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I sometimes watch a program on television called ‘How it’s made‘. Each half-hour episode gives an audio/visual explanation of how everyday objects are made, usually three separate items are covered in each program. They show the various and diverse processes that are involved in the different stages of manufacture. Almost anything that is manufactured can find its way on to the program. I find it very interesting but then I have always wanted to know how things work and how they are made. It’s a sort of electromechanical inquisitive curiosity I have built-in and hard-wired into my brain. It sits there with all the other strange and wonderful things that make up my psyche. I also like cosmetics! I digress. In our modern societies the things we use have to be produced using machinery and usually electrical machinery. What factory doesn’t use electricity? From computers and control equipment and the automated production machinery electricity is the essential driving force, the only driving force, apart from the boss, in a factory today. What would we do without it? There is almost nowhere in the modern manufacture and processing industry that doesn’t involve the use of electricity. Even in our homes we find electricity an indispensable commodity. We use it to cook with, to drive our entertainment equipment, our televisions, radios, computers, games consoles, telephones, lighting and security systems. In fact the whole infrastructure of society depends upon this commodity being available. Imagine our world without it. How long would we last? I remember hearing how we could have an almost free supply of electricity about forty-five years ago. It was suggested that if everyone used electricity to power their needs it could be produced more efficiently. What went wrong with that suggestion? Today prices are soaring and yet there are ways of producing electricity at a low-cost to the consumer. Most of our electricity is produced by using coal to make the steam for the turbines attached to which are the electricity alternators. Unfortunately coal or rather the burning of it produces a lot of pollution and in the early years of its use the air we breathed was highly contaminated. Todays coal-fired burners are much more efficient but still they produce some undesirable pollution. There are enough stocks of coal in this country, the UK, to last more than three hundred years which makes it a tempting source of power. There are other sources of power too, gas for instance and also nuclear. As gas is used elsewhere besides generating electricity it would seem logical not to use it for that purpose except that if we switched completely to using electricity there would be no argument. Nuclear power generation has its own problems too, the danger of a leakage of radiation and the disposal of the more dangerous waste products which produce even higher levels of radiation. There may be a future for nuclear powered generation if these issues can be overcome to the satisfaction of the population. Legislation and the dictates of the European Community have restricted the amount of pollution that any member state can produce without severe penalty. This is to encourage producing electricity by other means. One of the best ways of producing electricity is by using water to turn the turbines, the hydro-electric generating system. All that is needed is a constant flow of water and this usually comes from huge man-made reservoirs or natural lakes where the natural flow of water is governed by the use of a dam. It is a way of producing electricity without pollution and one would think its use would be widespread. Unfortunately it isn’t. There can be no excuse for that when there are numerous lakes around that could be utilised, even more than once if the lakes are at altitude. There seems to always be objections to this sort of suggestion and yet the generators (alternators) can be hidden from view underground. It is the same problem with wind-powered generation, no-one wants to see them dotted about the country or even at sea if it spoils the view! Everyone wants electricity but not everyone is prepared to see their environment spoiled by the equipment needed to produce it. It need not be that way and indeed government has dictated in some situations that the need far outweighs the objection. Personally I agree. Does it really matter if when we look out of a window we see the blades of wind turbines rotating gently in the breeze especially as they are usually situated far enough away from residential areas? Most objections are raised by people who seldom visit areas in which wind turbines are placed anyway. If we cannot live without electricity then we must be prepared to put up with some inconvenience or stop moaning about it.
Shirley Anne
