income is fair. People often think that investment income is earned without sweat. I will dispute that. Politics, economics and investments are interlinked. If you want a good return, you'll have to spend time on them 3 together and that's a full time job.

16 hours ago, Woosh said:

That's why I talked about it to ease my conscience.

It's funny this - it must be hard to reconcile your beliefs with the way you actually live.

You preach against the evils of unearned income, yet have unearned income. It is the same with personal transport. You constantly urge us all to abandon internal combustion cars and go electric, but drive an internal combustion car.

I had an urge to get a chatgpt image of a two headed guy facing both ways, but thought better of the idea since it generates a fair bit of carbon dioxide to use AI like that, so you will just have to imagine it yourself - although I am strongly tempted to ask it to make the image. What title should I ask for? What captions?

ChatGpt is amazingly good at that stuff. Almost like Gilray and Hogarth from back in the 18th century.

They were pretty strong on hypocrisy and made some terrific lampooning cartoons of such folk.

This one is called, Temperance Enjoying a Frugal Meal'

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by Tony1951

16 hours ago, D8veh said:

The thing is that those properties savings and investments were bought with money that was already taxed. It would be no different to somebody coming to your house and taxing everything you bought - the flowers in your garden, the pictures on the wall, your rake and lawnmower, the fridge. Why should somebody be allowed to have a fridge that makes ice cubes, when all I can afford is a normal one that I bought used Facebook for £30? What about clothes. I buy my jeans, tee-shirts and underpants and trainers, which are more or less all I wear, from Aliexpress. Some people buy designer clothes and Nike trainers that cost £300. Should they be taxed?

Yes - they have the nerve to tax me on savings interest which has barely kept the principle sum above inflation.

I have a pretty firm view that the government on tax acts like a Mafia Crime Gang. They demand money for things you didn't ask them to buy, and threaten you with menaces if you don't pay up. Not only do they threaten you, if you don;t pay, they will have you kidnapped and put in a cell with dangerous lunatics who may very well kill you.

On another topic - the government gangsters continually fine and even imprison people who have not bought a TV licence, many of them on spurious grounds, such as when people are tricked into making an admission at the door by thugs from CAPITA, who incentivised by rewards for catching people out.

They arrive unexpectedly with clip boards and an officious attitude, and tell the victim, often a woman, that they are breaking the law.

Some of these people, in an effort to de-escalate the situation, will offer information which leads to conviction and say stuff like 'I didn't realise' which is taken as an admission of guilt.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Tony1951

2 hours ago, Tony1951 said:

It's funny this - it must be hard to reconcile your beliefs with the way you actually live.

You preach against the evils of unearned income, yet have unearned income. It is the same with personal transport. You constantly urge us all to abandon internal combustion cars and go electric, but drive an internal combustion car.

You've got it all wrong. I have never said unearned income is evil or even bad. Otherwise I wouldn't have done it myself for almost all my working life.

It's one particular type of tax cuts for very large dividends, together with payments in share options, stash weath in family trusts that I am against because it's a major source of corruptions and harms done to our society. It's for a tiny number of the very rich as if capitalism is not enough, they need tax cuts too so they pay to help us electing those who promise them those tax cuts and / or government contracts. The worst of those politicians are those to accept donations in cryptos as their sources can easily be hidden.

If they promise tax cuts without telling us where the money will come from then it's fair to assume that the money will come from cutting public services and help for the poor. You will never understand how so many poor individuals need their subsidies until a member of your family falls into that category. You will then resent the ultra rich like I do.

As for transport, our car is mainly for my wife. For short distances, I walk or ride my converted e-bike.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Woosh

3 hours ago, Tony1951 said:

Yes - they have the nerve to tax me on savings interest which has barely kept the principle sum above inflation.

I have a pretty firm view that the government on tax acts like a Mafia Crime Gang. They demand money for things you didn't ask them to buy, and threaten you with menaces if you don't pay up. Not only do they threaten you, if you don;t pay, they will have you kidnapped and put in a cell with dangerous lunatics who may very well kill you.

On another topic - the government gangsters continually fine and even imprison people who have not bought a TV licence, many of them on spurious grounds, such as when people are tricked into making an admission at the door by thugs from CAPITA, who incentivised by rewards for catching people out.

They arrive unexpectedly with clip boards and an officious attitude, and tell the victim, often a woman, that they are breaking the law.

Some of these people, in an effort to de-escalate the situation, will offer information which leads to conviction and say stuff like 'I didn't realise' which is taken as an admission of guilt.

I'm waiting for TV licensing to come to my house. I haven't watched TV in my home for at least 10 years. I told them in the beginning that I didn’t watch TV and didn't need a licence, and I told them that I have withdrawn their right of access to my property. They wanted me to repeat that every two years, but I think once is enough. I now get monthly letters that I ignore. I have 4 cameras covering the front of my house and the spooky eyes. I wonder if they decided to visit, but got put off by all that. Mine are like this but more evil looking. It's a video. Click the title to watch:

394K views · 7.8K reactions | This truck is like a transf...

This truck is like a transformer come to life! 🔥

Edited 48 minutes ago48 min by D8veh