Camp Hill Line Set To Gain Third Station
The title of this post, is the same as that of a sub-section on this page on Rail News.
This is said.
PLANS to build a station at Moseley on the Camp Hill line in Birmingham have been submitted. If approved, Moseley will be the third station on the restored route, where Birmingham City Council has already given the go-ahead to stations at Kings Heath and Hazelwell. The line was closed to passengers as a ‘wartime economy’ in January 1941, but the withdrawal was confirmed in November 1946.
Under Future Plans on the Wikipedia entry for the Camp Hill Line, this is said.
In July 2018, the Midlands Rail Hub was unveiled which would see reopening of Moseley, Kings Heath and Hazelwell with the chords built to connect Birmingham Moor Street with the line to Kings Norton and another to Water Orton.
In September 2018, the designs of the new stations were revealed as Kings Heath, Hazelwell and Moseley were planned for reopening by 2021 with a frequency of 2 trains per hour.
It looks to me, that Birmingham City Council are going to make the Camp Hill Line an important route across the city.
‘World First’: SGN Launches Bid For 300 Green Hydrogen Homes Project In Fife
This title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Business Green.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Around 300 homes in Scotland could soon have their heating and cooking powered by green hydrogen produced from renewable electricity under proposals for “the world’s first green hydrogen-to-homes network” unveiled today by SGN.
A few points from the article.
- Construction could start in the winter of 2020/21.
- The project will take two or three years.
- The modified houses appear to be in Levenmouth.
- The project has been dubbed H100 Fife.
- The hydrogen will be produced by electrolysis using electricity generated by offshore wind.
The article also gives a round-up of the state of hydrogen in the UK.
This is the home page of the H100 Fife project web site.
Could This Have Other Implications For Levenmouth?
In Scottish Government Approve £75m Levenmouth Rail Link, I discussed the rebuilding of the Levenmouth Rail Link.
I suggested that the route could be run by Hitachi Class 385 trains with batteries, which Hitachi have stated are being developed. I covered the trains in more detail in Hitachi Plans To Run ScotRail Class 385 EMUs Beyond The Wires.
If there were to be a source of hydrogen at Levenmouth, could hydrogen-powered trains be used on the route?
- The simplest rail service could be a hydrogen-powered shuttle train between Levenmouth and Glenrothes with Thornton stations.
- I estimate that the five-mile route could support two trains per hour, using a single train.
- Trains could be an Alstom Breeze, a Class 799 train or a hydrogen-powered Class 230 train.
The Levenmouth Rail link could be a prototype for other short rail links in Scotland.
In
Thoughts On Coeliacs And COVID-19
This article in The Times is entitled Covid-19: Being Black Does Not Put You At Greater Risk, Researchers Say.
This though is the significant paragraph in my view.
The documents also show that among younger people obesity raises the death rate fourfold, and for those in their fifties it more than doubles it.
As I am not by any means obese, it pleases me.
But it got me thinking about fellow coeliacs.
Most are built like whippets and many seem to be fit for their age.
So do we get a secondary protection against COVID-19?
How Many Diagnosed Coeliacs Have Caught COVID-19?
the coeliac charity; Coeliac UK, indicated to me, that they are doing research into the number of coeliacs, who have caught COVID-19.
Surely, one way to find out how many coeliacs are in hospital with COVID-19, would be to look at how many hospital cases are on a gluten-free diet!
Government’s Bias Against Hydrogen Buses Challenged
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Fleetpoint.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Industry leaders, campaign groups and academics today challenged the Government’s “deliberate” and “misjudged” bias against hydrogen buses in its pursuit of decarbonising public transport.
I do find this article a bit surprising.
- We have had a couple of trials of hydrogen buses in London and Aberdeen and I can’t remember any serious adverse stories.
- Jo Bamford has rescued Wrightbus and plans to make thousands of hydrogen-powered buses.
- Councils seem keen on hydrogen-powered buses.
- There has been articles praising hydrogen in quality newspapers.
- It’s almost, as if someone in the Department of Transport, is saying No, for an illogical reason.
The government also seems to have given Alstom the nod to develop hydrogen trains.
Or has it?
I wrote Breeze Hydrogen Multiple-Unit Order Expected Soon, almost exactly a year ago and nothing has happened.
The only valid excuse is that the Department for Transport is up to its neck in work for COVID-19!
UK’s First Car Battery ‘Gigafactory’ To Be Built By Two Startups
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Guardian.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Two British startups have announced plans to invest as much as £4bn in building the UK’s first large-scale battery factory, in a move that could prove a major boost to the country’s struggling car industry.
AMTE Power and Britishvolt have signed a memorandum of understanding saying they will work together on plans for a plant to make lithium ion batteries, the key component in electric cars as well as energy storage products.
So who are AMTE Power And Britishvolt?
AMTE Power
The AMTE Power web site, has this mission statement.
The cell market demands flexibility in design and chemistry, AMTE has focused on supporting niche customers who want to develop and build solutions where standard cell options fail to deliver against their business design objectives.
The forecast demand for cells production, will see delivery shortages as Automotive and Energy storage markets develop. AMTE can supply its customers with bespoke solutions eliminating the need to accept second best in cell choice.
Give the customers, what they want is rarely a bad philosophy.
Britishvolt
The Britishvolt web site, has this mission statement.
We have identified the United Kingdom as the potential location to build our first Gigaplant. Britishvolt is looking to produce high performance batteries better than anyone else, establishing the country as the leading force in battery technology and the center of sustainable energy storage. We are ready for the World 2023.
Having read both companies web sites, I think the two companies have more than a little in common.
So why not team up and move forward.
Jews In The UK And COVID-19
This article on the Times of Israel is entitled Coronavirus-Related Death Toll Jumps To 458 Among UK Jews.
- According to Wikipedia in 2011, there were 263,346 Jews in the UK.
- This gives a figure of 0.174% for the percentage of Jews, who have died.
- According to UK government figures, 35,341 have died from COVID-19.
- According to Wikipedia, the UK population in mid-2019, was 66,796,807.
- This gives a figure of 0.053% for the percentage of the UK population, who have died.
From these simple figures Jews are over three times more likely to die of COVID-19, than the general population.
Why are Jews, so much more likely to die of COVID-19, than the general population?
In A Thought On Deaths Of The Elderly From Covid-19, I postulated that there could be large numbers of undiagnosed coeliacs in the over-60s, who because of compromised immune systems, would be more susceptible to the virus.
I also said that the number of undiagnosed coeliacs over sixty-five could be as high as 120,000. These would have all been born before 1960, when it became possible to detect coeliac disease in children.
I am also fairly sure, that my coeliac disease came from my Ashkenazi Jewish genes.
This second article on The Times of Israel is entitled Jewish Charity Warns Of Coeliac ‘Stigma’ As Half-A-Million Said Undiagnosed.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A Jewish charity says there is a “stigma” surrounding coeliac disease in the Jewish community, after a national charity warned that there were still half a million people in the UK who are undiagnosed.
I would assume that the half-a-million figure refers to all the population of the UK, as there are only about half that number of Jews in the UK.
Could coeliac stigma mean that there many older Jews, who are coeliac, have not been diagnosed and their poorer immune systems make them more vulnerable to COVID-19?
A Wider Picture
This article on Times of Israel is entitled How COVID-19 is hitting Jewish communities around the world.
It is well-worth reading.
Conclusion
I should say, that I’m no medic, but just a humble engineer, mathematician and statistician, who has nearly sixty years experience of analysing data.
That experience applied to coeliac disease and COVID-19, says that undiagnosed coeliac disease, is not helping our fight against COVID-19!
Zopa Resumes Lending To ‘C Risk’ Borrowers
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Peer2Peer Finance News.
Zopa, the first peer-to-peer lending site, rates all borrowers as to risk, between A (the best) down to E.
Certainly, since they introduced this policy, my invested money gets lent out more quickly.
Hopefully, the risk won’t have been increased by an amount, that is unacceptable to lenders.
Eos To Install 4MWh Of ‘Safe’ Zinc Battery Technology – At Giant Oil Refinery
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Eos Energy Storage will deploy a megawatt-scale, behind-the-meter zinc hybrid cathode battery energy storage system for a large oil refinery in Greece, claiming it be a validation of the safety and environmental benefits of the novel technology.
EOS Energy Storage seem to have developed a zinc battery, that could work along similar lines to the zinc battery produced by zinc8, that I wrote about in Zinc8 Seem To Be A Surprisingly Open Company.
The Energy Storage News article gives more details on the battery and its design.
- This battery is rated at 1 MW/4 MWh, so compared to some, it is quite small.
- It uses a zinc-halide oxidation/reduction cycle to store and output energy.
- The battery is made from five components, all of which are abundant, ethically sourced and recyclable.
- An order for a 40 MWh system has been placed.
- EOS claim to have numerous pilots and demonstrators in use.
Could it appear that using zinc batteries are a feasible method of storing energy, as two companies both appear to be successful at delivering systems?
Alstom Hydrogen Trains Complete Trials
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on H2 View.
The introductory paragraph says this.
After 530 days and more than 18,000 driven kilometres, the trials of two Alstom Coradia iLint models, the world’s first two hydrogen trains, are complete.
It is now over a year since I took this picture of the Alstom Coradia iLint at Buxtehude in Germany.
It is time to move on to full series production. Another fourteen Coradia iLint trains will be manufactured and start service in 2022.
According to Wikipedia, a second order for 27 trains for the Rhine-Main region will be delivered by December 2022.
The Anonymous Widower 