Politics

[Duck Egg]

2 hours ago, Dimron said:

I still can't get my head around how someone in work needs state support.

Something fundamentally wrong here

 

I seem to recall a stat at how for all the talk of benefit scroungers there was, more than 50% or 60% of claimants were in some form of work.

[bolty58]

3 hours ago, Spider said:

Righto.

 

as an aside

Do you deal with copper mining? Chuck some spare cash at copper, it’s about to get more valuable than saffron.

Yes mate. Main business is iron ore in WA but we do have copper/zinc deposits here and there's a massive copper/gold/silver/uranium mine over the border in SA called Olympic Dam near the town of Roxby Downs. Had a lot to do with that site over the years - plenty of large and specialised gearboxes I have had a hand in one way or another.

The big buzz down here over the last little while has been lithium. Plenty of deposits here - I think we have six or seven mines in WA alone, the biggest of which would be Pilgangoora. That place is full of our gearboxes so we have regular contacts and site visits. 'Spodumene concentrate' is generally what they ship out after processing the raw ore. The value of stock for these miners will continue to rise as solar power and associated battery storage continue to grow in presence.

Will have a chat with my local market expert about your tip re copper 

[bolty58]

3 hours ago, Cheese said:

The UK 🤷‍♂️ A first world country going backwards.

There must be a lot more like you around then?

[Sweep]

12 hours ago, Spider said:

Righto.

 

as an aside

Do you deal with copper mining? Chuck some spare cash at copper, it’s about to get more valuable than saffron.

It's already getting there, everything I'm involved with has copper content, and the prices are already starting to spiral - we've already been warned by the factory that prices in 2022 will increase by up to 30% across the board within the Electronics market - it really is fucking bonkers.

What @bolty58says about Lithium as well is correct, it's also going up rapidly in price, driven mainly by these EVs. There will be a move away from Lithium eventually though, to Hydrogen Fuel Cells but that'll be a couple more decades yet.

Talking of EVs, I've been looking into them a lot recently, as I'm due a new car in January - It's just impossible to run one if you do a job that invovles driving more than about 250/300 miles a day, which I have to fairly often. One of my colleagues had the Jaguar I-Pace for a few weeks, it's now gone back, as it wasn't really workable for this kind of job. So it looks like it's going to be back to a dirty Diesel for a couple of years, whilst we wait for battery storage technology and infrastructure to improve a bit

[tomski]

40 minutes ago, Sweep said:

It's already getting there, everything I'm involved with has copper content, and the prices are already starting to spiral - we've already been warned by the factory that prices in 2022 will increase by up to 30% across the board within the Electronics market - it really is fucking bonkers.

What @bolty58says about Lithium as well is correct, it's also going up rapidly in price, driven mainly by these EVs. There will be a move away from Lithium eventually though, to Hydrogen Fuel Cells but that'll be a couple more decades yet.

Talking of EVs, I've been looking into them a lot recently, as I'm due a new car in January - It's just impossible to run one if you do a job that invovles driving more than about 250/300 miles a day, which I have to fairly often. One of my colleagues had the Jaguar I-Pace for a few weeks, it's now gone back, as it wasn't really workable for this kind of job. So it looks like it's going to be back to a dirty Diesel for a couple of years, whilst we wait for battery storage technology and infrastructure to improve a bit

I have one now. Love it. I will also have to be travelling at some point. I think planning will make it workable. Rather than stopping for a piss etc. Remember you don’t need a massive top up to get home.

[Guest]

15 hours ago, Dimron said:

I still can't get my head around how someone in work needs state support.

Something fundamentally wrong here

 

See Gordon Brown

[Not in Crawley]

1 minute ago, boltondiver said:

See Gordon Brown

Go on then....explain to the class.

[tomski]

3 minutes ago, Not in Crawley said:

Go on then....explain to the class.

It seems quite straight forward understanding why someone can claim while working.

What they are paid doesn’t cover enough. 
 

No idea why that’s tricky to comprehend for people.

No idea why Gordon Brown is involved though. One for Diver/ Dimron

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by tomski

[Not in Crawley]

Just now, tomski said:

It seems quite straight forward understanding why someone can claim while working.

What they are paid doesn’t cover enough. 
 

No idea why that’s tricky to comprehend for people.
 

 

It's the Gordon Brown comment I'd just like expanding on.

[paulhanley]

10 hours ago, bolty58 said:

Yes mate. Main business is iron ore in WA but we do have copper/zinc deposits here and there's a massive copper/gold/silver/uranium mine over the border in SA called Olympic Dam near the town of Roxby Downs. Had a lot to do with that site over the years - plenty of large and specialised gearboxes I have had a hand in one way or another.

The big buzz down here over the last little while has been lithium. Plenty of deposits here - I think we have six or seven mines in WA alone, the biggest of which would be Pilgangoora. That place is full of our gearboxes so we have regular contacts and site visits. 'Spodumene concentrate' is generally what they ship out after processing the raw ore. The value of stock for these miners will continue to rise as solar power and associated battery storage continue to grow in presence.

Will have a chat with my local market expert about your tip re copper 

There's a lot of optimism about lithium mining in Cornwall. If it proves justified optimism then it'll be a major boost for the UK in terms of helping cater for our own needs re using less and less carbon etc.

[Spider]

34 minutes ago, boltondiver said:

See Gordon Brown

Go on....

[Sweep]

54 minutes ago, tomski said:

I have one now. Love it. I will also have to be travelling at some point. I think planning will make it workable. Rather than stopping for a piss etc. Remember you don’t need a massive top up to get home.

I know they're fine for some people - I can easily do 400 miles in a day, and I don't always have the time to sit and watch it charge up for 30/60 minutes. My colleague, with his I-Pace encountered the issue of a services only actually having 2 chargers, and they were both being used when pulled up to use one, so he ended up hanging around for about 1.5 hours, which he'd not planned on doing.

I'll eventually go electric, but I'm going to wait a couple of years for the infrastructure to improve and also the battery range to improve  -  it'll all come, but it'll take another couple of years I reckon.

[tomski]

20 minutes ago, Sweep said:

I know they're fine for some people - I can easily do 400 miles in a day, and I don't always have the time to sit and watch it charge up for 30/60 minutes. My colleague, with his I-Pace encountered the issue of a services only actually having 2 chargers, and they were both being used when pulled up to use one, so he ended up hanging around for about 1.5 hours, which he'd not planned on doing.

I'll eventually go electric, but I'm going to wait a couple of years for the infrastructure to improve and also the battery range to improve  -  it'll all come, but it'll take another couple of years I reckon.

Money never sleeps hehe.

Furry muff

[MickyD]

58 minutes ago, paulhanley said:

There's a lot of optimism about lithium mining in Cornwall. If it proves justified optimism then it'll be a major boost for the UK in terms of helping cater for our own needs re using less and less carbon etc.

Then someone will kick off because any quarry plans impact on their sleepy village they bought a holiday house in for £500k

[Duck Egg]

1 hour ago, boltondiver said:

See Gordon Brown

I'm interested to here your reasoning here.

In the last days of the Major govt the much needed top up was then Family Credit which subsidised shoddy employers paying starvation wages.

Surely, if there's only one thing you can praise the Blair govt for, with Brown as the Chancellor, was introducing the minimum wage? In the face of much Tory opposition too, i might add.

[Not in Crawley]

1 hour ago, Duck Egg said:

I'm interested to here your reasoning here.

In the last days of the Major govt the much needed top up was then Family Credit which subsidised shoddy employers paying starvation wages.

Surely, if there's only one thing you can praise the Blair govt for, with Brown as the Chancellor, was introducing the minimum wage? In the face of much Tory opposition too, i might add.

As well as The New Deal, which helped a lot of disadvataged communities.

[paulhanley]

1 hour ago, MickyD said:

Then someone will kick off because any quarry plans impact on their sleepy village they bought a holiday house in for £500k

Wouldn't be surprised. Although the born and bred Cornish people are well aware of their county's mining heritage with the copper and tin mines of years gone by. As long as it is properly managed I suspect they'll on the whole welcome being at the heart of a growth industry. 

It'd be preferable if they shifted the mined materials by train to avoid clogging up already busy roads down there.

[Tonge moor green jacket]

2 hours ago, Sweep said:

I know they're fine for some people - I can easily do 400 miles in a day, and I don't always have the time to sit and watch it charge up for 30/60 minutes. My colleague, with his I-Pace encountered the issue of a services only actually having 2 chargers, and they were both being used when pulled up to use one, so he ended up hanging around for about 1.5 hours, which he'd not planned on doing.

I'll eventually go electric, but I'm going to wait a couple of years for the infrastructure to improve and also the battery range to improve  -  it'll all come, but it'll take another couple of years I reckon.

You will need to keep a watching brief then. The pace of it all is accelerating quickly, which means government grants are likely to be scrapped fairly soon. Already got a limit now.

Depending upon what exactly you'd need, a slightly earlier purchase may save money. Tight call though. 

I can see the apps improving too, such that they show which ones are being used/out of commission in real time, which should help.

[Tonge moor green jacket]

On 13/09/2021 at 10:52, tomski said:

He’s actually the only one who’s pointed any benefits out so far.

He's not!

Plenty made that case years ago. 

Frankly, just sick of all the whining, now.

 

 

[Farrelli]

I see the government have delayed introducing post brexit checks on food and farming imports until next year. They literally have no idea how they are going to implement these controls on our border. #taking back control🇬🇧🤡

[mickbrown]

2 hours ago, Sweep said:

I know they're fine for some people - I can easily do 400 miles in a day, and I don't always have the time to sit and watch it charge up for 30/60 minutes. My colleague, with his I-Pace encountered the issue of a services only actually having 2 chargers, and they were both being used when pulled up to use one, so he ended up hanging around for about 1.5 hours, which he'd not planned on doing.

I'll eventually go electric, but I'm going to wait a couple of years for the infrastructure to improve and also the battery range to improve  -  it'll all come, but it'll take another couple of years I reckon.

You see that Guy Martin programme?

He drove to John O'Groats from Grimsby in an EV with a supposed 300 mile range. Took him fucking years and cost nigh on £500 in charging fees if memory serves.

[Dimron]

4 hours ago, boltondiver said:

See Gordon Brown

I recall he started off the Family Credit system, not having a family I know very little about it.

If employers paid living wages there shouldn't be a need for state assistance as long as people don't attempt to live beyond their means

[Sweep]

57 minutes ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

You will need to keep a watching brief then. The pace of it all is accelerating quickly, which means government grants are likely to be scrapped fairly soon. Already got a limit now.

Depending upon what exactly you'd need, a slightly earlier purchase may save money. Tight call though. 

I can see the apps improving too, such that they show which ones are being used/out of commission in real time, which should help.

I do keep a watching brief, buy virtue of my work - we currently supply to 2 of the largest producers of EV Chargers in Europe. 

There are a few issues with EV

1) The cars cost too much at present - this cost will start to reduce over the coming years, as more and more companies enter the market, it's already started to come down, so we're getting there....

2) The infrastructure in the UK isn't ready yet. There are only (so I'm told) 26K public EV Charge points at the minute.....that's nowhere near enough. Not all of those charge points are "fast charge" (150kW)....many are only 7kW, which is fucking useless, as it'd take well over 10 hours to fully charge a 90kWh battery. You might, if you want to plug in and hang around for 2 hours, get 40 or 50 miles worth of charge

3) Even on a full charge, the range isn't too great. The highest most are offering now is about 300 miles...in the real world, in cold conditions, that'll drop down quite a bit (one work colleague has a Tesla, and says in winter his 320 miles range dropped to 260/270 miles) 

The Government will probably start to hike the BIK up, as it's currently at 0% I think.....but I'm opting out and taking car allowance instead, so I'll not be bothered about the BIK

A full EV car, if you don't do many miles, is certainly worth looking at. I did 900 miles last week, and this week I'll do around 700 miles - that sort of mileage, I don't think lends itself to an EV at present

As mentioned above, my colleague who has the I-Pace (which was a great car, by the way) did a trip about 2 weeks ago, and planned to stop at Blyth Services. He has an app, that happily told him the charger unit they have there was available...when he got there, somebody else had just plugged in a few minutes before, and he had to wait near enough an hour for them to finish, then he plugged in, and charged for about 30 minutes, which gave him enough to get back home. He was a bit perplexed, as he had to hang around for an hour longer than he wanted to. So much so, he's realised he can't work with it, and it's been swapped in for a hybrid E-Pace.......I've not spoken to him since, so I don't know how he's getting on with that. Like me, he's planning on addressing the whole EV thing again in another 18-24 months, when I'd expect things will have changed quite dramatically

[Sweep]

49 minutes ago, mickbrown said:

You see that Guy Martin programme?

He drove to John O'Groats from Grimsby in an EV with a supposed 300 mile range. Took him fucking years and cost nigh on £500 in charging fees if memory serves.

I've not seen it, but I'll look for it.

I can imagine it wouldn't be easy to do, especially around either end of the journey, where there will be bugger all infrastructure in place

 

As a slight aside, both the blokes at work, advised that the insurance for an EV was around 40% more expensive than their previous cars - apparently Insurance companies are rinsing EV car owners a little bit at the minute (presumably because it's a new technology, and they can get away with it)

[Spider]

See WIlliam Hague