Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
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UTILITY WEEK | 5TH - 11TH FEBRUARY 2016 | 31 Community Editor, Utility Week, and content director, Utilities: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen. bennett@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; Deputy news editor: Lois Vallely, t: 01342 332080; e: lois.vallely@fav-house.com; Networks correspondent: Lucinda Dann, t: 01342 332083, e: lucinda.dann@fav-house.com; Reporters: Saffron Johnson, t: 01342 332050, e: saffron.johnson@fav-house.com; Tom Grimwood, t: 01342 332061, e: tom.grimwood@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; 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 £637 per year. Overseas £749 per year. Top Tweets Purr-fect storm What strange times we are living through, thinks Discon- nector. Oil heading for $20 a barrel, Donald Trump heading for the White House… are these biblical portents of impending disaster? Okay, so the lion isn't lying down with the lamb, but the woman has become the cat – or at least one woman has. Nano, a 20-year-old Nor- wegian, claims she has been born in the wrong body and is really a cat. Among the feline characteristics she lays claim to are a heightened sense of hear- ing and smell, a detestation of water and a loathing of dogs. The only external evidence of Nano's cat-ness is a false tail and a pair of ears stuck on her head, although she maintains it's "obvious" she's a cat because she walks on all fours, paws at the window to be let out and "meows and stuff ". The great man sympathises with Nano, since he himself was born into the wrong body. In his case, he seems to have be reincarnated as a lowly, under- paid hack instead of a carefree, uber-rich playboy. It's obvious that this is the case, because he "spends money he hasn't got on credit cards and stuff ". Symbolic victory Talking of strange portents, and stuff, for more than a year, stories have appeared in the press about criminals drawing strange symbols on the pave- ment outside people's homes to convey information about the householder to other criminals. Police forces in South Lanarkshire, Devon and War- wickshire compiled lists of the symbols and their suspected meanings and circulated them. Red faces all round, then. Turns out the marks had been le by utilities. Not, the great man hastens to add, to convey messages to passing criminals, but information for work crews carrying out maintenance. Thus, the symbol of a circle with a cross drawn through it, thought by police to signify "nothing worth stealing", turns out to mean "proposed new position of lamppost". Symbols thought to be similarly sinister and to convey meanings such as "wealthy" or "good target" turn out to mean "cable duct" or "water". What a letdown. But fear not, something else will come along soon for all the conspiracy theorists out there. Aer all, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Hit for six Mind you, the big reveal that the Da Pinchi Code (as it was dubbed) turned out to have been le by utility companies may not have been so reassur- ing to some citizens, so low in the esteem of the general public have they fallen – par- ticularly energy companies. This was brought home to Disconnector last week by a headline in The Sunday Times: "Zero tax bill for the big six". The story was a follow-up on the previous week's screech- fest about Google not paying much corporation tax. In fact, the big six the head- line referred to was not the big six energy firms, but six of the ten biggest UK multinationals (such as Shell, BAT and Lloyds). Maybe it was just bad luck that the research happened to throw up six companies, or maybe "big six" has become a handy moniker by which the media understands you will infer "baddie". How did it come to this? The power's in your hands The world's energy crisis came close to being solved last week when Biba Struja, a middle- aged Serbian, revealed that he can generate electricity with his bare hands. This is thanks to him accidentally grabbing a live electricity cable as a child, which bestowed on him the ability to power light bulbs, boil an egg and even cook a sausage using nothing but the power generated by his body. However, sadly for the advancement of science, Mr Struja has opted not to take his electrically enhanced self to a university lab for testing, but instead to TV shows in Serbia, where, for a fee, he will demonstrate his bare-handed sausage-frying superpower. Disconnector William Marchant @richonlyinname Wondering if EdF's problem isn't that it's bankrupt & bad at project mgt, but that it's really polite & can't say no Green Party @TheGreenParty @GreenJennyJones "Nuclear energy has never been cost effective. We need to think about heavily investing in renewables" Mark Johnston @mark_johnston Will someone tell @George_Osborne the Chinese cash hasn't arrived yet and no one knows when it will. #Hinkley #EDF Leanne @Lea1978red Boris Johnson To Open New 'Super Sewer' or as it's otherwise known, Conservative headquarters. Waterwise @Waterwise Meat free Friday/Monday – one hamburger requires 2400 litres, having one meat free day is healthy and will save water around the world. NRDC @NRDC Increasing renewables to 36% by 2030 would provide about half emissions reductions needed to hold warming to 2C. aurore julien @aurore_julien In Denmark, wind power now produces 42.1% of the total electricity consumption! Kirsty Blackman @KirstySNP Asked UK minister why he is focusing on increasing shale gas rather than supporting ukcs complicated gas extraction. Answer was SNPBad. Sigh Labour DECC Team @labourenergy @lisanandy Osborne's sudden decision to drop CCS not only damaged investor confidence but also wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers' money Clea Kolster @cleakolster "Not having CCS is like not having a goal keeper in football – it is crucial" says Mike Thompson from CCC #climateaction #IsCCSDead