Npower is putting up the cost of gas by an average of 26 per cent and electricity by 14 per cent with immediate effect. It will mean an extra of 162 pounds for gas and 60 pounds on the average household bill from the company which has 6.6 million customers.
At the same time Scottish Power has announced its is raising its gas prices by 34 per cent, the biggest hike so far, and electricity by nine per cent, for its 5.2 million customer.
Two more power companies hike up gas and electricity prices
GreenForze - Gasifiers to make your own electricity
CFB Gasification for Power System Fixed Bed Gasification for Power System
GreenForze - Gasifiers to make your own electricity
What is gasification?
Gasification vs. Combustion
Combustion of carbon based-material such as coal or biomass produces CO 2 + H 2 O + heat and the heat when applied to a boiler containing water produces steam used to power a generator in a steam turbine generator.
Gasification is the thermo-chemical conversion by partial oxidation of a carbonaceous feedstock such as coal or biomass into a gaseous carrier.
Combined Heat & Power
For each unit of electric power, two units of heat is produced. This heat can be used for heating purposes in district heating systems or industrial processes ut also via a technology called adsorption cooling to cold. Fill in the form below and let us know what kind of solution you are looking for.
Energy Business Review
E.ON UK has become the latest energy supplier to respond to rising wholesale energy costs by increasing electricity prices by 16% and gas prices by 26% for the majority of its residential customers. The move comes as a result of rising wholesale costs, which have increased by over 51% since February 2008, according to E.ON. This will equate to £0.62 per day or 22% for the average dual fuel customer. More than a quarter of E.ON's customers are believed to be unaffected by the price hike as they are already on price protection and fixed price products. As suppliers increase their prices, such offers are becoming increasingly difficult to find, although E.ON has launched a range of new protection products.
Witricity wireless recharging of gadgets
World Without Wires
Intel has made progress in a technology that could lead to the wireless recharging of gadgets and the end of the power-cord spaghetti behind electronic devices.
It says it has increased the efficiency of a technique for wirelessly powering consumer gadgets and computers, a development that could allow a person to simply place a device on a desktop countertop to power it. It could bring the consumer electronics industry a step closer to a world without wires.
Plans to demonstrate the use of a magnetic field to broadcast up to 60 watts of power two to three feet. It says it can do that losing only 25 percent of the power in transmission.
“Something like this technology could be embedded in tables and work surfaces,” said Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer, “so as soon as you put down an appropriately equipped device it would immediately begin drawing power.”
The presentation is part of the company’s Intel Developer Forum, a series of events here that the company uses to showcase new technologies in personal computing and related consumer technologies.
The research project, which is being led by Joshua R. Smith, an Intel researcher at a company laboratory in Seattle, builds on the work of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Marin Soljacic, who pioneered the idea of wirelessly transmitting power using resonant magnetic fields. The MIT group refers to the idea as WiTricity, a play on wireless and electricity. Both the M.I.T. group and the Intel researchers are exploring a phenomenon known as “resonant induction,” making it possible to transmit power several feet without wires.
Induction is already used to recharge electric toothbrushes, but that approach is limited by the need for the toothbrush to be placed in the base station.
The M.I.T. group has demonstrated efficiencies of 50 percent at ranges of several meters.
Intel is in the midst of an internal debate over whether the technology may also permit the shift to supercapacitors, which can be recharged far more quickly than today’s batteries. “In the future, your kitchen counters might do it,” Mr. Rattner said. “You’d just drop your espresso maker down on them and you would never have to plug it in.”
The Intel team describes its system as a “wireless resonant energy link,” and is experimenting with antennas less than two feet in diameter to remotely light a 60-watt light bulb.
In 2006, the M.I.T. researchers demonstrated that by sending electromagnetic waves around a waveguide it was possible to produce “evanescent” waves that could permit electricity to wirelessly tunnel to another waveguide “tuned” to the transmitting loop.
Several start-up firms , including WildCharge, based in Boulder, Colo., and WiPower, based in Altamonte Springs, Fla., have already announced related wireless charging technologies. But these demonstrations have required that the consumer gadgets touch the charging station.
The Intel researchers said they were thinking about designing a system that would make it possible to recharge a laptop computer without wires.
“From Intel’s position that seems like the thing to shoot for right now,” Mr. Smith said. The receiving antenna is about the size of something that could easily fit against the bottom of a conventional laptop computer. “It could be that cellphones and P.D.A.’s are even more compelling, but I think we are going to start with the laptop. It’s easy to dial down from laptops,” he said.
The researchers said that Intel could produce a prototype design and that it might contribute to products by developing chip sets for manufacturers. At Thursday’s research presentation, Mr. Smith plans to demonstrate an application using an electric field sensor — a natural capability of some fish — to give added dexterity to robotic arms and hands. He has designed a sensor system that makes it possible for a robot hand to gauge the size of an apple and then grasp it. The hand then carries the apple to an outstretched human hand. When it senses the hand, it drops the apple.
Water Fluoridation
Water Fluoridation
"In summary, we hold that fluoridation is an unreasonable risk." - US ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY HEADQUARTERS' UNION, 2001.
“Over the past ten years a large body of peer-reviewed science has raised concerns that fluoride may present unreasonable health risks, particularly among children, at levels routinely added to tap water in American cities.” - ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP, July 2005
"I am quite convinced that water fluoridation, in a not-too-distant future, will be consigned to medical history." - Dr. ARVID CARLSSON, Winner, Nobel Prize for Medicine (2000). READ MORE...
British EDF customers are subsidizing their French counterparts.
EDF Energy's CEO, Vincent de Rivaz, has denied claims that British EDF customers are subsidizing their French counterparts. His statement came after the French government's decision to cap electricity price increases at 2% prompted comparisons with the company's recent 22% hike in UK electricity bills, and reports that EDF is using Britain's comparatively liberalized market to compensate for its now restricted French profits. Mr de Rivaz blamed the price rises on the high global prices for wholesale gas and oil, and said that the gulf in electricity bills between France and the UK is the result of Britain's dependency on fossil fuels; according to Mr de Rivaz, 75% of electricity generated in the UK is from coal- or gas-fired plants, while 80% of French electricity is generated using nuclear power.
It seems to have been a good week for EDF's rival npower renewables. The British utilities company has received the go-ahead for two power plants, both of which will use sustainable energy sources. The UK government has given npower its consent to build a large onshore wind farm at Middlemoor, Northumberland, following the conclusion of a public enquiry into the scheme. Meanwhile, the company's plans to build a hydroelectric facility at Romney Weir in Berkshire have received local approval. Councilors representing the borough of Windsor and Maidenhead voted unanimously in favor of the project after npower redesigned its original proposals. npower expects the Romney Weir project to generate around 1.4 million kWh of clean electricity each year, while the Middlemoor plant should have a total generating capacity of between 54MW and 75MW.
Balfour Beatty profit jumps, strong outlook
LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Construction and services group Balfour Beatty (BALF.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) posted a 25 percent rise in first-half profit on Wednesday and said it expects order intake and trading to remain strong throughout the year.
"We anticipate that we will make further good progress in the second half of the year," chief executive Ian Tyler told Reuters in an interview.
"We are seeing no signs of any slowdown in the public and regulated sectors, which account for 80 percent of our business, or even in the private sector, which is also continuing to invest through the cycle."
Tyler said he expected growth in all four of its businesses - building, engineering, rail and investments - in the second half of the year.
This is despite recent surveys pointing to UK construction activity continuing to fall at a record pace, in a further sign the sector is weakening sharply in the wake of the credit crunch.
The UK's largest infrastructure contractor reported pretax profit before exceptionals of 95 million pounds ($180.8 million) for the six months to 28 June, compared to 76 million pounds last year and amedian consensus forecast of 92 million poounds in a Reuters poll of five analysts.
Profits were boosted by particularly strong progress in the building and engineering sectors, while rail and investments profits fell slightly. But the chief executive expected that both rail and investments would grow in the second half, driven by an order book up 14 percent at a record 12.1 billion pounds. Continued...
Power cut hits homes
North West Evening MailWednesday, 13 August 2008
HUNDREDS of homes and businesses were without power this morning after a contractor cut through a cable.
Tesco Extra, on Cornerhouse Park, and Barrow Library, were known to be affected - in addition to 500 houses in Hindpool.
Copper theft causes five-hour train delays
British Transport Police are investigating an audacious theft of copper wire from signalling equipment on the East Coast Mainline on Saturday.
The theft, near Newark, Nottingham caused delays of about five hours, a Network Rail spokesman said.
Rail staff were forced to manually signal trains through the affected stretch of track between Grantham in Lincolnshire and Newark North Gate.
A spokesman for National Express, which operates trains on the line said: “Sadly this sort of theft has become a common occurrence over the past couple of years.”
Metal thefts from infrastructure and construction sites has shot up amid increasing raw materials costs. Police estimate that the practice costs the economy £360m a year.
11th Aug 2008
Electricity Pylons
Without their silent presence standing tall throughout the countryside, and their latticed silhouette eking towards every horizon we would, essentially, regress back to whence we came. We owe Electricity Pylons... Click for further interesting links and art.
External Links
http://en.structurae.de/structures/ftype/index.cfm?id=2018
http://www.gorge.org/pylons/
http://www.redbubble.com/groups/pylon-photos-and-art/art
http://myinsulators.com/hungary/transmission.html
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