Favourite blogs for Thoughts of me

Legal challenge to UK energy legislation

Writing about web page http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16646405

This week, green campaigners have launched a legal challenge to some aspects of legislation in an attempt to block new nuclear stations. There are two main areas of attack – governments limiting liability of the generators, and the introduction of a carbon floor price (the latter currently specific to the UK). Their challenge of course completely mis-represents the reasons why this legislation is in place. For example, on the subject of a carbon floor price Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton and Hove, claims:

“The introduction of a carbon price floor is likely to result in huge windfall handouts of around £50m a year to existing nuclear generators”

I haven’t gone into the details of her claim, but I do know the history behind why the introduction of a floor price is critical to new nuclear investment, and it has nothing to do with handouts of £50m a year to generators (which, incidentally, is not a great sum in the first place. It would represent the change in revenues of existing nuclear generators if the wholesale price of electricity were to change by 0.1p per kWh, about a 2% change in the current base-load price of around 4.5p per kWh).

A little bit of history for those who aren’t familiar with the highlights of events affecting the UK energy market during the last 30 years. Electricty generation was largely a state-owned system, with the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) owning and operating the power stations. In 1991, Margaret Thatcher concluded the sale of the CEGB to private investors, creating two companies – National Power and Powergen. However, during the sale process it was discovered that the existing nuclear fleet, containing a lot of old generation Magnox stations which were expensive to run and didn’t have a lot of life left in them, made the deal commercially untenable, and so all the nuclear stations were kept in public ownership under a new organisation, Nuclear Electric. This commercial PR disaster along with Chernobyl is what killed off the UK’s new nuclear build programme at the time, and why we only have one PWR today, Sizewell B.

Nuclear Electic was part-privatised in 1996, the newer design AGR and PWR stations sold off as a private company, British Energy, and the old Magnox stations retained under Magnox Electric and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. However, the government reformed the electricity market in 2001 with a piece of legislation called the new electricity trading arrangements. This, combined with a big dip in wholesale gas prices due to oversupply, led to a crash in the electricity price, and in 2002 British Energy essentially went bankrupt and had to be bailed out by the UK government (there were other factors, such as stations being offline, renegotiation of fuel costs and problematic business deals, but the wholesale price crash is the main trigger). The wholesale cost went down to 2p/kWh and lower, below the cost of generation. It should be pointed out that other generators also suffered from the price crash – Drax (the UK’s largest, newest and most efficient coal plant) came close to closure in 2003 because it wasn’t profitable at the time, and only a long-sighted view by investors kept it open (the plant is now very profitable).

British Energy survived with government help and was sold to EDF Energy in 2009. Now, a new build programme is looking to replace the existing nuclear fleet which is due to be largely decommissioned in the coming decade or so. However, building power plants is very expensive, in particular modern nuclear plants with advanced safety features. Therefore, investors are unwilling to commit to such a long-term project as a power station (which is expected to provide returns over a period of 60 years or more) with such high up-front costs unless they can see that their investments are secure, because it becomes too risky for the rates of return. As such, the prospect of a price crash such as that of 2001 repeating and wiping out their investment is untenable, and so long as that remains it’s unlikely that a new nuclear build programme will happen. This is the real purpose of the carbon floor price – not to give generators a £50m/year bonus (which as I’ve already stated, is small beer in the grand scheme of the industry), but to give investors the confidence to give long term commitments to new generating capacity in the UK. Without this, the industry will continue to suffer from under-investment in new capacity and we will be left with a short-term approach to new power stations, most likely further increases in the numbers of combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant. There are two problems with this approach – firstly, it makes the market much more volatile to carbon fuel prices, which are unstable both in price and increasingly supply as declines in world production and increased dependence are used more and more as a political tool. Secondly, it doesn’t sort out our carbon emissions without the additional retro-fitting of carbon capture and storage technologies, which add further to the cost and fuel use and are as yet unproven on a large scale.

Faced with these realities, politicians have sensibly opted to provide the market with an instrument that guarantees a minimum carbon price, thereby making investment in nuclear and other low carbon technologies a commercial reality without otherwise subsidising them. Whether this amounts to a subsidy in name I’m not sure; it seems a bit of a grey area and I don’t have the technical knowledge to answer that question. What I do know is it seems like a credible way of delivering long term investment in low-carbon generating capacity, which can only be a good thing for the UK’s future and the environment. Few people complain about the direct subsidy of other renewable technologies including on-shore wind (except when they are taken away) which are in any case far larger in pence per kWh than any subsidisation of the nuclear industry. The fair alternative would be to remove all forms of subsidy for all forms of power generation, and apply a great deal of upward pressure politically on the carbon price. However, without the long term security of a floor price I still question the risk of such a strategy in securing the investment required.

Christopher Sigournay : 21 Jan 2012 08:04 |  Tags: Energy Nuclear |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Higher education funding

So the vote is through the commons, and it’s likely that future students of higher education will have to pay up to £9,000 a year in fees. Student bodies have of course opposed this, with predominantly their own self interests at heart. Yet no-one really seems to have an alternative. So what really is the protest about?

Let’s look at the problem. Higher education is expensive, and needs to be paid for somehow. Traditionally, this funding (for UK students at least) has predominantly come from the government. In past times where student numbers were low, this was a sustainable model – the brightest and best went to university whilst everyone else got by with O-Levels, A-Levels, HND’s etc. Then it all started to go wrong with the drive to increase student numbers. In an attempt to fund the previous government’s frankly ridiculous target of sending 50% of people to univesity, in came tuition fees to much protest. Initially around £1,000 and then raised to the current £3,000 a year cap, much has been made of this fairly modest contribution by students to their education.

Now, the party is over and the public money has run out. The UK, like many western economies, has built up a massive debt and deficit, which must be curbed in order to avoid economic catastrophe. Most areas of public spending must come down in order to achieve this, and higher education must do its bit. What previously was seen as a right to free education for all now looks like a luxury that we can’t afford. With the numbers of people now attending universities, the lines must be redrawn.

So, the question really is, why is it everyone’s right to free university education? Free education up to the age of 18, few would argue with. But by the age of 18, young people are perfectly well equipped to go forth and start work, learn a trade or a profession. University has traditionally been the route for those who wish to take on the most challenging careers in law, medicine, science or academia. These career paths demand abilities and skills that require academic learning beyond the A-Level stage. The principle beneficiaries of these educated people are the students themselves, who go on to command higher than average wages, and the instituions that employ them.

Aha, you are probably thinking at this point, but not everyone who goes to university does benefit financially. Well no, I wouldn’t dispute that. That’s because many people who go to university now don’t actually need their degrees to go on and perform the jobs they take on in society. But as the number of graduates exceeds the demand, employers can be picky and selective, giving preference to or even making a requirement that applicants have degrees that they don’t really need for their jobs. What we have is an over-qualified workforce.

Some of you will still be thinking that my arguments exclude those whose chosen profession really does need a degree, but leads to low paid work, for example in social work. My own opinion is that in a lot of cases, we should be exploring alternatives to the degree for such work – such as a system of work-based learning and part time study at further education college, which if well designed could lead us to have even better suited people in these professions than the academic degree route. The fundamental point is though, that any profession that requires a degree but isn’t offering the wages to pay for the tuition fees is receiving a public subsidy by the government, because they are not paying out for the level of education they need in their staff.

The current system is such that all professions essentially receive this subsidy. By increasing the fees charged to students, the true cost of higher education is being made more visible to students and their eventual employers. For many, their profession values their qualification as it should and it is only fair that as a well paid professional they should have to pay for the benefit of the education that they received, which is now providing them with a quantifiable financial benefit, and their employer is paying for the cost through their higher than average wages. If this is not the case, then that profession is receiving a subsidy and this should be achieved through alternate means, either by the government increasing wages for low paid public sector professionals who are in genuine need of a degree, or by directly subsidising the fees of students who take up these courses with a commitment to public sector work upon graduation. By having to pay what it actually costs, students will also re-evaluate whether they really need a degree to do their chosen profession, and in time student numbers will probably naturally come down a little from their current levels. This is the nature of supply and demand; to argue against this is to argue for the state to subsidise an over-qualified and under-paid workforce, which is a nonsence.

Many of you reading this will find my justification for tuition fees as abhorrent as the fees themselves. But what are the alternatives? Well, I see three main alternatives:

1. Carry on as we are, keep fees at current levels or even reduce and abolish them. State subsidy for higher education will increase, the workforce will continue to be over-qualified for the jobs that they do, the government finances take the hit and other areas of public spending have to take a bigger hit to compensate for the spending. Not an ideal option in my opinion.
2. Reduce student numbers and make higher education more academically exclusive, limiting to say the top 25% of achievers. I’d support this as an alternative, but many wouldn’t – not least the NUS would have a seizure. It also doesn’t have the neat supply/demand and visible true cost of education benefits that fees do, and the government still has to pick up the tab for those who go.
3. Have a graduate tax. This isn’t actually any different to tuition fees loans for most people, except that you’d have to pay tax for your whole career instead of just paying back what you borrowed for your education. Thus, the best paid professions would be subsidising the least well paid professions. This option is attractive to liberal types, presumably because they see it as a great way of bashing corporate high fliers to subsidise a utopian dream of university eduaction free for all. The reality of this system is little different for all but the highest paid, who are effectively being actively encouraged to pay for their education elsewhere before returning to the UK for work, thus neatly avoiding having to pay the tax in the first place. Has little merit over fees in my opinion, whilst adding some flaws.

Of these options, clearly my view is that higher fees are likely to become a permanent feature of higher education, and rightly so. The idea that poor students will be deterred by going to university because of the debts shows either a fundamental misunderstanding of the terms of the loans – paid off by the state after 30 years, only paid back when earning over a very comfortable threshold, not a commercial loan in the strictest sense – or a liberal belligerence that refuses to accept that good quality higher education costs serious amounts of cash, and it’s not on for the government to indefinitely fork out for their benefit.

Christopher Sigournay : 10 Dec 2010 14:44 |  Tags: Musings Rants |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

3D TV at the Bristol Sound & Vision Show

I don’t know how many people have been following the hype about 3D television going on in the home cinema world recently, but curious myself I decided to check out the Bristol Sound and Vision Show to see the available demos for myself. Usefully, both polarised (LG) and shutter glass (Samsung) sets were available to try.

From what I can gather, the format agreed sends both the left and right image from the source to the TV at the same time, and the display then does whatever it needs to with the data to make the image 3D. In the case of the polarised LG, the left and right images are interlaced and simultaneously projected through a polarised layer; the glasses then have the corresponding polarisation over each eye to filter out either the left or right image only. In shutter glass screens, the screen alternately displays left and right images 120 times a second, and liquid crystal shutter glasses alternately shut out the left and right eye in synchronisation with the TV refresh rate to give the 3D image. The glasses for the shutter-type displays are much more expensive (about £100 a pair), which is one of the reasons why if you’ve been to the cinema recently you’ll have been watching 3D generated using the polarised effect.

The demos were sadly limited, with the special demo room giving only about 3-4 mins worth of 3D imagery on the LG TV’s, and the Samsung displaying some animated 3D content on a stand outside. As the conditions were completely different (as well as the content) and the viewing experience so small, forming an authoritive and detailed opinion would be nigh-on impossible. In general, however, I felt that the improvements given by 3D over standard HD were nowhere near as great as the flaws introduced into the viewing experience.

The LG image I generally found to be exceptionally distorted, suffering from serious ghosting of the image around the 3D objects. I noticed this to a much lesser extent when watching Avatar at the cinema, so I don’t know how much of this flaw is due to the particular hardware and how much is down to the limitations of the technique. The ghosting was bad enough to make the image very uncomfortable to watch. There was also generally significantly less resolution to the image, as a result of both the left and right images being interlaced at once. I was sat in the front row of the demo room, maybe 7 feet away from a 47” screen, so maybe viewing from further back may have alleviated some of these issues, or perhaps it was related to the content. As I said, I can’t be sure because of the limited exposure to the hardware.

The Samsung shutter glass screen I generally found to be a much more positive viewing. I’ve always had a hunch that the shutter glass approach is a superior technology to polarisation, and generally I felt that the demo experience bore this out. The content showing was very different, but was very watchable without glasses, with only a noticeable lack of definition to edges to give the 3D of the image away – but certainly nothing to make it unwatchable. With the glasses on, the refresh rate of the screen was quite visible – I believe currently the standard is to refresh at 120Hz, and the experience was similar to viewing with an old CRT screen with a refresh rate set too low – it was quite strenuous on the eyes. The image was much sharper than the LG however, and had good levels of brightness – although lower than without the glasses on. I’m not sure how much higher the refresh rate can go on the LC glasses, or even if this would solve the issue of image flicker. Overall though, I much preferred the Samsung as a viewing experience, although I still think that the negatives outweigh watching content in normal HD.

Perhaps with Panasonic’s products later this year (with all the ex-Kuro engineers assisting), the image quality will begin to accelerate a notch or two. My advice for the time being though is for would-be early adopters to hold fire with their cash.

On a related note, the demonstration of the 9.2 Onkyo receiver, also at the What Hifi stand, demonstrated what a difference extra surround speakers make. In particular, the addition of front at-height speakers really added to the viewing of a scene from 2012. I’m not sure as to all the ins and outs of this; what extra information is required on disc, and if other manufacturers are planning to bring similar products to market soon. Definitely worth a demo in the meantime though, even if it means having to have an over-lively Onkyo in your system!

Christopher Sigournay : 28 Feb 2010 21:57 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Best news of 2009 announced by BBC

Writing about web page http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2009/09/top_gear_on_bbc_hd_from_novemb.html

I was thinking recently of doing a blog post about the need to renew Trident and how it should be ring-fenced in the forthcoming economic horror-slasher film “Britain 2010: Gordon’s chickens return to roost”, but the government have beaten me to it by their announcement that our nuclear defense is non-negotiable. Happily, there is some even better news to blog about today. Top Gear, the best thing by a country mile to ever be dreamed up for the small screen, is going to be broadcast in HD when the new series starts on November 15th. I’m already devising ways of locking my TV onto BBC HD so that we regrettably won’t be able to resolve any scheduling conflicts with Strictly Come Dancing etc in our household – sorry Jen…

Christopher Sigournay : 23 Sep 2009 12:55 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Political stalemate

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8132968.stm

It appears that the current political debate in the UK on the future of the country’s finances has reached something of a stalemate. As political commentators, economists and those who follow politics in the news will know, Gordon Brown has resorted to outright and blatant lying in a last-ditch attempt to save his bacon. He’s widely on the record for portraying the next election as a clear choice between “Labour investment and Tory cuts”. I have yet to hear a single person outside the Labour party (who seem to have begrudingly united behind their leader after their disastrous European elections) express a view other than “this is a fabrication”. I even heard an economist on PM say (apologies if this is not exact) “For once, there is a very clear right and wrong, and all the government’s own figures show that Gordon Brown is wrong”. What I don’t understand is why there is widespread indifference to this at present. Perhaps everyone is exhausted in the wake of the economic crisis and the expenses scandal. But surely when the debate comes this far between one party telling the truth and the other a complete fabrication, then it’s really time to sit up and take action. I quote the linked article above:

Some in Labour feel it is not a credible position to say that the Tories are going to cut everything while Labour will invest. But cabinet ministers close to Gordon Brown believe that this is a fruitful line of attack.

How exactly cabinet ministers think that this is a credible line of attack, when the argument is clearly so far from being credible, I don’t know. Perhaps it is the only position that Labour have left, because as soon as they are forced to admit the true state of the finances and come clean they will be forced to show that their management of the economy not just since the credit crunch but before it was poor, which will do irrepairable damage to them. Mervin King has already said as much as the current levels of government spending are unsustainable – they have after all only been sustained so far by relying in turn on an unsustainable financial sector. Right now though, until Labour drop the pretence that investment will continue to rise under their governance if they are elected for a fourth term, the Conservatives will not be able to talk a great deal more about their plans for the economy, because discussion of cuts from them would result in Labour making political hay by falsely pointing the finger and claiming to have something altogether better. Nick Clegg is right when he says that neither of the two main parties is being honest with the public – but until Labour are forced into doing so, the Conservatives risk too much damage by revealing their future plans.

Christopher Sigournay : 04 Jul 2009 06:24 |  Tags: Brown Gordon Politics |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sky – one of the biggest cons going?

Following the gradual death of my CRT widescreen about 6 months ago (after just over 5 year’s life – not impressed!), we’ve been progressively updating the main living room home cinema. Despite my reservations, I allowed myself to get nagged into getting Sky+ because “It’s got 24 on it” (which I’ve never seen and couldn’t care less about). And since we’ve now got a HD television, for the extra £9.75 a month it seemed a logical thing to get the high definition package as well.

Big mistake.

I always objected to getting Sky before on four main grounds – despite the plethora of channels, there’s pretty much nothing worth watching; the boxes don’t allow you to transfer files to your PC to back up content to DVD etc when you run low on hard drive space; you’re tied into their hardware which is not exactly the last word in performance or reliability, and most of what you end up watching you get with the standard television licence anyway. Having now had the box for a couple of months, I can confirm all of the above to be the case.

On the adverts for Sky, we’re constantly reminded of “How easy it is to record a series” “Even my Grandad can do it” etc etc. And yes, I can confirm that the setup is indeed pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it; it has some neat features (although I find the EPG quite clunky to navigate because of the sheer number of channels that I don’t want to watch). However, it’s little use being able to set up a series record easily if the record fails without any diagnosable reason about 50% of the time. Looking around the forums, I’m not alone. I thought that most of the problems with the early boxes had been resolved, but I’m unfortunately mistaken and hardware issues are still widespread. Compared to my Humax Freeview PVR, the Samsung HD box I have is absolutely hopeless. It regularly claims to have no signal for hours or even days at a time, has locked up several times lock up in a blue screen and require resetting, and above all the missing recordings fault outlined above really defeats the point of a PVR in the first place. The earlier Thompson boxes are supposedly even worse; I think the Pace ones are a little better but it seems to be a little bit of luck which one you end up with, and Sky support seems none too helpful on the matter. I’m particularly irritated that as an informed customer I can’t request which box I wanted; and requesting a swap seems like a fairly major battle.

So assuming that I’ve missed the recording, I suppose I could always use the catch-up facility to miss those episodes of 24 which I’m shelling out nearly £30 a month for. Afraid not; despite having a decent speed broadband that doesn’t struggle with iPlayer, the Sky streaming software plays back with unwatchable lags and breaks while it regains some semblance of a buffer. I also can’t get the “save to disk” functionality to work, despite having tried it on two separate computers (which in itself is a mission because Sky will tie it to one PC only at a time so you have to call them up to swap it over) and un-installing suspected conflicting software. Useless.

And even when you do actually get a picture, the effect isn’t as impressive as you might think (assuming that you can find something worth watching on a Sky-only channel that justifies the subscription in the first place). Sure, the picture quality is pretty good (particularly once you ditch the cheap HDMI cable which gave me a lot of interference through my receiver; guess I can’t really blame them for this so much because everyone builds to a cost), but the sound is really sub-standard and for me goes quite a way to spoiling the whole experience. I think at best it’s on a par with my humble 3 year old Humax Freeview PVR through a couple of inexpensive RCA connections.

Sadly, Sky tie you into a minimum 12 month contract when you sign up, so it’s an expensive lesson in trusting your instincts and standing your ground when you have reservations about a technological product. Hopefully if you’re reading this, you might not make the same mistakes that I did. Save the cash towards a holiday / another gadget / give to the needy / burn £50 notes for fun. Whatever you choose to do with your hard-earned, just steer clear of Sky.

Christopher Sigournay : 30 Mar 2009 23:09 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Caroline Lucas on the Today programme

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7630000/7630821.stm

If you were listening to Radio 4 at 7:50 this morning, you would have heard a rather firey (considering it was between two environmentalists who are theoretically therefore on roughly the same side of a debate) discussion between Caroline Lucas, who heads the Green Party, and Mark Lynas, who is a well-known activist in environmental circles. The feature came about because Mr Lynas has spoken in favour of nuclear power as something we need to decarbonise the electricity generation sector, which has resulted in him receiving a very harsh backlash from his fellow campaigners. We saw a similar reaction a few months back with George Monbiot, when he voiced his opinion that climate change was a far more important issue than the traditional opposition to nuclear power of the green movement, and that he “no longer cared” if we went nuclear or not. So why the emergent rift? And who is right?

It seems to me that Monbiot and Lynas are part of a growing cluster of people within the environmental movement who have begun to look past the traditional Chernobyl/atomic weapons opposition of the past and really think about how we can practicably meet the very tough environmental targets of the future. They have tried not to simply criticise current policy, as others have, but actually respond to the policymakers question of “well, what would you have us do?” with something implementable.

The facts are these: currently, electricity generation makes up for 20% of our energy consumption in the UK, about another 30-35% being transport and the remainder falling to space heating and industry. If either hydrogen fuel cells or electric cars/public transport is to grow in the future, this electricity demand will increase significantly. This is coupled with a projected future increase in population of the UK of about 10m by 2050, and a continued growth in the economy (a key efficiency measure used in policy making is one of emissions relative to economic output, thus a growing economy may make use of its energy more efficiently yet still have rising emissions as a nation) which will likely outstrip any marginal gains in efficiency once everyone has had their lofts insulated and pipes lagged. Nuclear power currently accounts for just under 20% of our electricity generation, with all but Sizewell B currently scheduled to come offline by 2023. Add this up, and what you get is a gaping hole in electricity generation both in the short and medium term. Unless the economy is to rapidly shrink and the lights are to go out (which would result in the quick breakdown of civilisation as we know it – not a palatable thought), this gap needs to be filled.

Anyone within the power industry will tell you that this hole will likely be plugged by gas fired power stations. While a lot more efficient than coal, there are three big problems with gas power: firstly, most of the generation cost is in the fuel, so volatile commodity prices as we have seen recently result in a very unstable wholesale price. Secondly, the UK is a net importer of gas now the North Sea fields are depleted, and relations between the UK and the big gas exporters are, shall we say, frosty. This leaves us exposed to the political whim of nations who aren’t afraid to do us some serious damage – not an ideal position to be in. And thirdly of course, this doesn’t come close to meeting our emissions reduction targets. So beyond plugging very short-term gaps in generation, an expansion of gas-generated electricity is not a very wise move, and the UK would do well to reduce this sector in the long term.

One of the main hot topics in energy at the moment is carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS. Long-term, this may well prove to be a silver bullet for the energy sector, allowing the use of plentiful supplies of cheap coal around the world to be used to generate electricity without an environmental side-effect. However, there still has yet to be a demonstration of the technology on a large commercial scale, and no-one can really give any guarantees as to how successful technically or financially this will be. To rely on CCS at this stage of saving our bacon would be more than a little risky given these facts.

The darlings of the environmental movement, efficiency gains and renewable energy, will of course play their part in the future energy mix. However, efficiency measures will only take us so far, and as outlined above growth in the economy, population and usage for electricity means that demand is likely to increase, not decrease. The renewable energy sector is currently estimated at taking a 60% share in electricity generation by 2050, but what about the other 40%? Furthermore, renewable energy requires backup for when the wind isn’t blowing etc, and this adds to the cost. The higher the percentage of renewables, the more backup you need and the more expensive it becomes. Backup is also likely to be a fossil fuel burning power station, which again doesn’t do much to help those emissions targets. Expansion of unreliable renewable energy to such a large (or even larger) share is therefore likely to be firstly very expensive, and secondly require environmentally unfriendly backup. It’s also not been demonstrated that it’s even implementable on such a scale.

Where this leaves us then is nuclear energy. Proven? Well it’s been working in this country since 1956, and with new designs is becoming ever safer, cheaper and more straightforward to decommission. Nuclear proliferation is also not possible with PWR (pressurised water reactors – the type likely to be built as the next generation of reactors) designs, as creation of weapons grade plutonium requires very frequent refuelling to prevent build up of unwanted plutonium isotopes. PWRs are operated commercially on a flat-out basis with no on-load refuelling for a lengthy period of time, making extraction of fuel for use in weapons impractical. Low carbon? Current estimates suggest a carbon emissions figure of 7-60g/kWh for nuclear (through-life cost including uranium ore mining and refinement), which is on a par with/lower than many renewable energy sources, leave alone gas at over 350g/kWh and coal at over 700g/kWh. Waste? Waste repositories are currently being constructed at several sites around the world, which is widely thought will store waste securely for thousands of years until it is no more active than the radiation from background sources. Evidence that this will succeed includes examples from nature, where active materials have been securely stored in rock for billions of years with no escape of active materials despite sub-optimal conditions. Cost? New stations are now designed with over 50 years of experience, and designed to be decomissioned safely and economically. Experience with legacy equipment should not be allowed to be confused with what is being proposed for the future. Fuel costs are also around 10% of operating costs, which provides much more stability in costs. Studies show that an appropriate mix of nuclear power is projected to be significantly cheaper than increasing renewable energy usage beyond the 60% planned level by 2050. Reliability of supply? Newer designs have excellent load factor performance.

So, the next time you hear Caroline Lucas tell you how expensive nuclear power is compared to other technologies like renewables, how we don’t need it because we can all save energy usage by efficiency measures, how dangerous it is because of nuclear wastes and the risk of proliferation, take a moment to consider her claims and do some research for yourselves instead of believing the rhetoric. And realise just how much twaddle her and her ilk talk.

Christopher Sigournay : 23 Sep 2008 13:50 |  Tags: Green Idiots Nuclear Party Power |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Carbon calculators

Writing about web page http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk

I was bored the other day, and thought I’d try out the government’s “Act on CO2” carbon calculator. I mostly put in just details about my own life, only adding in an extra car at 5,000 miles a year to see how much this would affect my carbon footprint. If you haven’t had a go at the calculator already, it asks you quite a few questions about your lifestyle – number of TV’s and how long they’re on, how many loads of washing you do a week and at what temperature etc. So I was expecting this to come out as pretty accurate.

I was surprised to find that my CO2 footprint (for my household, of 2) was 17.63 tonnes/year, compared to a national average of 10.2 tonnes/year (which I thought was per household by the way it’s presented, but I have a feeling is per person). Given that I live in a modern flat, which is very cheap to run, I was rather surprised by this figure (before anyone points the figure at my driving, my houshold came at just over 10 tonnes compared to transport of 7.4 tonnes). So I did some digging around…

Despite the claims that the calculator doesn’t double count, I’m pretty convinced it does. Having asked you what your bills are for gas and electricity (which surely is the sum of your carbon footprint, unless you add in water costs which it doesn’t ask you about), it then asks you lots of detailed questions about your appliances. I therefore dug around the web for 15 minutes, and calculated my own carbon footprint against the calculator’s. My results were:

2.9 tonnes Gas
0.7 tonnes Electricity
Total home: 3.6 tonnes

2.7 tonnes Petrol car
4.9 tonnes diesel car
Total transport: 7.6 tonnes

Total footprint: 11.2 tonnes
Total/person: 5.6 tonnes

This is based on my consuming 1500m3/yr gas, 3000kWh/yr electricity, 20,000 miles/yr of my diesel car (at 50MPG) and 5,000 miles/yr of a hypothetical fun petrol car (at 20MPG). Data used for calculation:

Natural gas 1.94kg/m3
Electricity 0.238kg/kWh
Petrol 10.68kg/UK gal
Diesel 12.22kg/UK gal

The table from the Carbon calculator, on the other hand, looked like this:

Total Footprint for Home 8.54
Heating & Hot Water 8.32
Lighting 0.22
Total Footprint for Appliances 1.67
Kitchen 0.62
Entertainment 0.42
Study 0.4
Other 0.23
Total Footprint for Travel 7.42
Vehicle 7.42
Flights 0
Total Carbon Footprint 17.63

The transport figures are in pretty good agreement, but the home section is pitiful. The heating and hot water (which is only gas) is about 3 times too high, and the electrical footprint is over twice as much as what I calculated.

The carbon calculator is a nice idea, but I think they need to do a bit more work a) Not double counting things b) Not disregarding what you give as your total household consumption and c) More clearly presenting per person and per household figures.

Christopher Sigournay : 29 Jul 2008 13:36 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Interesting development in environmental motoring

Writing about web page http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Articles/306687/Exhaust+to+biofuel.htm

Ok, so I’m a month or so behind the curve on this one (I found out about it whilst reading a mate’s car mag), but the link is to a technology that anybody interested in motoring or climate change should take an interest in – vehicle based carbon capture.

From what I can glean (specifics on this at the moment are very hard to come by), the principle is for the fitment of a filtration system into an internal combustion engine exhaust. The filters can be removed and then the CO2 extracted by bubbling it through an algae generator, which can then be used to make biofuel. There are a number of significant questions unanswered about this:

• To what extent does the increase in exhaust back-pressure affect engine performance – horsepower, fuel consumption etc

• How intrusive will the system be in terms of space and weight.
  Each cartrige holds 8kg of CO2, which will give a range of about 50 miles before it needs changing on a standard car. Apparently two cannisters can be used together to double range. Longer journeys, or higher emission cars, would therefore either require frequent stops to change cartriges or a larger storage capacity. I would imagine this would add a fair amount of weight and take up a lot of space

• The practicalities of growing biofuels from algae on a large scale. There would obviously need to be some energy input into the algal growth, probably from sunlight. In order to grow algae rapidly a large area for the generator would presumably be required

• Development costs and time

If you read the linked article, you’ll quickly see that the above queries have yet to really be answered in the press releases so far, and I suspect the technology is a fair way off of being fitted to every car given how new this is on the scene. A good dose of scepticism is therefore heavily advised on at the moment, and I have my doubts given the above points. However, it’s an intriguing concept which I really think might have some merit and it’s definitely one to watch progress of.

Christopher Sigournay : 14 Jul 2008 13:39 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Return to the blogsphere

I haven’t written a post since last November. How time flies! A combination of a heavy workload at work and moving into my first home has somewhat taken its toll on my free time. A brief update of what I’ve been up to:

• Bought a flat in mid-December. I’m now living just south of the centre in Bristol, which is a bit more convenient for work (although I’m now working on-site at Oldbury so still driving every day…). I appear to have timed my first foray into the property market quite well – please don’t ever say the words “negative equity” to my face.

• Sold my ST in February. After owning from new, the moment was fast approaching where I would face horrendous depreciation, and as much as I didn’t want to sell it, I’m too much of a tightwad for a hatchback to lose me £500 a month. It’s been replaced by a Mondeo Ghia X TDci

• Got an allotment. It’s just out the back of my flat, and has been sapping a lot of my time of late. It was a total mess when we got it, and I’m not expecting any crop to speak of this year; hopefully all the digging will pay off next year.

• Had a three week holiday recently to go farming. Decided I fancied a change this year and worked for a grassland contractor near to where I grew up. Got a shiny new Fendt 718 to drive which was a lot of fun, if a tad complicated!

• Got promoted at work in April – am now a senior engineer.

• Jenny properly moved into my flat recently, so we’re now living together.

Self-indulgent life update over, normal service will be resumed shortly.

Christopher Sigournay : 08 Jul 2008 12:57 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Fun day at work

Most days at work, I end up just going into the office, doing some Finite Element Analysis, write some reports, send some e-mails and have a few phone conversations. Today however, I got to look around, stand on top of, and touch, a nuclear reactor operating at full power (700MWth). It was a long time in coming, but man what a day! I think I can safely say that was one of the most fun/awesome tours ever. Maybe I was meant to be an engineer and not a farmer after all.

Christopher Sigournay : 02 Nov 2007 22:18 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Farewell to a trusty friend

Today is an important and slightly sad day for me, as I have now sold my second car. I picked up my trusty Escort on 14th February 2002; an R-reg 1.6 Finesse with 64,200 miles on the clock, from Runcorn near Manchester. I kept her with me through the rest of uni, first when I was living in Tile Hill, then Bishops Itchington in my third year (where I had an awesome 18 mile drive in each day along country roads) and then when I moved back on campus in my 4th year. Since graduating I’ve mainly used her for running up and down the M5 to work every day (about a 100 mile round trip), but as I’m looking to move nearer Bristol now I think it’s the right time to let her go. In the just under 3 years 8 months I’ve had her, I’ve driven nearly 62,000 miles, with the only breakdown happening when I went to go out for the evening in my 4th year to discover a dead battery (it was the one that came with the car, so had lasted nearly 9 years – not a bad innings). We’ve shared some good times, and some bad ones too. From the highs of early morning blasts into uni (such as one very memorable one I had at the end of my 4th year when I was going into one of my last exams at about 7AM) to the lows of dull commuting. So I’m back down to just the one car now. Farewell old friend, I hope you serve your next owner as well as you have me.

Christopher Sigournay : 04 Oct 2007 20:09 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A sad day

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6997270.stm

Yesterday motorsport lost one of the great names of a generation. McRae lit up the world of the World Rally Championship and brought it to the fore, with a combination of a likeable prankster in his character and amazingly balls-out commitment in his driving. When on form on gravel, no-one could hold a candle to him, and though he threw the car off the course time and time again he never reigned in his instinct to race at, and often beyond, the limit of what the car was capable of. When leaving his home territory of Rallying, other motorsport arenas showed that his talent was supremely flexible, with creditable performances not just in similar off-roading evens such as the Paris-Dakar Rally buy also circuit racing events, most famously perhaps at Le Mans. For over a decade his name has been synonymous with Rallying and Motorsport, and he will be sorely missed by his millions of fans.

Christopher Sigournay : 16 Sep 2007 19:30 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

More green nonsense on the Nuclear issue

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6982884.stm

Hands up who saw this one coming? Environmentalist groups have pulled out from the government’s nuclear power consultation, claiming an unfair and incomplete debate on the issue. As I understand it, their concerns relate specifically to the issue of nuclear waste and the ‘misrepresentation’ that it is an issue that has been dealt with. Well as far as I’m aware it has been. The vitrification plant has been open at Sellafield since 1991, which uses a proven technique of sealing high level wastes into a glass block, and then cooling the blocks until activity has died down. Many radioactive materials generated in the nuclear industry have much shorter half-lives than most people think, with in excess of 99% of activity decaying within 40 years of a reactor shutdown. Low level and intermediate level wastes, which make up over 95% of nuclear waste, are simple to deal with via direct shallow burial, or in some cases where medium wastes are active over longer periods by deeper burial.

High level waste, which is really only generated in the civil industry by reprocessing activities, represents less than 3% by mass of nuclear wastes (but over 95% of activity); a typical power station producing about 3 cubic metres of high level waste a year (after reprocessing and vitrification). There is space capacity in current facilities for over 100,000 tonnes of HLW, with around 12,000 tonnes a year generated by current activities; storage is currently therefore not an urgent issue. After a cooling off period of a few decades, HLW can then be transferred into secure long term underground storage facilities. Sweden is advanced in this area, with the KBS-3 geological disposal process designed to secure wastes for over 100,000 years, after which the wastes are no more radioactive than the ore from which they were mined. Natural fission reactors that occured millions of years ago demonstrate the security of nuclear reaction products even in rock formations that we would deem unsuitable and with extensive ground water present and no man-made containment around the wastes. The French are also investigating transmutation of wastes in their Phenix reactor.

In conclusion then, the technologies and processes for dealing with nuclear wastes are in fact highly developed and have in most cases been around for some years, and are well proven. This is unsurprising for an industry that has been operating and generating waste for over 50 years. An issue not dealt with? I highly doubt that.

Mr Hutton said the government had made a preliminary view about the nuclear issue but did not have a “closed mind”.

In reality, the closed mind belongs not to the government and the industry, but to those who oppose it.

Christopher Sigournay : 07 Sep 2007 13:32 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Green taxes too high?

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6972759.stm

Well I’ve been arguing this for some time – see previous comments and posts on the excessive cost of fuel duty vs the cost to the environment for example – but a report out today claims to back up my view that green taxes are already too high. According to the report, in 2005 the UK’s total impact on the environment was valued at about £11.7bn damage against a green tax cost of £21.9bn. In the same day, George Osborne has come out with an outline of Conservative taxation policy that would see Labour’s high rates of public spending met, and taxation shifted from an income-basis to an environmental impact-basis. I used to enjoy following politics with interest, but since Cameron’s leadership began I’m more of the opinion that everyone in Westminster is in a race to prove they’re more insane than everyone else there. Pathetic.

Christopher Sigournay : 03 Sep 2007 12:51 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Political disillusionment of the centre right

I originally scribbled down the first half of this blog entry whilst I was on holiday following an interview on You and Yours with a wife of a Tory candidate who failed to be selected for his constituency, but I haven’t had the time to upload it. A month later, and after some ideas for additional material last week and my inability to sleep tonight, I’ve finally gotten around to typing it up. Here goes…

An interview on Radio 4 recently with a wife of a Conservative candidate got me thinking about what I think is wrong with the politics of the centre right, in particular since the Tory party has been led by David Cameron. In the selection process, the traditional Conservative candidate – a middle-aged, wealthy, middle class self-made gentleman was beaten by the more in-vogue choice of a single parent etc etc in the name of becoming more representative (my apologies for not recalling the individuals or the contest which would I admit make this section of this post a lot more useful). This example highlights the truth for the middle classes looking to move into politics – traditional conservative candidates are no longer viewed as electable by selection committees because of a need to pander to minorities.

Let me make it clear at this point that I do not believe myself to be racist, sexist or possess any other unfair biases against people. I have always argued that the best person should be put forward for the job, regardless of where they came from, what they look like etc – capability and experience should be the deciding factors every time. Instead, it would seem that in an effort to correct any wrongs of the past is in truth creating a reverse discrimination against the previous ruling elite. I appreciate that this might sound daft, given that the Tory leader is a well spoken gent from Eton and has surrounded himself with aides from a similar background, and that the middle classes are not exactly under-represented in parliament just yet. But certainly the limelight and the publicity has swung towards showing off increased numbers of female candidates, or candidates from non-white UK backgrounds. I re-iterate that I have no axe to grind about these candidates being elected, but they are being put forward essentially because of who they were born as – female/black/etc and not necessarily because of their capability. When attending functions whilst a member of Warwick Conservatives – a fairly stereotypical society I would say in light of the membership being predominantly well spoken middle class white men with ambitions of a future in various professional arenas, although there were also a fair few female members and a few people you might not have expected to be there – it was fairly evident to me that the most effort was put into enthusing the female members to consider careers in politics, and I felt almost dissuaded by the stories of capable and charismatic candidates with plenty of drive failing to be selected because they were too stereotypical.

So why the shift? Has public relations really taken such a forefront in politics these days that even the arena of governance of our country has fallen foul to the trappings of appearance over substance? The recent Brown bounce would suggest that the voting public don’t necessarily agree with appearance over competence, yet I fear Cameron may be falling too far down the slippery and fickle slope of chasing the popular vote by jumping on severely overloaded and tired-looking bandwagons left right and centre. In fact, given his performance over the recent months since Blair left, if it wasn’t for the fact that I can’t stand the views and policies of most of the members of his party or the fact that it was he who utterly annihilated the pensions system and yet seems to have gotten away with it (rant for another day) then I myself would probably be voting for Brown rather than Cameron were a general election to be called tomorrow. As it stands I don’t think I could find it within myself to really cast a vote that I believed in.

And yet… Listening to John Redwood last week on Today, it touched a part of my brain and beliefs that has lain dormant for some time. It ignited something; I found myself once more feeling passionately about the political issues being discussed. Now I’m not a devout follower of Redwood myself – his economic policies are a bit more free-market than even I’m prepared to go, a case in point being his argument for de-regulation of the mortgage markets in the week that the sub-prime US mortgage sector caused serious turmoil in the financial world, but nevertheless his arguments for cutting down red tape, reducing taxes and then reaping the proceeds of the resulting growth to pay for them reminded me of why I am a Conservative through and through. Cameron has spent nearly two years in charge telling us that he’s a true Conservative whilst at the same time telling us that it is time for us to change. I think that if he wants to keep his followers believing in him then perhaps Mr Cameron could do with a little changing himself, and that perhaps his party need to remind him of what Conservative core beliefs really are. He’ll never be a patch on William Hague, but with individuals like John Redwood around to try and steer policy we might just end up with an opposition worth voting for, something that actually has some substance and policy rather than a few green taxes and black single mums from dodgy estates to try and belatedly show the public that we’re somehow in touch with them. If you really are a true Conservative Cameron, then show us. I dare you.

Christopher Sigournay : 23 Aug 2007 01:22 |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Bumper stickers

I’m not usually a big fan of bumper stickers, but this week I saw a rather good one. In small writing so you had to be quite close (I hasten to add I read this whilst stationary in traffic), someone had stuck to their bumper:

I have good brakes…
Do you have good insurance?

Tres amusing. I promise to return with something of content soon…

Christopher Sigournay : 16 Aug 2007 21:39 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Out of the office

I will be away for the next 3 and a half weeks on holiday. I may have some form of web access but it will be very sporadic, and I’ll be very unlikely to update here (not that I seem to be anyway of late). Until then, I’m off for some serious R&R. Take care folks.

Christopher Sigournay : 11 Jul 2007 22:06 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Why can't more Agony Aunt columns be like this?

I have a confession to make. When bored, I have found myself reading Agony Aunt columns to entertain myself. Not that I’m particularly interested you understand, just that at that moment in time I really have managed to find nothing better to do. This cutting, however, is worthy of special mention…

Now why can’t there be more like that?

Christopher Sigournay : 22 Jun 2007 23:56 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

What not to do #107

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/6705243.stm

If you happen to own a nuclear power station, I would strongly recommend that you try and avoid this. High voltage transformers tend to go bang quite spectacularly; the consequent reactor hard trip from almost full power on a 40 year old degraded graphite core is not really the way to encourage longevity. Considering this is the first time in over a year that Oldbury was actually producing any electricity, this is a bit of a disappointment for those involved.

Christopher Sigournay : 31 May 2007 13:16 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem