Who'd have thought it? Some reasonably entertaining lightbulb propaganda from the EU. Very Batfink (those of a certain generation will know exactly what I mean by that).
The source for this one is Philip Sellwood's blog at The Energy Saving Trust.
Monday 18 October 2010
Tuesday 12 October 2010
A useful thing to do with Carbon
In case anybody missed it, two smart guys from The University of Manchester just got a Nobel Prize for Physics. The prize was for their work on graphene, a material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms in a chicken-wire formation. (Chicken wire - that's a technical term, by the way.)
Graphene is 200 times stronger than steel, if you scaled it up to the thickness of cling film and stretched it over a cup of coffee, it could hold up the weight of a truck bearing down on the point of a pencil.
"Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again" said the Royal Academy.
(PS Did you notice that one of the recipients also won The Ig Nobel Prize - for levitating frogs in a magnetic field? I kid you not. The image below is for real, you can download the research paper here.)
Graphene is 200 times stronger than steel, if you scaled it up to the thickness of cling film and stretched it over a cup of coffee, it could hold up the weight of a truck bearing down on the point of a pencil.
"Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again" said the Royal Academy.
(PS Did you notice that one of the recipients also won The Ig Nobel Prize - for levitating frogs in a magnetic field? I kid you not. The image below is for real, you can download the research paper here.)
Friday 8 October 2010
October 2010: Chart of the Month
(Looking for the September Chart of the Month? Click here )
At this time of year, everyone is turning the heat on.
I've already written about how we're also turning the heat up. I used some research data from BRE to show that we've been cranking up the thermostat for about 30 years now, and as a result the average temperature inside a British home has gone up from about 13°C in 1970 to about 20°C today. As a result, I said that Britain had gone soft.
But that's only half the story. The truth is, Britain has gone very soft. The part I was missing out is what has happened to the temperature outdoors over the same period.
So guess what? It turns out that, using a more or less accepted method for measuring these things, it is a lot warmer these days than it was 40 years ago - warmer, that is, in the sense of how many days a year you'd need to turn the heating on.
Have a look at the chart below and you'll get the picture. There are about 10-15% fewer heating days per year than when our parents were our age.
Conclusion? We need less heat, but we are using more. If you can figure that one out, please post a comment below.
(Click on the image to enlarge the view.)
The raw data is from the Met Office, although access is only after an authorisation process. And here is a bit more on the methodology for Heating Degree Days. In the chart, I have taken a simple average across all UK weather stations and shown the hi/lo bands in the shaded area.
At this time of year, everyone is turning the heat on.
I've already written about how we're also turning the heat up. I used some research data from BRE to show that we've been cranking up the thermostat for about 30 years now, and as a result the average temperature inside a British home has gone up from about 13°C in 1970 to about 20°C today. As a result, I said that Britain had gone soft.
But that's only half the story. The truth is, Britain has gone very soft. The part I was missing out is what has happened to the temperature outdoors over the same period.
So guess what? It turns out that, using a more or less accepted method for measuring these things, it is a lot warmer these days than it was 40 years ago - warmer, that is, in the sense of how many days a year you'd need to turn the heating on.
Have a look at the chart below and you'll get the picture. There are about 10-15% fewer heating days per year than when our parents were our age.
Conclusion? We need less heat, but we are using more. If you can figure that one out, please post a comment below.
(Click on the image to enlarge the view.)
The raw data is from the Met Office, although access is only after an authorisation process. And here is a bit more on the methodology for Heating Degree Days. In the chart, I have taken a simple average across all UK weather stations and shown the hi/lo bands in the shaded area.
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