George Backs Graphene
This report says that the Chancellor has found £21.5 million for research into graphene.
Some of the applications of graphene are listed here on Wikipedia. This is the first paragraph.
Several potential applications for graphene are under development, and many more have been proposed. These include lightweight, thin, flexible, yet durable display screens, electric circuits, and solar cells, as well as various medical, chemical, and industrial processes enhanced or enabled by the use of new graphene materials.
Of all the possible applications they list, graphene’s properties as a filtration membrane, may lead to some of the first widespread applications. This link points to an article about research at MIT, which shows that graphene may offer new ways of water desalination.
Graphene may seem to be a wonder material and the money for research is very much to be welcomed.
In the 1960s, there were two areas of research, for which great hopes were held out.
The first was carbon fibre, which when tried as fan blades for the RB 211 helped to bankrupt Rolls-Royce. But now, it is a ubiquitous substance, that appears in many applications, from golf club shafts to almost complete aircraft, like the Boeing Dreamliner.
A scientific curiosity at the time was the laser. Every university had one and would proudly show you their expensive example, generally doing nothing, except emitting an eerie green light. But now lasers are everywhere and most homes have at least one in a CD or DVD player.
Who will accurately predict what the uses of graphene will be in fifty years?
My only questions are.
1. Are we putting enough money and resources behind the researchers?
2. What other ideas are there out there with the potential to change the world for the better, that need proper backing?
Thames Water And Wet Wipes
Thames Water has problems with sewer blockages and has produced a video and press release called Changing the world from the bottom up. It is reported here in the Standard. Here’s an extract.
No, it’s not April 1. But this stab at lavatory humour from Thames Water sounds like it’s spoof.
A press release, entitled “Changing the world from the bottom up”, begins as follows: “A trend among British adults towards using wet wipes as well as with loo roll is forcing a water company to take drastic action.
“Market research shows the wet wipe market is growing at faster than 15% a year — and for Thames Water that’s a problem.
“Wet wipes, which do not break down like loo roll does, block sewers, adding to Thames Water’s annual £12 million spend on clearing around 80,000 blockages a year in its 108,000 kilometre network across London and the Thames Valley.”
How awful. But, happily, there is some good news or, as Thames Water puts it, “a solution is at hand” — geddit?
I’ve always felt that there should be extra taxes on things like disposable nappies and other non-biodegradable products. Especially, as they just end up in landfill.
I have been down the London sewers and you’d be surprised what you see there.
Silly Water Bottles
I very much dislike water bottles with teats. I got one on the train coming back from Hull.
Silly Water Bottles
So I’ve had a stroke and have a bit of difficulty sucking, but what’s wrong with a good old-fashioned screw cap?
Open House – Crossness
I’ve been to Crossness before, but a guy named Rodney, kindly gave me a lift to one of London”s two cathedrals of sewage, I decided to accept it. The other cathedral is Abbey Mills.
It was heaving with people and the only low point was waiting for the mini-bus in the heavy rain, to get the train home.
Marshgate Lane Revealed
This is the first time, I’ve been on Pudding Mill Lane station and could get a reasonably clear view of where Marshgate Lane goes under the Greenway and the Northern Outfall Sewer into the Olympic Park.
Marsh Gate Lane Revealed
As I said here, it was a complicated and expensive job. Also,because of European Union rules, it had to be open to all EU companies. It was a fixed price contract and it was won by the Germans. Rumours abound that Marshgate Lane lived up to its name and they didn’t make the profit they expected.
A North South Divide
I went into a branch of a well-known restaurant chain in Liverpool today and asked for a lemonade with my lunch.
The waitress brought a fizzy one, whereas in their London or Cambridge branches, they usually assume that you want a still one! In some places they do ask, which is probably the right thing to do. Just as most places do with water!
So does the north want fizz in their lemonade? And the south doesn’t!
I mst say that some things don’t seem to change in Liverpool though. The waitress was bright, keen and chatty, even if she only scored a small bit less than perfect. I can remember them like that in the 1960s. Although they were much worse trained then!
One in particular brought meals for C and myself on a tray, which she placed on the table, so that one meal was over the table and the other was hanging over the edge. She then took the meal over the table and placed it for C, which meant the other meal upturned the tray onto the floor. To make it worse, it was her first night. So she burst into floods of tears.
Welsh Policemen On The Streets of London
I took this picture this morning at the Angel
Welsh Policemen On The Streets of London
It shows two Carmarthen policemen on duty.
In some ways, it’s an appropriate area, as the statue of Hugh Myddelton, the Welshman, who four hundred years ago, built the New River to give London its first fresh water is at Islington Green, a hundred metres or so away.
Floyd Mayweather Doesn’t Like the Jail Food
Then he shouldn’t have beaten his wife. It’s here in the Telegraph.
Do You Think We Should Have a Whip-round to Buy God a New Bath-plug?
Our youngest son always used to say that thunderstorms were caused because God let the bath-water run over.
So, he might have said the title of this post, after all the bad weather, we’ve been having lately!
The Anonymous Widower 