In My Fathers Footsteps
This article on the BBC is entitled Hundreds Gather In Trafalgar Square To Protest Ukraine Invasion.
My father, who was born on the first of January in 1904, described himself as a left-wing Tory.
- His great-great-grandfather had been a Jewish tailor, who possibly had been born in Konigsberg in East Prussia.
- In his politically-active years before World War Two, he had been an opponent of both extremes of the political spectrum.
- He had possibly been involved at the League of Nations in Geneva, which is something I aim to prove or disprove.
- A couple of times he talked about the horrors of the famines in Russia in 1931-33, but he never expanded on what he knew.
- He was mixed up in the stopping of a member of the British Union of Fascists getting elected in the 1935 Norwood By-Election.
- He was proud to have been at the Battle of Cable Street, when as he said, the whole of the East End, stopped Mosley and his blackshirts from marching through.
I heard him say a couple of times, that Stalin could have been worse than Hitler.
He would have approved that I went to the protest today, where I took these pictures.
It was all peaceful, as no supporters of Vlad the Mad turned up.
Polish Industry Calls For ’Full And Complete’ Sanctions On Russian And Belarusian Railways
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Representatives of the Polish railway industry have issued a joint call for the European Commission to impose ‘full and complete’ sanctions on the Russian and Belarusian railways because of their logistical role in the invasion of Ukraine.
Sounds fine by me!
Hydrogen Production Market To Reach $1 trillion, Says Goldman Sachs
This is a headline from Hydrogen Fuel News, that says it all.
EMR Refine Its All Day Complimentary Food Menu For First Class Customers
The title of this post, is the same as that as this press release from East Midlands Railway.
This is the details.
East Midlands Railway (EMR) has refined it’s all day complimentary food menu for its First Class Intercity customers, offering a range of options – no matter what time they choose to travel.
The changes will mean, instead of a small number of services offering complimentary food in the morning, the company will now offer a range of free food and drink items on all its longer distance Intercity services, all day, Monday to Saturday, with plans to extend the offer to Sundays in the future.
Customers travelling First Class during the morning will now be able to choose a hot complimentary bacon or sausage ciabatta, porridge, or a vegan breakfast burrito. While in the afternoon, they will be offered a chilled sandwich, wrap or salad, or the choice of a gluten free meal or vegan option.
Next time, I go to Nottingham, I’ll go First.
106 Solaris Zero Emission Buses Headed To ÖBB Postbus’ Fleet In Austria
The title of this post, is the same as that as this article on Sustainable Bus.
This is the body of the story.
Up to 106 zero emission buses are headed to Austria, where ÖBB Postbus is going to deploy them starting from 2022 – 2025. Solaris has signed another framework agreement with the Austrian bus company Österreichische Postbus AG. It stipulates a possibility to deliver up to 106 battery-electric and hydrogen buses that would be deployed throughout Austria. The models offered include Urbino 9 LE electric and Urbino 12 hydrogen buses.
Solaris Bus and Coach is a Polish company, that is a subsidiary of CAF.
Mayor Announces Proposals For London-Wide Pollution Charge
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
These paragraphs explain the changes.
The mayor of London has announced plans to extend the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) across the whole of London.
Under the current scheme, drivers of older, more polluting vehicles are being charged to enter London’s north and south-circular orbital roads.
New proposals will see the scheme extend to the edges of London’s boroughs in 2023.
I believe in this, as in many things, that the carrot is more powerful than the stick.
So we need to encourage people to change to electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles.
- There are not enough electric charging points.
- There are not enough hydrogen filling stations.
- Installing and building more might encourage people to go zero-carbon.
But surely, the biggest drop in pollution would come from encouraging large London-based fleets of trucks to go zero-carbon. These would include.
- Refuse trucks.
- Cement trucks.
- Skip trucks.
- Large trucks used to transport aggregates and spoil from building sites.
It is unlikely, that many of these will ever be electric. The batteries would be just too heavy.
But many will go hydrogen or dual fuel, where they can use diesel and hydrogen.
I think there are various measures that would encourage the companies running these trucks to switch to hydrogen.
- Following Birmingham, which has bought a few hydrogen buses and installed an electrolyser to provide their hydrogen fuel, which will be available to all users.
- Once there is a good network of hydrogen stations, this might encourage owners of fleets of trucks to convert to hydrogen.
- Once owners of taxis and Chelsea tractors, see lots of trucks and buses running on hydrogen, would they switch?
If I was the Mayor, I would offer a Mayor’s Prize to the company or borough, that has done most to cut pollution and/or carbon emissions.
Some mayors would enjoy giving out that prize.
Earth Friendly Concrete
I was alerted to this product by this article on New Civil Engineer, which is entitled Keltbray Saves Carbon And Money With Earth Friendly Concrete On East London Job.
The article gave enough clues to find the Earth Friendly Concrete home page.
This is the introduction on the page.
We want to have a positive impact on the environment and supply our customers with an excellent product, that is why we created Earth Friendly Concrete ® by Wagners. It is a concrete that uses no ordinary Portland cement, instead using a geopolymer binder system made from the chemical activation of two industrial waste by-products – blast furnace slag (waste from iron production) and fly ash (waste from coal fired power generation). Our product has ZERO Portland cement and it has a much lower embodied energy compared to ordinary concrete, saving 250kg of CO2 for every cubic metre poured. Importantly, the engineering and construction properties of this environmentally friendly concrete is, in some areas, better than normal concrete. EFC has some significant performance advantages over normal Portland cement concrete, including improved durability, lower shrinkage, earlier strength gain, higher flexural tensile strength and increased fire resistance.
On this page, which is entitled About EFC, this said about the products Environmental Excellence.
EFC is a new class of concrete that contains NO ordinary Cement. Globally, the production of 1 tonne of Portland Cement produces 1 tonne of CO₂ emissions and is responsible for 5 to 8% of manmade greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of cement, EFC has a geopolymer binder that is made from the chemical activation of two recycled industrial wastes, flyash and slag. This recycled binder reduces the CO₂ emissions associated with Portland cement by 80 to 90%.
Every m3 of 40 MPa EFC saves 220kg CO₂ emissions.
Wagners, the company behind the development, are based in Queensland. Australia.
So it’s a case of Well Done The Aussies!
They have appointed Capital Concrete, to deliver Earth Friendly Concrete in the London area.
Conclusion
Does High Speed Two and other large projects that will need large amounts of concrete, know about this development?
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund Seals ‘Landmark’ Acquisition In Germany
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Proactive Investors.
This is the first paragraph.
“This is a landmark acquisition with compelling fundamentals which not only demonstrates our entry into new markets but also increases our operational cash generating assets, and further diversifies Gore Street’s portfolio.”
I would assume that this is a quote from someone at Gore Street.
A more engineering approach is taken in this article on Renewsables Now, which is entitled Gore Street Buys 90% Stake In 22-MW/28-MWh Battery In Germany.
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund certainly have ambition.
Where Is Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant?
I have been looking on Google Maps to find Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.
This Google Map shows the power plant with respect to the Black Sea.
Note.
- Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is marked by the red arrow above the Black Sea., at the top of the map.
- The River Dnieper runs between the Black Sea and the power plant.
- Crimea is the piece of land with Sevastopol marked on it.
This second Google Map shows the location of the power plant.
Note the wide River is the Dnieper, with what looks to be a series of breakwaters or a port enclosing a square patch of water towards the West.
This third Google Map shows the power plant in the North-East corner of the port.
Note that each of the red dots is one 3 GW nuclear reactor, which were built in the 1980s.
It appears that at this time of year, that the prevailing wind is in the East so Moldova will get any radiation.
But luckily, at the time of writing, everything seems OK.
Greater Manchester Leaders Now Want Clean Air Zone Charges Scrapped On ALL Vehicles After Huge Backlash
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Manchester Evening News.
This is the first two paragraphs.
No vehicles should be charged in the new Clean Air Zone (CAZ), Greater Manchester leaders have agreed, as the scheme remains under review.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has called for a ‘non-charging’ scheme which would help fund vehicle upgrades.
How can a non-charging scheme help to fund vehicle upgrades?
I suppose that Burnham wants the Government to pay for updating all the vehicles that Mancunians might drive in the Clean Air Zone.
The Anonymous Widower 