Sacks of coal - no more?

[MdB]

 

[Feltwell]

Maintenance is important if this is anything to go by!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16115139

 

[Penners]

Maintenance is important if this is anything to go by!

See - there's another argument for tidal energy. Underwater fires are quite rare, I believe.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Maintenance is important if this is anything to go by!

See - there's another argument for tidal energy. Underwater fires are quite rare, I believe.

Have you never been swimming with a forgeotten lump of magnesium in the pocket of your trunks? :shock:

 

[Flyfisher]

Swimming with magnesium in your trunks would be no problem, other than perhaps a little uncomfortable.
Lithium, sodium, potassium on the other hand . . . .

Which is what makes HS2 a 20th century solution to a 20th century problem.

More like a C19 solution. :wink:

Perhaps the HS2 money would be better spent on a C21 solution such as fibre to every business and house?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Which is what makes HS2 a 20th century solution to a 20th century problem.

More like a C19 solution. :wink:

Perhaps the HS2 money would be better spent on a C21 solution such as fibre to every business and house?

Or on building more runways and Boris Island - proper 21st century solutions! :wink:

Now is also the time to buy property with the areas with proposed HS2 stations... unlikely ever to be cheaper than it is now (even with the forthcomng Eurogedden), and very likely to significantly outperform the general property market over the next 25 years.

 

[Flyfisher]

When I were just a lad (well, sixth-former) I used to go to the Christmas lectures at the Institute of Civil Engineering. one of the lectures was all about building a floating airport at Maplin Sands in the Thames estuary. This was in the mid-70s, so Boris Island is hardly a new idea.

Edit: Just checking up on Maplin Sands and found this link suggesting airport plans date back to 1943.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Estuary_Airport

The sea is a very hostile environment and the engineering required for tidal turbines is much more difficult than for wind turbines.

I find that difficult to believe. The underwater environment is much more stable than the atmospheric environment. Storms have little of no effect once you a few metres down. So the engineering challenges are known and predictable. If we'd thrown as much money at tidal power equipment as we have at wind, we could have solved the engineering problems relatively quickly.

Love them or hate them, oil companies seem to be capable of some pretty impressive underwater engineering.

 

[Flyfisher]

It may be difficult to believe, but consider the alternative. Big engineering corporations that have invested much of their futures in wind power are stupid.

Corporate stupidity is not entirely unknown though, is it? Or rather, what appears to be corporate stupidity is often just a company working within a different set of parameters than those outsiders making such judgements.

 

[worms]

It may be difficult to believe, but consider the alternative. Big engineering corporations that have invested much of their futures in wind power are stupid.

Corporate stupidity is not entirely unknown though, is it? Or rather, what appears to be corporate stupidity is often just a company working within a different set of parameters than those outsiders making such judgements.

Yes, sometimes you just have to get on and do it, like these guys.

 

[Flyfisher]

I found this while searching for some info on the tidal turbine project just off Ramsey island in Pembrokeshire - a 1.2MW project utilising 'the bitches' tidal race. Seems there is quite a bit of tidal generation in progress. 10MW for the Anglesey project seems quite useful. It also mentions plans for up to 1.6GW generation in the Pentland Firth.
http://www.tidalenergyltd.com/?p=481

 

[AMc]

Why cant we all just use less energy?
A lot of people can work from home, but dont, usually because of the company car carrot on a string..

When we moved to Norfolk my partner had a people management role up here and needed to be at the office.
I agreed with my employer that I would become home based and attend the office or client offices in London when required.
They made me redundant out of the blue on 4 weeks notice after we'd exchanged on the houses and were committed.
I then spent 2 1/2 years doing part time consultancy for a former employer, never once visiting their office or having a face to face meeting.

In the last 5 years I've applied for many, many roles and in one case reached the final two for a charity job I really, really wanted only to lose out because the other candidate didn't ask for any remote working and I had requested a day a week (depending on suitability, after 6 months) to avoid travelling to London every single day.

The last job I nearly got had a contractual term that I would spent 80% of my time away from home on UK and European travel - so Monday - Thursday most weeks in a Travelodge or the German equivalent. As I have an 8 year old I really didn't want to do this, but 1 day a week at home in my contract was worth not having to get the train to London 5 days a week - which would mean I would see her even less often, cost about £10K a year and conservatively 5 hours of my time a day.

I'm an Internet Performance Consultant - that means I help big companies make their sites, faster, more reliable and more productive. There is no reason at all that I ever need to visit an office other than to speak to clients but there simply aren't any employers brave enough to take on someone at my level without expecting attendance at the office as the normal every day occurance. I could be as available on instant messenger, skype, email or phone at my home office as I ever would be in a company office.

My experience is that it's not employees that want to get in the car and go to the office, it's businesses that are unable to cope with the idea that the office for many computer based jobs is an outmoded and unnecessary waste of money for them and the journey is a waste of time, energy and money for the employee.

I'm now looking at those "Make £££ from home" signs on lamp posts and wondering if you actually make £3 and if they expect you to go to an office to collect them

On the coal thing I see all these adverts for clean electric cars and I despair - they're going to be coal powered - by the time grid production has been converted into mechanical energy at the wheels I wonder if they'll be any more efficient than traction engines - bit quicker of course.

 

[Penners]

Have you ...a forgotten lump of magnesium in the pocket

Funnily enough, Mrs P asked me that just the other day.

I don't think magnesium combusts in contact with water, does it? I thought it was sodium and caesium that did that.

 

[Keithj]

I don't think magnesium combusts in contact with water, does it? I thought it was sodium and caesium that did that.

No. Magnesium burns with an extremely bright light, but doesn't mind water.

It's the reactive ones like potassium and sodium that dismantle water and spit out the hydrogen.

 

[Penners]

The sea is a very hostile environment and the engineering required for tidal turbines is much more difficult than for wind turbines.

I find that difficult to believe. The underwater environment is much more stable than the atmospheric environment. Storms have little of no effect once you a few metres down. So the engineering challenges are known and predictable. If we'd thrown as much money at tidal power equipment as we have at wind, we could have solved the engineering problems relatively quickly.

It may be difficult to believe, but consider the alternative. Big engineering corporations that have invested much of their futures in wind power are stupid.

Well if nothing else, this thread has produced one noteworthy surprise: Biff Vernon arguing that big business is infallible! :wink:

 

[Keith Bowman]

Make what you like of this: despite the fact that France sometimes seems to be covered with wind turbines, the sources of electricity supplied by EDF in 2010 were: 81% nuclear; 10.7% renewable (of which 7.9% hydroelectirc); 3.4% coal; 3.0% gas; 1.6% fuel oil [I think -"fioul"] and 0.3% other. So all those wind turbines produce no more than 2.6% of French electricity.

 

[MdB]

There is no reason at all that I ever need to visit an office other than to speak to clients but there simply aren't any employers brave enough to take on someone at my level without expecting attendance at the office as the normal every day occurance.

This seems to be the norm for companies dealing with their employees but isn't a problem when dealing with their suppliers. I'm working from home 95% of the time and have no issues with customers expecting me to be regularly on their site. Indeed many of them I have never met. I do spend a lot of time on Skype however sharing screens with people - this works very well. Conclusion - work for yourself!

 

[Feltwell]

In the last 5 years I've applied for many, many roles and in one case reached the final two for a charity job I really, really wanted only to lose out because the other candidate didn't ask for any remote working and I had requested a day a week (depending on suitability, after 6 months) to avoid travelling to London every single day.

It is ridiculous, it's clearly a trust / control thing. In one of my previous roles I would have a long drive to an office to then spend most of my time communicating with China, and my employer flatly refused to consider any kind of home working. The daft thing was, had I been working from home I would have started work much earlier and had much more time to talk to China - the time difference meaning that most of their offices are closing by 10-11am our time.

I now never mention remote working unless I'm at an advanced stage of discussing an offer.

Employers seem to get scared very easily by home working, and it only takes 1 or 2 people to take the mickey with it and it loses credibility for all. I spent a short (and hellish!) time working in the public sector, one organisation I was working with trialled home working with their HR department - and after launching it, it was scrapped for all when it was found that 2 of the HR advisors had cancelled their childcare arrangements and were attempting to work from home and look after very young children at the same time (which those with kids will know is impossible to do effectively).

 

[Flyfisher]

Have you ...a forgotten lump of magnesium in the pocket

Funnily enough, Mrs P asked me that just the other day.

I don't think magnesium combusts in contact with water, does it? I thought it was sodium and caesium that did that.

Ahem. Do try to keep up. :wink:

Swimming with magnesium in your trunks would be no problem, other than perhaps a little uncomfortable.
Lithium, sodium, potassium on the other hand . . . .

 

[Penners]

 

[Flyfisher]

It is ridiculous, it's clearly a trust / control thing.

Sadly, I think you're right in most cases.

I was always very conscious, and grateful, for the flexibility I enjoyed; school sports days were never missed, for example, and I often collected FF junior from school, often taking a 2-3 hours break during late afternoon/early evening to spend time with him and then catching up with my work during the evening. I'd amazed that things don't seem to have moved on much during the past 15-20 years.