Power by the people

Clever people will save the planet.

Politicians worry about how to generate all the electricity the population needs without burning fossil fuel. They are asking the wrong questions.

Instead of trying to provide us with electricity, why don't they look for ways in which we can generate what we need ourselves?

Scientists are investigating how to generate power from the light which passes through the glass in our windows.

Now there is news of clever people at the University of Texas who are investigating how microscopic windmills can do the job:

http://www.wired.com/design/2014/01/mini-windmills-power-iphone/?cid=17794184

There must be clever young minds in British universities who can think beyond 240 volts generated by a smoky coal-fired power station somewhere.

There is a fortune to be made by someone who can let people generate small amounts of power when they need it and sell them devices which need only small amounts of power to work.

Awakening

Sad to read of Phil Everly’s death.

The Everly Brothers were part of that exotic American culture which was so exciting to a youngster growing up in 1950s Newcastle. So exotic we couldn’t hear it on the BBC, we had to tune our radios to Radio Luxembourg and put up with Bird dog fading and coming back as the AM signal bounced around the mountains.

Music is so important to those of us lucky enough to be in that post-war generation.

In our schooldays, we had Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, the Everlys, Eddie Cochran and Duane Eddy. No one was called Buddy, Elvis, Chuck or Duane in Newcastle.

In our teens, the culture suddenly became local and even more exciting as groups in Liverpool, London and, yes, even Newcastle burst into the charts. There were boys called John and Paul, Eric and Alan in my school.

In the 50s the news was all grown-up stuff. In the 60s, we were in the news. What we listened to, what we wore. What Bob Dylan sang was more relevant than what politicians said.

Everyone remembers the time when they moved from child to adult as the golden years. My golden years coincided with the country changing from a regimented do-as-everyone-else-does society to the do-your-own-thing society we live in now.

Little Susie wasn’t the only one who woke up.