Fracked Or Fiction
I went to the London Geological Society today to see a lecture called.
Fracked or fiction: so what are the risks associated with shale gas exploitation?
The lecture is described here on their web site.
They will put up a video in two or three weeks, which you can watch to make your own mind up.
My overwhelming conclusion after the lecture was that before we can embrace fracking in earnest, we must collect a lot more information. For example, we don’t know the background levels ofearthquakes and natural gas seepage in this country. So if say it is thought, that fracking had caused a small earthquake, can we be sure that that isn’t one that we habitually get in this country.
A secondary conclusion, is that my engineering knowledge indicated that there are several very fruitful areas for the development of new technological solutions to mitigate some of the possible problems of fracking.
Stopping fracking is probably an easy task for opponents, as it can be portrayed as dangerous in several ways, that appeal to the sensationalist media. And of course the benefits of low gas prices aren’t so obvious, until they actually happen.
You can compare fracking with that other nimby-opposed project; HS2. This can be opposed in terms of noise, vibration and construction and visual disturbance cost, but the benefits of better and faster journeys is easier to understand by the man on the Birmingham train.
What The Heck Is This?
I like properly engineered or crafted products.
What The Heck Is This?
As a clue, it is cast in solid brass!
Can anybody tell me, what to use it for?
Should Scottish Islands Be Given More Independence?
The BBC this morning is running a report about more independence from Scotland and the rest of the UK.
Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael has promised to deliver greater powers for the Northern and Western Isles.
The Orkney and Shetland MP said government from Edinburgh had been “just as bad and just as dangerous” for the islands “as it is from London.”
He hopes to deliver “genuine and long lasting reform,” and said an agreement should be in place by midsummer.
Why not?
It could be argued that a greater degree of independence hasn’t done the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands any harm!
But if we look at giving this independence to any area of the UK, giving them control of their strengths and natural resources and such things as infrastructure, education and planning could only be positive.
I probably know most about infrastructure and especially railways than anything else and if we look at Scotland and London, where transport policy has been partially devolved, we’ll see a lot more rail projects than say in the North East or South West, so I’ll look at one example.
If East Anglia had control of its transport, they would have probably dualled the A47, A11 and A140 by now and would be seriously thinking about improving the London to Norwich and the Peterborough to Ipswich rail lines. The latter is probably needed to be electrified, to enable Felixstowe to compete with the London Gateway.
This type of local control could only be good for an area.
But as I said in this article on Mayors, central government doesn’t like to give up power.
The Most Disastrous Television Channel Launch In History
In four days time on the 20th April, it will be the fiftieth anniversary of the attempted launch of BBC2.
I remember it well. My family thought we’d give it a go, but then a power cut in West London changed everything.
The whole incident is reported here. Here’s the first paragraph.
Fifty years ago this weekend, BBC Two went on the air for the first time. Or rather, it was supposed to go on the air. In fact, a massive power cut wiped out the entire launch schedule and led to one of the most disastrous nights in broadcasting history.
It was supposed to be a spectacular opening night for BBC Two. In the end, it was a spectacular shambles.
When the history of television is written a hundred years from now, this night will have a strong chance to be the worst start to any channel ever.
However, the bad start probably gave the channel an awful lot of publicity.
You should remember that in the nineteen-sixties power cuts were a much more common occurence than they are now. The electrical network just wasn’t as good as it is today.
The Anonymous Widower 