Utility Week

UTILITY Week 8th January 2016

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UTILITY WEEK | 8TH - 14TH JANUARY 2016 | 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; Assistant editor (insights): Jane Gray, t: 01342 332087, e: jane.gray@fav-house. com; Associate insights editor: Mathew Beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@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; Saffron Johnson, t: 01342 332050, e:saffron.johnson@ fav-house.com; Business development manager: Richard Powell, t: 01342 332062, e: richard. powell@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. 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 Top Tweets Why does it always rain on me? May you live in interesting times. Isn't that how the old Chinese curse goes? Well, life is proving a lot more interesting for new water minister Rory Stewart than he expected when he took up the post last year. Rory's specialist subject is defence and foreign affairs and he's previously been quite happy to pitch up on Ques- tion Time and current affairs programmes with his tuppence worth, but he's proved unchar- acteristically camera-shy since his ministerial promotion. If he was hoping to serve out his time at Defra quietly before a meatier brief was thrown his way, the constant deluge of water that has bat- tered the UK for the past two months is making that a big ask. Aer all, it's difficult to keep your head below the para- pet when there's floodwater washing over it. He gamely tried to defend the government's record, say- ing the "central problem" was unprecedented rain, not a lack of flood defences, but his pro- testations fell on deaf ears. No- one buys a newspaper to learn that floods are God's fault. Fortunately for Mr Stewart, Environment Agency chair Sir Philip Dilley had the misfor- tune to be on holiday in Bar- bados while large parts of the North were underwater, so the tabloids breathed a collective sigh of relief and blamed him. However, Disconnector notes that in press releases now emanating from government websites, Rory Stewart is being referred to officially as "flooding minister" rather than "water minister". Rory might be well advised to practice sloshing around in wellies wearing a sad expression while rehearsing the line: "I feel your pain." Bring home the bacon It's what meat-eaters have been longing to hear: if you want to save the planet, you're better off eating bacon than lettuce. According to scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, eating lettuce could be three times worse for the envi- ronment than eating pork. You better believe it. The boffins compared the greenhouse gas emissions from the production of 1,000 calories of different foods and found that one of the worst offenders was lettuce. Because lettuce is so low in calories, you would have to eat at least two whole iceberg let- tuces to get close to the calorie intake of two rashers of smoked back bacon. As a result, the emissions from transporting bulky lettuces are far higher per calorie than those from pork. Lettuce is also far more likely to perish before it reaches the dinner table, with the food waste further increasing its emissions footprint. That said, cabbage produced only a fih of the emissions of pork per calorie, and broccoli produced less than half. But when it comes to eating meat, there's only one that really matters: bacon. And there's only one vegetable that meat-eaters are interested in comparing bacon with, and that's lettuce. Smorgasbord of power Over Christmas it was announced that a power com- pany in France has commis- sioned a biogen unit that runs on cheese. The plant converts skimmed whey, a by-product of making Beaufort cheese, into a biogas by adding bacteria that cause the whey to ferment. The plant is in a town called Albertville in the Alps – an area famous for its Beaufort cheese. Its output will be sold to EDF and according to Valbio, the company that designed and built the plant, it should be enough to sustain a community of 1,500 people. The idea could have legs in the UK, which is almost as fix- ated on cheese as the French. It would have to be adapted, of course. You wouldn't get much output if it was fuelled solely by the nation's appetite for Beaufort – too specialist. But build a station that runs on Cheddar and Stilton you'd soon have the Drax of cheese- based biogen plants. Disconnector Angus MacNeil @AngusMacNeilSNP George Osborne's austerity meant no spend to fix flood defences when the sun was shining. #EndAusterityStupidity Have I Got News For You @haveigotnews David Cameron commits to spending money on flood defences, but only for the duration of "'Dry January". The ADE @theadeuk @frontierecon @imperialcollege report says #industry and #powerstation #waste #heat could supply 11TWh heating by 2030. William Marchant @richonlyinname Missed by many in the pre-Christmas docu- ment dump, but Decc's proposals to bolster Ofgem's enforcement powers look pretty significant… Thomas Edwards @thomashenryedwards Merry Christmas, £124/MWh cashout anyone? Jon Ferris @jonferris2 @TomHenryEdwards Merry Christmas, but you won't get generators out of bed for less than £2500/MWh cashout these days. Thomas Edwards @thomashenryedwards @JonFerris2 Took a Christmas walk and saw Fiddlers Ferry at full pelt. So it's good enough for some! Juliet Davenport @davenportjuliet Congratulations to @EdwardJDavey and @ NinaSkorupska – New Years Honours List 2016. Richard Nourse @richardhcnourse Brilliant news of CBE for @NinaSkorupska in the New Year Honours List for all her work with @REAssociation and WISE Campaign. Richard Nourse @richardhcnourse Huge congratulations to @davidjcmackay on his knighthood. Without the Hot Air among best books I have read and should be handed to all new MPs.

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