UK – Things Are Good

New Buildings in England Require Solar Power

Solar Panel School

In certain areas, like Ontario, homes are legally required to damage the environment by being connected to private fossil fuel companies (yes, policy like this count as subsidies to fossil fuel companies). In England that’s set to change with new building codes, no longer will people be forced to use fossil fuels to warm their houses. Moving forward new homes will require solar panels to supplement their energy usage while also including heat pumps. Hopefully this will encourage other places around the world to start incorporating renewable power directly into new buildings instead of relying on retrofits.

“The Iran war has once again shown our drive for clean power is essential for our energy security so we can escape the grip of fossil fuel markets we don’t control,” said Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.
The announced changes have been welcomed by the energy industry and those working in green technology for providing certainty that heat pumps and solar panels are worth investing in.
“It’s going to give clarity to the UK market, installers, builders, manufacturers, that there’s a significant market that’s there,” said Garry Felgate, CEO of MCS Foundation, which certifies installers of low carbon heating systems.

Farm Fields of Solar Produce Bonuses

In the UK the average person wants to get off fossil fuels, but the Conservatives in power want the opposite. Obviously this is not good, and it gets worse: the new PM Liz Truss wants to ban solar panels on farms, Conservatives clearly don’t understand how the world works.

The good news comes from research proving that agrivoltaics (agriculture + solar voltaic panels) are a boon to farmers. Solar panels on farms are good for revenue for farms, renewable energy, and the very crops farms are growing. Yes, solar panels on farm increase crop production!

“One study found certain peppers will have three times the production,” said Bousselot. “That’s a shocking number.”

As global temperatures rise, the panels can also help to conserve dwindling freshwater supplies by reducing evaporation from both plants and soil.

What evaporation does occur underneath the panels has the added benefit of cooling the PVs and boosting their electricity production, according to Randle-Boggis, a research associate at the University of Sheffield.

Insulation is Better Than Oil

Insulation is a boring solution to the deadly consumption of oil inside your home. If you have a gas furnace or other fossil fuel heater then you can start reducing your consumption of the dead dino juice by better insulating your home. You can also go a step further and replace planet-killing heating solutions with a heat pump.

In the United Kingdom a simple policy change to encourage homeowners improve their insulation and/or install heat pumps can eliminate the need for Russian gas. The time to this is right now so it cuts off the market desire for oil from a state waging war on its neighbour.

If you’re a homeowner then improve your insulation and get off of gas.

An analysis by the think tank notes concludes that the deployment of insulation and electric heat pumps in 6.5 million homes by 2027 could reduce UK gas demand by four per cent, which is roughly equivalent to UK imports of Russian gas.

By enabling citizens to use less gas to heat their homes, a policy focused on heat pumps and insulation could also curb energy bills and protect millions of households from volatile international gas prices, it said.

To Revive Main Streets Let’s Make them People Focussed Instead of Business Focussed

Since the proliferation of big box stores and malls small cities have been struggling to keep their downtowns engaging and profitable for businesses. What if we rethought our downtowns to be about people and making a community instead of profit centres? That’s the very question a small city in the UK asked and found the answer was to make the city for people. They converted old stores to community spaces and sure enough more people kept showing up. Now their city is vibrant and businesses want to be there to capture all the foot traffic. If you put people first then the rest will follow.

The Stockton vision is to buy up, repurpose, restore and reconfigure the heart of the town, emphasising events, independent enterprise, green space and conviviality. As a glamorous statement of intent, in just over a fortnight one of the finest art deco theatres in Britain will reopen its doors. The Globe, a Grade II listed building, has stood derelict on the high street for a quarter of a century, rotting from within. Built in 1935, in its heyday it hosted the Beatles, Little Richard and Stevie Wonder. On 6 September, McFly will play the first gig of a new era, at the biggest venue of its kind between Newcastle and Leeds.

The cost of the lavish and exquisite restoration â€“ funded by council borrowing and a lottery grant â€“ soared close to Â£30m and has generated political pushback. But according to Claire Frawley, the councilâ€™s town centre development officer, it will provide jobs, a revitalised sense of place and a footfall of up to 200,000 visitors a year, acting as a regenerative hub for the new Stockton.

â€œPeople are desperate to get involved,â€ says Frawley, â€œtheyâ€™re desperate to come and work here. There will be public tours soon, and the local demand is huge. This place is part of the townâ€™s heritage and you can feel the pride.â€

UK: Uber Drivers are Employees not Individual Entrepreneurs

Uber drivers in the UK will now get better treatment from Uber thanks to the courts ruling the company can’t as robustly exploit their drivers. The way drivers get gigs and subsequently paid by the company structurally mean the company has control all aspects of the process, which means the drivers are workers since they actually have no control over key aspects of the job. This is a blow against Uber which skirts the laws in multiple countries and this decision in the UK will resonant throughout the entire gig economy.

The court considered several elements in its judgement:

Uber set the fare which meant that they dictated how much drivers could earn

Uber set the contract terms and drivers had no say in them

Request for rides is constrained by Uber who can penalise drivers if they reject too many rides

Uber monitors a driver’s service through the star rating and has the capacity to terminate the relationship if after repeated warnings this does not improve

Looking at these and other factors, the court determined that drivers were in a position of subordination to Uber where the only way they could increase their earnings would be to work longer hours.