Disconnector Online

Those iconic cooling towers were not the only things crashing to the ground last week. The possibility that one of Calder Hall’s now closed reactors might become a nuclear “museum”, a new tourist attraction at the Sellafield site in Cumbria, has hit the deck. But not running.

Mind you, the experience at that nuclear facility does not seem to have deterred the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) from thinking big up at Dounreay on the northerly Caithness coast.

Now here’s a thing. Earlier this summer Severn Trent revealed that some of the bowsers it deployed during its water supply crisis in July had, ahem, gone missing. And not just a few. As many as 150 went AWOL.

The great man’s jaw dropped when he first read the following. It seems Direct Rail Services, a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) won the Freight Achievement of the Year category in the 2007 National Rail Awards.

These are worrying times for the flocks of sheep which add a certain bucolic charm to Thames Water’s giant reservoirs west of London (the woolly jumpers-in-waiting don’t just look cute, they provide a valuable vegetation management service).
Some of those reservoirs are inside the foot and mouth surveillance zone. Cattle on a farm in Wraysbury have just been culled, so there are obvious worries about the fate of the flock of 600 baa-baas that graze on Thames’ Wraysbury reservoir.
A spokesman for the water authority said on Monday that tests on the animals had so far proved negative.
Disconnector is keeping his fingers crossed.

Disconnector likes to be tough but fair, so let’s blame this one on the dear departed Department of Trade and Industry, now airbrushed from Whitehall history.
None of the mandarins (or ministers) twigged that the date chosen for the end of the public consultation on a possible nuclear new-build programme (10 October) coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Windscale fire.
It was the UK’s worst-ever nuclear accident. It spread a plume of radioactive contamination across Cumbria (except that it was called Cumberland in those days). Farmers were forced to pour milk away and, statistically, cancer deaths went up.
Now that’s what you call bad timing.

Last weekend, there was a bit of a junket in Norway to celebrate the inauguration of StatoilHydro’s massive Ormen Lange gas field, which will be meeting a lot of the UK’s gas demand for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, although the event passed off smoothly enough, a bit of a cloud was left hanging over the proceedings. A couple of days previously, Eivind Reiten, chairman of newly merged StatoilHydro, Europe’s fifth-biggest oil and gas producer, resigned amid a growing scandal over the company’s activities in Libya.

This is true (though scarcely credible). Police in Northamptonshire are looking for a thief (or thieves) who stole 250m of live cable belonging to Central Networks. The cable, at Blisworth, was carrying 11,000V at the time.

Even though water companies are always hoping to promote the sustainable use of water, Disconnector observes that many have scaled back their messages this year, perhaps feeling that this year's wet - very wet - and generally gloomy summer has not been the most receptive environment.
However, Disconnector hears whispers of some draconian measures imposed by their Australian and American counterparts that UK companies might like to take a look at, in case we are back in a drought situation next year.

Electricity generators have been talking up the looming "energy gap" that could see the UK run short of generating capacity. The gap may be ten years in the future but the need is urgent: the industry has to start work on its new capacity now, in the knowledge that no-one has ever lost money betting that a British infrastructure project would be delayed.
It's hard to imagine the middle east, with all its resources, as being short of power, but a colleague of Disconnector's hears that is exactly the case. The Kuwait government has delayed investing in new electricity generation for so long that the demand-supply margin is just a few per cent - and veering perilously close to zero.

Anyone with a dull minute to pass could do worse than have a giggle at ScottishPower's endearing cartoon family of household appliances http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/About_Us/Meet_the_Appliances/
There is Kirk the Kettle for example who

easily gets frustrated with things and has to let off steam now and again. But once the other appliances calm him down, Kirk is in his element.

ignored, sitting lonely in a dusty corner.

Now here’s something of a poser. It appears that Ernst & Young has taken on three “senior finance and regulatory specialists” from Thames Water...

Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore told some porkies? The great man (Disconnector, not the former US presidential hopeful) was intrigued to see that some of the claims made in Gore’s award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth were, inconveniently, not true.

The following unsolicited email pings into Disconnector’s inbox. It’s from Uswitch. “UK consumers hit by more spam than ever before.” Have they no shame or sense of irony?

Talking of Uswitch, as we were, the great man has learnt that the price comparison website was forced to withdraw a recent press release that covered the latest Renewables Obligation data and the fuel disclosure returns of the big six energy suppliers.
Both Ofgem and some of the former were unhappy at inaccuracies, prompted by an attempt to link the two exercises comparatively. An apples and pears error, it seems. Pip pip!

High Street retailer Boots the Chemist has just been shafted by Wessex Water. Let Disconnector explain. Apparently Boots has launched a product marketed as “Expert Sensitive Refreshing Facial Spritz”.

Now here’s a headline the great man couldn’t resist. A newswire service reported the following last week: “Bjornoy defrocked as Norway’s environment minister”.

Closer to home, Disconnector has warmed to BERR’s new man in the Upper House, Lord Jones of Birmingham. Most readers will be more familiar with him as the former director-general of the CBI, Digby Jones.

The great man can reveal the identity of the brave soul who, dressed as a giant silver tap covered with WaterAid logos, once danced on stage with Elastica in front of 50,000 festival fans.

Rugby fans in Sevenoaks were a tad hot and bothered last Saturday night. While the rest of the nation was glued to their seats watching the drama unfold in Paris, many good folk in the Kent town were roaming the streets angrily or sitting shivering in their motors trying to catch the latest news from the Rugby World Cup Final on their car radios.
Poor old electricity distributor EDF Energy suffered a fault on the network which started at 18:30 and lasted, for some, until 22:30, which meant a lot of homes and businesses in the town were without power when the game kicked off.

Disconnector doesn't keep up with the blog at Utility Week's sister magazine, Farmers Weekly, too often. This dates back to July - but the great man still thinks it's worth passing on the warning. Arf

Environment minister Hilary Benn was out and about this week admiring John Lewis’s energy-efficient flagship store in central London before heading to Kew Gardens to reveal the government’s latest thinking on its upcoming Climate Change Bill.

The government is never slow to claim how serious the administration is about tackling climate change. Well, ministers certainly talk the talk. What’s not so clear is whether they are walking the walk. Do all the promises about leadership add up to a hill of beans?

Readers might like to know that Rangers are leading Celtic. Tartan footie followers will know that although Rangers stuffed Celtic three-nil in the latest Old Firm clash, the latter are three points ahead of the former. So how can Rangers be in the lead? Well, it is not of football that Disconnector speaks.

The great man refers to how well the clubs are doing when it comes to saving water at their grounds. Celtic Park has cut its water consumption by 40 per cent over the past 18 months. But Ibrox has managed a swingeing 60 per cent reduction.
Glasgow-based utility consultancy Business Cost Consultants, which advised the clubs on how to save the wet stuff, is now turning its attention to their energy use. Who will come out best?
It would be churlish not to point out that this being football-related, it must be a game of two halves.
Quite.

The great man notes that Eon UK, sponsor of the FA Cup, has launched a search for the oldest football team in Britain.