Watts up, Doc?
December 12, 2007 at 11:53 am
Device to show us how many Watts we use arrives in UK
Everyone is watching how much energy they use, or at least the environmentalists feel we should be. In the last ten years we have all witnessed a mass invasion of eco-warriors, and the amount of electricity we consume each year in our homes is one of the principle battles in the war. Microwaves, TVs, washing machines, computers and all the rest, use lots of watts, and at a cost to more than just our bank balances. There is a new product coming to the UK though, which looks set to make cutting down our wattage not only productive but also very cool.
The Wattson is the creation of three design graduates from the Royal College of Art. The device is made by the company DIK Kyoto and it’s so sleek and cool, it could easily rank alongside the ipod. What does it actually do though? Well the Wattson has two parts: one part sits next to your electricity meter and isn’t seen, while the other part certainly is.
The wireless device can be placed anywhere within a 30 metre radius of the meter. It’s a flash and stylish looking base unit that has an LED display projector, and it tells you how many watts you are using. Not only does it do this, but this particular new model, unlike its predecessors, Electrsave and Efergy, also tells you the annual running cost. If this isn’t an incentive to turn things off rather than leave them on standby, nothing is.
There are various different modes, which allow you to change the colours, numbers, display setting etc. The Wattson can also be linked to the home computer, and software allows you to build graphs and charts to see how much you are doing for the environment. Hopes for the future are to create an online community, whereby other users of the Wattson can share their Wattage scores, in a sort of gaming competition.
There are some down-sides to this device though. The Wattson itself runs off the mains and, although it only consumes 5 Watts (1 Watt on low-power mode) it’s not ideal. There is a battery installed as back-up, but it’s ironic that the Wattson itself could actually be more energy efficient.
It is also by no means cheap. In the UK the Wattson is being sold for around £150 and the ones made from limited edition bamboo go up to £350. Other similar devices, such as The Kill A Watt and Watts Up are much cheaper, but perhaps not as good looking.
As shown here with the Wattson, it’s clear that gadget companies are jumping on the band wagon to make eco-friendly products both profitable for them and a must-have for the cool consumer.
Largest wind turbines in UK are set to increase 200 fold
December 7, 2007 at 4:45 pm
The North Sea doth blow and we shall have power… and if the two giant wind turbines that have just been erected prove to be a success, they could be joined by a further 200. Offshore wind farms are not as common as their land-based counterparts but in many ways they are much more efficient. The ones on the mainland are cheaper to install and cheaper to run but they don’t generate quite as much energy as the huge ones in the water do.
Offshore turbines are often much larger, with blades the size of 7 double-decker buses (200ft), and can generate up to 5 megawatts of power each. The major costs of these turbines come from their construction. They have to be buried at least 150 feet down, at least 15 miles from the shore. The under-water cabling and general maintenance is much more measured and expensive. However, for an island like the UK, this method seems to be the perfect solution.
The two new huge turbines in the Beatrice oil field are supported by Scottish and Southern Energy and the Canadian oil company Talisman. There certainly seems to be a buzz around the project at the moment. The popularity of onshore wind farms is under constant scrutiny from those who object to the “visual pollution.” Ironically though, these people seem to be hindering a possible environmentally friendly initiative.
In Denmark, where nearly their entire borders sit on the shores of the North Sea, they use offshore wind farming to generate up to 18% of the country’s electrical power. The same could one day be true for the UK, or at least for Scotland.
The Director of the project, which is known as the Beatrice Wind Farm Project, Allan MacAskill, spoke very positively about it by saying, “We have shown this deep-water wind technology works, that it could be made to operate economically, and that it could be used to generate a significant amount of power far from shore and shipping lanes.”
No one will be able to see the turbines so there is no problem with views being spoiled. No one will be able to hear them either. The proposed 200 giant turbines could eventually serve a huge region of the northeast and boost the national grid with thousands of megawatts per year. The only snag is the reliability of the wind in the North Sea, as sometimes the seas there are surprisingly calm. But then if we can power our homes here in the UK with solar panels, then we can surely rely on a gust or two off the Scottish coast.
