A “Lib Dem” minister just told Sky News he was approving new nuclear power stations to promote green jobs. If anybody ever votes for these lying bastards again I shall be disconsolate.
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Anon;
“Damn this physics.” It’s true they try to justify the cost with physics, but they’ve often shortcutted on safety to save costs, so why not campaign on the need to find funding? So unusual for these Alpha-types to give up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
Anon is scaring me to bits! I feel very sorry for the pensioners and unemployed who have no heating or cannot afford to use it, and for the food bank families and others without sufficient calories. I have never felt so cold. It’s the below zero temps and the 29kmh NE wind here that is so wicked. Anoraks feel like Tshirts.
Crab,
I have heard that National Grid is actually legally required to publish the information they do but can’t confirm that for certain. I do agree that a lot of effort has gone into providing the electrical data and the site seems fairly reliable. The equivalent gas pages have been cut back though since they were first created. The daily summary spreadsheet which was easy for journalists to grab each day complete with media=friendly charts and words like “Days to breach”, now no longer exists. The daily summary web report (the one with safety margins and days left blanked out) remains non-functional since I linked to it a few days ago. the data is still available – just not via that method.
The gas site needs much more work unless they are happy to have a site that is so error-ridden that bits go offline or just blank or give coding errors at the most (in)convenient times…
Mary,
To be honest I’m starting to scare myself. Still as I’m about to get the hoover out I’m working on the probability that my flat will still exist next week.
Oh wait… I’ve just thought of a problem with that – maybe I subconsciously don’t expect to have electricity next week so had better do the hoovering now.
Perhaps I should just have a nice lie-down in a dark-room instead
😉
“Days to be breach” does sound like something is going to explode.
I wish we gave similar or more priority to awareness of social measurements.
National:
Children hungry, Children watching TV child/adult/factual/horror
People eating potatoes, prawns, horse, salts, fats, additives, pesticides, pollutants..
People socialising/isolated,
Peoples work levels: esteem, contentedness, stress,
People on holdiay, people off sick,
Regional/global:
People hotel-ed, chauffeured, served, pampered
People traumatised, imprisoned, unhomed, trapped…
People educated, doctored, advised
People sifting through dirt and rubbish for necessities..
” so had better do the hoovering now ”
Get yourself a trusty old hudda-hudda 🙂
National Grid. That’s privatised too.
The National Grid is the high-voltage electric power transmission network in Great Britain, connecting power stations and major substations and ensuring that electricity generated anywhere in England, Scotland and Wales can be used to satisfy demand elsewhere. There are also undersea interconnections to northern France (HVDC Cross-Channel), Northern Ireland (HVDC Moyle), the Isle of Man (Isle of Man to England Interconnector) and the Netherlands (BritNed).
On the breakup of the Central Electricity Generating Board in 1990, the ownership and operation of the National Grid in England and Wales passed to National Grid Company plc, later to become National Grid Transco, and now National Grid plc. In Scotland the grid split in to two separate entities, one for southern and central Scotland and the other for northern Scotland, connected by interconnectors to each other. The first is owned and maintained by SP Energy Networks, a subsidiary of Scottish Power, and the other by SSE. However National Grid plc remain the System Operator for the whole UK Grid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_(Great_Britain)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_plc
Revenue
£13,832 million (2012)
Operating income
£3,495 million (2012)
Net income
£2,038 million (2012)
!!
The Board http://www.nationalgrid.com/annualreports/2012/business_review/board_of_directors_and_diversity/
Three Americans, one Australian and the rest British.
“The fact is trees photosynthesis 1-3% of light which falls on them, solar cells routinely convert 20-30% of light straight into electricity.”
But it doesn’t then store that energy. You can’t use it to heat your home and drive your car millions of years later.
Electricity is the most transportable and transducable, if not storable form of enery we have. But it can be quite efficiently stored if complemented by hydro production resources. It very rarely needs stored in the current system, the grid itself has a not insignificant capacitance and there is always demand and always non-renewable plants to ramp up and down. (They get ramped up and down anyway, because demand is variable.)
Super efficient electric heating is possible but not widely employed yet, if used for heating efficiently you can get 200% heat energy from electric energy, rather than the common electric bar resistance heaters. And technology is only going to improve in this regard.
For wood fires you’ll be lucky to keep 50% of the heat from the energy stored in the wood.
The technology of biofuel production is only going to ‘improve’ with very dodgy GM experiments and it has to improve by orders of magnitude to really compete with other renewable options.
Fred i dont think there is any danger in the UK of National parks being covered with PV farms. None at all. Id like to see them covered with forest and orchards and groves, but that has to do with timber and food and ecology and habitat, not modern energy supply. For energy top the lot with a fantastic population of painted and sculpted wind catchers, dancing freely over the green and fertile lands 🙂
Basically what we need is much more environmentally cheap energy.
Wood and plant resources are fundamental parts of the the undervalued environment which we need to relieve.
Doug Scorbie
What’s the difference between the Maldive president’s warped justice and our own government’s?
The Tories created bubble banking, and then they blame their successors for participating in it:’ the mess our predecessors left us in’ repeated ad infinitum.
As I’m quiet fond of Clark as someone I can trust, I am taking the crass underhand use of the psychological equivalent of physical violence as an attack on a friend.
A promise you have fairly earned what you will receive, Habbabkack, the moment your identity is known I will choose the time and place to smack you hard you pathetic piece of shit.
I’m sure its all very amusing to follow this shyster’s smears, but its also a sign of weakness, maybe Craig’s sanity will be questioned next, for sitting by and saying cluck all.
Some positive news. A poster here, also known as Alaric, has married his sweetheart last Saturday. As big snowflakes spared the confetti in people’s pockets, the two were married at St. Margarets church in Downham Essex
I wish them all the health and happiness in the world.
As a matter of interest pertaining to the Maldives, their President Waheed has just returned from visiting the Emir of Qatar. An economic deal has been signed up.
http://sun.mv/english/10780
We know about the involvement of Qatar in the Syrian conflict.
Reference Syria, this report in Ha’aretz suggests that jihadists are involved in the production of chemical weapons.
Intelligence reports suggest jihadists among the Syria rebels have technical know-how to produce chemical warheads.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/jihadists-not-assad-apparently-behind-reported-chemical-attack-in-syria.premium-1.511680
The full article is behind a paywall. Medialens have the whole piece.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1364148715.html
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
23 Mar, 2013 – 9:50 pm
To:
@ Tom :
“Tom, you don’t appear to believe that Berezovsky killed himself. Any well-founded reason for that doubt which you’d care to share with us?”
A well founded reason Habbabkuk would be Berezovsky’s connection to Alexander Litvinenko. Also the police are treating his death as “unexplained;” so even they are not convinced yet that his death was natural.
Tom is entitled to his belief that Berezovsky’s death is suspect.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
24 Mar, 2013 – 3:44 pm
“Given that Viva Palestine’s UK website has not been updated since November 2011, they seem to be inactive.”
“That’s as may be, and likely to make those who contributed to this “charity” when it was still active even more keen to learn how and on what their contributions were spent.”
“Are there no legal sanctions on “charities” that fail to deliver their accounts within a certain time?”
I seem to remember that this “red herring” has been posted before on another thread a long time back. Knowing the politics surrounding Viva Palistina and its links to George Galloway you can be assured that if there has been anything illegal then the authorities would come down like a ton of bricks on the charity. But they havn’t.
Resident dissident
24 Mar, 2013 – 4:36 pm
Anon
“We all give to charities which claim back tax relief from HMRC which Viva Palestina appear to have been doing.”
I seem to remember that this “red herring” has been posted before on another thread a long time back. Knowing the politics surrounding Viva Palistina and its links to George Galloway you can be assured that if there has been anything illegal then the authorities would come down like a ton of bricks on the charity. But they havn’t.
Why not ResDis, or do you know something the Charities Commission does not?
I posted some stuff earlier on the other emerging crisis, water, and the need to take steps such as the Saudi’s have. Using solar to power desalination from the vastness of our oceans is one path.
“Middle East is getting drier because of climate change, impelling people to replace lost rain water with underground fossil or aquifer water that cannot be replaced. From 2003-2009, enough of this aquifer water was permanently drained off to meet the needs of 100 million people. Some Middle East specialists are afraid that wars over water are the next big thing in the region.”
http://www.juancole.com/2013/03/global-warming-threatening.html
Cameron calls on Islam to embrace democracy and reject extremism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/12/cameron-islam-embrace-democracy-extremism
Britain’s Prince Charles, on a royal visit to Saudi Arabia, met members of the Saudi royal family and Saudi state and military officials on Saturday in the capital Riyadh.
The royal couple’s trip comes less than a week after Saudi Arabia executed seven men for armed robbery despite an appeal for clemency by United Nations human rights investigators.
http://www.digtriad.com/news/article/275252/1/Prince-Charles-Visits-Saudi-Arabia
“The Saudi Arabian government has threatened to ban the use of instant messaging applications because of failure to control them, Saudi media reveal. It comes a month after the minister for media and culture confirmed censorship of Twitter.”
“It’s the latest move by the ultra-conservative Gulf Kingdom, whose government recently admitted censorship of Twitter.”
http://rt.com/news/saudi-arabia-ban-skype-752/
Here’s the start of it…
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/03/nuclear-nightmare/#comment-400054
The Thames Plant was ostensibly, to be powered 100% by renewables. I think they mean ‘biodiesel’. I can’t find anything definitive other than that. Anyone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Water_Desalination_Plant
Ben Franklin We have reached peak oil according to sources. Peak salt is coming to the Gulf.
Desalination threat to the growing Gulf
Vesela Todorova
Aug 31, 2009
Desalination is vital in providing the region’s cities with supplies of potable water. But the process itself is pouring more and more brine back into the sea, raising the question of whether the technology will one day cease to be economically feasible.
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/environment/desalination-threat-to-the-growing-gulf
” Peak salt is coming to the Gulf.”
You’ve opened yet another box of Pandora, Mary. Higher saline in ocean currents is not good for climate.
We humans are in a conundrum.
Ever since it was launched we’ve had flooding apart from last Spring and early Summer when we had a ‘drought’! Everyone bought water butts. The Summer was a wash out and the long Winter continues into Easter. Having to take the dog out and doing outdoor jobs, I have virtually lived in wellington boots for months now and also in some brilliant shorter length rubber boots made in the US which are branded ‘Muck Boots’. Very good product and a good grip in icy conditions.
This is the Thames Water plant. It does use biofuel although there were obviously objections to that. They say they will use cooking oil as an alternative. Notice that it cost £250m. Thames Water, once a public utility and which is now Australian owned, have a bad reputation for leaking mains which waste water, ignoring repairs, rising prices and criticism for a costly and massive relief sewer scheme that they want to put along the Thames.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/thames-water-desalination-plant
Regent Street, a premier London shopping street, was closed recently when a main burst and others before.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/regent-street-burst-water-main-prompts-call-for-action-to-prevent-floods-8518713.html
We are ‘broken Britain’ as you might have heard.
Tidal perhaps Ben.
I think the by-product of desalination should be a very local consideration. Where problems occur salt plains can be made to dry it off (and humidify local air) and the product can sold for use or occasionally shipped to deep waters where it will disperse as far and naturally as possible. Or keep it on land if there is a problem. Salt planes are quite rare but natural features.
We shouldn’t need to labour much over this by-product of desalination until huge amounts of desalination is achieved.
We busily mine ancient salt deposits here in the UK and spread them each winter onto our roads to be washed into quite shallow surrounding waters.
Much desalinated water should make it back to the sea it was extracted from, being able to remove and decide wether to keep, ship or return the separated salts straight back to it is powerful environmental ability.
Cooking oil? Well as long as they lay off Freds pallets :p
You guys must eat a lot of fish n chips, Mary.
Crab: I don’t even want to think about dispersing sodium onto arable land. We humans should get used to our viral nature and bury ourselves in the dirt for several thousand years. When we emerge from hibernation, everything will look vaguely familiar.
@ Scourge :
“I seem to remember that this “red herring” has been posted before on another thread a long time back. Knowing the politics surrounding Viva Palistina and its links to George Galloway you can be assured that if there has been anything illegal then the authorities would come down like a ton of bricks on the charity. But they havn’t.”
Having seen Mr William Shawcross, head of the Charity Commission, and various other officers of the CC being grilled by the members of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee the other day (on the BBC’s Parliamentary Channel), I wouldn’t place much faith in the CC’s ability to come down like a ton of bricks on anyone.
**********
La vita è bella, life is good!
You can take my reason, but you’ll never take my broken pallets!