Disconnector Online

Now here’s a sign of the (madness of our) times. Top London eatery Claridge’s has a water list that stretches to no fewer than 30 choices. Other top nosheries have similarly extensive offerings.

There is no doubt that the sound of the ubiquitous mobile phone at inappropriate moments (which is most of the time) continues to grate.

It’s tough being green. Consider Drax, Europe’s largest coal-fired power station. Its management wants to co-fire more biomass. But the latest plans to increase the amount of biomass burnt alongside coal have hit a snag. It will mean more lorries trundling through villages near the station and the locals ain’t too happy. They don’t like the prospect of more noise and traffic fumes from heavily laden HGVS.

It is hard to believe the risks thieves will take to steal copper electricity cable - even it is carrying 11kV at the time. Gas networks are not immune to this madness either - Northern Gas Networks tells Disconnector of two cases of copper pipes running from external meters being cut and stolen in West Yorkshire.

Utilities must get tired of hearing about skills shortages, rising costs and over-heating of the London economy driving up the price of civil engineering. So next time a contractor starts bleating about having too much work and not enough labour why not wave this week's issue of Contract Journal at them?

Just for the record, a series of parliamentary questions has revealed some interesting facts about government publications over the past two years as our political masters formulated policy as part of what seemed like a never-ending energy review.

Now here’s a chilling mystery. Central Networks has highlighted the case of a would-be cable thief who seems to have had a very lucky escape.

A slap on the wrist is due for the team of all the talents that masterminds Disconnector each week. Last week, the column may have given the impression that National Grid was involved in building two LNG terminals at Milford Haven.

Thames Water has had its fair share of opprobrium heaped on its head over leakage from its mains, but last night’s BBC TV’s Watchdog also put the boot in over a customer pipe leak. The story focused on ex-BBC TV Blue Peter presenter Matt Baker and his missus bleating on about an £8,224.16 bill they had received from Thames Water, due to him forgetting to send back some pesky form. Nevertheless, Watchdog inquisitor general “Saint” Nicky Campbell still managed to find time to bang on yet again about how unbelievable it was that Thames managed to lose the equivalent of 8 million Olympic swimming pools a day (or something) from its network.

Congratulations are in order to Thames Water for laying on a magnificent fund-raising event last Friday in support of WaterAid. The “Love Water” Ball (twas the day after Valentines Day after all) in the opulent surroundings of the Hurlingham Club saw 500 of the great and good in water, wined, dined and entertained by top comics Bob Mills and Lenny Henry. The whole event raised an amazing £200,000 for the industry’s favourite charity, with the auction alone raising over £17,000 (the mystery prize turned out to be a £3,000 child’s rocking horse selected personally by Thames chief exec David Owens). Thames has supported WaterAid since it was formed 27 years ago, and the revival of its WaterAid Ball after a five-year absence from the calendar is a sign that confidence is returning to Britain’s biggest water company after a spell under the cosh.

Much excitement over on the eastern side of the capital where a business consortium called Metrotidal apparently plans to build a multi-billion pound tunnel under the River Thames that would link Medway on the Kent side of the Thames Estuary with Canvey Island on the Essex shore.

And now another mystery. Workers at Southern Water’s Eastbourne wastewater treatment plant on Prince William Parade have reported “hushed voices whispering in empty corridors, shadowy figures and orbs or balls of electromagnetic energy” at the plant.

Those upstream offshore energy operators and would-be producers can be wags. Or at least some of them.

Now here’s a tale of our times. St Modwen, the property developer that specialises in regenerating so-called brown field sites (generally land formerly used by now defunct industrial concerns) recently got planning consent to build 4,000 homes on the old British Steel site at Llanwern, south Wales.

Poor old British Gas received yet another - and entirely predictable - kicking in the mass media today after making profits of, gasp, £571 million last year, while four million fuel poor struugle to pay their energy bills.
Why can't the BBC and the newspapers grasp the concept that Britain's energy retailers are now private companies with responsibilities to shareholders and employees as well as customers? Why do energy companies meet with such disapproval for making profits? It's not like Centrica is churning out the sort of monopoly money made by other comapnies - BP's £8.7 billion, Tesco's £2.5 billion or Barclays' £7.1 billion spring to mind.

Certain phrases have a habit of coming back to haunt you. Ofgem boss Alistair Buchanan may yet rue the day he confidently told the chancellor there was nowt wrong with the energy market. Many moons ago a boffin confidently insisted that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter.

The following has a smattering of Sod’s Law about it and more than a dollop of poetic justice. Kevin Roxburgh is head of debt at British Gas and recently wrote to a female customer threatening to cut off her supply for non-payment of previous bills.

Good to see that our recycled energy minister has been honest enough to admit that the government which he serves has not been as on the ball about heat as it should have been. The country is only now feeling its way to a proper all-singing, all-dancing policy on the subject.

These days Yorkshire Water staff have iambic pentameters and the click of a camera shutter on their minds as much as PR09. Well, that appears to be the case for they are learning some new skills, namely poetry and photography.

This wind turbine in Denmark proves that you can have too much of a good thing:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/27/disintegrating_turbine/