The Scientists Who Made A ‘Home-Brew’ Coronavirus Test
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
Only by reading all the article, will you get any handle on what scientists at the Crick Institute have been up to.
At least, they are on our side!
First Of Five FirstGroup Class 803s Arrives In UK
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Rail Magazine.
The Class 803 trains will be used by East Coast Trains for their low-cost, one-class, open-access service between London Kings Cross and Edinburgh.
The trains would appear to be being delivered in time for services to start in Autumn 2021.
The article says the trains are the first to have a new feature.
They will be fitted with batteries, although these will not provide traction performance – instead, they can power on-board services should the train fail.
The Class 803 trains are electric trains and are these batteries a replacement for the single diesel-engine on the electric Class 801 trains? This diesel-engine has two main purposes.
- Provide emergency power for on-board services.
- Move the train to a safe place foe evacuation of passengers.
The article also says that Hitachi could fit traction batteries to existing bi-mode fleets.
Global Oil Storage Close To Being ‘Overwhelmed’
The title of this post is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Ships, pipelines and storage tanks holding surplus oil could be “overwhelmed” within weeks as the coronavirus pandemic causes unprecedented drops in fuel usage, the International Energy Agency warned yesterday.
So what are we going to do?
I can’t see Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States cutting oil production.
But that is what must happen!
NHS Procurement
I first had knowledge of government procurement in the 1970s! Then it was defence procurement, which was shambolic!
Nothing appears to have changed.
Perhaps, we should ask Tesco or Screwfix to source PPE and PCWorld to source ventilators?
HS2 Phase One Given The Green Light
The title of this post is the same as that as this article on Rail Magazine.
This is the two introductory paragraphs.
Government confirmed today (April 15) that work can now start on building Phase 1 of HS2 from London to Birmingham.
Until now, only preparatory work had been carried out. But the Department for Transport has now given approval for HS2 Ltd to issue Notice to Proceed (NtP) to the four main works civils contractors, to commence full detailed design and construction of the railway.
The article also gives this quote from the Chief Executive of HS2 Ltd; Mark Thurston.
In these difficult times, today’s announcement represents both an immediate boost to the construction industry and the many millions of UK jobs that the industry supports, and an important investment in Britain’s future – levelling up the country, improving our transport network, and changing the way we travel to help bring down carbon emissions and improve air quality for the next generation.
Perhaps, we should give the go-ahead for more big infrastructure projects, to create the employment we need.
It would only be enacting one of the principles of Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s New Deal.
There is a section called Public Works in the Wikipedia entry for the New Deal.
This is said.
To prime the pump and cut unemployment, the NIRA created the Public Works Administration (PWA), a major program of public works, which organized and provided funds for the building of useful works such as government buildings, airports, hospitals, schools, roads, bridges and dams. From 1933 to 1935 PWA spent $3.3 billion with private companies to build 34,599 projects, many of them quite large.
Under Roosevelt, many unemployed persons were put to work on a wide range of government-financed public works projects, building bridges, airports, dams, post offices, hospitals and hundreds of thousands of miles of road. Through reforestation and flood control, they reclaimed millions of hectares of soil from erosion and devastation. As noted by one authority, Roosevelt’s New Deal “was literally stamped on the American landscape”
Wouldn’t this be good for the UK to offset the damage caused by COVID-19?
The current government has already flagged up several suitable projects, since they were elected.
- High Speed Two
- Northern Powerhouse Rail
- East-West Rail
- City Light Rail Systems
- Decarbonisation of the Rail Industry
- Offshore Wind Farms
- Energy Storage
- Reversal of the Beeching Cuts
- Improvements to and decarbonisation of bus services
- Flood relief schemes
There are many more.
One difference to the United States in the 1930s, is that some of these projects can be funded by financial institutions like Pension Funds and Insurance Companies. In World’s Largest Wind Farm Attracts Huge Backing From Insurance Giant, I talk about how Aviva will have invested a billion pounds in offshore wind by the end of 2018, to fund pensions and insurance.
Fruit And Veg Self-Sufficiency Ahead Thanks To Heat From Sewage Farms
This headline caught my eye on an article in today’s Times.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Britain will become far more self-sufficient in tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and other produce under plans to tap heat from sewage farms and pipe it to giant greenhouses.
The idea of using waste heat to grow fruit and vegetables is not new.
The technique is used at Drax power station and at various Scottish distilleries.
Low Carbon Farming just intend to do it with heat from sewage works.
- They have identified 41 sites in the UK.
- The greenhouses will be larger than the O2.
- The first two sites are in East Anglia and are being built near two of Anglian Water’s sewage works.
- Fully developed, they could make the UK self-sufficient in tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers and for most of the year.
- It would be a £2.67 billion investment, that would create 8,000 jobs.
Intriguingly, if they need more heat, they’ll use a fossil-fuel combined heat and power unit. The carbon dioxide produced will be fed directly to the fruit and veg, as it makes them grow faster.
Another Source Of Heat
In Exciting Renewable Energy Project for Spennymoor, I wrote about a Durham University project to use the waste heat in old coal mines to heat housing.
Could this heat be used to grow fruit and veg?
Brain Boost: Lockdown Puzzles
The title of this post, is the same as that of a little section in the online copy of The Times, which says this.
Every day, Monday to Thursday, a printable page of extra puzzles to keep your brain trained during the lockdown
It’s funny, but the extra puzzles I got in the on-line copy were ones that I commonly do.
Does the Times server, look at the puzzles I do and give me ones I like as extras?
If they do, it is surely good marketing.
I think they’ll be giving out extra puzzles for a long time.
I Only Ran Out Of Deoderant
For about three years, I’ve not bought deodorant or toothpaste in the normal manner, in say a shop in the High Street or locally.
What I’ve tended to do, is just pack my toothbrush and a few other things in my travel bag and buy new travel ones, once I’ve gone through Customs.
Consequently, I’ve only bought small travel roll-on deodorants. I’ve used roll-on ones for many years, as I didn’t like to use aerosols with all their noxious gases.
On Friday my last one ran-out and I needed a new one. The only one I could buy in a local shop, was an aerosol powered by butane. In other words it’s a flame-thrower in all but name! Search the Internet and you’ll find lots of pictures.
I find this very sad, as I funded a development of a totally-safe aerosol, that used compressed nitrogen as the propellant! The development was sold to a US company and I got a return on my money! Obviously, the product wasn’t cheap and nasty enough! But it was good enough though to be discussed at the Montreal Climate Change talks in 2005.
I actually found the butane-powered flame-thrower impossible to use, due to the damage to my left hand.
- Was it the break to my humerus caused by the school bully?
- Was it the stroke?
- Was it the recent damage caused by my fall?
I just needed to find a roll-on deodorant. But had they been discontinued?
This morning, thankfully, I found one at the Angel.
So I will smell better tomorrow!
I won’t leave this post before telling this tale.
I used to work for ICI Mond Division, who used to make the hydro-fluoro-carbon gases, that used to power aerosols in the 1960s and 1970s.
One of the guys in a nearby lab, where I worked at Runcorn Heath, used to formulate the propellants for possible products.
His standard joke was that he’d get baked beans into an aerosol, even if they had to come out one by one.
Every so often, he’d bring round samples that he’d made for various companies and one day I obtained an aerosol hand cream.
What make it was, no-one had a clue, but C always swore, it was the best hand cream, she’d ever used.
Thoughts On Powering Electrification Islands
In The Concept Of Electrification Islands, I didn’t say anything about how electrification islands would be powered. Although, I did link to this post.
The Need For A Substantial Electrical Supply
Electrification can use a lot of electricity.
This was illustrated by the electrification of the Midland Main Line, where a high-capacity feed from the National Grid had to be provided at Market Harborough.
But then the Government cancelled electrification North of Kettering leaving a twelve mile gap to be filled. I wrote about the problem in MML Wires Could Reach Market Harborough. In the end the sensible decision was taken and the electrification will now reach to Market Harborough station.
So places like Cambridge, Darlington, Doncaster, Leeds Norwich and York. which are fully electrified and on a main route probably have enough electrical power to charge passing or terminating battery-electric trains on secondary routes.
In Thoughts On The Actual Battery Size In Class 756 Trains And Class 398 Tram-Trains, I quoted the reply to a Freedom of Information Request sent to Transport for Wales, which said.
A four-car Class 756 train will have a battery capacity of 600 kWh.
A Class 756 train is similar to a Greater Anglia Class 755 train, which in Battery Power Lined Up For ‘755s’, I estimated weighs about 135 tonnes when full of passengers.
Weights for the Hitachi trains are difficult to find with a figure of 41 tonnes per car given for a Class 801 train on Wikipedia. In Kinetic Energy Of A Five-Car Class 801 Train, I estimated a full weight of a five-car Class 801 train at 233.35 tonnes.
Based on the Stadler figure, I would estimate that every train passing an electrification island will need to pick up as much as somewhere between 600-1000 kWh.
An Electrification Island At Sleaford
In The Concept Of Electrification Islands, I proposed an electrification island at Sleaford station.
- Sleaford is a market town of around 18,000 people.
- I doubt the power in the town has much surplus capacity.
- This station is served by four trains per hour (tph), one to each to Lincoln, Nottingham, Peterborough and Skegness.
- So it looks like a feed of three to four MW will be needed to charge passing trains.
Can the electricity supply in a town like Sleaford provide that sort of power for perhaps eighteen hours a day?
The only ways to provide that sort of power is to build a new power station or provide energy storage capable of boosting the supply.
Could Highview Power Provide The Solution?
I have been following Highview Power and their CRYOBatteries for some time.
They have already built a 5 MW pilot plant in Manchester and are currently aiming to build a plant with 250 MWh of energy storage, that can supply up to 50 MW. The company and this plant is discussed in this article on The Chemical Engineer.
One of these CRYOBatteries, would surely be ideal to power an electrification island, like the one at Sleaford.
- It could be scaled to the electricity needs of the town and the railway.
- It would be charged using renewable or excess energy.
- There is a lot of wind power in Lincolnshire and just off the coast, which needs energy storage.
- Similar systems could also be installed at other electrification islands at Cleethorpes, Lincoln, Skegness and other places, where the grid needs strengthening.
I have used Highview Power in this example, but there are other systems, that would probably boost the electricity just as well.
The Anonymous Widower 