DLR Extension To Thamesmead Gets Preliminary Funding
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on IanVisits.
This is the opening paragraphs.
TfL has secured funding to carry out more work on plans to extend the DLR from Beckton to Thamesmead.
The current proposals are for a new station be built in Beckton, with a bridge over (or tunnel under) the Thames to a new station in Thamesmead. Both sites are subject to lots of new housing being built, or planned, and the DLR extension was included in TfL’s latest financial plans.
Ian also gives this map.
This Google Map shows the area, where the extension will be built.
Note.
- The Eastern end of the runway at London City Airport in the South-Western corner of the map.
- The proposed location of Thamesmead station is by the roundabout in the South-Eastern corner of the map.
I estimate that the River Thames is around 500-600 metres wide at this point.
North Of The Thames
This Google Map shows more detail around the ring road of Armada Way on the North side of the Thames.
Note.
- The ring road of Armada Way in the centre of the map.
- Beckton Depot of the DLR takes up the Southern part of the land enclosed by Armada Way.
- The Northern part of the enclosed land is what is left of Beckton Gas Works.
- Gallions Reach station by Gallions roundabout, aligned North-South along the road.
- Note how the DLR goes under the road to read Beckton station in the North West corner of the map.
- To the North of the Armada Way ring, there is Gallions Reach Retail Park.
- Surrounding everything to North and East is the massive Becton Sewage Treatment Works.
I am not sure how the extension will connect to the existing Beckton branch of the DLR, but it does look that it could sneak around the inside of Armada Way and strike out directly across the Thames, from a junction to the North of Gallions Reach station.
This Google Map shows Gallions Roundabout and Gallions Reach station.
The connection to Beckton Depot to the North of the station can be picked out. It appears trains can enter and leave the depot in both directions.
This further Google Map shows Armada Way as it goes across the Northern side of the Beckton Gas Works site and along the Southern side of Gallions Reach Retain Park.
Note.
- The current route to Beckton station can be seen entering a short tunnel to go under the road.
- Could the route go inside Armada Way?
A station appears to be planned in this area called Beckton Riverside.
South Of The Thames
This Google Map shows the area which will be served by the extension South of the river.
Note.
- From the first map in this post it would appear that the route from the North makes landfall just to the East of the blue dot on South bank of the River.
- Thamesmead station would appear to be by the middle of the three roundabouts shown on the road crossing the map.
Much of the land between, the current buildings and the river could be developed.
Bridge Or Tunnel?
The major piece of construction will be the bridge or tunnel to connect the two halves of the extension.
Consider.
- The frequency of the extension could be fifteen trains per hour (tph)
- A bridge may stop large ships like HMS Ocean and MS Deutschland coming upriver to Greenwich or the Pool of London.
- London has tried to develop a cruise ship terminal at Enderby’s Wharf near Greenwich.
- Bringing cruise ships into London creates employment.
- The Docklands Light Railway already has two tunnels under the river.
- A tunnel would probably be less than a kilometre.
For these reasons, I think, a tunnel will be the more likely option.
Although, I always like railway bridges across a river, as they can become tourist attractions.
A Few Thoughts
These are a few thoughts.
A Frequency Of 15 tph
In his article, Ian says this about the frequency.
If the DLR extension is built, then it’s provisionally expected to be able to offer 15 trains per hour – roughly one every four minutes.
Currently, the frequency between Tower Gateway and Beckton is only 7.5 tph in the Peak and six tph in the Off-Peak.
- If the Beckton service were to be extended to Thamesmead, to run a frequency of 15 tph, would still need more trains for the service.
- But where would the extra trains terminate in the West?
- Could this be handled with the new trains and better signalling?
I’m not sure, but it seems that the Docklands Light Railway is being setup with another 15 tph capacity in the East.
Could it be that the Thamesmead extension will be run back-to back with another extension in the West.
In A Connection Between City Thameslink Station And The Docklands Light Railway, I described a possible Westward extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Euston, St. Pancras and Victoria stations.
This map shows the route.
Note.
- Could St. Pancras and Victoria both take half of the 15 tph from Thamesmead?
- Bank currently , turns 22.5 tph in the Peak and 18 in the Off Peak.
- The new trains may be able to work with shorter headways.
- Currently, Euston, St. Pancras and Victoria have no direct connection to Canary Wharf.
I think the DLR could end up with a Peak service something like this service.
- 7.5 tph – St. Pancras and Lewisham via Canary Wharf
- 7.5 tph – St. Pancras and Woolwich Arsenal
- 7.5 tph – Victoria and Lewisham via Canary Wharf
- 7.5 tph – Victoria and Thamesmead
Except at Custom House and with a walk at Canary Walk, the connection to Crossrail is poor.
Conclusion
The extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Thamesmead, looks to be a sensible project to serve much-needed housing at Beckton and Thamesmead.
But I feel it needs to be built alongside a Western Extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Charing Cross, Euston, St. Pancras and Victoria.
- This would enable a train frequency of at least 7.5 tph to Thamesmead.
- Or 15 tph if the existing Tower Gateway service were to be extended from Becton to Thamesmead.
- This extension would also provide a direct link between Euston, Kings Cross and St. Pancras stations and Canary Wharf and perhaps take some pressure from the Bank branch of the Northern Line.
But the extension’s primary function would be to balance the Docklands Light Railway and allow capacity through Bank to the East to be increased.
It could be an affordable fill-in, while we wait for better times, in which to build Crossrail 2.
Nearly 1,000 Covid-19 Vaccine Doses Meant For Town’s Most Clinically Vulnerable Had To Be Thrown Away
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Manchester Evening News.
It appears it was because of a refrigeration problem.
With the need to distribute this vaccine at -70°C, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
EDF Determined To Play ‘Major Role’ In UK Flexibility As It Signs 50MW Battery Optimisation Deal
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
This is the opening two paragraphs.
EDF is set to optimise Gresham House Energy Storage Fund’s 50MW Wickham Market lithium-ion battery site.
The French energy giant will use its Powershift platform to optimise the asset to deliver optimal value and minimise battery degradation at the site in Suffolk, England.
This is a paragraph from the article.
Recently, EDF has signed a number of agreements with battery storage owners, including to optimise SWGT‘s 30MW utility-scale battery earlier in December. The company is also working to build up its own battery portfolio, investing in cleantech startup PowerUp to support its 10GW of storage by 2035 ambition.
Note.
- I suspect in this section of the article, whoever wrote it, doesn’t know a MW from a MWh or a GW from a GWh. Storage or capacity should be measured in GWh not GW.
- SWGT would appear to be Still Waters Green Technology, who are building the 30 MW battery near Swindon.
- EDF purchased Pivot Power in June 2020.
It seems to me that EDF Energy are moving fast into both building and optimising energy storage.
Conclusion
Brexit seems to making little difference to EDF’s plans to invest in the UK.
But then we have the potential for the generation of Gigawatts of offshore wind, that is less of a resource for France.
OptiFuel Systems Announces Natural Gas Freight Locomotive
The title of this post is the same as that as this article on Railway Gazette International.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Rail, marine and generator product supplier OptiFuel Systems has announced that it is ready to manufacture freight locomotives of 1 200 to 2 400 hp fuelled by biomethane and natural gas.
Other points from the article.
- They are modifying a rail-certified Cummins engine, which has already been used in 12,000 trucks.
- They are using a modular design, so different power outputs can be provided.
- It appears they will provide kits to convert existing locomotives.
- They have a US government grant to build a 4,400 hp or 3.3 MW main line locomotive that can run on renewable natural gas.
This is a quote from OptiFuel President; Scott Myers.
We think that in the next two years there will be a 50-state Low Carbon Fuel Standard programme that includes rail and an extension of the existing federal Alternative Fuel Credit program to include rail. These programmes, just as in trucking and aviation, will provide renewable natural gas to the railroads at a near zero cost and providing them the financial incentive to decarbonise their fleets over the next 15 years.
President Trump was not available for comment.
Renewable Natural Gas
This sounded to me, like the ultimate in greenwashing, when I saw it in this article. The Wikipedia entry for renewable natural gas defines it like this.
Renewable Natural Gas (RNG), also known as Sustainable Natural Gas (SNG) or Biomethane, is a biogas which has been upgraded to a quality similar to fossil natural gas and having a methane concentration of 90% or greater.
Wikipedia also says this about the creation of renewable natural gas.
The UK National Grid believes that at least 15% of all gas consumed could be made from matter such as sewage, food waste such as food thrown away by supermarkets and restaurants and organic waste created by businesses such as breweries. In the United States, analysis conducted in 2011 by the Gas Technology Institute determined that renewable gas from waste biomass including agricultural waste has the potential to add up to 2.5 quadrillion Btu annually, being enough to meet the natural gas needs of 50% of American homes.
In combination with power-to-gas, whereby the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide fraction of biogas are converted to methane using electrolyzed hydrogen, the renewable gas potential of raw biogas is approximately doubled.
Because of the carbon in the gas and its source, it would appear that it is net zero carbon, rather than the zero carbon of hydrogen. But it does appear, that it would be cheaper to produce than hydrogen.
Conclusion
The United States seems to be researching a route, that will allow them to decarbonise their rail-freight industry.
Application To The United Kingdom
Shown is a Class 66 locomotive.
They are a mainstay of freight in the UK, that are powered by a 3,300 hp diesel engine.
Unfortunately, they are not the most neighbourly of locomotives, which throw out quantities of various pollutants.
Could OptiFuel Systems supply a solution for these locomotives?
How Cambridge University Test Students For The Covids
In Tom Whipple’s excellent article in The Times today, which is entitled In Search Of A Less Painful Route Through The Long Covid Winter, there is this paragraph.
They also point to a different, smaller-scale, test. In the summer, Cambridge University decided to go its own way on testing. Each “bubble” of students put their swabs to be tested together. If they contained a positive — validated through a far more effective laboratory test — they were each retested. At the start of the autumn term, the university experienced the usual run of cases. In the final week, when other universities were seeing mass outbreaks, all 10,000 students were tested. There were zero positives.
Could this simple method, speed up mass testing of residential areas, care homes and other universities?
Octopus Energy Chief Greg Jackson Declares London World Leader Of Green Energy Tech As It Wins “Double Unicorn” $2bn Status
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Standard.
This is the sub-title.
CEO declares Britain’s mixture free market and technology skills give green energy tech massive export potential.
These are some points from the article.
- Octopus Energy started five years ago and is now worth $2 billion.
- It supplier 1.7 million homes in the UK, with green energy.
- It has customers in the US and Germany.
- It has its own management software called Kraken.
- Due to Kraken, their costs are 2.5 times lower than rivals.
- Kraken is a fun-for-hire, that is now used by other energy supplier.
The CEO wants a 100 million customers in five years.
We need more companies with this attitude!
Is The Pfizer Vaccine The New Betamax?
To me, the Pfizer vaccine may work well, but the precautions needed to deliver it safely are so onerous, I can’t see it being the most successful of vaccines.
If healthcare professionals and GP surgeries in the UK, are saying that the minus seventy delivery route is going to be difficult, then how difficult is it going to be to deliver it, in parts of India, Africa and South America.
I can’t see the current Pfizer vaccine lasting very long, before it is either overtaken by one of the many others vaccines under development or Pfizer reformulate it, so it has an easier method of delivery.
It truly is the new Betamax.
My Advice To Coeliacs On A Gluten-Free Diet Concerning The Covids
As a coeliac, I have been worried about the Covids and researching the statistics for some months.
Who Are Likely To Be Coeliac?
In the next sub-sections, I look at various groups.
Ashkenazi Jews
I am coeliac because there is an unbroken genetic line to my great-great-great-grandfather; Robert, who was a Jewish tailor from Königsberg in East Prussia. Census records in the UK, say that he arrived around 1800 and setup business in Bexley. Like many Jews from East Prussia, he had to leave, when he became eighteen, because he was male, Jewish and not one of the privileged families.
I know little of him, except from a brief chat from my father, whose own grandfather had met him as a child and remembered him, as a small elderly man, who didn’t speak any English.
I did get some more details of the Jewish community in East Prussia from a curator at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, and I don’t think she was proud at her countrymen’s treatment of the Jews before the Second World War. By the 1930s many had fled to the UK or the United States.
Wikipedia has a detailed History of the Jews in Königsberg.
In May this year at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, I wrote Jews In The UK And COVID-19, which is based on three articles in the Times of Israel.
This is an extract from my post.
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?
In the post, I also came to this 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!
I stand by that statement today.
The Elderly
I suppose at seventy-three, I’m in this group too!
In April this year I wrote A Thought On Deaths Of The Elderly From Covid-19, where this was the conclusion.
Many of those 120,000 coeliacs will have been born before 1960 and have a high probably of not having been diagnosed. for the simple reason, that a childhood test for coeliac disease didn’t exist.
Will these undiagnosed coeliacs have a compromised immune system, that makes them more susceptible to Covid-19?
It has been said, that a good immune system helps you fight Covid-19!
I heard today of an 85-year-old coeliac, who was diagnosed at forty and is bright as a button on a gluten-free diet. They have already had their jab. Excellent!
The Irish
As with the Ashkenazi Jews, the Irish have suffered bad living conditions and famine and they seem to have more than their fair share of coeliac disease.
Black People With Slaves As Ancestors
In the last thirty years or so, I have come across three or four West Africans with coeliac disease, including one, who was an excellent chef in a pub, near where I lived at the time. I also met an American vet online called DogtorJ, who wrote this paper on his web site, which is entitled Why Is The Plane Of Our Nation’s Health In A Death Spiral? He was referring to the United States, but a lot of the points he makes can equally apply to the UK and other nations.
In one section he talks about the historical atrocity of the slave trade from a medical perspective, where he says this.
I read in one source that approximately 6% of the slaves never made it to their destinations, many of whom died of dysentery. It suddenly dawned on me that they could have easily been the newest batch of gluten intolerants. These transplanted people had never eaten wheat-based foods in the past and yet here they were, under the worst possible conditions, having this new dietary challenge suddenly thrust upon them in the form of the white man’s bread.
DogtorJ’s reasoning applies to Afro-Americans, but it could surely apply to all slaves and their descendants, just as one coeliac ancestor passed me the disease.
People From The Indian Sub-Continent
I always thought that the Indian Sub-Continent was fairly free of coeliac disease, as Indian cuisine is rice-based and I’ve had many excellent gluten-free meals in Indian restaurants all over the UK.
But then I found this article on the Indian Journal Of Research Medicine.
I wrote about the article in Coeliac Disease: Can We Avert The Impending Epidemic In India?
I finished with these sentences.
What do I know? I’m just an engineer and a coeliac who has a good nose for problems!
But please someone! Research the connection between undiagnosed coeliac disease and COVID-19!
My son; George was an undiagnosed coeliac with a gluten-rich and smoky lifestyle. He died at just 37 from pancreatic cancer.
Did he have a poor immune system, which meant he couldn’t fight the cancer? One expert on cancer said, “Yes!”
Are people from the sub-continent suffering from the same problems, that slaves did several centuries ago?
Research From The University Of Padua
This paper on the US National Library of Medicine, which is from the University of Padua in Italy.
The University followed a group of 138 patients with coeliac disease, who had been on a gluten-free diet for at least six years, through the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Padua.
This sentence, sums up the study.
In this analysis we report a real life “snapshot” of a cohort of CeD patients during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Italy, all followed in one tertiary centre in a red area of Northern Italy. Our data show, in accordance with Emmi et al., the absolute absence of COVID-19 diagnosis in our population, although 18 subjects experienced flu-like symptoms with only one having undergone naso-pharyngeal swab.
It says that no test subject caught Covid-19, in an admittedly smallish number of patients.
But it reinforces my call for more research into whether if you are a diagnosed coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet, you have an immune system, that gives you a degree of protection from the Covids.
It should be remembered, that Joe West of Nottingham University has shown, that diagnosed coeliacs on a gluten-free diet have a 25% lower risk of cancer compared to the general population.
My Advice To Coeliacs On A Gluten-Free Diet Concerning The Covids
I shall be carrying on with my gluten-free diet, as the respected University of Padua found no problems in doing so!
A Small Piece Of Research
If you are on a gluten-free diet or you are a coeliac, you might like to fill in my poll, if you haven’t suffered from the Covids.
Green Light For Fossil-Free Steel In Oxelösund
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Market Screener.
These are the first two paragraphs.
Green light for fossil-free steel in Oxelösund The Land and Environment Court has decided to grant SSAB Oxelösund an environmental permit to convert its steelmaking operations and reduce carbon dioxide activities by 2025. This also means that we will take a step nearer towards fossil-free steel production across SSAB in 2045.
This is an historic decision in many ways. It is the first time that Oxelösund has applied for changes in production to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Use of sponge iron made through HYBRIT technology, together with scrap iron as feedstock instead of iron ore and coal, will enable SSAB to reduce emissions in Oxelösund by around 80%.
Hydrogen steelmaking processes are surely the future of steelmaking, as they can be made zero-carbon.
It will need a lot of hydrogen and I can see processes like Shell’s Blue Hydrogen Process being ideal to produce the hydrogen.
But will China and the other countries that produce cheap steel, turn to hydrogen steel-making?
My Christmas Dinner Has Arrived
These pictures show my Christmas dinner, which arrived today.
Note.
- As the pictures show it is now safe in my fridge.
- I don’t think I could complain about the packaging.
- Full cooking instructions were included. Most look like time in an oven or boil-in-a-bag.
The Christmas Feast came from Roasted by Jack and Scott.
The Anonymous Widower 