Negombo

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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: East Asia; Published: 05 March 2023; Hits: 3175

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Our penultimate stop of the trip - prior to Colombo Airport - was Negombo.

On a more secular level, on our way back to the coast, we stopped at this place for lunch at the café. It was hosting a wedding planning exhibition and in its own way was fascinating - as was the bizarrely incompetent management of the café. Like an episode of 'Fawlty Towers'.

Sri Lanka 42

Since we had descended from the highlands, rice had again replaced tea as the predominant crop. It's the staple and almost entirely for domestic consumption. These days it's mechanically harvested and bagged, replacing several steps of back breaking manual labour.

Other important crops include rubber, coconuts, palm oil, bananas, and pineapples, as well as a variety of other fruit and vegetables.

Sri Lanka 43

Here we had a visit to the fish markets; walked with goats; and relaxed at the Goldi Sands Hotel (resort).

Time to go home.

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Travel

Berlin

I'm a bit daunted writing about Berlin.

Somehow I'm happy to put down a couple of paragraphs about many other cities and towns I've visited but there are some that seem too complicated for a quick 'off the cuff' summary. Sydney of course, my present home town, and past home towns like New York and London. I know just too much about them for a glib first impression.

Although I've never lived there I've visited Berlin on several occasions for periods of up to a couple of weeks. I also have family there and have been introduced to their circle of friends.

So I decided that I can't really sum Berlin up, any more that I can sum up London or New York, so instead I should pick some aspects of uniqueness to highlight.

Fiction, Recollections & News

Australia's Hydrogen Economy

As anyone who has followed my website knows, I'm not a fan of using 'Green Hydrogen' (created by the electrolysis of water - using electricity) to generate electricity.

I've nothing against hydrogen. It's the most abundant element in the universe. And I'm very fond of water (hydrogen oxide or more pedantically: dihydrogen monoxide). It's just that there is seldom a sensible justification for wasting most of one's electrical energy by converting it to hydrogen and then back to electricity again.

I've made the argument against the electrolysis (green) route several times since launching this website fifteen years ago; largely to deaf ears.

The exception made in the main article (linked below) is where a generator has a periodic large unusable surpluses in an environment unsuitable for batteries. In the past various solutions have been attempted like heat storage in molten salt. But where there is a plentiful fresh water supply, producing hydrogen for later electricity generation is another option. Also see: How does electricity work? - Approaches to Electricity Storage

Two of these conditions apply in South Australia that frequently has excess electricity (see the proportion of non-hydro renewables chart below). The State Government, with unspecified encouragement from the Prime Minister and the Commonwealth, has offered A$593m to a private consortium to build a 200MW, 100t hydrogen storage at Whyalla. Yet, the State already has some very large batteries, with which this facility is unlikely to be able to compete commercially. Time will tell.

Opinions and Philosophy

Electric Cars revisited (again)

Electric vehicles like: trams; trains; and electric: cars; vans; and busses; all assist in achieving better air quality in our cities. Yet, to the extent that the energy they consume is derived from our oldest energy source, fire: the potential toxic emissions and greenhouse gasses simply enter the atmosphere somewhere else.

Back in 2005 I calculated that in Australia, due to our burning coal, oil and sometimes rural waste and garbage, to generate electricity, grid-charged all-electric electric cars had a higher carbon footprint than conventional cars.

In 2019, with a lot of water under the bridge; more renewables in the mix; and much improved batteries; I thought it was worth a revisit. I ran the numbers, using more real-world data, including those published by car companies themselves. Yet I got the same result: In Australia, grid-charged all-electric cars produce more greenhouse gasses than many conventional cars for the same distance travelled.

Now, in the wake of COP26, (November 2021), with even more water under the bridge, the promotion of electric cars is back on the political agenda. Has anything changed?

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