Utility Week

UTILITY Week 3rd July 2015

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UTILITY WEEK | 3RD - 9TH JULY 2015 | 31 Community Editor, Utility Week, and content director, Utilities: 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; Assistant editor (insights): Jane Gray, t: 01342 332087, e: jane.gray@fav-house. com; Research analyst: Vidhu Dutt, t: 01342 332026, e: vidhu.dutt@fav-house.com; Reporters: Lois Vallely, t: 01342 332080; e: lois.vallely@fav-house.com and Lucinda Dann, t: 01342 332083; e: lucinda.dann@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 William Marchant @richonlyinname Cuadrilla [kwad-real-yuh]: the quantum of time that planning permission for fracking takes. Example usage: "it takes Cuadrillians of years." Leo Hickman @LeoHickman Interesting to watch various uses of "nimby" today – eg anti-frackers r being called "nimbies" by same people who oppose onshore wind David Powell @powellds Only 3 of the 14 councillors voted 'yes' to fracking in the end. What a resounding kick in Cuadrilla's undercarriage. Charlotte Batson @BatsonandCo Solar and wind need subsidies and STILL don't work for baseload. Save the money and stick to #NatGas #fracking Natalie Bennett @natalieben After #fracking decision, with #Hinkley nuclear in deep trouble, surely time for even this govt to focus on renewables & energy conservation JesseJenkins @JesseJenkins Nuclear power is the densest fuel yet harnessed by humanity. Nuclear fuel 200,000 times more dense than coal yuna @yunawinter the oil industry is trying to squeeze oil out of rocks now maybe we should try solar or wind power or something idk I'm not a 'professional' John Deben @lorddeben Trouble with "free" market - it isn't free. People make profits by dumping costs on community not customers. Coal & Oil Cos in particular. Labour Energy @labourenergy Ministers have been saying stopping onshore wind will save consumers money. CCC report says they should come clean about costs to consumers. Top Tweets Disconnector Transparent convenience Most of the UK was dry last weekend, so there was no rain and consequent mud bath at Glastonbury, which flew in the face of tradition some- what. In other ways, though, it bore all the hallmarks of a classic Glas- tonbury gathering, involving 170,000 people standing in a field before getting lost on the way back to their tents. It had its usual share of controversy too, including finishing off on Sun- day night with musical genius/ charlatan (cross out according to taste) Kanye West, whose potty mouth in his songs le the BBC dealing with a flood of complaints. Which seems appropriate somehow to Disconnector, since Glastonbury has always been about potties in one way or another. For some, the legendary awfulness of the music festi- val's portable toilets are reason enough to stay away. For others, they're a rite of passage. But even for those who revel in the Glasto toilet experience, there's been one thing missing, and that's being able to watch other people watching you. Until this year, that is. WaterAid set up a "Loo with a view", swap- ping the door of a wooden toilet cubicle with a one-way mirror so that users could look out at passers-by. Disconnector The idea was to highlight the plight of the millions of people around the world who don't have access to an indoor toilet and have to use the outdoors, where they're exposed to the prying eyes of strangers. Disconnec- tor hopes those queuing up to use the loo realised the door was a one-way mirror before they sat down or they were in for a shock. That would have slowed down the queue considerably. Crappy festival Staying with Glastonbury's toilets for one moment, Discon- nector was surprised to learn that this year fully one-fih of the site's 1,300 toilets were composting toilets, which means users simply sprinkled sawdust over their, er, deposits. In about 18 months the human waste will have broken down sufficiently to be used as fertiliser for flowers and crops and the like. The plan is to use the "humanure" at Worthy Farm. It raises the intriguing pos- sibility that future generations of visitors will be eating locally sourced burgers whose buns and meat were grown with the aid of human poo. The hippies could conceivably be wearing flowers in their hair grown from the same source. That means there will be a good deal more crap around the place than just the stuff they're listening to. Now, all some genius has to do is find a way of recycling human urine and maybe the crowds in front of the Pyramid stage could be persuaded to stop pissing in plastic bottles and launching the stuff over the heads of everyone else. Cold comfort Despite the world warming up because of greenhouse gasses, it appears we could be in for some very cold winters soon because the sun is cooling down. Not cooling down perma- nently, you understand, just going through one of its peri- odic cycles. We are currently in a "grand solar maximum", apparently, which means average temperatures around the globe are high, but in the next half-century there is a one-in-five chance (according to boffins) of us moving into a "grand solar minimum", which will mean both a dramatic fall in sunspots and very cold winters, like those seen in the 17th century when the Thames froze over. On the plus side, it means it's less likely an electromag- netic pulse from the sun will wipe out all our electronic communications and cast us all into the Dark Ages. On the minus side, it's going to get very, very cold for a while. Oh, and it won't make any difference to overall global warming. We'll end up frying anyway.

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