Energy consumption

India uses the most fossil fuel

Use of any type of energy, that is produced with the effect of carbon emmission will contribute towards global warming.

If we reduce energy consumption in whichever shape or form, we’ll do good for our planet.

Lets look at cooking for example. It makes a huge difference whether we use gas, electric hobs or induction.

I have realised that induction hobs use considerably less energy than any other form of cooking.

Yet what makes is very difficult for most people to actually get the latest white goods to instal in their kitchen is to have the facilities to do so.

My landlord for example, is a social landlord. They make a kitchen available and that kitchen has built in units with a facility for an built-under double oven and hob.

The measurments however are so tight, that it would not accommodate the standard of goods available in the market today.

The kitchen was made to accommodate a double oven and a gas hob or hob that doesn’t sink into the work top below the work-top level.

Now most work-tops quite thin.

Induction hobs tend to sink into the oven space and take about 2 cm away, which makes it impossible to fit into it any standard double oven.

Yet, when I asked my landlord about altering the kitchen unit the accommodate the latest energy saving cooking method, they refused, telling me that I just have to get what I can fit into the space provided or make an application to alter the unit myself.

The problem with altering any type of standard kitchen unit from a landlord, means they make you responsible for the maintance of it, and that piles on a cost, which otherwise tenants would not have to pay.

So all in all using the most energy friendly form of cooking is being made impossible by inflexible furnishings, provided by landlords and owners who do not want to facilitate change because of the cost.

Landlords should be made to provide flexible fittings, which accommodate any new technology, to make life more environmentally friendly. Instead they only supply, olf-fashioned, often wood-chip type furnishing.

Still I installed an induction hob anyway, I just will have a problem finding an oven that fits into the space below the worktop.

I have a space of 68.5 cm, which is too short for a double oven and too big for a single one. My landlord doesn’t care.

It’s a similar story with energy provision in homes via standard electricity and gas central heating systems, all provided by landlords to tenants.

Social landlords do not by default instal solar energy panels on the roofs of their buildings, they do not yet provide plans to change heating use to underground heating extraction.

Lets think about energy

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I have just woken up to a dire situation whereby I realised that I pay double the meter charge that I would have to pay with the cheapest offer on the market today. Even the KW unit price is available much cheaper than what I get at the moment with my current supplier.

Just wondering why do energy suppliers do it? They offer an inital cheap offer, fixed for a year, then, suddenly they drop you off that bargain price and put you on an incredibly expensive tariff.

Do they think you just keep on paying?

So we energy users are kept moving, almost yearly, from supplier to supplier because we can only get the cheaper tariffs if we are new customers who sign up online and choose online management.

So far I have not had a smart meter, apparently they do not work when you change suppliers and you have no choice but to change suppliers frequently because the prices get hiked up after the initial sign-up period.

We customers we just have to go with the flow.

Whilst my biggest spending period is now over, at least I can rest assured that my new tariff will over next Christmas and beyond.

With bigger suppliers we stand a better chance of getting green energy as their networks are well developed.

LBTH council budget 2020

Looking at the latest budget discussions published by Tower Hamlets Council, it seems to cause offense that the council wants to raise council tax by 3.99%, citing among other an ever tightening belt and less funds.

So, I look at the docs, which are published in that respect and I find it impossible to get a reference stating why the council put £17 Million into building and improving Raine’s Foundation buildings and how the tax payers of this borough actually benefit from that.

It seems easier to get a building improved for free and then close the school rather than continue education there. Is that a logal loophole that has been exploited?

I have asked my local MP Rushanara Ali and Councillor Danny Hassell for comment, which I shall share as soon as received.

Anyhow I am looking at a document called budget amendments pack and it contains some interesting facts and figures.

There are two main motions

1. From the Conservative group
2. From Lib Dems

Obviously the wasted £18 Million in total on Raine’s Foundation expenses and the additional cost of building a brand new school in Shadwell makes up a considerable amount of expenses. Yet, I can’t see any direct reference in the large amount of documents published.

Perhaps it would be easier to actually have a fully transparent easy to read list of documents.

So The Conservative group propose and end to a loss of reserves through inflation by investing the money.

I agree that purchasing solar wind farms would be a great idea but can’t see where they actually could be built in Tower Hamlets. There are however different proposals on environmentally friendly heating by using ground heat.

Purchasing cheap for rent flats for key workers in the borough is a great idea but that would mean that all those who change jobs and stop working for services in the borough would have to move out and that creates a whole new lot of problems.

I agree that a publicly owned charging system for electric vehicles is very good, yet the main point of problem is that the electricity itself needs to be green electricty.

Again the Conserverative group complains about how often the name of Mayor Biggs and John Biggs is mentioned in the now 1/4 publication of East End Life and ending this publication would mean a mere saving of £864 k per annum. A small sum compared to the £18 Million that has been gifted to the Church of England and the Raine’s Foundation.

Of course the ‘hail our leader’ philosophy is nothing new. In Iraq for example there were big billboards with Saddam Hussein everywhere.

But mentioning a person by name repeatedly does nothing to disperse with policies, which are damaging.

Anyhow social media has run away with election campaigns, false news and plastering us with news about some politicians endlessly for years now.

It is concerning that the East End Life budget is higher than the spending on CCTV in the borough, but that does not necessarily mean that we need to get rid of East End Life.

What is however concerning is that quite a lot of money is put into mother tongue language classes and that money should be used instead for ESOL classes to help the 27% of adults in the borough who do not speak English.

Anyhow, I highly recommend that people spend time and do the number crunching. Today’s media is full of glam gossip, we need more reality publications.

 

Freedom of Expression

The latest scandals about the Brexit propaganda has upset very many residents in Britain and abroad alike. The Freedom of Expression has assisted those who produced white and even whiter lies to mislead the public.

Voters are told to expect bent truths and put up with it. Of course it’s the comprehensive Freedom of Expression, which does NOT require concrete proof of statements made, that enables the political lying to go on and on and on.

I think that each and every statement about political promises, economic outlooks, should contain a minimum of analysis that explain why that argument has been made.

Say you promise that nuclear energy helps us to produce cheaper electricity, explain how this is beneficial and how Hinckley Point, unsuitably placed right near the coast is a decade long investment, that may be swallowed up by floods due to our ever increasing earth warming.

Political planning should always be required to include several outlooks:

• economic
• social
• political
• environmental

But thanks to the fact that our politicians remain in office just for a short while, we have to put up with short promises.

Look at David Cameron resigning, his premiership and his MP position once his work was done. We have to live with his decisions but he can just move on and earn more money. It’s like politicians are just in the job nowadays to press a point, then resign and “Nach mir die Sintflut”.

The government however is very concerned when the Freedom tends to preach hate against our system and Prevention of Terrorism Acts produce articles to help the state lock up those who wish to eradicate our political system altogether.  That is pointed mainly against those who wish to maim and kill.

Looking back at my own litigation, I thought their publications where aimed to whip up frantic extremism. Yet the government now only prevents open calls for murder and mass fraternities.

Yet the law is slowly changing, looking at Women’s rights, cat-calling gets criminalised and the political and hateful BANTER I had to put up with can now be prosecuted when it comes to sexual harassment.

How safe is nuclear power

I am quite amazed what one can read in those free papers and magazines that are given out at Underground stations and in this copy of Shortlist, page 37, there is an article about nuclear power. This seems to want to convince us that nuclear power is really not all that bad and that we need more of it instead of less.

The reasoning is completely beside the point it compares having a car accident with having a nuclear accident and puts this in the perspective of there is a 10.000:1 chance of dying in a car but there is a 1.000.000:1 chance of a nuclear reactor problem.

What this extra stupid comparison forgets to mention that if we have a car accident the problems created are very much isolated to the very geographical spot we happen to be on. This means only the people in the immediate vicinity of the accident will be affected. But if a nuclear reactor goes wrong the whole planet can be badly affected.

It is insane to think that just because there is a lower chance of a nuclear reactor going wrong that we now must plaster the whole country with them.

The German Atomic Conscience

Just as David Cameron announced a nuclear energy programme for the UK, the Germans are out on the streets, protesting against nuclear energy in the light of the Japanese disaster.

I am very impressed by that because it shows that the German self-preservation instinct is still intact. It is this attitude of Cameron to roll out a nuclear energy program throughout the UK that makes me very disappointed with the Conservatives. This practically nullifies everything else I might fight beneficial about Tory policies.

We cannot simply come along and say, but wait a minute, didn’t we fight the Germans in Word War I and II and so have to keep on fighting everything they do? When I heard the German anthem being played at the Monaco Grand Prix I felt proud to be from Germany and when I look at the nuclear policy of late, I regret having gotten myself a British passport.

These latest German protests in Germany show to me that there is a healthy survival instinct in Germany and I wonder why Cameron first of all wanted to sell off all forests and make more nuclear energy available.

Angela Merkel pledges to cease all nuclear energy production by 2022.  Currently 23 % of German energy is produced with the help of atomic power and rightly the German industrialists have argued that there is danger to the German productive economy from its German base. There is little chance that a disaster like the Japanese one will strike in this region just yet but long-term earth warming predictions are as grim for us as for the rest of the world.

Yet current government advisors have said that nuclear energy is the cheapest solution for Britain. I just think that is a little bit short-sighted and I am very disappointed at this suggestion being embraced by the current government.

 

the case against nuclear power plants

is made by this latest earth quake, that struck at 8.9 richter scale off the cost of Japan. Even though nuclear power plants have shut down automatically, damage done by sudden natural disasters can have other effects that are not preventable by shut down.

US builds giant solar plant

The International panel at the Climate Change Conference. I promoted the concept several years ago, when I attended the International Climate Change Conference at the London School of Economics. It shows how long it takes for an idea to manifest itself and a country to actually adopt plans put forward.

At the LSE CCC conference we were given plans that predicted that giant solar plants the size of the UK could produce energy for the whole world. Yet the question of how to pump that energy around the world with cables was a major stumbling block for the centralised solar energy plant in the Sahara.

This map shows that a solar plant the size of the UK could supply the whole world with solar energy, its just a matter of transporting that energy to the countries.

President Obama’s support for solar energy is more than welcome to produce renewable energy and do so local. Relatively speaking his initiative was realy quick. Of course the US has plenty of sunny spots but we in Europe are not so lucky. In the UK we’ll rely on wind farms or locally produced energy made from waste products or even energy produced on house roof tops in form of wind turbines.