Ottawa musings
It's time to slow things down a notch. Ottawa has been unbearably hot this week, and that's no fun. I've been experimenting with a few projects, namely a vermicomposter (worm bin), and some balcony planters. I've been modifying both, and hopefully I'll have an even better setup next summer (with less maintenance & better output too!) I'm also working on a new website that displays my favourite recipes, and allows friends to add their own, but it's a big undertaking and I'm brushing up on my programming skills. I plan to dedicate more time to this over the next few weeks ...
The cost of the BP Oil Spill
I've decided to take a moment and weigh in on this spill. There's lot's of talk about the financial cost of the spill, the environmental cost of the spill, and other factors. This short post will discuss the energy loss of the spill. Renewable energy is becoming more and more available every day, with various levels of efficiency. One thing, however, is fixed. A barrel of crude oil contains roughly 6.1 Gigajoules of energy. (One calorie is approximately equal to four joules, for comparison). According to one source, that's 12.5 man-years (one human, working 40 hours/week, 50 weeks/year for 12.5 years) ...
New site
Well. That was fun. I opted to build myself a new website, powered by WordPressµ, which will allow me more flexibility in building websites for people. I'm still working out the kinks, but it's nearly ready. The downside? I somehow messed up my old website, which I had intended to import back to this space. I'm going to give it another shot in a few days, but for now, it looks like I've lost it. Maybe a fresh start won't be so bad. The other upside? I'm consolidating all of my online presence to this new platform. I will be able ...
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It’s time to slow things down a notch. Ottawa has been unbearably hot this week, and that’s no fun. I’ve been experimenting with a few projects, namely a vermicomposter (worm bin), and some balcony planters. I’ve been modifying both, and hopefully I’ll have an even better setup next summer (with less maintenance & better output too!)
I’m also working on a new website that displays my favourite recipes, and allows friends to add their own, but it’s a big undertaking and I’m brushing up on my programming skills. I plan to dedicate more time to this over the next few weeks in order to launch the site. I hope to make it a fun recipe-sharing community, but there are things to do before I reach the public launch. Hopefully, all will work as planned.
I am currently training for a full marathon, on PEI, in October. I ran the Ottawa half in May, which I managed to do in just under 1:45. My marathon goal is 3:30 or quicker. Unfortunately, training has been a mess, because it’s too hot to do any real exercise this week. It looks like it’s about to cool off, so I’ll hit the ground running (literally) and get back on track.
School is going to be a big challenge this fall, with a lot on my plate. I know I can do it, and I’m actually looking forward to it. I hope to write some more informative blog posts and get the new site cleaned up soon, but maybe I’ll get to that next week!
Musings by .
I’ve decided to take a moment and weigh in on this spill. There’s lot’s of talk about the financial cost of the spill, the environmental cost of the spill, and other factors. This short post will discuss the energy loss of the spill.
Renewable energy is becoming more and more available every day, with various levels of efficiency. One thing, however, is fixed. A barrel of crude oil contains roughly 6.1 Gigajoules of energy. (One calorie is approximately equal to four joules, for comparison). According to one source, that’s 12.5 man-years (one human, working 40 hours/week, 50 weeks/year for 12.5 years) per barrel of oil.
Estimates peg the leak in the Gulf of Mexico at between 12,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil per day. At the time of this writing, the leak had been going on for 44 days, so we’ll say that 1,100,000 barrels of oil (25,000/day) have been spilt. That means that 13,750,000 – yep, 14 million man-years have been wasted. That’s one year of work for the entire province of Ontario wiped off the face of the Earth. (Ontario’s GDP is almost $600B)
Of course, we have to take these numbers with a grain of salt. As noted in my source which calculated the 12.5 man-years per barrel of oil, we can’t expect humans to push transport trucks at 100kph. No matter how you cut it, there is a lot of energy being dispersed into the Gulf, and that is simply tragic.
*UPDATE*
I just remembered why I started writing this – the Canadian Government announced today that they’d be building 135 ships for the Coast Guard and Navy, which will create 75 million man-hours of work over the life-cycle of the ships. That estimate above, in hours, is 27.5B man hours, or 0.003% of the work thrown away in the spill.
Musings by .
Well. That was fun. I opted to build myself a new website, powered by WordPressµ, which will allow me more flexibility in building websites for people. I’m still working out the kinks, but it’s nearly ready. The downside? I somehow messed up my old website, which I had intended to import back to this space. I’m going to give it another shot in a few days, but for now, it looks like I’ve lost it. Maybe a fresh start won’t be so bad.
The other upside? I’m consolidating all of my online presence to this new platform. I will be able to upgrade my sites with the click of ONE button. All my plugins in a central repository, and I’ll be able to water my websites down to one single hosting plan (which I’ve already achieved, for the most part).
So, looking for a website from me? I’ll be up and running again soon.
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