Leaves caution behind

A solar thermal plant being developed in Seville, Spain, will produce 300MW of power at a projected cost of E1,200bn, or R11,6 billion. That’s an installed cost of R4-billion per 100MW. A prototype 11MW plant is already up and running; it’s almost a thing of beauty – take a look here or here. (The rays you see in the atmosphere have not been added to the photograph – they’re not illustrated but real, created by the intense illumination of the solar array hitting atmospheric dust and moisture.)

Eskom’s (our parastatal national electricity provider) prototype Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) is likely to cost R25 billion. The projected output is 120MW. By my admittedly rough calculations, that makes the cost of building the PMBR approximately FIVE times more expensive than solar thermal. Even using the figures Eskom prefers to use, which are of course far lower than R25-billion, the PBMR remains much expensive than solar thermal. (The PBMR has also been judged an economic non-starter for South Africa, by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, according to documents Eskom accidentally sent to Earthlife Africa.) Read the rest of this entry »

Basically, it’s harmless.

Addictive yes, but worst side effect is constipation. (Visions of heroin addicts storming shops stocking senna and liquid paraffin.)

Black market heroin becomes poisonous and dangerous because unscrupulous dealers cut it with all kinds of pollutants. — Nick Davies

The available evidence indicates that heroin, when provided in pure form, is a relatively safe drug. Hence it is primarily the illegal nature of the drug, rather than its pharmacological properties, which leads to the health and social problems associated with its use. — Ostini, Bammer, Dance and Goodwin. 1993. ‘The Ethics of Experimental Heroin Maintenance’, Journal of Medical Ethics

In other words, we f**k up heroin addicts; the drug doesn’t.

In the late 1960s, there were a few hundred heroin addicts in the UK, mostly living in central London. They got their heroin not from dealers — but on prescription from psychiatrists.

Then, following an outburst of media hysteria and pressure from the US, the authorities forced the doctors to restrict the supply. A black market was created. Addicts began turning to crime. New supply chains to the East opened up. Thatcher completed the disaster, shutting down legal heroin altogether in favour of methadone. Twenty years after the clampdown had begun, that stable population of a few hundred users had expanded to 300,000 criminals and basket cases, linked to around 70% of all break-ins, shoplifting and robberies in the UK.

[This is a precis from chapter one of Nick Davies' book, Flat Earth News (find it on Amazon UK or Kalahari.net), and you can read more about the heroin story on his blog.]

On Boxing Day, a friend and I headed out beyond Hangklip (which needs to be climbed, I realise) to the Kogelberg Nature Reserve to run and walk a 24km circuit, which was lovely, though more trees here and there would have been welcome; great pools in the Palmiet River, though, long and deep enough for serious training should one be thus inclined; and so many flowers I’ve not previously seen outside of Kirstenbosch.

. . . oh crap, WordPress have broken their dashboard (and I see, the css for galleries is dodgy too) and I can’t see what I’m typing properly, in Safari. Okay, mostly everything does still work in the html view. . .

With substantial breaks for at least two swims, it took us five and a half hours. A long, slow sustained climb at the start, but frustratingly, there were no obvious ways to ascend any of the peaks. The reserve map provided is woeful, showing no topography and is an invitation to get lost. I’m still not sure whether we followed the ‘proper route’ or not, though that’s of purely academic interest. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve charted my contempt and loathing for Mac OS X 10.5 Loathsome Leopard elsewhere, so won’t go into that again in too much detail, Read the rest of this entry »