Thoughts On Our Visit To Prague

In London with Helen for a long weekend! (at London)

"The Martian" by Andy Weir

I'm just back from holiday. While away I read this really fun book titled "The Martian" written by Andy Weir. It is a great read, fast paced, full of action with suspense and light relief. For other Engineers like me it really brings home what we do which is to solve problems. I highly recommend this book!

Asgard

WELL begun; half done. That proverbor, rather, its obverseencapsulates the problems which have dogged civil nuclear power since its inception. Atomic energy is...

This article from The economist magazine talks about using Thorium as a Nuclear Fuel instead of Uranium.  Thorium has several advantages over Uranium and in the view of the author of this article the most important is the relative resistance to proliferation compared to Uranium.  I learned a few things from this article.  The things I learned was that the US did build a few bombs out of U233 which is the fissile element formed from the fertile Thorium.  I was always a bit unsure as to whether or not any bombs had been built.  The article also confirms my prior understanding that U233 makes a poor nuclear bomb material because of the presence of small amounts of other radioactive isotopes that emit hard gamma radiation that messes up the other mechanisms required for a bomb.

Open Water Swimming Sunrise - Emma and I were down for a swim today (5 Jan 17). The sun was just coming up. We were in for about 13 minutes, we swam around 400m. Water temperature 8 degC. The water was really clear, the settled weather the last few days must be responsible. (at Royal West Amateur Boat Club, Greenock)

The fuel of the future, unfortunately

WHAT more could one want? It is cheap and simple to extract, ship and burn. It is abundant: proven reserves amount to 109 years of current consumption, reckons BP, a...

This article from The Economist magazine dated April 19th to 25th April suggests that Coal is going to play a large role in providing electrical power for he foreseeable future.  This will be especially true in poorer countries.  What we need is to make nuclear cheaper than coal.  

Yum Yum Helen's made pumpkin pie 😊

Dome City Blog 1 - An idea for higher density cities

I have been thinking a lot about what we need for new housing and cities. I have been thinking about this for a number of reasons. One reason is that the UK is critically short of housing.  The government and others are keen to see a large number of new homes built.  Personally I support this idea. Another reason was my recent visit to Changchun, China.  This is a very large city by UK standards.  The greater metro area has a population of 7.6 million while the city itself has a population of 3.9 million based on 2010 data.  That was the 5th tiime I’ve been to Changchun and I always enjoy my time there.  However, I think this is a city ruined by the car. I like to walk or cycle whenever I can.  Modern cities, for the most part, make this difficult and unpleasant.  It is difficult because of the distances involved and it is unpleasant because cars and pedestrians/cyclists don’t mix so well. In brief here is the questions I am thinking about and some of the answers that I am arriving at. What if we built a city that was housed in a geodesic dome with a diameter of 1km at the base?  A geodesic dome has the shape of a half-sphere.  It was popopularizedy R. Buckminster Fuller.  I have chosen this structural form because I understand that it is very efficient from a structural engineering point of view. I have some simple back of the envelope type calculations to see how many people this city in a dome could house.  Assume that we made the thickness of the floors separating levels as 1.5m (5 feet) and that we had clear space of 9m (29.5 feet) between levels.  This would provide 48 levels for constructing our city.   The land area at the base of this dome is 0.785 square kilometers (194 acres, 78.5 hectares).  With the 48 levels as described above the land area available within the dome is 25.3 square kilometers (6250 acres, 2530 hectares).   The population density of the the dome were the same as New York City at 27,778 people per square mile (10,716 people per square km) then it could house 271,000 people.  With a lower density of say, 10,000 people per square mile  (3860 people per square km) then it could house 97,700 people.  This lower population density figure of 10000 people per square mile is the almost the same value as for population densities of Miami,Florida and Birmingham, England.   I would suggest that there should be a significant green belt around this dome city.  I would like to suggest at least 500m of park and wild lands around the base (excepting transport links). I will continue these ideas in my next blog. Dome City - Blog 1 5 October 2014 Joe Heffernan

A view from The Clyde during today's swim. High tide at 13:00. Entered water at 13:10. Swam by myself. 422m in 15m50s. Fresh westerly breeze Force 5. 6 minutes out and 9 minutes back against the waves. Water temperature 9.9 degC. (at Greenock Esplanade)

A boring photo of the beach before today's swim. However, it was a great swim. Lowish tide coming in. Stacey Hearl, Campbell McCall and I swam 1 mile. It took us 18 minutes to the turn around and then 33 minutes coming back. Aren't tides wonderful? Water temperature 13.6 degC #scotland #inverclyde #rwsabc #openwaterswimming #greenock #theesplanade (at The Royal West of Scotland Boat Club)