Sonic

Why just store electricity? Electricity is primarily a means of transmitting energy from a remote source to the point of use. There are inefficiencies in every conversion. What about PHOTONIC storage? Lighting is one of the most significant uses of electricity, if a viable way can be found to store the photonic energy of the sun during the day, to be released at night, then this could make an enourmous contribution to solving the coming energy crunch. Obviously it's simple in principal, but how could it be done in practice? phospherecent matereals are not efficient! Any ideas? Does anyone know of any organisations looking into this?

IMO 'overhousing' is a key UK housing market fundamental but clearly not one that can be sustained indefinitely. There is yet another little known factor that will very soon come into play. UK local government budgets are already coming under significant pressure from the spiraling social care costs of a burgeoning elderly population. In the near future councils will have two choices; raise council tax, or increase means testing for social care. Both will place very siginficant finacial pressure on overhoused pensioners, many of whom will be forced to downsize. Incidentally there is a very simple but reliable indicator for an area that has significant underhousing: Schools have been shut down; this normally only happens due to lack of children

I have to agree with DB, this is the main reason why I refuse to buy another house in the UK right now! The demographic implications for the UK housing market get even more interesting when you look down to the macro level. Find an area you know on here: http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dis...DqQLvpAe?bhcp=1 Looking at the occupancy and demographic makeup of my own neighborhood, there is a very obvious disproportionate (perhaps 40%) number of single occupants in their 70s and 80s (now mid 70s/80s) living in an area mostly comprised of 3 & 4 bedroom houses. It's not a retirement area, just a place with an aging population. It's very unlikely that many of these folk will still be there in 10 years time. This will effectively become masive 'new' supply of mid range property, because people of this age will mostly move on to places outside the mainstream housing market. This is just a snapshot, but due to massive out migration from London just after WW2 this is probably quite typical for many of the satallite commuter towns.