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.
Thank Goodness Strictly’s Back
India Knight finishes her article in news section of The Sunday Times with the title of this post.
She contrasts it with all the gloomy news and says that it starts the run-up to Christmas.
I agree with her, as it can be a very uplifting piece of froth!
Why People Don’t Change To Cheaper And Smaller Energy Suppliers
This news item on the Money Saving Expert web site is entitled Energy users don’t switch because they haven’t heard of cheapest firms, MSE poll finds.
If you’re thinking of changing read it and you might learn something to guide you to a more affordable supplier.
I swapped to OVO Energy a couple of years ago, and I’ve had no serious issues and they now have allowed me to connect my solar panels to the electrocity network.
The only problem, I had with swapping was getting nPower to pay me the money they owed.
My Japanese Wallet
These pictures show my Japanese wallet.
Note.
- The pocket on the outside to hold one credit card. Unfortunately, you can’t do contactless in the pocket.
- The inside purse to hold a few coins, my door key and a few Warfarin tablets.
- Plenty of space for cards.
- The usual folder for notes.
- The zip that closes it shut.
I haven’t shown the miniature Samurai sword, that pokes out if someone, who doesn’t look like me tries to open the wallet.
Internet Age Just Starting, Says Tech Guru
The title of this post is the same as the title of a short article in the Business section of the Sunday Times.
It is a summary of an interview with Marc Andreesen onside the Business section.
Some points raised.
- The next wave of technological disruption will affect law, medicine and construction.
- The basic cost of starting an Internet company has fallen dramatically
- There’s something really special happening at the intersection of medincine and computer science.
I certainly agree with the title of the article.
Major District Heating Scheme to Connect £6bn Meridian Water Development
The title of this post is the same as a press release from Vital Energi.
This is the first three paragraphs.
London’s latest £85m district heating infrastructure is taking shape in Enfield and will be delivered by Vital Energi on behalf of energetik, the energy company owned by Enfield Council.
The new district heating network will accommodate up to 30,000 homes and businesses, including the £6bn Meridian Water development. energetik want to revolutionise the local energy market and improve the reputation of district heating, in a currently unregulated market, to ensure customers receive a quality service.
Vital Energi will design, build, operate and maintain the main energy centre for Meridian Water and install the district heating network over the next 12 years, under a contract worth £15m. This heat network is part of an integrated energy and regeneration strategy in Enfield that will interconnect with energetik’s other networks at Arnos Grove and Ponders End.
The Meridian Water development is certainly going about things in an impressive way.
Reflections At Seventy
I completed by seventh decade this morning at about three, if I remember what my mother told me about the time of my birth correctly.
Dreams Of A Shared Retirement With Celia
Perhaps twelve years ago, my wife;Celia and I made a decision and that was to sell everything in Suffolk, after she retired from the law in perhaps 2015 or so and retire to a much smaller house in somewhere like Hampstead in London.
I remember too, that we discussed retirement in detail on my sixtieth birthday holiday in Majorca.
But of course, things didn’t work out as planned.
Two Deaths And A Stroke
Celia died of a squamous cell carcinoma of the heart on December 11th, 2007.
Then three years later, our youngest son died of pancreatic cancer.
Whether, these two deaths had anything to do with my stroke, I shall never know!
Moving To Dalston
Why would anybody in their right mind move to Dalston in 2010?
It is my spiritual home, with my maternal grandmother being born opposite Dalston Junction station,my father being being born just up the road at the Angel and grandfathers and their ancestors clustered together in Clerkenwell and Shoreditch. My Dalstonian grandmother was from a posh Devonian family called Upcott and I suspect she bequeathed me some of my stubbornness. My other grandmother was a Spencer from Peterborough and she could be difficult too! But that could be because she was widowed at forty-nine!
Celia and I had tried to move to De Beauvoir Town in the 1970s, but couldn’t get a mortgage for a house that cost £7,500, which would now be worth around two million.
So when I gave up driving because the stroke had damaged my eyesight, Dalston and De Beauvoir Town were towards the top of places, where I would move.
I would be following a plan of which Celia would have approved and possibly we would have done, had she lived.
But the clincher was the London Overground, as Dalston was to become the junction between the North London and East London Lines. Surely, if I could find a suitable property in the area, it wouldn’t lose value.
But I didn’t forsee the rise of Dalston!
Taking Control Of My Recovery
I do feel that if I’d been allowed to do what I wanted by my GP, which was to go on Warfarin and test my own INR, I’d have got away with just the first very small stroke I had in about 2009.
In about 2011, one of the world’s top cardiologists told me, that if I got the Warfarin right, I wouldn’t have another stroke.
As a Control Engineer, with all the survival instincts of my genes that have been honed in London, Liverpool and Suffolk, I have now progressed to the drug regime, I wanted after that first small stroke.
I still seem to be keeping the Devil at bay.
Conclusion
I’m ready to fight the next ten years.
The Anonymous Widower 