What’s blowing in March 9, 2009
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : renewable energy , add a commentReading on the wind power industry:
The Guardian reports that the British Wind Energy Association is looking to the government for support, while the City predicts a decline of 20% in the industry this year.
Trials based in Warwick suggest that small turbines attached to buildings aren’t very useful, and that the standard data for wind strength across the UK probably overestimates. They’re keen to point out that this doesn’t apply windfarms in suitable locations or offshore, and suggest that there’s a lot of work to be done on improving an immature industry.
Two of the largest wind companies, American Clipper Windpower and WPD, are bidding to build a very large windfarm off the coast of Hastings. At 1.35GW, it will be as large as the entire installed capacity of the UK was as recently as October 2005. 10MW turbines are very big indeed, and interesting to see they’re planning to design them in the UK.
And a useful list of engineering topics to swot up on before I embark on this course.
Flotsam March 8, 2009
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentThe stuff that washed up from the ocean of media
End Games, by Michael Dibden – This will be the very last story of Italian detective Aurelio Zen, since the sad demise of the author just after it was published. Conspiracy and murder in Calabria, would be good holiday reading if you’re down that way.
Spooks, Series three – Improbable, but gripping. In one episode the team resort to torture, with much angst and self justification, which seems unlikely. Surely they’d just ship them off to one of our less squeamish ‘allies’?
Some good ideas for designing systems (computer or otherwise) to reduce the number of errors users make.
An oil-industry insider’s view on Peak Oil, suggesting that the recent collapse in oil prices is just a short term reaction to general market collapse, and that fundamentals of supply and demand mean that it must rise again soon. You need to go to the last slide to see a very surprising conclusion from a Houston-based oil analyst!
A few thoughts on the Convention on Modern Liberty March 2, 2009
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Politics , 2 commentsWell over 1000 people in a lecture theatre in Bloomsbury, all ready to give up a Saturday because they’re worried about the erosion of civil liberties has got to be a good sign. We might be frogs in a pan of water heating slowly, to quote a metaphor used by a number of speakers, but some have noticed.
There are lots of Liberal Democrats, Tories, and even a few Greens, but very few Labour types. I guess that’s not a surprise. Sir David Varney, the Prime Minister’s adviser on Public Service Transformation, and an advocate of inter-departmental data-sharing, is a brave man just for turning up and being willing to appear on a panel.
Helena Kennedy talked about the problem of the politicisation of criminal justice, turning it into a contest of toughness. It always amazes me that politicians feel they have a right to comment on specific cases here, though at least that obnoxious business of the Home Secretary setting the tariff in high-profile cases has disappeared.
I went to the Tory panel in the morning, partly to see Phillip Blond, and partly out of sheer curiosity about the party which will probably be the government soon, and about which I know almost nothing. Apparently they see the essential difference on liberty between themselves and Liberals to be that they believe people are born with freedoms, whereas Liberals believe people take liberties from a state which grants them. Not sure about that, but its an interesting thought. If its true, I may just be a Tory. Surely not??
Sadly Phillip Blond, of Red Toryism fame, didn’t get much chance to speak. His ideas of communitarianism are interesting, though I’d hate to be reliant on my local community if, for instance, it thought women should live ‘traditional lives’, or didn’t like gay people too much. And I’ve not seen anything from him that explains how we get from here to his ideal.
Phillip Pullman is a delightful speaker, though the climate change deniers in the comments to the blogged transcript I’ve linked to just go to show that this issue attracts a very wide spectrum. His virtues a nation needs sound right, particularly the courage to act kindly when afraid. Fear of terrorist attack, of being seen to be weak, of failure, has made our government very unkind lately. I love the idea of modesty for a nation and the thought that ‘a modest kingdom would have to think for a moment or two whether or not it was a republic, because its royal family would be small, and its members would be allowed to spend most their time in useful and interesting careers as well as being royal, and because their love affairs would remain their own business; and people would always be glad to see them cycling past.’ This reminds me why I wasn’t much of a republican when in New Zealand, but have become more so since coming to the UK. In New Zealand, the monarchy is far away and holds little interest for most people, and having a head of state that is little more than a nice theory works well for a small country. The country can get on with its business without having to worry about all the paraphenalia that goes with monarchy, unelected chambers, odd bits of unlikely privilege floating around.
The Bloggers summit panel included Ben Goldacre, who is always worth listening to for good sense and entertainment. Perhaps he could sort out Public Service Transformation. Or at least become Minister for Health.
Written constitutions keep coming up. I’m not so sure about that. Who would write it? How would we get to agree it? Britain in 2009 is hardly the US in 1776, or even South Africa in 1996. I suspect it would be good if we had one, but getting from here to there doesn’t seem likely. And it didn’t stop the Americans from introducing the Patriot Act, now did it?
There are a lot of people here that I normally wouldn’t have anything much to do with. In some ways that’s interesting, but some of them are rather further to the right than I’m comfortable with. Still, that’s the point, isn’t it.
The final panel, on ‘How Do We Secure Modern Liberty’ was interesting, but didn’t seem to get very far. The LibDems are putting up a bill to repeal all the obnoxious legislation, and the Tories claim they’ll do similar if they get in next time – I hope someone has that on tape. Will Hutton thinks we should all keep arguing, which seems about all that can be done. There were lots of yellow cards around, encouraging people to pledge action, but few ideas on what that action might be.
Some thoughts on action:
Familiarise yourself with, and protest against the dodgy bits of, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the new communications bill when (and if) it is published.
Don’t register your oyster card. Why do they need to know where you’re travelling?
Get an email account somewhere other than your isp. The new communications bill is going to struggle to convince google to release records of gmail transactions, I suspect.
Get a good understanding of how to use the internet in privacy. There are some good tips on Spy Blog (bottom left) and Global Voices published a good guide for bloggers. Do remember that nothing is infallible though.
It might be worthwhile if a large number of ostensibly random people started doing the sorts of things that are now stupidly illegal such as photographing policemen to waste time and hopefully convince police and the government that there are better ways of dealing with their fears
Consider the No2ID pledge, but remember that you’ll probably not be able to renew your passport
Who’s Investing in Green Electricity? March 1, 2009
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Environment , add a commentAn article in the Observer this morning caught my eye, saying that Britain’s six largest electricity companies are not spending enough on renewable energy. The figures cited suggested that they were spending on average £30 per customer per year over the last five years, not enough to meet the Renewables Obligation which obliges electricty companies to source a certain, and rising, percentage of their supply from renewable sources. It also said that Green Energy UK, and Good Energy, two companies which supply ‘Green’ electricity had invested absolutely nothing. Something seems odd.
The article was based on a press release from Ecotricity, another green electricity supplier, and a quick check back to their website gives a few more details, and does indeed show their claim that the two green suppliers investing nothing.
So what’s the story with Good Energy and Green Energy UK?
With Green Energy UK, I think the answer is quite simple – they work by making supply contracts with other companies, and so support the development of renewables that way. Green Energy UK has a vast array of suppliers, generating by every way you could think of – biofuel from recycled vegetable oil, solar, hydro. They provide a way for small, local generators to sell their excess capacity. It’s not fair to say they invested nothing, and that statement looks like a pure marketing ploy by Ecotricity against the two companies which compete directly with them.
Good Energy seems to be in a slightly different situation. Most of their capacity is supplied by their 4MW windfarm in Delabole, in Cornwall. This farm was established in 1991, and there doesn’t seem to have been any major investment in it over the last few years. The company has just gained planning permission to decommission the current turbines, and replace them with new ones, tripling the generation capacity. They may not have been investing much lately, but that’s about to change. They are also a very small company.
Ecotricity, of course, does invest heavily in renewables. All their profits go to increasing capacity on their windfarms so, although their supply is not 100% renewable, they are making the biggest contribution they can to increasing the renewable capacity. That’s why I use them (and they’ve got nice call centre staff).
The article is basically a marketing press release with a fair amount of mudslinging at the competition, but it does raise an important issue. Overall, the amount of investment in renewable energy by the major suppliers is truly pathetic. The UK should be a leader in wind power generation, instead it has only the fifth highest capacity in Europe.
