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UTILITY WEEK | 10TH - 16TH APRIL 2015 | 31 Community Editor: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen.bennett@fav-house.com; News editor: Jillian Ambrose, t: 01342 332061, e: jillian.ambrose@fav-house.com; Associate news editor: Mathew Beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@fav-house.com; Insights editor: Jane Gray, t: 01342 332087, e: jane.gray@fav-house.com; Research analyst: Vidhu Dutt, t: 01342 332026, e: vidhu. dutt@fav-house.com; Reporter: Lois Vallely, t: 01342 332080; e: lois.vallely@fav-house.com; Business development manager: Ed Roberts, t: 01342 332067, e: ed.roberts@fav-house.com; Business development executive: Sarah Wood, t: 01342 332077, e: sarah.wood@fav-house. com; Publisher: Amanda Barnes, e: amanda.barnes@fav-house.com. General enquiries: 01342 332000; Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year, overseas £689 per year, t: 020 8955 7045 or email membership sales manager Paul Tweedale: paultweedale@fav-house.com. ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: Buxton Press, Palace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE. Published by: Faversham House Ltd, Windsor Court, Wood Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 1UZ 3,580 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2014 Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year. Overseas £689 per year. Email: paultweedale@fav-house.com Nick Grealy @ShaleGasExpert Bennett: Sweden has 50% renewable energy UK only 5%. Sweden has mountains, water and 15% of UK population. ElectricityNorthWest @ElectricityNW If you had a powercut today, I can confirm that it was not an #Aprilfools joke, it was just very bad timing. Jennifer Webber @jennifercwebber Looking back at polling from 2014 FIVE times as many London voters less likely to vote for polit party opposing onshore than more likely to. Climate Reality @ClimateReality "There are no price fluctuations for [wind] fuel – like you see [with] coal and natural gas – because the fuel is free". William Marchant @richonlyinname *Dictaphone* TV idea: The Tariff of Not- tingham. Robin Hood saves consumers from robber baron by switching tariffs. Channel 5. Set in Derby. UberFacts @UberFacts The US uses 25% of the world's energy, while Google alone uses .013%. Herostone @HerostoneMedia Will this finally make people get off their ass- es and do actually something about climate change? #CaliforniaDrought #ThanksBigOil Rainforest Alliance @RnfrstAlliance "I'd put my money on the sun & solar energy... I hope we don't have to wait until oil & coal run out" - #ThomasEdison Dan North @tastapod That's the trouble with nuclear talks. You can know what they are talking about or how long they'll go on for, but never both. The Political Hat @ThePoliticalHat Do the #earthhour twits who tweet pics of candles realise candles produce more CO2 than old-fashioned lightbulbs powered by nuclear energy? Top Tweets Disconnector Moving story comes at a price Disconnector was somewhat surprised by the revelation that the Environment Agency forked out £135,000 to move 55 water voles from the Somerset Levels to an "over-wintering" facility for six months while the part of the river they lived in was dredged. The 2013 floods in Somerset were blamed by many on the Environment Agency neglecting its dredging duties, so the good citizens of Somerset are doubt- less gratified that the agency is spending £6 million on dredging 8km of rivers in the county. Not all of them are happy that £135,000 of it is being spent on moving voles, though. Apart from anything else, it may well be unnecessary. The BBC quoted local farmer James Winslade, who claimed that when annual dredging took place before the agency took over, they had never seen fit to move any voles. "They're not stupid," said farmer Winslade (referring to the voles rather than the Environ- ment Agency). "They feel the vibration and move on – it's not like they haven't any other habitat to move on to." Whether or not the voles would have been happy to camp out in an adjacent field until the dredger passed is something Disconnector isn't qualified to comment on, but the great man can't help but observe that two- and-a-half grand seems a lot to pay per vole moved. Disconnector Who knew vole-trapping could be so lucrative? Gold-plated job Another job that could soon turn out to be very lucrative is running a sewage works. We're all famil- iar with the expression "where's there's muck there's brass", but it's truer than we knew. An eight-year study has just been completed by the US Geological Survey, which found that levels of precious metals in human faeces are comparable with those found in some com- mercial mines. Extrapolating from its figures, Britain's excretions could produce metals worth a cool half a billion pounds a year. It turns out trace amounts of metals are found in household products such as cosmetics and shampoo. And even in some food and drink. The researchers are trying to develop ways of removing metals from human waste, chiefly for ecological rea- sons. But they were surprised at the amount of gold to be had. Lead scientist Dr Kathleen Smith said "the gold we found was at the level of a minimal mineral deposit", meaning if that amount were in rock, it might be commercially viable to mine it. So there you have it. It may not have quite the cachet of vole-wrestler, but if you work at a sewage farm and you're collared by someone at a dinner party who demands to know what you do for a living, you can soon legitimately answer "gold miner". Beating a drum for the rules Jobsworths oen come in for a lot of flak, but some professions really benefit from your being a stickler for the rules. Brain surgeon and fighter pilot, for instance. Disconnector would like to add to that list: people who handle nuclear waste. Last year there was a major radioactive leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carls- bad, California. It le 21 work- ers at the site contaminated with low-level radioactivity. Government scientists have just completed an investigation into the accident and concluded a drum of nuclear waste was "inappropriately packaged" at the Los Alamos National Laboratory near Santa Fe with "chemically incompatible" contents, including cat litter. The report found that work- ers at Los Alamos had added Swheat Scoop cat litter to drum 68660, which later caused the barrel to heat up and generate gas, which caused it to rupture once in storage and spill its radioactive contents. Conclusion of the report? Don't put cat litter into barrels of radioactive waste. Disconnector had always assumed a certain fastidious- ness was applied when adding any substance to nuclear mate- rial. At the very least, you'd expect those sort of decisions to be made by nuclear physi- cists rather than the blokes humping the barrels around.