What is a kilowatt-Hour?
I have just been watching BBC Breakfast as people were trying to understand their electricity statements, which have been braqnded as confusing, by Consumer Focus.
A couple of those interviewed asked what a kilowatt-Hour was? Where were they at school? Or is such basic information not taught any more?
It’s very simple really! It’s the amount of electricity that a one bar or one kilowatt fire would use in an hour, or the amount a hundred watt light bulb would use in ten hours.
We really must teach these basic facts of life better. Perhaps then, that waste of our taxes, Consumer Focus, could be dismantled or just deal with genuine complaints, safety and health issues.
Here is their Annual Report for Consumer Focus for 2009/10. They spent £11,676,000 on staff costs for a start and they only had 226 employees. So that’s £51, 663 per employee.
Exxon Funds Climate Change Sceptics!
Now there’s a surprise, but just think what would happen if governments really clamped down on the burning of fossil fuels to companies like Exxon. Read about it in The Times.
I shall not be buying any more Esso petrol and diesel.
Nuclear Waste
I have been over several nuclear power stations and on the whole they weren’t a chilling experience, where you felt that any minute, you’d be engulfed in some radiation-related explosion. At only one did I feel a bit uneasy and that was because the site was untidy and cramped. It just didn’t have the aura of being well-run that I got from say Sizewell A or AEP Cook. But I visited this plant twenty years ago and it has operated safely since.
But when I saw an article entitled, Areva plans new reactors that make nuclear waste disappear, in The Times on Monday, I was initially sceptical.
But it does look that it may be the solution to the problem of nuclear waste. I hope so!
What puzzles me about the story is that the technology was first proposed in the 1950s. If it is that good, why hasn’t it been developed earlier.
Dartford Crossing
I had to travel to Dover today and took some photographs of the two major bridges en route. Here are some pictures taken at the Dartford Crossing. Those I took on the Medway Viaducts weren’t worth publishing.
Note the Littlebrook power station. It is oil-fired and was opened in 1981. Perhaps, it should be gone now! It will be in its present form by 2015. But at the moment it is one of the few power stations with a black-start capability. That means it can be started without any external electricity supply.
If anybody thinks that I was taking these photographs whilst driving, then think again.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
When we think about green energy with a small carbon footprint, some ideas keep turning up. One is ocean thermal energy conversion.
It is a very simple idea in that it exploits the temperature difference between the surface of the sea and the depths. It needs deep water fairly close to land and the temperature difference is only large enough in the tropics. But as the article shows, there are a large number of places, where this method might well be employed in the future.
Is it feasible?
Perhaps not now! But as with many technologies there will be a reduction in costs and new materials and methods in the next few years.
One proposal for using OTEC is to use it to smelt aluminium from bauxite in places like Surinam. The aluminium would then be transported to places in need of power and burnt in a power station. This would produce aluminium oxide or bauxite, which would then be transported back to the smelter. Obviously, if smelters are powered by green energy such as hydro-electric, then they could be elsewhere.
I am a betting man and I reckon that we’ve not seen the last of OTEC.
The Iranian Basket Case
Many years ago before the fall of the Shah, I was peripherally involved in the selling of a Chieftain tank factory to the Iranians. I was providing software to the project but I left before it all fell apart with the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution.
I’m not sure if I can remember too well, my feeling about the project at the time, but now, I would feel that selling arms to regimes of that nature was not a good idea. In fact, I tend to that a lot of the weaponry we have is next to useless in the sort of wars we’re having to fight at present. But that is something for another topic and I’m not a military expert anyway. But are many politicians?
Anyway over the years, I met quite a few Iranians and I would think that all have been pleasant individuals who really only want to get on with their lives. I remember one Iranian pilot in Hong Kong, who was extremely charming to my late wife and myself, and invited us to see the joys of his country. And there are many, as a friend who visited last year on holiday testified.
And then they have plenty of oil and I believe other resources too!
So why is the country such a basket case?
One could blame the Muslim religion. I could do! But in this case, I’ll blame the religious and political leaders, who will do anything to keep power. And we all know where dictatorships lead too!
I believe strongly, that we should save energy and tax it heavily so that we save precious resources, reduce global warming and return the tax to the people, so that they can decide how it should be spent for the benefit of the people.
Let’s take just one example of their basket case strategies in this area.
Petrol is subsidised and read what happens in the Guardian, that well-known right wing rag!
It’s just a few pence a litre!
No wonder why there has been so much protest about the elections in recent days!
And it’s getting worse, with diplomats being expelled on both sides.
The Anonymous Widower 