Si Cy

@sicy.bsky.social

In aviation but incurably curious about renewable energy & clean tech. Blame the Physics degree

“It’s a rare chance for the kids in this neighbourhood to play outside together, in a space big enough to frolic and safe from traffic” More local authorities need to make this possible easily, by simplifying the application process and ensuring it’s always free. Streets should be spaces for play.

Leeds: The city closing down streets so children can play

In Leeds, streets are being temporarily closed to traffic so kids have more space to safely play - an initiative proving beneficial to both children and adults.

bbc.co.uk

Pretty decent July on the solar. Plus cashed in a load of Savings Sessions points (another one tonight) so made over £100 on the balance this month, £400 sat in the war chest for winter so far. Should work out about right I think.

Sankey diagram report from my PV system for July 2026. Sources: 1.72MWh solar, 519kWh battery, 908kWh Grid. Sent 530kWh to battery, 1.16MWh to Load (House & EV), 1.45MWh to Grid.

Help! I’ve got involved in a Facebook discussion on how battery storage is a terrible idea. I’m pushing back carefully but dear lord the comments… 🤦‍♂️ 😩 Every bit of misinformation and Ludditery you can imagine trotted out as if Tufton street had written it themselves.

It sounds like I’m making it up But the premise is that we can avoid £40bn of “net-zero costs” And that is only true if the alternative is free 🤡Free gas to generate electricity! 🤡Free gas turbines when the old ones retire! 🤡Free power network! 🤡Free grid balancing!

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Corfu. Solar, battery & LED streetlights. 😍 Must save a fortune on cabling etc. I guess they’ve probably got enough insolation to run these all night even in the depths of winter?

A lamppost in Corfu with a Solar panel on top with a battery block immediately below then the light itself on an arm below thatView of a Corfu road with several solar, battery & LED streetlights

Yep, I'm sitting in a traditional farm that has diversified into holday lets alogside and subsidising farming. They know the climate has changed. They are in the middle of an old coalfield that polluted the atmosphere, killed my ancestors & damaged the climate. Windfarms look nicer than pitheaps!

++BREAKING++ The Daily Telegraph has... *rubs eyes* ...published something sensible about climate change: "I’m coming to the view that the Online Right is going wrong, eschewing compassion or charm, talking itself into corners of angry irrelevance. Take climate change."

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Cockpit footage shows a Yak-52 crew shooting down Russian Shahed drones near Odesa. Ukraine uses the light piston aircraft to hunt incoming drones, with the rear-seat crew member firing a rifle because the aircraft is not equipped with machine guns. #Ukraine

Cambridge South (Addenbrookes hospital) station has opened recently. Very pleasing to see the choice of materials used for the platform canopy:

Cambridge South station platform with a canopy constructed of wooden beams topped with solar panels

Pornainen, Finland (pop 5,000) is now heated by a silo of crushed soapstone. I spoke to CNBC about it. 100 MWh, charged when power is cheap, emissions down ~70%. Days to weeks of storage, no critical minerals. www.cnbc.com/2026/07/25/f...

Finland’s radical answer to renewable energy’s biggest headache: The world’s largest sand battery

A small Finnish town has turned to the world's largest commercial sand battery to tackle a major hurdle in the energy transition: intermittency.

cnbc.com

If you conclude (and frankly I sort of have too) that the problem with the specific choices the UK has made, our geographic location is the current policy endpoint is 'we'll be one of the last countries to use gas and one of the first to stop making any money on it', you go, hmm, perhaps not.

e-bike has arrived! It’s super Zippy and makes satisfying rally car like noises as you change gears 😂 Added bonus, I’d ordered the 400Wh battery but they’ve sent the 725! 😃

Pakistan's solar boom coincided with a 21% rise in electricity in 2 years. All of the 21% rise in electricity demand was met with distributed solar - actually grid electricity fell 3% in the last 2 years...

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