I have recently taken a video on an interesting opinion on how young people use the blogosphere. Watch the video to see how Birmingham City University journalist Lucas Coe uses his blog, as well as the way blogger Christian Payne (aka Documentally) uses his.
Physorg.com have revealed details of a new air-fueled battery that could change the way technologies from mobile phones and laptops to even electric cars are powered.
The battery, considered to be a huge step forward in the renewable energy field, is being fine tuned by researchers at the University of St Andrews with partners at Strathclyde and Newcastle.
The batteries will enable renewable sources like wind turbines and solar panels to work better, especially when night falls or the sun goes in. It also has an improved capacity that could give up to ten times the energy storage of current batteries, thanks to its ability to draw oxygen straight from the air.
Other benefits of the battery include fewer chemicals needed inside, which allows the battery to either be smaller, or carry more energy in the same sized capsule. The battery is also cheaper to make because it uses more readily available chemicals.
The project is not complete yet, with efforts to further improve capacity and adapt the battery to suit small applications like mobile phones and MP3 players.
It seems that the researchers are taking their time to make sure they get it right because Principal investigator on the project, Professor Peter Bruce of the Chemistry Department at the University of St Andrews, says it will be at least 5 years before this battery will be made commercially available.
Bruce continued, “Our target is to get a five to ten fold increase in storage capacity, which is beyond the horizon of current lithium batteries. Our results so far are very encouraging and have far exceeded our expectations.”
I have just come across an interesting debate on the Guardian website. Leading environmental commentator George Monbiot is answering questions live online right now about the government’s decision to stop building coal plants that do not have the ability to take care of the emissions they create.
The rule passed states that coal plants are to be built with the ability to capture 20-25% of carbon dioxide emissions and bury them underground.
Despite widespread app
roval from environmentalists, Monbiot has not been so enthusiastic.
The debate has raised some good points. Monbiot’s main objection to this government ruling is that, despite reducing the pollution created by coal plants, this is still a move to lead the next generation into further reliance on coal.
On the website, Monbiot said, “There are no guarantees of anything, except carbon pollution. The government is committing us to a new generation of coal-burning power stations. It might or might not be possible to capture and store their emissions.”
Monbiot is asking for more investment into renewable energy technology, or further research into carbon capture sequestration (CCS) coal to find out if this new idea really can work. He wants this done before these CCS coal plants start to be built.
The debate is hotting up, so if you have a question to ask Mr Monbiot, be sure to get one in while you still can.
Apparently, quite a few Woolworths stores around the country still have their lights turned on, including the ones in Birmingham town centre. They have been shut since January. I wonder how much energy has been wasted in the past 3 months
It’s actually quite ironic that despite its closure, Woolworths still appears to be costing tax payers money.
Surely it is time to let it go? Its over, Woolworths is a thing of the past, something to reminisce about when we are old and grey. Like penny sweets and CDs. Two things that Woolworths were known for actually.
Its almost as though the country are mourning relatives, knowing that they should pull the plug on their comatose loved one, but just cannot bring themselves to do it.
Lets hope that these lights go out across the country to help the environment. Pray that the lights in there are not the ones that the shop used to sell, the ones that were so long lasting that they out lived the life of the actual store.
Energy, Fuel and Transport correspondents for BirminghamRecycled Andrew Nichol, Georgie Campbell, Oliver Appleby and myself have recently interviewed Dave Harte on his CO2 campaigne and his Walks of Birmingham.
He has an interesting take on the sort of things you can do to save energy not only around the home but also in the city. He also puts his opinion forward on Twitter and how social networking is progressing in the professional and personal world.
Obviously I won’t give anything else away, but be sure to log in to BirminghamRecycled to listen to the podcast when it’s turn comes.
Also check Dave Harte’s blog (link above) to read a bit more to get an idea of what he is into, to get more out of his podcast. Be warned though, he has given up Twitter for Lent, so you may not get a reply from him in a while if you try to contact him!
There will be a podcast each week on a separate theme on the website, so give those a listen also, most of them will have a guest inclusion to add to the opinions.
I have just finished writing my new story for Birmingham Recycled. This one took a fair bit of reading and attempting to understand the jargon that often comes hand in hand with detailed reports on Energy.
The article was first and foremost about Great Barr’s Green Street finishing fourth whilst representing Birmingham in a national challenge to reduce their energy usage. I discovered the story on British Gas’s website and found the full report here.
The report was pretty long and detailed, but had all of the information there and available. I realised after a while that I had to treat the report like a press release, because there were some sly attempts to add a bit of positive spin on the results of the challenge.
I must admit that spin initially pulled the wool over my eyes. This is something that I must try to cut out of my writing, as I have been told a couple of times that my writing is too “fluffy” and I fail to see or comment on both sides. In other words I need to improve my critical writing.
Had it not been for Paul Bradshaw pointing this out I would have not gone back and realised that this saving of money that most streets that represented the cities reported was thanks mainly to investing in £30, 000 worth of energy saving technology.
However, hats off to the streets that took part, who have shown that with a bit of investment and encouragement from the industries and the government, we can be more energy efficient in the future.
Like I said, its a good effort. Despite finishing fourth, the street in Great Barr still maintained the second highest improvement in the country. Birmingham had the lowest rating score of energy efficiency, but across the year, showed a vast improvement, beaten only by Edinburgh’s representative.
Note to self. Be more thorough, but not waffly. Be more critical, but not pessimistic. Subtle differences.
I have been on the hunt for a lighter story recently, having read my previous ones, and noticed that they are pretty hard news based. I found out that Neil Young is releasing an ENTIRE concept album based around his campaigning for electric cars.
I wrote a story, based on the information i could find in various blogs. Unlike some of the blogs, including Pitchfork, I tried to base my article on the fact that it promotes electric cars, rather than the fact that it is not one of his best pieces of work.
I hope I stuck to my main objectives:
- To highlight the main angle first, that the new album was based on electric cars
- To secondly mention Young’s campaigning in partnership with automobile company Lincvolt
- To let the reader make their own opinion on the music by leaving a link at the bottom
I left my own opinion of the music to the comments section, because I thought it had no place in the article, and that a comment is more likely to spark a better debate.
Board Reader had a lot of specialist comments and reactions to LDV vans asking for Governmental help. It appears that there is a divided opinion. Some are saying that Gordon Brown should help them out after their efforts to make 200 jobs and work to find environmental alternatives. Others are saying that the company does not deserve it.
The story is really starting to formulate in my head after reading these comments. I think I am going to focus on the fact that LDV want to get to the forefront of electric vans in europe, and follow up with the asking for government aid and the management buyout.
I will leave the reactions out of my story mainly, allowing the website’s comment feature to show the specialist reactions, which will also encourage conversation in the environmental community hopefully.
Next step: Actually writing the story!
Having come across this story in the Birmingham Mail, I searched on technorati for any blog reactions to Birmingham company LDV Vans’ Management Buyout and decision to go green.
Not A Sheep reported that The BBC has not uniformly reported the news across all of its mediums, deciding to talk about the hope of turning it into the first big producer of electric vans in the UK only on its website.
The Tangled Web focused more on the economy side of the story, condemning the “tens of millions” of pounds only creating 200 jobs.
The Birmingham Mail article states that the chairman of Gaz, the Russian owners of the company, is going to lead the buyout and turn LDV into a “symbol of the low-carbon, green manufacturing future that the Government says it wants Britain to lead.”
As stated in The Tangled web, this could be analysed as a way to get the Govornment on their side to gain funds. If LDV can prove that they can start the electric van revolution, then it could be seen as worthwhile to put tax payers money into the project.
I’m about to start writing my story for this to go up on BirminghamRecycled, but I first of all need to consider the angle. Should I focus on the hope that they gain Government funds? Or should I focus more on the fact that they want to be green? Economy or Environment?
Using Reuters and search engines I found a story on the AA’s website about rising fuel prices being higher than the general inflation in Britain. Here’s the story I wrote.
“UK petrol prices rise at a sharper rate than inflation.
February petrol prices rose more sharply than the current inflation rate in Britain, The Automobile Association has announced this week. A rise of nearly 5% has been confirmed, in comparison to the current UK inflation rate of 3%.
Diesel prices are rising more moderately, with the petrol-diesel price difference dropping to 10 pence. This has improved the return for the cost of a litre of diesel in the UK, making it even more fuel efficient.
Unleaded prices have risen by 4.3ppl (pence per litre) from 86.6ppl to 90.9ppl. Diesel prices have risen by 2.1ppl, from 98.7ppl to 100.8ppl. The price difference between unleaded and diesel has fallen from 12.1ppl to 9.9ppl.
The West Midlands unleaded price records were the exact average for the UK, at 90.9ppl. The county recorded a lower than average price for diesel, at 100.6ppl, with the country wide average being 100.8ppl.
There has also been a rise of prices overseas, with the UK having the tenth highest unleaded price and the second highest diesel price in Europe.”
I recommend checking Reuters for stories and then trying to find the original sources for the stories, because those sources often have other relevant stories worthy of report.
