Our government isn't running anything...

All handed over, uncoordinated, unregulated, to the privatised utilities. Their priority was to implement remote disconnect/reconnect for their own business convenience to avoid expensive 'engineer' callouts.

The "smart" bit is of no concern to them...


What could possibly go wrong with that?...

A badly lost opportunity...

And our planet burns with such greed and incompetence...

All on our only one planet,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

The Government decided on the policy, and assigned/sold the project to the contractor of their choice. When the project doesn't deliver, I blame the Government for the failure in delivery - bad implementation. It's the Government that needs to resolve the problem, either by kicking the current contractors in the wallet or up the backside, or by taking the contract away from them and assigning it to a competent contractor.

kicking the current contractors in the wallet or up the backside

Why not stick their wallet in their back pocket and so one could kick both at once and really focus their attention.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

There's been a lot of hoo-hah about "my smart meter isn't working", but is anyone asking the counterpart question: "is the Government data network running in my area?" It takes two to tango ...

...or specifically at the installation site of the smart meter which in my country is often in basements of larger houses, 1.50...2.0 m below ground level and behind reinforced concrete walls.

Our low-voltage grids are almost exclusively owned by municipal utilities. These "companies" typically have a high level of competence and are extremely reliable; the grid's maintanance status is almost perfect.

The legally required transition to smart meters is mainly being pushed by these utilities in places where solar infeed (e.g. balcony solar panels with plugs) could make classic meters run backwards. In theory, these modern digital meters are "smart". But they lack the (optional) comm module. Radio or cellular networks are difficult to use in basements; Internet access (in basements of larger appartment homes) requires additional fiber or DSL connections (causing monthly costs). As a customer, I have to pay a 20% higher monthly fee for my smart meter than for a classic meter; without any benefit. In theory, my smart meter can manage flexible tariffs; in practice, there is no such thing here for (commercial as well as non-commercial) customers with low consumption (< 6,000 kWh/year). And it will still be like this in ten years... or twenty years.

While this solution won't work everywhere, it will help in locations where one has a convenient, cooperative volcano:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e8q4j1yygo

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Want power when you go hiking/camping or on structures that can't take the weight of traditional solar panels? The CSIRO has just the thing.

CSIRO opens $6.8m printing facility to make flexible solar panels.

Solar panels that can be printed out like newspapers and rolled up to fit in your pocket are one step closer thanks to a new development by the national science agency.

CSIRO has opened a $6.8 million facility in Clayton, Victoria, to take its printed flexible solar panel technology out of the lab and into the real world.

Printing solar cells involves suspending advanced solar materials called perovskite in ink. The ink can then be printed onto long continuous rolls of flexible film made of plastic that conducts electricity.

In March this year, the CSIRO team reached a milestone, achieving a world-first efficiency level of 15.5 per cent. That breakthrough puts the printed panels roughly on par with the capabilities of common rooftop solar panels, most of which sit between 14 per cent and 18 per cent efficiency.

The leader of CSIRO's Renewable Energy Systems Group, Dr Anthony Chesman, told ABC News Breakfast this new facility was aimed at taking the next step towards commercial production......

Cheers.

This is long overdue:


Heat from sewers, tube and Thames could soon warm London buildings
wrote:

Westminster plan for UK’s biggest heat network could involve parliament warmed by waste and low-carbon heat...

Shame the political hot air can't be usefully recycled for anything more than sitcoms!


All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Shame the political hot air can't be usefully recycled for anything more than sitcoms!

It can. Humans emit ~80 watts per hour. If more power is needed... increase the number of parliament seats... and connect a heat pump to Westminster palace aircon too... Our current 20th Bundestag season with 733 MPs generates an impressive 60 kilowatts. There's still a problem with the many absent MPs, thus unpredictable heat output...

[sarcasm mode = on]
The average UK front bench of recent years would far exceed that even on a day when they were sleeping.
[sarcasm mode = off]

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Humans emit ~80 watts per hour.

Back in thermodynamics class we calculated it out at 100 watts per hour. Might have just been the prof picking the right round number estimates on the surface area of a human.

Back in physics class, I was taught that the watt is a measure of the rate of energy transfer over a unit of time, with one watt equal to one joule (J) per second: W = J/s.

So humans emit 80 or 100 watts, whether you measure it over 1 second, 1 hour, or 1 day.

So humans emit 80 or 100 watts, whether you measure it over 1 second, 1 hour, or 1 day.

That's a former science project here. It attracted a special bunch of people... It's the same at einstein@home. That's why you have to be careful with such fundamental units here, right? I messed this up. ;-)

I don't insist on 80 watts either. My gut feeling tells me there also the 100...120 watts people as well as the 70 watts ones. I don't know of any scientific study, just such a rough, general estimate like ~80 watts which should be sufficient to plan aircon or ventilation systems.

It is interesting how mankind have managed to create technology over the decades to make the climate in buildings more comfortable, better controlled, and better adapted to people's well-being, while at the same time reducing primary energy consumption dramatically. The progress made in the last 20...30 years is particularly impressive. The tech exists, you just have to install it everywhere, while keeping an eye on costs. What saves lots of money in Central London could be an unaffordable madness elsewhere.

That is what I miss in many progressive ideas on climate protection: looking at costs ($*) and benefits ($*). Green tech is only green if you can proove it, everywhere it is used... down to the pound and penny, and to watts and watt-seconds.

* CO2 must be contained here as an external cost, e.g. CO2 certificates.

A planet wide solar boom is beating expectation at every turn.

Over the past two decades, solar power has been undergoing a revolution.

Billions of panels have been shipped to all parts of the globe.

Lined up in vast arrays out in the desert and tucked away on discreet rooftops, they’ve been turning sunlight into terawatts of power.

Climate-tech startup TransitionZero has scoured the world’s surface for medium- and large-scale installations, using machine learning to pick them out of satellite imagery.

The individual farms are too small to see from a distance, so we’ve sliced up the globe into a 50-kilometre grid and visualised them that way here.

The data reveals how, in recent years, the installation of solar farms has accelerated into an all-out frenzy.

This massive growth spurt has propelled solar from bit player to a sizeable chunk of the planet’s energy mix.

And it’s taken less than two decades.......

There is hope yet:


Babies and the Macroeconomy
wrote:

Fertility levels have greatly decreased in virtually every nation in the world, but the timing of the decline has differed even among developed countries. In Europe, Asia, and North America, total fertility rates of some nations dipped below the magic replacement figure of 2.1 as early as the 1970s...

Soon enough?

Significant enough?

Positively enough...?


All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I can't help thinking that this could be triggered by the massive use of hormones to treat "non-illnesses", for example the use of growth hormones in livestock, children who are perceived to be "not tall enough".

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I can't help thinking that this could be triggered by the massive use of hormones to treat "non-illnesses", for example the use of growth hormones in livestock, children who are perceived to be "not tall enough".

Biologically: Micro and nanoplastics are one factor implicated. Sociologically, people are deciding to have fewer children because of several factors: high costs/inflation, changing social norms, instability and uncertainty of long-term prospects, increase in standard of living providing birth control and education (both of which tend to reduce average number of children...)

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What a beautiful idea to take a healthy interest!


Canadian researchers trial nature trick to boost mood in winter
wrote:

Volunteers asked to go about normal routine while paying more attention to natural world

... for those who fear the cold and dark ahead, help is on the horizon. Researchers in Canada are investigating a simple trick they hope will boost flagging spirits even when the days are short and frost is in the air.

“People really need something to help them get through the winter, especially after Christmas,” said Dr Holli-Anne Passmore, the psychologist leading the study at Concordia University of Edmonton in Alberta. “If people don’t like winter in the first place, they really don’t see anything good in it.”...

... “People tend to discount how good they’re going to feel when they notice nature,” she said. “Part of it is our whole western society. We want a pill, we want something new and improved, we always want the latest.”

Besides its parks, trees and other plants, Edmonton is home to squirrels, rabbits, coyotes, beavers and hundreds of wild bird species. In the bustle of daily life, they easily go unnoticed. “We know that people are becoming more and more disconnected from nature,”...

... "... Every time you go out it’s exhilarating.”

We all live in a beautiful world...

Why ignore it?

Why spoil it?!


Be Excellent and Enjoy!

All in our only one world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

We all live in a beautiful world...

Why ignore it?

Why spoil it?!

By covering it in solar panels and wind farms.

We all live in a beautiful world...

Why ignore it?

Why spoil it?!

By covering it in solar panels and wind farms.

Or industrially digging it up or pumping it dry or covering it up in pollution...

How do we save ourselves from ourselves?...


All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)