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graeme0309

Listed below are comments made by graeme0309 between Friday, 26th September 2008 and Tuesday, 14th July 2009.

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Desert dreams of the solar age 10:29am on 14 Jul 2009 One of the benefits of being based in the Sahara is not only the strength of the sun (believe it or not, the UK, whilst not that sunny, has enough light to provide a decent amount of electricity) but it's the "continuous" supply of light that is a huge benefit. Which has a beneficial solution to the and troughs of demand throughout any given day.

In the UK, 60% energy goes up cooling towers as waste. Landlines lose another 30% (leakage). If the grid intergrity was better, we wouldn't require as much new energy. The point is, if we could manage supply and demand better we wouldn't need nuclear (and it's waste - no doubt to be dumped in Scotland!) and we wouldn't need to litter the countryside with poorly thought out wind turbine engineering.

If our wind turbines stop turning at 9am - how do we store the electricity which they have created? Or how do we manage it? It's the same with solar and bad weather in the UK.

I met a few months ago a really interesting company in Scotland called Flexitricity. They are managing parts of the national grid buying monitoring peaks and troughs thoughout the day. If they spot a spike in in demand in Glasgow, they can remotely turn on a local 1mgw green fuelled supermarket generator for a period of time to pump in supply to smooth the curve. With their software and mgmt system, we can manage the power we already have to the power we need.

There are two Israeli companies who think they have also managed to harness the storage of excess electricity in enormous volumes. Something which hasn't been done easily before. Again, if the wind turbine only turns in the morning, the electricity can be carried over till everyone switches on their kettles at half time of a workd cup final in the evening. Watch that space closely......... these are the new Intels and Microsofts. The guys that own these companies will be billionaires.

Secondly, there is huge shift in public funding from Brussels moving away from supporting the generation of green energy to how to harness what we already have. Fulcrum First re-fitted a a 300 room London Met University halls of residence. Thermal imaging diagnostics and software examined the leaks. Once new refurbishment took place with state of the art materials (much of the materials re-use waste products) the halls were now use a tenth of the power that they used to and the internal temp of the building stays at ambient level from morning to night.

Like I said, shortly we'll see many private equity and publically funded monies being pulled and re-directed not to uber-incredible new ways of generating the energy but using what we already have!

I am absolutely convinced, over the next five years, much of the Brussels money allocated to this 400bn Sahara project will be diverted to new sustainable building initiatives and not towards projects that create more energy.
Desert dreams of the solar age 00:20am on 14 Jul 2009 Hi Richard,
this project has been around for about five years at least. Shocked that it is new to you.
I first heard of it at London First, where ideas look for capital from Private Equity and the public purse.
http://www.london-first.co.uk/initiatives/detail.asp?record=20
If you want to attend our next meeting in September, let me know.
Reflections on Rothko 6:32pm on 26 Sep 2008 And that's my point, you are not deluded. If people genuinely enjoy looking at Rathko's work - that's their privilege, their right and their pleasure.

But there is much more available art and beauty which will be overlooked in London today because the Rothko objects have been promoted and "hyped" (spin) by the marketeers and money men/dealers. What a shame. The same men who tell us that "Rothko shares the plinth with Turner". What tosh.

Joe Public will walk past a Turner and stop and gaze with wonder. Fewer - without marketing - would genuinely walk past a Rothko and give the work a second thought. So it is wrong for the bankers to try to tell us what is art and what is not.

People will cram into the Tate to see Rothkos work this weekend and most will try hard to believe that they are enjoying what they see - under pressure of the hype.

There is so much to enjoy within the other halls, or outwith, the halls of the Tate which will go unnoticed because it isn't viable to sell when the show is finished.
Reflections on Rothko 09:57am on 26 Sep 2008 "Mythology" is exactly what these pictures evoke. There's nothing there. Thousands are expected to turn up and try and eagerly 'will' themselves to see something incredible, hoping for an easily earned spiritual experience. It is a mixutre of mass hysteria and the power of the "Emperor's new clothes". Spirituality exists in abundance in many other structures, paintings, photographs, strangers faces all around London today. It just takes a little honest hard(er) work to find it.

Compared to Turner, Rothko could only have dreamed to have the skills to capture the light of the Thames or Venice.

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