July 7, 2009: Re-nationalization of the power industry

News that the government is to re-nationalize the East Coast main line shows that taking control of industries is possible when the government has a mind to do it. Now, I am the last one to suggest that this government (or any government) is capable of running anything directly. Look at the mess they make of everything they tackle. But look back to the days of the Central Electricity Generating Board. This built and operated our power stations and, in spite of claims that the plant was expensive, the industry worked very efficiently indeed. The CEGB was staffed by trained, experienced engineers who were respected by their employees, and power stations ran efficiently and safely. (Of course, accidents did happen, but power stations are inherently dangerous and in spite of the best possible care being taken, sometimes things do go wrong. But when they did, the effects were minimal and reliability was genrally high.).

No excessive profiteering, no exorbitant salaries, and a thoroughly planned, professionally staffed, smooth-running organization that delivered the goods.

You didn't have to keep switching from one supplier to another to make sure you got the best deal, because the profiteers were kept out and you knew that the electricity you bought was at the best possible price. All records were open and you could check.

In conclusion, I should say that the East Coast saga is not to be followed slavishly - the news that the line will be put out to tender again next year is amazing. What will all this cost? Dithering around solves no problems and just wastes money. I am not suggesting that this is the way to go with the power industry - I say that a clear-cut decision should be taken to put the industries under the control of a single body, directly answerable to the government. And once that decision is taken we should say, enough is enough; we've tried privatization and it didn't work, so we'll stay with a CEGB-like structure..

 July 6, 2009: A misguided bunch

I have no doubt that the good people in the World Development Movement (WDM) are a well-intentioned lot, but a friend has sent me one of their pronouncements that made my toes curl.

Here’s the gist of what they say: Creating a new coal plant in Kent could lead to 100,000 more people in the developing world losing their water supply during dry seasons. In addition, the controversial plan could be responsible for up to 60,000 more people suffering from drought in Africa, while about 30,000 others could lose their homes every year due to coastal flooding. As if this isn’t bad enough, the WDM claims that up to 40,000 more people could be exposed to malaria, and that 50,000 more people could go hungry due to drought and lower crop yields if the plans gain approval.  Deborah Doane, director of the WDM, said: "These figures reveal, for the first time, the devastating human impact of building a new Kingsnorth coal power station. The world's poorest people will lose their water supply, food and homes, and ultimately will die as a direct result of our desire to burn more coal.”

The claim is that this entire cataclysm will be brought about by the building of a single coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth.

I am serious! But I’m also bemused, as was my correspondent, by the possibility that anybody in their right minds could believe this gobbledygook, this hogwash.

Unfortunately, statements like these are picked up and bandied about by people who are prepared to believe anything, and before long a whole generation of schoolchildren are brainwashed to believing it too. Great kids, but as misguided as were the equally great kids who flocked to the banners of the Hitler Youth. Ruthless people exploit them mercilessly.

July 3, 2009: Science was fun!

I’ve recounted my early experiments with rockets; now here’s a tale of my forays into electrical engineering. NOW DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!

There was a time when Health and Safety hadn’t been discovered. You could buy interesting chemicals in pharmacies, and buy books with descriptions of how to make really interesting things. One of my earlier experiments was making a Wimshurst machine: I cut petal-shaped strips of aluminium foil and glued them in a radial pattern to an old LP record. I then built a supporting frame and used Meccano to make an axle with pulleys and a rubber band linked to a winding handle. The collecting brushes were made of thin copper wire. I built two Leyden jars out of jam-jars lined inside and out with more aluminium foil. (My mother despaired about my careless use of kitchen foil, which was then quite expensive.) When I cranked the handle the discs spun and generated big fat sparks which scared our cat out of its wits and seriously worried my mother.

I then moved on to making shocking coils from two doorbell transformers connected back to back (mains stepped down by one, then up in the other). You could get a shock off the output, but not a serious one!

I put this contraption to use, first to stop ants crawling up the pear tree in our back garden, and then to keep dogs away from our metal dustbin. The ants had been a problem every summer, attacking the fruit, but when I fixed two bare metal wires round the trunk of the tree, spaced about 1/16^th of an inch apart and wired to the transformers, the creatures drew little blue sparks from their feet as they bridged the gap, and fell to the ground. (Strange thing, we never had ants visiting again, many years after the wires were removed. I think some sort of race memory told succeeding generations that this was a magic tree, to be revered and avoided and I imagined columns of ants crawling by, bowing low and making obeisance as they passed by.)

The dustbin was more alarming. I had read in my boys' book of science about keeping stray dogs away from bins by electrifying them. (It was an American book: we didn’t have stray dogs in England, but that didn’t make any difference to me, it was the principle of the thing that mattered.) I stood the bin on wooden boards and wired it to my shocking coil.

I eventually got bored, waiting for non-existent dogs to come bay, and wandered off, leaving the thing wired up.

My mother was of genteel stock and she was standing by the kitchen window the next morning when I was at school and the dustman arrived. When I got home, did she read the riot act to me! My giggling sister told me that Mum had learned a set of words she had never heard before as the man stood at the window and raved at her.

Science really was fun in those days.

 July 2, 2009: The heatwave

I’m getting a bit scared that the events that feature in my new novel will have become a reality before the book is published!

The following was reported yesterday: ‘The drain on the electricity supply during the record high temperatures experienced in July caused the National Grid to issue two power warnings within a week … parts of central London were left without power for a second day after a series of network failures … although the failures were not caused by the weather itself, the system had experienced unusual demand for air conditioning and extra refrigeration. The gap between summer and winter usage is large, but narrowing’.

A spokesman for National Grid said ‘last week we informed the market that we needed them to generate more electricity or use less because we are getting close to our safety margin, which we do not disclose’. Demand on the hottest July day had been 44,000 megawatts. This compares to 42,000 megawatts last year, when the average temperature was 18°C. (Peak demand in winter is 62,000 - 65,000 megawatts.)

During this month's heatwave, emergency oil-fired power stations in Kent and Hampshire were fired up even though the energy they produce is very expensive - 45p per kWh. The average householder pays 14p. Naturally, the increased costs will be passed on to consumer.

Need I point out that if we had kept our coal-fired power stations running and properly maintained, and if we weren’t allowing our nuclear stations to slowly die, we could have handled this without resorting to using expensive imported oil?

Need I remind everybody that I have consistently warned that the madness of the Greens will cost us all dearly?