James Barlow

My recent post on Wind Turbines attracted an interesting comment from a reader by the name of "nommo". In summary, nommo's view is:

• [T]he way we run the [national power] grid at the moment is wrong
• It is incredably [sic] inefficient to have a centralised power supply.
• [A] nation of electric cars would actually be a great energy storage buffer.
• Then there is the concept of compressed air storage...
• [W]ould you rather have a nuclear power station less than 20 miles from your home (and temporary storage of waste) or some windmills?
• [N]uclear plants are built by foreigners (I'm paraphrasing this one as I didn't quite understand it. I'd recommend you read it yourself)

I hear these sort of sentiments a lot from the green movement, and in general my main response to those who say that we're doing electricity distribution wrong is to point out that we are not the ones doing it.

I used to work for the National Grid Company - boring IT support as opposed to proper engineering - and from my position under the desk fiddling with network cables I was able to gain some appreciation of the enormous complexity of the task of generating and distributing electrical power on a national scale. The people involved, from the mad bastards in the line engineering team who swing about on pylons to the analysts trying to match supply to demand, are not just punching the clock and kicking back for the day. It's a constant physical and intellectual battle to keep the system going and the electrons flowing.

And the system is pretty damn efficient, by which I mean there are no compelling alternatives to current methods of electricity distribution, regardless of how much money you've got to spend, that offer a better energy conversion efficiency. Such alternatives will probably be developed; but they're not here yet. But if you want to take the initiative, and move back to the fields to live next to a windmill today, then be my guest.

The core point I made about Wind Turbines - not my original work - was that the output of said generators is unpredictable, because the wind doesn't always blow, and thus they aren't much cop for national power generation which depends on stability of supply. I'd reiterate what I said to local Green Party councillor, Charlie Bolton , and throw it open to everyone: if you can come up with a better technology then please do!

As a means of stabilising that supply, Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is certainly worth a look. It's not a new technology - the first CAES plant was built in 1978 - and is in use in several countries around the world. Alabama's Power South Energy Cooperative was apparently an early adopter, although there doesn't seem to be anything on the web-site about it.

A 2,700 MW CAES is planned for Ohio, using old limestone mines to store the compressed air. The designers' web-site looks pretty compelling.

Cars as Portable Batteries

One interesting idea raised by "nommo" was that electric vehicles could be used as portable batteries to store energy from unpredictable wind generators and thus smooth out national supply by releasing their energy on demand when plugged in at home in the garage, a load-levelling function performed in the current UK grid by Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity .

According to the DVLA, there are around 28,000,000 cars on the road in the UK, and 33,000,000 vehicles in total. These statistics are a bit old, so let's keep the numbers simple and say there are 35,000,000 vehicles driving around in 2008. Let's say that all of these vehicles were converted overnight into Plug-in hybrids (by some fantastical effort herewith undefined) so that each contained a 4 kWh battery. (For comparison, a standard hybrid car like the Prius contains a 1 kWh battery). And let's say that no one drives these cars, and they just stay in the garage. And that the batteries are constructed using a technology with no constraints on discharge/recharge cycle. And while we're at it, let's also say that they convert power at 100% efficiency. And that they cure cancer.

This would give us a total "garaged" energy storage capability of 140,000 MegaWatt-Hours. Reminding ourselves via a table of Orders of Magnitude for power that a MegaWatt is ten to the power of six watts, and a Terawatt is ten to the power of twelve watts we can compare this garaged value to the UK's daily requirements.

• UK Daily power requirements (TWh): 0.96
• Hypothecated "Garaged" Power Storage (TWh): 0.0144

The latter figure is 1.46% of the former. Now this does actually compare pretty well to the UK's current energy storage systems. The largest hydro pumped storage facility in the UK - Dinorwig - can generate 288MW from each of its six generators for 5 hours - a total of 1,440 MWh. Adding in the older four 90 MW generators at Ffestiniog (we'll assume they can manage five hours as well), that gives us a total UK energy store of 0.002 TWh, or 0.2% of daily national power requirements.

So this idea could be a goer. In about thirty years, when there are sufficient batteries installed in cars, of sufficient capacity, with a technology that supports fast and frequent discharge/recharge cycles. But if you think you can do it now, there are plenty of venture capital firms out there to whom you can speak. Just remember, that UK local authorities flush with cash collected from council tax payers do not count as a legitimate source of VC funding.

Counterpoint

Plenty of people disagree with me about the viability of wind power. Have a look at the British Wind Energy Association for another take on the same data. Their contention is that the UK's small number of large power stations is the problem for which a large number of small power stations is the solution; a concept for which they use the technical term "lumpiness".

They're protestations would be more compelling if they were able to run their industry without massive lobbying efforts and state subsidies - ironically the same critique that is often made of traditional power companies.

The Nuclear Option

I'm hesitant to legitimise a false dichotomy - wind or nuclear - but I will say one thing. I would be totally relaxed about living 20 miles away from a nuclear power plant, because just like all Bristolians I already do. I'm referring of course to Oldbury Nuclear Power Station , which is sadly due to cease operations this year. In my case, this is exactly a 19.2 mile drive from my front door.

View Larger Map

For more information about why Nuclear power isn't the bogeyman that many people think, have a look at this book. (It's even got lots of stuff about carbon footprints and global warming if you're into that sort of thing):

As part of my continuing mission to raise the level of political debate in Bristol, I offer the following useful guide to local issues, based on previous work conducted by the University of Bristol.

For further information on the issues raised, use these links:

1. Council Tax
2. Bus Rapid Transit
3. Museum of Bristol
4. Redland Green School Overspend
5. Tilting at Windmills
6. Bristol Environmental Technology Sector
7. The Gas

Note - I put Type 7 in to keep Jon Eccles at Secular Backlash happy. I don't follow football myself, since it's a girls' game.

(On a related point, why did the entire city smell a bit funny yesterday? It wasn't just me - several people commented on it.)

The Bristol Cultural Development Partnership, last seen releasing "The Bristol Story" have now officially launched the fourth annual May "Festival of Ideas". One of the associated events I previously attended was Prof Sir David King's talk on Global Warming.

They're obviously scraping the barrel for support acts this year, as they've asked me to be one of their resident bloggers. This piece is my contribution to the kick-off, and you can respond on the Festival's website.

There are also two rather more distinguished contributors: the philosopher Julian Baggini (I hadn't realised he is based in Bristol - he blogs here) and Tom Abba, a lecturer at UWE specialising in narrative theory. [I'm sure Alan Sokal will love him.]

---***---

While we all know on an emotional level that Bristol is the greatest city in Britain, the numbers put us at a – still respectable – tenth. So I am genuinely impressed that the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership has managed to attract some of the world’s most interesting speakers to this year’s May Festival of Ideas. Admittedly most of them have books to plug, but hey: quid pro quo, am I right?

Putting aside my scepticism about whether this is really something the local council should be getting involved with when there are roads to repair, schools to improve and cycle paths to build over, I have accepted the Festival organisers’ offer to kick-off this year’s comments section. And also their offer of free tickets, to date the only product of my blogging apart from Carpal Tunnel syndrome .

The spirit of the festival is to share ideas and address pressing issues. So I’ve been looking through the schedule thinking about the ideas I might glean from each speaker.

You've already missed Nicholson Baker , who offered a startling analysis of the Second World War in support of his book “Human Smoke”; a work of non-fiction that has even the Daily Mail’s Peter Hitchens questioning deeply-held beliefs about British history.

Charles Freeman is speaking on 7th May on the subject of Heresy, in particular the transformation of Christian theology in the fourth century. The magnitude of these changes make the schism between Protestant and Catholic seem almost irrelevant by comparison.

The author of the seminal paper "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", Alan Sokal – in my opinion the highlight of the festival – will be discussing Pseudo-Science, Religion and Misinformation on 8th May. If you've ever had a conversation with a literary theorist and suspected that they're talking a load of tosh, then even if you can't make it to the lecture, nip down to Bristol Library and borrow his book

Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the Fair Trade Foundation is doing a double-matinee on 10th May at Castle Park. I’ve never understand how it can be ethical to give one group of producers an unfair advantage over another, more efficient producer, just because they’re politically well-connected. If it happened in business or government, we’d call it corruption or undue influence. But when it happens in agriculture, it’s called “Fair Trade”. Very peculiar, and a subject about which I’d like to know more.

It’s Sixties Night at the Arnolfini on 12th May, and what better way to celebrate the spirit of that era than to invite a bona fide member of a terrorist cell to the city. Officially, she's retired, but I'll be keeping an eye on her.

On the 20th May, I'll be at the Arnolfini looking for some insight into the world of soulless marionettes and hidden puppet masters pulling the strings. The speakers: Nick Davies and Gordon Burn. The subject: the mainstream media. Or you could catch Gerry Anderson talking about the Thunderbirds at the Watershed.

23rd May: Naomi Klein, a global brand for the rejection of global brands,will be explaining what she means by "The Shock Doctrine", which apparently is not Socialism. Who knew?

The last day of the month is one of best. On the 29th, one of the world's best science writers George Johnson will be talking about the beauty of scientific experimentation. And finally, there's John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He's a formidable critic of the UN, and I'm interested to know what, if anything, he’d put in it’s place. And if he could quickly summarise the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, that would also be helpful, as I still can’t work it out.

I’m not sure if I can get to all of these sessions, but if you see me there, let me know your ideas, or leave them in the comments section at the festival web-site.

Recently I discussed the prospective increase in allowance given to the leader of Bristol City Council. Another topic worth some consideration is the salary of the Chief Executive of the council. But it's worth clarifying the respective duties of these two offices.

Leader of the Council

The Leader of the Council is a representative of the people, elected by the members of the council, who are themselves elected by secret ballot of all registered electors - effectively all council tax payers - in their respective wards. The Leader's role is to propose a strategy for the governance of the city, to define what are the council's priorities and more importantly what are not priorities. Job Security is, depending on how you look at it, quite good or quite bad.

The Leader is ultimately responsible, answerable and accountable for the actions of the Council and all of its employees.

Chief Executive

The Chief Executive is a salaried employee of the city, selected from a shortlist of candidates and ultimately by a panel interview. Their contract of employment is unbounded, specifying a 37 hour work week and a 3-month notice period.

The role of the Chief Executive is to execute the policy defined by the Leader, and manage the staff and resources of the Council on a day-to-day basis.

If you have a look at the Recruitment Consultants' dedicated website for the Council Chief Exec (strangely, still active), you'll see this basic job spec has been jazzed up a bit and defined as:

To provide pace, rigour, confidence, ambition and above all, inspiring leadership to the strategic management of the City Council.

Proactively support the Leader in their external and ambassadorial role on behalf of Bristol, and where appropriate (and particularly with the business community), undertake external-facing tasks to the benefit of the City

[and so on. That's what you get when documents are written by a committee.]

The Big Shake-Up

Last week, recently hired Chief Executive Jan Ormondroyd, announced a shake-up amongst the senior officers in the council. According to the Evening Post report:

[Ormondroyd] is determined to ensure only the best operators continue to head up departments. [...]

When the new team is in place - probably by the late summer - Mrs Ormondroyd wants them to work more effectively with partner agencies and local communities. [...] They will also be expected to share leadership responsibilities with each other instead of focusing only on their own departments. [...] Heads of department [...] will all have to re-apply for top jobs.

The number of departments will be reduced and it is possible at least one current chief will be made redundant or given early retirement at the end of this exercise. [...] Responsibilities will change, too. Departmental names will change and many functions will be reallocated between departments.

There are elements of this concept that sound plausible: clearing out an under performing team and simplifying the organisation structure are two obvious starting points for turning around a dysfunctional organisation. Other aspects sound less plausible, in particular "sharing leadership responsibility"; leadership can be delegated, but never shared.

Unfortunately the positive intent of the process would appear to be sabotaged from day one. The now-out-of-retirement Bristol Blogger has identified that the exercise is largely artificial, in that applications for the posts are generally limited to the existing set of senior officers. One would hope that, when this proposal is discussed at the next Council Cabinet, the Leader of the Council mandates that the selection be open to all-comers, or at the very least to all current employees of the council.

The Bristol Blogger highlights the salaries of the senior officers within the council, which is an interesting point for discussion. In the absence of a market signal, it's very difficult to identify a clearing rate for senior management. In the private sector you can perhaps use share price or other performance metric, but the link between these figures and actual performance is not necessarily causal. It's even tougher in Local Government where the underlying goals are at best linked to a subjective measure such as "value for money".

A more interesting question would be: What is the marginal benefit associated with employment of a more expensive candidate? For example, consider the post of "Director of Children and Young People’s Services" (CYPS). The salary band associated with this role is £115,223 to £127,778.

The performance of a council officer is overwhelmingly constrained by political decision making. So if we chose to fill this role at a reduced salary of 10%, 25% or even 50% less, would it reduce the quality of service? And would increasing the salary for the role attract "better" candidates and thus lead to an increase in the quality of service, in the absence of any change in political direction?

These are not questions for which an answer can be calculated on paper and theoretically "proved" so, given the large amounts of money being spent by the council on senior management, some aggressive practical experimentation is certainly warranted. I would approach the problem as follows:

Recognising that we're entering a tough economic period, we should be looking to reduce the absolute expenditure on staff and simplify the organisation structure. Therefore the council ought to:

• Require the Chief Executive and Deputy Chief Executive to act as functional department heads in addition to their more general duties.
• Collapse the top two or three employment grades and associated salary bandings into a single grade with the salary band of the lowest grade.
• Open the recruitment process for senior staff positions to all council staff and external candidates.
• On completion of recruitment of senior staff, fill any gaps in the organisation chart from existing employees without rebanding or salary increase.

This would not be a pleasant process. It would be politically difficult, unpopular with unions, staff and management and ultimately it is not guaranteed to improve council performance in the absence of other changes. But it would be a way to take a slice off the top of next year's council tax bill and a place to start for reducing the burden on hard-pressed local families. Especially those having difficulty navigating the convoluted tax-credit system.

And Finally:

Is there anywhere in Bristol you can buy a bacon-fried hot dog? I'm minded to buy one just to annoy these people:

Right, that's enough about terror alerts and other silliness. Here's a more genteel story, and something I'd be far more likely to associate with Westbury-on-Trym. [actually Bradley Stoke]:

Police called to bowls club row

A row over fees at a bowls club escalated when police were called to a protest on the green near Bristol.

Members of Northavon Bowls Club were locked out of their ground at Baileys Court by Bradley Stoke Town Council.

The Bomb Squad weren't invited.

For those who might be feeling a bit peaky after recent events: If you're in Broadmead this Saturday, keep an eye out for the Rotary Club of Bristol, who'll be offering free blood pressure tests as part of Stroke Awareness Week.

Don't wait for a stroke to discover you have high blood pressure.

Can there be a more unlikely headline than "Terror Alert in Westbury on Trym"? Perhaps "London Bus found on moon" or "Pope quits, signs record deal".

View Larger Map

And yet here we are. Police have arrested a resident of Bristol North West's very own urban village, and carried out a controlled explosion on a suspect device.

What do we know so far? Via the Telegraph:

Neighbours in the quiet cul-de-sac in Westbury-on-Trym, woke to hear a loud blast like a gas boiler blowing up during the night. The house, a nondescript 1950s red brick terraced house, is believed to be rented from the council.

The man under arrest had not been in the house long but neighbours described him as polite. One said he was heavily built and often seen wearing traditional Muslim dress and carrying a satchel.

Via BBC Bristol: (Video)

Farooq Siddique, of the Bristol Muslim Cultural Society, said he believes the arrested man is a British Muslim.

Sheila Cook, who lives in Comb Paddock, said she heard an explosion in the middle of the night.

Looks like someone's been reading the Boy's Own Book of Jihad. Hopefully the guys over at "Trym Tales" will be keeping us updated.

---***---

[Update #1: 19 April]. Trym Tales has found some more info, via the BBC. The chap currently held under the Terrorism Act 2000 is Andrew Ibrahim, a student and British-born muslim convert.

A quick google trawl shows some comments from an old school-mate, but it would be interesting to know what school.

[Update #2: 19 April] The Royal Logistics Corp's Explosive Ordnance Disposal troop are now on their third explosion. If you get a moment, raise a glass to the RLC's Sprint team, and consider that their career aspirations are limited by the Corp's institutional preference for truck drivers over defusers when selecting senior management. (picture via Trym Tales ).

[Update #3: 19 April] According to the Telegraph, the young man in custody is the son of a Consultant Histopathologist with the NHS at Frenchay Hospital. The Daily Express reckons Andrew Ibrahim has a Myspace page, but I'm damned if I can find it. [Here it is .]

[Update #4: 19 April] You can watch the evolving nature of the BBC's news coverage using the News Sniffer web-site. As of this update, their story is on version eleven.

[Update #5: 19 April] Here's the latest from the Avon & Somerset Constabulary's press department.

[Update #6: 20 April] And we now have a picture of the man of the moment, courtesy of the Daily Mail:

Here's his Myspace page from which this was taken. I saw this page yesterday, but I didn't make the connection. Who would have thought Techno leads to Jihad?! As of 20th April, Andy only has one listed "friend", although remember that "friend" doesn't imply a great deal in the social networking sphere.

[Update #6: 20 April] Looks like the RLC's Sprint Team are going to be busy for the next few day. Someone left their mobile phone at Trinity Road police station, and the EOD experts were called in to have a look by concerned constables. Fortunately no controlled explosion was deemed necessary.