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Tim Small

@buttersideup.com
132 followers 271 following 222 posts

Professional spod who also does some low energy building and renewables related stuff.

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Reposted by Tim Small
neil21 @neil21.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Car hits child. Gun shoots man. AI hacked site. Hold *people* accountable for the tools they use. At least users of guns and cars theoretically require licensing.
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 28/09/2026
This year's record setting El Niño will impact many different parts of the world, with some experiencing severe drought and others flooding. In a new analysis at The Climate Brink, I explore what impacts happened during past events and which are most likely to occur this year
theclimatebrink.com
The impacts of this year’s record-shattering El Niño
El Niño will drive severe drought from Indonesia to the Southern Africa and northern South America, with wetter winters from the US Gulf Coast to Southern South America.
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Brighton Farm Freelancers Group @brightonfarm.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Freelancer? In Brighton? Come to our meet up tomorrow evening! It's very relaxed, usually 10-15 freelancers along for a nice chat. We'll be in the Battle of Trafalgar pub from 8pm-11 Last week: www.brightonfarm.com/2026/meeting... Map: maps.app.goo.gl/CbGLaPkoPuXM...
brightonfarm.com
Python work and app stores, notes from 23rd September 2026 - Brighton Farm
On the 23rd September, nine freelancers got together in the beer garden of the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk almost everything except freelancing, but it did occasionally come up. This i...
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Phillips OBrien @phillipspobrien.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Russia has one enormous strategic advantage of which it is taking advantage. It can daily attack civilian targets--hospitals, universities, markets--knowing that while Ukraine can do the same, the Ukrainians are too humane to do so.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 29/09/2026
After Musk's historic bruises from his interactions with the SEC, there's no surprise that he wanted to see it gutted. Like Trump he is vengeful and holds onto grudges.
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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Very pleased to see that this research from my Smith School colleagues is getting traction in national media.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 28/09/2026
Isn't this a one off prototype development? I suspect it won't become a standard way of deploying turbines
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Kees van der Leun @sustainable2050.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Probably not wise to vote for friends of Russia then.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 28/09/2026
I was about to reply that it works in Chromium, but not Firefox, but it appears to be working in Firefox now too. Did you tweak it? If-so thanks! If-not then LMK and I'll keep digging (I ended up changing a load of desktop zoom factor settings on my desktop this morning for unrelated reasons!).
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 28/09/2026
Rampion seems to have been significantly upgraded and relocated on-shore to the Gatwick area? Rendering issue with Gecko based browsers (e.g. Firefox) I think?
Screenshot showing the Rampion offshore wind farm located approx 50 km North of it actual position.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
My former colleagues, Mark Cane and Stephen Zebiak, were the first to successfully predict El Niño more than a year in advance in the late 1980s. Now we’re really good at it, and know the consequences. It’d be irresponsible for governments not to take action. Read this from my buddy Jeff Shaman.
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Super El Niño Comes Bearing One Gift: Time to Prepare (Gift Article)
There’s still time to prepare.
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Mike Elk @mikeelk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
X is blocking the Brazilian Catholic Bishops' Conference account as polling shows Catholics backing Lula. The Church has denounced outside interference in the election
paydayreport.com
X Blocks Account of National Conference of Bishops of Brasil As Catholics Back Lula
Polls show Catholics backing Lula as the church denounces foreign interference.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 27/09/2026
Reduced investment in China is largely down to the ending of government incentives, I believe.
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Commercial Solar Guy @commercialsolarguy.com · 27/09/2026
Small scale solar is #1 yo
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Frederik Hoedeman @fredhoedeman.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Answer to Dutch PM question on the risk of dismantling AMOC monitoring: "The government is examining how AMOC monitoring can be ensured, whether at the national level or within an EU context. Discussions on this matter are currently underway between various government bodies and research institutes"
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Carbon Brief @carbonbrief.org · 21/09/2026
NEW – Analysis: ‘Super El Niño’ reaches ‘remarkable’ all-time record ✍️ Written by @zekehausfather.com Read here: buff.ly/4a9XUAK
Daily Niño 3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies, 1982-2026, each relative to a centred 30-year climatology (ONI convention). Chart by Carbon Brief.
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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 26/09/2026
Berkeley Earth's Sept 2026 climate report includes temperature forecasts for the coming year including details on the 2026-2027 El Nino: m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjki...
m.youtube.com
Berkeley Earth Monthly Press Briefing for August 2026
YouTube video by Berkeley Earth
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Gavin Schmidt @climateofgavin.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Tell me that you don’t understand insurance without saying you don’t understand insurance… 🤦
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Paul Hikari @paulhikari.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
And here's the trailer. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_8...
youtube.com
Musk | Official Trailer | Bleecker Street
YouTube video by Musk
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John Fugelsang @johnfugelsang.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Streisand Effect, Activate.
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Fionna O’Leary @fascinatorfun.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Holy Jesus, Mary Immaculate and all the fucking saints. How can anyone who has been both ELECTED and PAID SO MUCH be so GOBSMACKINGLY stupid and ignorant? How? How is it possible that her husband and children don’t stop her? Are they all sucking at her money teat? I just don’t get it.
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Andrew Sissons @acjsissons.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Another piece on energy from me today (happy Friday, I guess!) This time it's a bit of a good news story: the latest on electricity prices decoupling from gas. Decoupling is still happening, and electricity bills would be higher if the UK didn't have so much clean power.
Chart shows the change in gas and electricity bills between April and October in 2022 and 2026 - during two energy crises.
In 2022, electricity prices rose almost as fast as gas prices (88% v 68%). In 2026, gas prices rose much faster (33% compared to 9%)
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Lauri Myllyvirta @laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
NEW from us: five years after China pledged to stop overseas coal power projects and support clean energy, dozens of coal power plants have been canceled and the country's overseas clean energy financing has seen impressive growth, but gaps remain in the coal ban.
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Edward Perez @eddieperez.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Fixed it: Engineers at OpenAI developed harmful software that was approved by company executives. The company could not control its own work product, and OpenAI’s automated software was used to attempt breaches of govt and university sites. OpenAI execs have denied responsibility for their product.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 23/09/2026
examples elsewhere include PG&E in California (where pruning proceeds so long as at least 66% of households agree) and Eversource in Massachusetts. The local gas network operator has spent months replacing gas mains in my area, with the bill payers ultimately funding these future stranded assets!
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 23/09/2026
A significant policy/regulatory gap seems to be around selectively decommissioning parts of the gas network instead of carrying out expensive replacements when pipes in the ground reach their end of life. This money would be far better spent fully electrifying the impacted households instead...
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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The United States, which once freed prisoners from Germany's concentration camps, is now siding with the war criminals—and obstructing those who would hold them into account. Shameful—if this administration had any shame.
yacnews.com
US prepares to sanction the ICC, that indicted Russia's Putin and Israel's Netanyahu for war crimes
Trump is preparing sanctions against the International Criminal Court itself, potentially cutting it off from U.S. banking, technology and services. The US has already sanctioned 13 ICC officials and ...
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 22/09/2026
I have a new piece out in Nature today on the record-breaking 2026/2027 El Niño, what impacts we should expect, and how governments can prepare. The Niño3.4 region is currently running more than 1C hotter than any prior event on record, and we remain months away from the peak www.nature.com/artic...
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 22/09/2026
...have directed me to a page on your web site for new export customers which requires scanned documents and a whole load of other info (MCS and MPAN numbers) which you already have had from me in the past and which is a pain to assemble (and for you to process). Please can you fix this!
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 22/09/2026
Hi @octopus.energy It seems that you have a bug in your systems - I'm already on an Octopus customer and you already pay me for solar export. I want to switch from one Octopus export tariff to a different one. There is no mechanism to do this - instead two different advisors have told me...
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 21/09/2026
This year's El Niño event is moving into record territory, with the daily Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) tying the record previously set during the 2015/2016 super-El Niño. My latest over at Carbon Brief: www.carbonbrief.org/...
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 09/02/2026
I've created a new dashboard for The Climate Brink that is updated daily with ERA5 global mean surface temperature data. It includes daily anomalies, monthly and annual forecasts, and a bunch of interactive data visualizations: dashboard.theclimate...
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 16/09/2026
All the September dynamical ENSO models (including SINTEX) are now in, and they give a 100% chance of a record event this year using the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) metric:
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 18/09/2026
See also @xkcd.com "Land Mammals" m.xkcd.com/1338/
Infographic comic by Randall Munroe that visualizes the total global biomass of all living land mammals on Earth.
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Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 18/09/2026
Since the rise of humans, wild land mammal biomass has declined by 85%. Around 100,000 years ago, all of the wild land mammals on Earth summed up to around 20 million tonnes of carbon. By around 10,000 years ago, there had been a huge decline, likely in the range of 25% to 50%.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 18/09/2026
No dropbear enquiry?
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Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"I asked about the threat of the rising sea. 'It’s definitely a problem,' the agent said. I blinked. 'Dang,' I said. 'Then how do you protect a place like this?' 'Really expensive insurance,' he replied. 'That’s the answer.'" 🙃🙃🙃 Great commentary by @kzhill.bsky.social too
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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
We're losing the great scientists that developed the first tools to understand how we're changing the #climate & then warned us about the consequences. Remembering them & building on their work is our responsibility to their legacy. RIP Dr. Robert E. Dickinson fromtheprow.agu.org/robert-e-dic...
fromtheprow.agu.org
Mourning the Passing of Robert E. Dickinson, AGU Past President and Distinguished Earth System Scientist
Dr. Dickinson’s remarkable career spanned more than six decades, helping shape modern understanding of the climate system through pioneering contributions to atmospheric dynamics, climate modeling, cl...
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 18/09/2026
I love this slide. I really don't think the geopolitical implications of the clean energy transition have sunk in for most people.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 18/09/2026
I understand that it's unlikely to fly with local conservation officers, but in Brighton a number of Victorian detached villas have (and presumably always have had) operable external louvre shutters. Might be worth searching for any equivalent local precedent?
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 18/09/2026
you have to be clever about using integer numbers of panels. There's a potential issue with end-of-life replacement (and replacement of damaged panels), since there is little standardisation in panel sizing between manufacturers and over time - although maybe this is improving.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 18/09/2026
Cost will all be in the detailing and installation labour. In terms of materials I recently costed a domestic shed re-roof in Scotland and PV panels were about £20 per m². Galvanised steel was about £10 per m². The potential issue with PV is that you can't cut them, so...
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Juraj Mikurcik @jurajmikurcik.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A cool solar PV facade and balconies on the 12-storey biobased apartment block in Malmö 🇸🇪 A total of ⚡ 218kWp system paired with 🔋 194kWh battery storage. Makes a lot of sense for low sun winter generation ☀️ via ETC Bygg
Photo of an apartment block being fitted with solar PV panels on facade and balconies
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 18/09/2026
For comparison total extraction to-date is over 3000 bcm. Incidentally during North Sea oil extraction it's estimated that the companies have flared off (lit on fire to deliberately waste) about 80 to 120 bcm to-date, because successive governments allowed them to. Norway banned flaring in 1972.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 18/09/2026
UK annual consumption is currently 65 bcm. So at current rates, reserves are ~ 3 years of total usage (maybe as much as 7 years, maybe as little as 1.5 years). Arguably it would be less environmentally harmful to use this than to import LNG, but it's not going to shift the domestic gas price much.
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 18/09/2026
Rising gas prices have led to more calls for the UK govt to approve new gas extraction license applications in the North Sea. UK gov estimates between 100 and 200 billion m³ (bcm) of gas remain in the UK areas of the North Sea. More optimistic industry estimates are of up to 450 bcm.
A chart showing EU natural gas prices (TTF) which have risen from around €30 / MWh before the US/Israeli attacks on Iran to around €80 / MWh today.
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Oxide Computer Company @oxide.computer · 17/09/2026
Oxide and Friends: “For Want of a Resistor” is now live! Listen to the full episode wherever you stream your podcasts: buff.ly/bxFQl6b
buff.ly
Oxide and Friends | For Want of a Resistor
When the supply chain crunch catches up with you, sometimes a tiny resistor the size of a fleck of pepper is the difference between a world-class computer and... e-waste. Members of the Oxide opera...
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Felix Hamer • electricfelix @electricfelix.eurosky.social · 17/09/2026
Fickling does it again: "China’s Electric Cars Aren’t Europe’s Real Problem" "current policy gets the problem back-to-front. Europe is restricting imports of Chinese-made EVs, but allowing unrestricted trade in the batteries that power them" #battchat www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
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Tim Small @buttersideup.com · 16/09/2026
Luckily the CAFE standards will diminish the impact of this. Oh, hang on, umm, nevermind.
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