Along The Golden Mile
London used to have a Golden Mile in Brentford, which used to be a string of Art Deco buildings.
As the pictures show, a lot of them have gone and been replaced with modern buildings.
The Brentford Branch Line
You can clearly see where the Brentford Branch Line terminated to the right of Currys and the footbridge.
Hounslow Council is proposing to reopen the branch line and Wikipedia says this.
n April 2017, it was proposed that the line could reopen to allow a new link between Southall to Hounslow and possibly down to the planned Old Oak Common station with a new station in Brentford called Brentford Golden Mile. [5][6] The proposals suggest the service could be operated by Great Western Railway and could be open by 2020 with a new service from Southall to Hounslow and possible later to Old Oak Common.
This map from carto.metro.free.fr shows the lines.
This Google Map shows the area.
Note.
- The old track of the railway by Currys PC World and the footbridge over the Great West Road.
- The Hounslow Loop Line going across the South-East corner of the map.
- I’m not sure that a connection between the two lines would be a practical proposition.
Surely though, there is a better way to connect the Golden Mile to Old Oak Common!
The Brentford Branch Line connects to Crossrail at Southall station.
If the connection was fully step-free, then the Brentford Branch Line would have an easy connection to all of Crossrail’s stations, including Old Oak Common and Heathrow.
OVO Offers Solar Panels And A Battery
There are a couple of reports on the Internet, that the smaller energy supplier; Ovo Energy, is now offering deals on solar panels and a battery.
I have been thinking of adding a battery for some time, but I don’t think the time is quite right yet, as the price of batteries is becoming more affordable.
However, I do think that Ovo’s move is the first of many we will see in the next few months and years.
This march towards solar and batteries could have various consequences for the UK.
- Many house builders will add solar panels and a battery to new houses.
- Domestic electricity needs will reduce.
- Solar panels and batteries may have some interesting effects on the property market.
Battery owners could also charge up overnight on low-price electricity, so the daily operation could be something like.
- Overnight the battery is charged on low-price electricity.
- Morning ablutions and breakfast, thus uses low-price electricity.
- Hopefully, the sun charges the battery during the day.
- Evening electricity would in part be what has been stored during the day.
One overall effect of the battery is to smooth the energy needs of a property.
So as the proportion of houses with batteries increases, the National Grid will see a reduction in the spikes of electricity demand, as evetybody makes a cup of tea in the advert breaks.
But the biggest effect will be on how the UK would generate its electricity.
I am not against nuclear power for any technical or environmental reasons, but I do think that the cost of new nuclear power stations like Hinckley Point C are not good value for money compared with other methods of generation. On the other hand, if we are going to have much smoother electricity needs, then we do need the nuclear power station’s ability to produce a steady baseload of power.
I am against inappropriate on-shore wind in many locations, but I am not against off-shore wind or perhaps a few large turbines in an industrial estate.
I feel that solar, batteries and off-shore wind could give the UK very affordable electricity, but they need to be backed by some form of baseload power stations, which at the moment can only be nuclear.
Conclusion
Following my logic, I believe, that as more batteries are installed in the UK, the following will happen.
- Those who install a battery will save money whether they have solar panels or not!
- Batteries will be allowed to be charged on low-cost overnight electricity.
- As more batteries are installed in the UK, the UK power needs will be smoother.
- Overnight off-shore wind could be used to charge all these batteries.
This leads me to the conclusion, that the Government should create incentives for homes to install batteries, which would be charged with low-cost overnight electricity or solar panels.
Checking My Electricity Direct Debit
With the news this morning, that there is going to be a price cap on energy tariffs, I thought I’d look at mine.
I was paying £114 a month, but my supplier; OVO were recommended that I pay just £89.
The difference, is probably explained, as this has just been the first summer, when my solar panels have been installed.
So their charge calculating algorithm has only just caught up and I am now saving money.
Do you trust, your energy supplier to give you a an accurate estimate about what you should pay?
Interestingly, this morning, I’ve just found this web page detailing a link-up between OVO and Nissan concening the charging of electric cars.
The electricity market is changing very much for the better.
Westminster Proposes A Voluntary Mansion Tax
This may seem a bit strange for the Tories’ flagship Council, but it does seem well researched, according to a report in today’s Sunday Times.
Any house worth over £10 million would be put in a new band above Council Tax Band H and the owners would pay double the Band H rate of tax, which is currently £1,376 a year.
Westminster has 2,000 properties in this band, that are worth over £10 million and the scheme would raise £2.75 million, if everybody paid the extra, which would be voluntary.
It’s an interesting concept, that has been well-thought out.
But like most radical plans, I doubt it will see the light of day!
A New UnBorised, Corbynless, Farage-frei British Generation Can Then Step To The Plate
The title of this post is the last sentence in an article in today’s Times by David Aaronovitch, which is entitled Macron Offers Us A Way Out Of Brexit Mess.
It is well-worth a read.
By step up to the plate, he means rethink their relationship with a reformed Europe.
Whitechapel’s Monster Fatberg
This article on the BBC is entitled ‘Monster’ fatberg found blocking east London sewer.
It has now been cleared up and Thames Water have turned the mess into enough fuel to power three hundred and fifty buses for a day.
We’ve had these fatbergs in London before as the Guardian reported in 2015.
It seems the big problem is fast food outlets with dubious hygiene practices, who just tip the fat down the drains.
I know of someone, who had a problem with a pub near where they lived, which wasn’t handling its rubbish properly. A call to the local Council got it sorted.
So perhaps, the solution is in part, getting the Council to check the hygiene practices of all food outlets better.
Also, just as a plastic bag tax has cut their use, perhaps we need a wet wipe and a nappy tax to cut use of these products, as they are another big problem.
Banksy At The Barbican
These pictures show Banksy’s new art at the Barbican.
As it’s in a tunnel, that is probably owned by the City of London Corporation, I doubt it will be removed or stolen.
Is Banksy going upmarket choosing underneath the Barbican?
EcoPar
I’d never heard of EcoPar until I read this article in Rail Engineer, which is entitled Modified MEWPs go underground.
A MEWP is a mobile elevated work platform and they are being used in the sub-surface lines of the London Underground.
One of the problems is that many of them are diesel-powered, which I wouldn’t have thought to be a good idea in tunnels.
This is where EcoPar comes in. An English translation of the EcoPar’s Swedish entry in Wikipedia says this.
EcoPar is a Swedish environmental fuel , a so-called synthetic diesel fuel and used as an alternative to diesel oil . EcoPar is extracted from natural gas using the Fischer-Tropsch process . EcoPar is a trademark of EcoPar AB, formerly Oroboros AB, located in Gothenburg .
This is from the Rail Engineer article.
Compared to the use of conventional fuel, it is estimated that carbon monoxide emissions are reduced by up to 76 per cent, carbon dioxide by 30-50 per cent, nitrous oxide by up to 26 per cent and carcinogenic emissions by up to 90 per cent.
That sounds a lot safer.
I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of EcoPar and other synthetic diesel fuels.
The Wind Of Change Blowing All Over The UK
This has nothibg to do with Brexit or even politics, but the UK and in addition our friends in Denmark, Germany, Ireland and The Netherlands seem to be investing to reap the wind.
To many of my generation, Hornsea is a town on the Yorkshire coast famous for dull ethnic pottery. But now it will the name of the Hornsea Wind Farm, which will have a generating capacity of up to 4 GigaWatt or 4,000,000 KiloWatt. It will be sited around 40 kilomwtres from the nearest land.
To put the size into context, Hinckley Point C, if it is ever built will have a power output of 3.2 GigaWatt.
You may day that wind is unreliable, but then Hornsea will be just one of several large offshore wind farms in the UK.
- Dogger Bank(4.8 GW),
- Greater Gabbard(504 MW)
- Gwynt Y Mor(576 MW)
- London Array(630 MW)
- Race Bank(530MW
- Thanet(300 MW)
- Yriton Knoll(600-900 MW)
- Walney Extension (659 MW).
The electricity produced can be used, stored or exported.
Storage will always be difficult, but then there are energy consumptive industries like aluminium smelting, creating steel from scrap or the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen, oxygen and ither gases, that could probably be based around an interruptible supply backed-up by a biomass or natural gas power station.
Hydrogen As A Fuel
Hydrogen could be the fuel of the cities for buses, taxis and delivery vehicles. Suppose they were hybrid, but instead of a small diesel engine to xharge the battery, a small hydrogen engine or fuel cell were to be used.
Remember that the only product of burning hydrogen is water and it wouldn’t produce any pollution.
Each bus garage or hydrogen station could generate its own hydrogen, probably venting the oxygen.
Enriched Natural Gas
We can’t generate too much hydrogen and if because of high winds, we have hydrogen to spare it can be mixed with natural gas, ehich contains a proportion of hydrogen anyway.
Dunfermline
I’d never been to Dunfermline before, so my friend and I took a look round before returning to Edinburgh over the bridge.
It would certainly be worth another visit.
Dunfermline certainly needs an electrified rail line from Edinburgh, as I talked about in Running Electric Trains Across The Forth Bridge.
This Google Map shows the centre.
Note Dunfermline Town station in the South-East corner of the map.
The Anonymous Widower 