UK nuclear energy plans - roadshow begins...

UK nuclear energy plans - roadshow begins

Monday, 30 July 2007

The Government's discussion with the public about the country's future energy needs has moved up a gear with an extensive programme of nationwide consultative events starting in Bristol today. Bristol is hosting one in a series of twelve regional stakeholder events being held over the summer to capture the views of green groups, energy companies, businesses, consumer groups, unions, faith groups and academics. In addition, a major deliberative exercise involving a demographically representative sample of 1,100 UK citizens will be held in September in nine cities across the UK. Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said: "Keeping the lights on for the decades ahead while also cutting carbon emissions is one of the biggest challenges of our time. The Government's Energy White Paper sets out a range of responses, including increased energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage and more renewable generation such as offshore wind farms. "The Government also believes that new nuclear power stations should be an option for energy companies in the future, but we want to consult as widely as possible on this before making a decision. "This is a big decision with consequences either way. It's critical that we listen to all the views and get it right." The consultation is running for 20 weeks in total, significantly longer than standard government consultations. The Government has commissioned a range of specialist organisations to conduct and evaluate the consultation. Despite this consultation excecise,however, it is thought that the Government is keen to give the go ahead for a new generation of nuclear reactors, which would create major workload for the UK construction industry. (Source Builder & Engineer. 30th July 2007) Related Items Construction health and safety forum UK floods lead to strategy rethink Building ban proposed near power lines Migrant workers hit UK construction claims TUC report Women Builders win recognition in honours UK Construction firms sign up to Skills Pledge

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Sustainable Construction Strategy.

London, 30 July /PRNewswire-GNN/

DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENTERPRISE AND REGULATORY REFORM News Release
(2007/032) issued by The Government News Network on 30 July 2007
Reducing on-site waste, using sustainable materials, and increasing skills
in the workforce are just some of the targets set out for the construction
industry in a draft Government and Industry Sustainable Construction Strategy.

The proposed joint strategy, launched today for consultation, aims to help
the industry deliver more sustainable construction methods and products.

The draft strategy's key areas include:

Reducing the carbon footprint of activities within the construction sector

Production of zero net waste at construction site level

Developing voluntary agreements and initiatives between the construction industry and its clients with the aim of reducing the carbon footprint and
use of resources within the built environment.

Creating a safer industry by improving skills, boosting the numbers of
workers taking part in training programmes, and retaining more skilled workers.

National Schedule of Rates.

Schedule of Rates for Building and Associated Services.

The first National Schedule of Rates was launched by the Society of Chief Quantity Surveyors and the Building Employers Confederation in 1982, in response to the Government’s legislation on competition in the public sector.

Together with the appropriate contract conditions, The National Schedules allow customers to issue a series of works orders, confident that the charges for the work will be based on a pre-determined and agreed basis of measurement and pricing. Without The National Schedules, the customer has to produce their own schedule or obtain a series of competitive quotations before placing an order. Alternatively, orders may be issued with or without the production of an estimate and, subsequently, the client would be charged a lump sum, or on a day work basis without knowing the likely out-turn cost. The National Schedules therefore save time and money

Within the utilities sector composite rates have been compiled of repetitive projects establishing small project activity based construction cost. boundaries have been set for risk such as excavation depth etc.

These schedules comprise, in total, of approximately 15,000 items of work. In the case of the Building, Mechanical, Electrical, Road Works and Painting & Decorating Schedules each rate is broken down into its material, plant and labour constituents, which are individually updated annually. Items are presented in layman’s terms for use by non-technical staff.

Each schedule is issued with guidance notes, preliminaries and preamble clauses and is directly related to the Joint Contracts Tribunal’s Standard Form of Measured Term Contract (1998). The alphanumeric coding structure allows users to insert additional items if they so desire and thus making them extremely flexible.

Used by Public Utilities, NHS trust, Local authorities. Post office and Marks and Spencer.

List of Users and link to NSR Home page.

BCIS Tender Price Index.

Contractors can expect workload to increase in 2007 restoring confidence in market
According to the latest Tender Price Index compiled by BCIS the price of new construction work rose in the year to 4th quarter 2006.

Peter Rumble, Managing Technical Editor, BCIS said:

"With new work output having increased by 5% in 2006 as a whole, and with an above trend increase expected in 2007, tender prices are likely to continue to rise next quarter as contractors’ confidence continues to return to the market."

However, there are some mixed signals from the trade surveys.

The Construction Confederation reported that, on balance, there was a significant increase in enquiries in 4th quarter 2006, and that contractors were expecting workload to increase next quarter.

The Federation of Master Builders reported static enquiries in 4th quarter 2006, and that contractors were not expecting a change in the level of workload in 1st quarter 2007.

New work output is expected to rise well ahead of trend over the next three years.

It is anticipated that the private commercial and infrastructure sectors will be the main contributors to growth over the forecast period, with work on the 2012 London Olympics starting to make an impact from 2007.

Managing Technical Editor, BCIS Peter Rumble continued:

"Above trend increases in new work output and upward pressure from increased input costs, are expected to result in tender price rises well ahead of general inflation over each year of the forecast period."

Visit BCIS at www.bcis.co.uk.

Electricity WiTricity

Recent demonstration of a 60W globe being powered from a source over two metres (seven feet) away, a more popular application could be to recharge electronic gadgets such as mobile phones, making them truly wireless.

A key point is that WiTricity does not use electromagnetic radiation, which would be inefficient and possibly hazardous. Instead, it relies on magnetically coupled resonance which gives efficient energy transfer and interacts very weakly with most common materials including living creatures. "The fact that magnetic fields interact so weakly with biological organisms is also important for safety considerations," said researcher Andre Kurs.

The system uses a pair of copper coils. One generates a magnetic field oscillating in the megaHertz range, and the other resonates with that field and converts the energy back into electricity. In comparison with magnetic induction (as used in electrical transformers), resonant coupling remains efficient when the two coils are not very close together.

"The crucial advantage of using the non-radiative field lies in the fact that most of the power not picked up by the receiving coil remains bound to the vicinity of the sending unit, instead of being radiated into the environment and lost," said team member Robert Moffatt, an MIT physics student.

One drawback is that a smaller receiving coil means a shorter range. According to the researchers, a notebook sized coil can receive more than enough power to run the computer within the same room as the transmitter.

The project, inspired when team leader Professor Marin Soljacic repeatedly forgot to recharge his mobile phone, was funded by the US Army Research Office, National Science Foundation and Department of Energy.

http://www.witricitynet.com/

HOW WIRELESS POWER COULD WORK
Wireless power
1) Power from mains to antenna, which is made of copper
2) Antenna resonates at a frequency of about 10MHz, producing electromagnetic waves
3) 'Tails' of energy from antenna 'tunnel' up to 2m (6.5ft)
4) Electricity picked up by laptop's antenna, which must also be resonating at 10MHz. Energy used to re-charge device
5) Energy not transferred to laptop re-absorbed by source antenna. People/other objects not affected as not resonating at 10MHz