Category Archives: Life

Life

A day not off

It’s funny how a day can work out.

 

I didn’t plan to have a day at work.  But it ended up happening.

 

One of the most productive days I’ve had in a while.  Echo’s reported. Rosters written. And all from going to work, while telling everyone I was having the day off.

New Server

Ok,

A complete rebuild of the server.  Running on Lion now, which isn’t trivial.  No support for MySql, so it has to been installed manually.

And poor virtual host support – have bought VirtualHostX, which does the job well.

Now I just need to rebuild the whole thing, although the blog entries are here, which is a start.

Michael

Cost of solar

Just to follow up from a discussion on friday…

The article notes that the 2009 average cost in the US is 6.1 to 18.1 cents per kilowatt hour.  It was on this basis that they say that IF power gets down to 15 c per kwh it would be competitive.

What about the cost of electricity in Australia?

Well, according to wikipedia, which may not be accurate but I have no reason to doubt it, its 3-5 cents per kwh.

So whilst solar will become cost competitive with coal in the more expensive parts of the US, in five years, possibly, its going to be quite a while before it competes with either the cheaper parts of the US or most of Australia.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big believer in renewable power as being the only long term plan that looks viable – but it will only happen with either:

a. Major government initiatives (eg., subsidies & taxes)

b. Major rises in the cost of extracting coal

If we wait for option b, then the economy is going to be in a bad way by the time it happens.

Michael

Tea and Toast. Forget the coffee.

Having a good weekend.

Small incident with the coffee maker – I could have sworn it was the sort that you put on the stove.

Turns out it was somewhat more of an electric version, with lots of plastic underneath.  Highly flammable plastic…

Michael