Serpent

Gave me a chuckle

What happened to Giant Bomb? I used to listen to it many years ago...

There are parts of London which are hell to visit because they are overly popular with tourists. An example being borough market at lunch time, it's all tourists and you can't move. I don't begrudge anyone and I can happily just avoid it but it really makes me realise how hard it must be in the much smaller cities with higher ratios.

My wife went to Venice recently with her mum and said that the service staff were predominantly South Asian, so I wonder how much of that 250k is immigrant population there to service the huge tourism industry.

Does nobody here wear shirts to work?

My dad went for cumin instead of cinnamon for his apple crumble. Then he finished his whole bowl telling us it's fine. Everyone obviously left theirs.

We've never let him live it down.

Fascinating, and what about Basque?

Jess christ.. this makes me want to poke out my eyes!

All true. A few problems facing increasing renewable penetration:

Lack of grid capacity. The national grid operator (REN) has stated there is not enough capacity currently, or in the planned grid expansions, to meet the countries renewable targets.

Rising opposition to projects. Many projects are facing strong local opposition, for example the the 1gw project in Santiago do Cacém which has seen strong resistance from local organisations set up to oppose it.

Environmental protections. They are important and needed, but Portugal has very strong laws here and it is a big obstacle to renewable development.

Cork trees. Cork trees are worshipped, its even difficult to clear sapplings that are of no value or importance. It makes large swathes of land uneconomical for renewable development.

Despite the above, which (except for cork trees) aren't unique to portugal, the country is doing well. It will be interesting to see the stats in the coming dryer years, as you say.

Depends on the definition intended, but other adjectives could probably describe it better.

Yes! I had totally forgotten about the instant pang of shock and anger I would feel when that happened.

I'm saying 85 MW of installed solar capacity would generate roughly a third the amount of energy as the equivalent installed capacity of wind. So the Councillor in the article is making a false equivalence between the two technologies.

Solar farm load factors are also about 10% compared to 30% for wind so they are generating less energy per MW, therefore can afford less of a community payment per MW.