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By defending a broken energy market, the Conservatives have shown how out of touch they are with consumers.
David Cameron with shadow energy secretary Ed Davey at the Clean Energy Ministerial Conference on April 26, 2012 in London. Photograph: Getty Images.
There are only two explanations I can think of for the ill-judged and half-baked response of the Tories to the key announcements unveiled by Ed Miliband this week. The first is that Lynton Crosby has been on holiday. And the second is that they are even more out of touch than we imagined. I doubt, however, that David Cameron would give his pet lobbyist time off the week off before his party?s own conference. So, the latter must be true.
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Yet even Lynton must have wondered at the hysterical response to Ed?s announcement that we would freeze gas and electricity bills in 2015, for 20 months, while we reset the market. Street lights would flicker and snuff out, companies would leave and investment in renewable energy would grind to a halt. The notion that the energy companies, which have increased average bills by ?300 over the last three years, are at risk of going bust if Labour freezes bills for 20 months is frankly ridiculous. And the idea that they need to make excess profits at the expense of the consumer to invest, ignores the fact that profits have gone up over the last four years but investment in clean energy has slumped from ?7.2bn in 2009 to ?3bn in 2012.
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Take Centrica, for example, the company that has been most vocal about our proposal. They claim that "if prices were to be controlled against a background of rising costs it would simply not be economically viable for Centrica, or indeed any other energy supplier, to continue to operate and far less to meet the sizeable investment challenge that the industry is facing". The reality is that over recent years, Centrica has made the biggest profits of any of the Big Six but has invested the least in new plants. Rather than delivering the investment everyone agrees we need, they have been paying 74% of their profits out as dividends. The truth is that some of these companies have seen profits from their sales to households rise by 30% in a year, irrespective whether the cost of wholesale generation and purchase has risen or fallen. In fact, the only thing that?s fallen as far as customers are concerned is trust in companies that appear to be operating in a market which for them is more comfortable than competitive. And all this at a time when working people are an average of almost ?1,500 a year worse off under this government.
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Labour?s proposal, advanced with such clarity in Ed Miliband?s inspiring speech at Brighton, is no more than a proportionate, just and necessary corrective to this situation. It will be an intervention on behalf of the people by a government fighting for the interest of the people. And the people should not be expected to stand by and be bullied, or held to ransom, by companies implausibly threatening job losses and capital flight.
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We might recall the prophecies?of doom which accompanied the creation of the minimum wage ? a control on the price of labour itself, of course ? and the reality that unemployment didn?t increase and businesses were able to compete through higher skills and greater investment instead. A race to the top, instead of a race to the bottom, if you like. So let?s get this policy in perspective and hear no more nonsense about Seventies-style socialism. What Ed has suggested is just the right thing to do by a Labour government that welcomes market mechanisms where they function well and in the interests of consumers, businesses and the society which they inhabit. This is about resetting a broken market and injecting the competition and transparency that we need to restore fairness and trust.
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David Cameron and his grossly out-of- touch colleagues would do well to stop defending the profits of the energy companies and instead read David Sainsbury?s excellent new book Progressive Capitalism. There, the PM might learn from someone who was at the heart of the New Labour about the necessity of government intervening to set rules and create institutions that can manage markets in the interests of the people, not of the profiteers. And he might also decide the right thing to do is to pinch our proposal and freeze prices sooner than 2015. Consider it a freebie, Mr Cameron, a policy gift from Labour. Keep it; we?ve got plenty more to spare.
Game creators who have tried Valve's unusual new game controller tell Kotaku that the device holds a lot of promise. But make no mistake, they also say it feels pretty different from what we're used to.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]During HR Professionals Week (Oct. 7-11), we'll be recognizing HR pros for their hard work and dedication in the workplace. Throughout the week, we're offering free special reports, tools, videos and an invitation-only ...
A new simulation will help improve artificial sand-control measures designed to help combat desertification
In the fight against desertification, so-called straw checkerboard barriers (SCB) play a significant role. SCB consists of half -exposed criss-crossing rows of straws of wheat, rice, reeds, and other plants. The trouble is that our understanding of the laws governing wind-sand movement in SCB and their surrounding area is insufficient. Now, Ning Huang and colleagues from Lanzhou University in China have performed a numerical simulation of the sand movement inside the SCB, described in a paper just published in EPJ E. China is particularly affected by desertification, which affects 18 percent of its territory. The results will help us to understand sand fixation mechanisms that are relevant for sandstorm and land-desertification control.
The authors relied on a simulation of large eddies, which are circulations around an obstruction such as the SCB walls, to study the turbulence stress. They also used a discrete particle-tracing method to numerically simulate the wind -sand movement inside the SCB. Specifically, they described the sand as a gas, using equations to describe their space-averaged hydrodynamics. They also analysed in detail the movement characteristics of sand particles, the transverse velocities of sand particles and wind-sand flow within the SCB using a model taking into consideration the coupling effects of wind field and sand particles.
Huang and colleagues found that the SCB contributed to a decrease in the sand transport rate in its interior, thus helping the sand fixation. What is more, as the transverse distance increases, the strength of wind-sand flow eddies decreases. Meanwhile, the sand accumulates near the interior walls of the SCB. Finally, as the number of SCBs increases, the wind is less able to transport sand.
Future studies will be designed to optimise SCB design, based on the authors' theoretical analysis. These findings could also be used to study the evolution to sand dunes.
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References
N. Huang, X. Xia, D. Tong (2013), Numerical Simulation of Wind-sand Movement in Straw Checkerboard Barriers, European Physical Journal E,DOI 10.1140/epje/i2013-13099-6
For more information visit: http://www.epj.org
The full-text article is available to journalists on request
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Greater desertification control using sand trap simulationsPublic release date: 27-Sep-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
A new simulation will help improve artificial sand-control measures designed to help combat desertification
In the fight against desertification, so-called straw checkerboard barriers (SCB) play a significant role. SCB consists of half -exposed criss-crossing rows of straws of wheat, rice, reeds, and other plants. The trouble is that our understanding of the laws governing wind-sand movement in SCB and their surrounding area is insufficient. Now, Ning Huang and colleagues from Lanzhou University in China have performed a numerical simulation of the sand movement inside the SCB, described in a paper just published in EPJ E. China is particularly affected by desertification, which affects 18 percent of its territory. The results will help us to understand sand fixation mechanisms that are relevant for sandstorm and land-desertification control.
The authors relied on a simulation of large eddies, which are circulations around an obstruction such as the SCB walls, to study the turbulence stress. They also used a discrete particle-tracing method to numerically simulate the wind -sand movement inside the SCB. Specifically, they described the sand as a gas, using equations to describe their space-averaged hydrodynamics. They also analysed in detail the movement characteristics of sand particles, the transverse velocities of sand particles and wind-sand flow within the SCB using a model taking into consideration the coupling effects of wind field and sand particles.
Huang and colleagues found that the SCB contributed to a decrease in the sand transport rate in its interior, thus helping the sand fixation. What is more, as the transverse distance increases, the strength of wind-sand flow eddies decreases. Meanwhile, the sand accumulates near the interior walls of the SCB. Finally, as the number of SCBs increases, the wind is less able to transport sand.
Future studies will be designed to optimise SCB design, based on the authors' theoretical analysis. These findings could also be used to study the evolution to sand dunes.
###
References
N. Huang, X. Xia, D. Tong (2013), Numerical Simulation of Wind-sand Movement in Straw Checkerboard Barriers, European Physical Journal E,DOI 10.1140/epje/i2013-13099-6
For more information visit: http://www.epj.org
The full-text article is available to journalists on request
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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