It's a pleasant surprise to find a sanctury from all that modern inane garbage they call music.

Unter sind zwei digitale Kameras Minolta Verkäufe.

I'd just like to say that it is misinformed to say the solar panels produce less energy than it takes to create them. It's been shown in several studies that they produce a minimum of 4 times the power that it took to create them. You may have been looking at out dated information. Technology and manufacturing processes have greatly decreased the power required to manufacture a solar panel.

To Bristol Bachelor :-
Wind Farms do take energy out of the atmosphere. And Solar panels absorb the suns energy destined for our atmosphere. And Wave power takes energy out of the oceans. But guess what? With Global warming we have just spent 100 years fast charging that battery. Our Wind speads are up, air temps higher and oceans warmer. So I say, take our energy out of the environment, cause we just recently put it in.

As for Canals, Miving 1kg of mass by boat is very energy efficient. The next best is rail, followed a long way behind by road transport, and a gargantuan gap further back is the use of air freight!

Money only equates to the energy it represents. 20 dollars might bring you a pizza now, but would it still get you one if the shop owner had to chop wood to cook it, and the delivery boy had to ride a push bike to bring it to you? And what if the fertilizers from Natural Gas and Pesticides from Oil weren't available to provide the food for the Pizza's ingredients.

This lavish society is only temporary, and we need to use this wealth to prepare for a post fossil fuel ecconomy.

Avocatus diaboli:
Quote: "it will be less fuel efficient because, as should be obvious, water has more resistance to movement than tarmac and pneumatic tyres"
I think your a bit confused on your basic physics here. I assume when your say resistance to movement your refering to friction and water has a lot less friction than tarmac or tires which in combination produce lots of friction ( which is why a spinning tire on a big heavy truck will propell the truck forwards. Maybe you wanted to compare the air resistance vs water resistance? Anyway the amount of power (and fuel) required to move something by truck is dependent on the weight (more weight more friction, more fuel). Moving something by water the amount of friction is dependant on the surface area of the hull which is in contact with the water (ie the size of the boat not the weight). Moving heavy goods will always be more efficient (although slower) by boat than by road.

It was mention that the present canal system is designed for boats of upto 30 tonnes displacemet, actually is the victorian system which is so limited (and only certain sections because there were no agreed standards on building canals which were privately funded enterprises). The Manchester Ship Canal enables ships of up to 18000 tonnes displacement to reach Manchester from Eastham on the Mersey estuary. I believe the origional proposal called for a modern canal system along these lines.

It would be a very good idea to get some people together who know their shit to talk about the Feasability of such an idea, hang on a sec....maybe thats already happened? It has for the trasportation of goods at least:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/Environment/water/iw/freight/
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-centre/pre...ontent.asp?prID=581

If we could move freight of the roads onto the canals this would be a nice start, maybe then we can think about distributing power and water through the canals? Trouble is we seem to have lost the ability for long term strategic planning, something we had in spades in the victorian era. Pity!

Solar Panels:
It currently takes more energy to produce a solar panel than it can create in it's lifetime. They are great for energy in remote areas where there are no power cables, but until we have a different technology they are not as green as they look. (Yes, there are people working on this).

Hydrogen and cars:
You can currently run an internal combustion engine directly from hydrogen. You will get a similar efficiency to a fuel-cell and electronically controlled motor drive.

The IC version is currently a lot cheaper. There is a downside that you still need oil and still have some hydrocarbon emissions from the burnt oil, but the emissions are mainly water. Probably the way to go for a while.

Windfarms:
Have you ever wondered what happens to the climate when you take several GW of energy out of the wind currents across an area? Somebody suggested a link between the killer heatwave in France a few years ago and the number of windfarms in Europe.

Solution:
After the global melt-down, we all go back to living in tents tending to sheep :)

I started a reply to this, then had to go away for a few days because I started trying to respond to every misconception - and the result was a mess. Perhaps the best place to start is by making a very simple point. The present canal system is designed for boats up to about 30t displacement carrying, for the sake of argument, maximum loads of around 25t. At 4mph (the point at which bank erosion starts with current technology), you will be getting possibly 4mpg under ideal conditions. So to equal one 44t Artic doing 56mph, in terms of ton miles, you will need roughly 25 boats, and you will use maybe 40 times the fuel. Inconveniently, the main proposals for barge traffic are inside congested cities where artic speeds are extremely low. Widening isn't an option there, but often there are rivers (rather than canals) which can be used.
The barges on European canals range from around 360t to 4000t. At these sizes, there starts to be some economic point. However, to make use of them you would need to rebuild the entire system, confiscating in the process all the houses and businesses along the banks to gain the necessary width - say 40M, plus large amounts of land for large automated locks, catch ponds, weirs and access. And the carrying capacity will still be far less than a motorway of the same width, and it will be less fuel efficient because, as should be obvious, water has more resistance to movement than tarmac and pneumatic tyres. It was this lack of efficiency that caused canals to be obsoleted for freight by railways.
I could get very political about the way your scheme seeks to confiscate land and assets from people outside London for the benefit of people in London, just as supermarkets (based in the South-East) seek to impoverish farmers elsewhere in the country. It is not clear why people in the North should have their water stolen to send to the south, merely for the convenience of people who choose to live there. But something tells me you are a Londoner, and Londoners are remarkably obtuse about the irrationality their belief that they own everything. I know - I am a renegade Londoner who moved West thirty years ago.
However, in fact you would find the resistance to this confiscation came in many shapes and forms. Quite a lot of people do not want this country entirely converted into Watford. Towns like Hungerford and Newbury might express a little concern about the destruction if their town centres and transport links. The environment lobby - who I assume you regard as a collection of weirdos - might be a little bit upset about the wholesale destruction of sites of scientific interest. And the tourist industry would be a mite peeved at losing a sizeable slice of its income.
Back to practicalities. You may not be aware that canals go up and down, which is what locks are for (and you will need pretty big locks for your 360t barges.) They are not a good way to transport water, in fact the more common issue is one of transporting water to the canal. Open stretches of water mean that getting large volumes over summits is a bit of a technical issue. And how fast will that water have to flow? You are going to need concrete lining for the entire system.
Of course, the sensible solution is to send water through pipes. This allows you to use pressure and get readonable flow rates. What's more, you could route these pipes underground on optimised routes instead of meandering all over the country. Using modern boring equipment, surface disruptions would be minimal.
You would also increase the transport capacity of the country far more, with less disruption, by adding a single lane to every motorway and dual carriageway. Now why is that not practicable?
Finally, a word about British Waterways. My only connection with them is that I pay them over £400 a year for a licence. But I actually like BW. Far from being some fuddy-duddy, stuck in the mud organisation, they are actually a very progressive, well run company with an excellent training scheme and a huge fund of knowledge about canals. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by talking to them, though admittedly you wouldn't have got a story in the Inq. They would have given you the technical information you so conspicuously lack, and the economic data.

Thanks for the messages so far.

Some very good points there, particularly the one about needing very slow flow on a working canal. Numbers needed, I think; width, depth, capacity, flow rate.

I was also struck by the idea that canals might have to stop at the fringes of large cities. Almost certainly true, at first, I suspect.

We should organise some kind of get together in the next month or so. I mean, in the next month or so, we should organise it! - I'm not going to be back in the UK much in the next few weeks. But it would be nice to meet a few faces, and chat about it in real time...

Guy

Having spent many many hours reading 'eco' sites, this is the first article about Englands canals I have ever found. Such simple practical solutions rarely surface. I live next to the Leeds-Liverpool. That's not a narrow canal. But never a commercial boat goes past. British waterways don't want it. Check out their web site, which has all the appearance of a leisure organisation. The only work being undertaken, is in London, with the intention of lowering road traffic in the capital city.
With respect, Solar Bud, - New vitality? You only give examples of 'prettying it up' for the leisure industry. None of the business of actually moving goods around.
Sorry, The wrong ethos runs our country. Until things get really bad, and theres no other way of shifting things, will anything get done.

A great idea - but you could do it with existing canals, I reckon.

Anything too big to go by canal should go round the coast by ship. Many big cities e.g. Manchester have their own ship canal which runs into the centre of town, where big loads can be broken up and re-distributed by the smaller canals.

Here in and around Manchester and the North West, there is already a big renovation of canals going on - with the emphasis on making the former tow-paths walkable, and the canal-side environment attractive and open, with cafes, apartments etc.

Even as I write, the canals of the UK are re-emerging with a new vitality. I think the new renaissance of British canals is well underway.

Edited by author 09-12-2006 11:56 PM
Good article. Good idea. But lets start by taxing aviation fuel loads and loads. Then we can use the money raised to pay for the canals!

Edited by author 09-12-2006 01:13 PM
Here's a thought.

If we could shift to a fuel economy based on hydrogen and electricity, derived from solar sources, wouldn't that be a great use for all those nasty deserts around the equator?

You could maybe do something productive in the shade as well.....

The world's energy consumption is about 12 Tera Watts at the moment and expected to double in 30 years.

Lets call it 30TW for fun

Sunlight falling on the ground at the equator is about 1kw per sq metre

Commercial solar cells are up to about 20% efficient (but rapidly getting better)

You'd need a solar farm of about 250 miles on a side to provide that amount of power.

That's it. The whole world.

Block 250 miles x 250 miles on the Sahara. Its tiny

OK, assume you'd get power about 25% of the time, so build four times as much farm and distribute it in smaller chunks around the globe.
That's still a total equal to a square 500 miles x 500 miles

You're still only talking about satisfying the world's energy needs from a total of, say, a hundred sites, each about 50 miles x 50 miles.
You may need the same area again for plant and solar collectors to process seawater by electrolysis, although I'm sure our chemist friends can suggest alternative reactions to produce hydrogen.

Use distributed gas storage and tank storage underground and above ground storage just like we do at the moment.

I'd submit that it was do-able to make a start NOW.

Hydrogen would be great for power generation and heating straight away.

Its trickier to run a car on hydrogen very well at the moment, but give fuel cells a while. In themeantime, there's industrial proceses thatcould also use solar power directly to catalytically combine hydrogen with, say CO2 or CO and produce methane or even longer chain molecules, all the way upp to synthetic oils, paraffins like diesel or alcohols like petrol.

You get low-cost power, shade in the desert, use for therwise barren land, sustainable power, huge development in relatively poor countries, with service needs that could be locallly provided.

Heck, you could even make the silicon for the cells from the desert sand itself!

Just reading down looking at messages about how much oil there is left, perhaps you should not be worrying about that, but the damage greenhouse emersions are doing to the world.

Please dont give me any of the arguments about "its not proven" etc. It is Coral reefs are dieing (ive seen it bleaching), animals are changing their habitat and breeding. That’s just Bush propaganda. If we dont do somthing soon it will be to late. Some think it is to late.

Please also dont give me any of the BS about "road transport is only a small percentage of the emissions". I know that, but every little helps.

I think that a return to using canals is a brilliant idea, as do some major players in industry. What we really need is investment in the infrastructure, because if that is there then the canal transport business will boom.

Shifting goods by canal is cheaper and more effective than by lorry. As you say barges use very little fuel, probably less that the 'pleasure barges' do, because they can use high efficiency direct injection engines and the like which are currently used by people wanting a chugy "oldie worldy" feel to there holiday. On top of this a barge can hall somthing like 10 times the load of a lorry, with the same labour cost, and the barges themselves should cost around the same amount as a modern lorry once they are in mass production.

This is not taking into account the fact that you could augment the engines power using some kind of advanced hybrid using both hydro electric generation from stopping the boat and, perhaps, wind turbines mounted on the barge (in much the same way as many pleasure boats and caravans do for power), perhaps even combined with solar panels across the whole of the boats roof (if it were carrying cargo which required protection from the elements).

The other thing to consider is that the canals would probably not need widening because as long as there is room for one boat each way then you should be fine. I doubted there would be too much need for overtaking, as long as goods barges had priority over pleasure craft (especial at locks)

Anyway, that is my bit of "blue sky" thinking for today, back into "the box"

Paul

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I wonder if the problem of water supply will solve itself in a few years time. Global warming will raise sea levels by several metres. The low lying parts of Britain will become uninhabitable. People will have to move to higher ground. Where it rains.

And by the way, another negative aspect of canal transport (well, actually positive IMHO) is the speed (max 4 m.p.h.) a boat can travel. So with the EU Working Hours Directive, you're looking at approaching a week to get from London to Birmingham.

Edited by author 09-11-2006 10:35 PM
VERNE: some comments on your analysis of oil reserves:

"The amount of oil we have in reserve ie found so far is about 1 trillion barrels. The amount of oil we have in the world ie not found yet is estimated to be 3 trilion barrels."

Using this argument, I am actually the richest man in the world, I just haven't found my money yet - maybe it is down the back of the couch. How one can reliably estimate the amount of a resource 'not found yet' is beyond me.

 "They just found a huge oil field in the Mexican Gulf by the way. estimated to be around 500,000 million barrels, and this is not part of the reserve yet."

Found by whom? estimated by whom? God forbid an oil company should 'over-estimate' their finds or reserves to maintain investor interest and therefore stock and dividend prices.

 "The oil shortage scares are started and run by oil industry executives to make themselves rich. It is to put up the price of oil to make money, you know that old capatilistic enterprise."

This sounds reasonable until you note that iit is mostly the oil industry saying that there is plenty of oil left - not saying that it is running out. The last thing the oil companies want is for the world economy to transition away from the oil standard before they are ready.

Your article is very thought provoking. Regarding using "green electricity" for a pumped storage hydro electric scheme -yes it is the best use for "windpower electricity". Unfortunately however "green electricity" is subsidised and hugely expensive in relation to conventional generation which makes pumped storage hydro electricity a non starter at present

your idea seem good however i think you could well come up against British Waterways who for years have neglect many of Britain's canals and it only been through the efforts of hard working volunteers with the preservation society's who actually got many canals restored. Are you aware their is a hydro power staion in Argyle up in the hills that does in fact do many of your sugestions
http://www.visitcruachan.co.uk/

To be honest Guy, whilst it sounds like a great idea it's going to suffer the fate of all grand projets proposed in Britain - short-termism, NIMBYism and most importantly the price of land. Only a few years ago a consortium called Central Railway proposed a privately financed new railway line from Liverpool to the Channel Tunnel. However, because this was to pass through some of the wealthiest and most conservative parts of England (Buckinghamshire and Surrey) there was huge localised opposition to it, and the government never gave the firm its backing and the scheme is now dead in the water.

Big civil engineering projects need very long term financial commitment to make any money at all. With the present attitude of Government (with a five year horizon, max) and the City (who are only interested in quarterly results and dividends) nothing like this can ever happen. The Manchester Ship Canal was a huge undertaking - it took 7 years to build, and didn't make a profit for many years after that. Nobody would have financed it today, but it was a commercial success for many years (and the company that owns it today still makes a profit, although mostly from property development).

Looking at the amount of oil we have in reserve, how much we think there is left and then assuming that the rate we use it at will remain Constant it truly idiotic.

The use of oil which has got us (the world economy) this far is relatively low compared to the amount of oil used today and in the future. With India, and China (about 42% of the worlds population) expecting their own populations to attain the same level of lifestyle we’ve become accustomed to, we will see the price of oil only go up further, and countries which plan for these high prices/supply problems will find that their economies will prosper better.

Yes there is a lot of oil left, but we’re using it more than ever before, and there are more of us using it.

Oil companies do benefit from higher oil prices, but the main fluctuations in price are caused by supply and demand issues.

Edited by author 09-11-2006 11:16 AM
@Verne:

The whole "peak oil" issue isn't about reserves. It's about *accessibility*.

It's not the availability of oil that sets the price, but the costs of _extracting_ it that make it expensive. If an oil field is hard to get at, the costs of the oil produced by that field will go up. The more infrastructure you have to build to produce something, the more that something costs. This is basic economics.

It's no good telling us there's three trillion barrels of oil under the ground! It's no use to us there. If that oil is at the bottom of something like the Marianas Trench, we won't be able to get at it without spending ludicrous amounts of money on the problem. This doesn't mean it won't happen, but it _does_ mean that that oil will be very expensive to extract and therefore buy.

The "peak oil" argument isn't telling us we're running out of oil as such. It's telling us that we're running out of _cheap_ oil. It tells us that there will be a point when extracting the remaining oil reserves becomes so difficult, so expensive, that it will simply be impossible to keep up with demand.

We spend billions of dollars building and towing spectacularly expensive drilling rigs out in the middle of dangerous, storm-wracked oceans; we then use them to drill down through the sea bed for crude oil; pump it out of the ground into a passing oil tanker or expensive pipeline; transport that crude hundreds -- often even _thousands_ -- of miles to a refinery; convert that crude oil into fuel; transport it many more hundreds of miles...

...all so we can pour it into our cars and set it on fire!

And we call ourselves "Wise Man".


No matter how you slice it and dice it, we WILL reach a point when it becomes too expensive to extract crude oil for it to be worthwhile. Maybe not tomorrow; maybe not next week, but possibly within our own lifetimes and most probably during our children's.

Crude oil is a finite resource. Nobody is making any more of it and when the steel straws we're sucking it out of the ground with start making gurgling noises, it's time to start worrying. In future, pushing new straws through the Earth's surface is going to get a hell of a lot more expensive.

The UK's North Sea reserves are now almost dry. That took just 30 years: well within my own lifetime. Today, that same field would last only half as long, so the return on investment would be a lot less.

The straws are gurgling. Start worrying.

For someone who insists that our government uses more 'joined-up thinking', there's a shocking lack of it here in this forum...

Canals are not quick, but they are flat, offer a very smooth ride and reliable. You can't really have a multi-barge-train pile-up at 4mph and water doesn't suffer from 'liquid fatigue'. This makes them very predictable and low-maintenance. That's the key. Trains are about moving bulk loads at speed, but they're inflexible and the infrastructure is old and needs frequent maintenance. (The HSE also means that the old, BR practice of maintaining one track while keeping the other open to traffic is no longer allowed. Hence all the blockades in recent years.)

Trains suck at moving freight unless it's in trainload quantities. Road haulage provides the ultimate flexibility, but doesn't scale well due to the smaller loads each truck can carry. They really shouldn't be travelling up and down motorways: they're much better used for the last mile of the delivery process.

Trains of barges make much more sense than a ludicrously expensive widening of the existing waterways. Take some ideas from the railways by recycling the multiple-unit concept (i.e. a small engine on _each_ barge in the train), use automated controls, so trains can even be uncoupled, shunted and reformed _on the move_. And then... build trolley wires above the canals! One for each direction. Electric motors will be more efficient, quieter, cleaner and electricity can, as you folks have already pointed out, be generated from many, much cleaner, sources.

Some towns may need a bypass canal built so that long trains can use that and only individual barges intended for that town need use the old locks. This saves expensive widening of locks, while the bypass canal need not be built on the 150ft 'guage' suggested elsewhere, but can retain the existing size. Computer control and GPS can be used to reduce the need for manpower and keep running costs low.

Fully automated railways already exist, such as the Docklands Light Railway, and have done for years. Semi-automatic systems, which only have a human driver as backup, may be the more palatable option for laypeople however. Some of London Underground's tube lines, such as the Victoria, Jubilee and Central Lines, use the 1960s-era Automatic Train Operation: the driver checks the doors, then pushes some buttons to close them and start the train. The train then drives _itself_ to the next station. (This system was originally pioneered on the Victoria Line, but is being slowly rolled out across the network.)

There is ongoing research into computer-controlled road trains that allow individual cars to peel off and join other trains at junctions. This same technology could also be applied to barge trains, so a barge heading for another destination would simply pull out of the train when it reached the appropriate junction, preferably attaching itself to another train going in the right direction.

In effect, the barge trains will be moving warehouses and there's no reason why computers couldn't use this aspect to integrate barge trains with existing, "Just In Time" business practices. Some trains could even become mobile factories, picking raw materials at point A, processing them on the move and delivering final product at point B. Again, this can already be seen to a smaller extent in the concrete mixing trucks we see on the roads, as well as the old "Travelling Post Office" trains (some of which are now back in use! They're just operated by another company.) This is a logistics problem and one that can be resolved by the application of computer processing power. This option didn't exist 300 years ago, so it would be idiotic to ignore its possibilities now.

Barge trains on existing infrastructure would be relatively cheap to implement. Reliability and predictability -- the most important element -- would make them valuable. Unlike road and rail, barges would be unlikely to be vying for space with passengers or other, conflicting modes of transport.

For many companies, it's more important to have a constant, steady _stream_ of materials than it is to have that material delivered very, very quickly. The textile industry doesn't care how long the wool you deliver spends en-route to the factory, just as long as wool arrives every day. If a business is more interested in 'flows' than in specific items _within_ those flows, it may be a good candidate for barge train delivery.

Merely saying "Hey! Let's build lots of new, 150ft.-wide canals!" is not joined-up thinking: it's just plain bonkers. Railways replaced canals for a reason and that reason still stands if you insist on simply reusing 300-year-old technology without adapting it to modern needs.

* Water distribution:

Distributing water via open waterways would lose a lot of water due to evaporation in the summer, so this might not be as efficient as many seem to believe. I'd want to see hard figures on this before trying it. It's all very well claiming that some small towns already use this technique, but it needs to be scaled up for major conurbations like London and Birmingham to make the investment viable.

Barges would also become less efficient if they have to fight a current. They'd gain some efficiency if they're moving with the current, but navigation gets trickier, so you'd lose some energy in maintaining your heading. I suspect, after crunching the numbers, we'll find that we can either have an efficient, modern barge-based distribution system, or a water distribution system, but not both.

* Energy

Pumping water up and down hills and mountains is a valid technique and it isn't reliant on having canals all over the place, so this should be considered separately. And there's no reason why the reservoirs _have_ to be built above ground. This would probably require building smaller plants, but more of them (and using hills, not just mountains.) Even the Romans built underground systems, so this need not always have the environmental impact that something like the Kielder Dam caused. Using wind power to boost the electricity is a no-brainer, but we really should get into the habit of closing our energy systems as much as possible, so that _anything_ that generates energy can be harnessed.

One obvious "quick win" is eliminating the ludicrous profusion of AC-DC transformer bricks lying about a modern house. If our governments would stop fannying about and _require_ that all new housing should be fitted with standardised low-power DC ring mains too, all that waste heat from all those transformers and PSUs could be eliminated (as well as all the energy expended on making them, packaging them and distributing them), reducing our energy footprint by a substantial margin.

Sorry but your an idiot. The amount of oil we have in reserve ie found so far is about 1 trillion barrels. The amount of oil we have in the world ie not found yet is estimated to be 3 trilion barrels. And this is by very conservative scientists who dont work for the oil industry by the way. So far the world has used about 800,000 million barrels since we first started using oil. This leaves a huge reserve of known and found oil and a huge reserve of oil yet to be found. They just found a huge oil field in the Mexican Gulf by the way. estimated to be around 500,000 million barrels, and this is not part of the reserve yet. So in essence if you think we are about to run out of oil, dont hold your breath. The oil shortage scares are started and run by oil industry executives to make themselves rich. It is to put up the price of oil to make money, you know that old capatilistic enterprise. Man we are no where near running out of this black gold. Anyway your article was very funny indeed. Reminds me of the old strategy games like age of empires. Regards Verne.

Edited by author 09-11-2006 10:11 AM
Well, what a refreshing change!
Can I offer the following thoughts:

Labour to construct the canals: We're looking at a lot of low-grade workforce, plus heavy plant in capable hands, but Navvies will do.

Our society also has a problem with low-grade delinquents and the jails are full.

There are still plenty of people occasionally harrumphing about bringing back conscription as a vehicle by which a little discipline might be instilled.

Why not pring back conscription? Not into the army - there's a limited amount to be gained teaching people how to kill other people or how to maintain the equipment to do it. Call it the Land Army, call it the UK Infrastructure Development Reserve or whatever. It's a resource for all those jobs you need just to throw people at.

Goods to be shifted: I quite agree that there's a problem with having to invest in more stock, simply to fill up the supply chain, then have the stock sit on a canal boat for days or possibly a couple of weeks whilst it wends its way. Fortunately, there's also cargoes that could be shifted an no-one would worry about stock in transit, for instance waste to waste-to power plants and landfill terminals. Could we even see landfill fuelled land reclamation in some coastal/estuary waters?

Then there's the goods where sheer bulk would make distributed storage attractive and again, take large trucks off the highway.

Here's a challenge: Can anyone have a look at the current economic map and suggest real routes and the prospective cargoes that could be carried? Even if there's no canal currently in existence!.

Make new canals big enough to take a barge capable of carrying one or two standard 40 foor ISO containers, with space to pass a similar sized vessel moored at the side.

Modern shipping is almost exclusively managed using containers out of sheer necessity for dock speed. The same system could be used with one or more single-container sized barges on each lock segment; these would only travel along single segments, running back and forth. A relatively cheap and simple crane with a decent counterweight should be able to shift the loads over the lock-points either onto another barge in the next sgement or onto a roadside delivery point.
Barges such as these really could be fully automated, as their job would be about as simple as it is possible become; also the water/speed issue of the lock gates is bypassed. By bypassing the need to expand any existing waterways it would be much easier to get trialling done.

However, the main reason for using road transport remains untouched by any of this discussion - convenience. A lorry can take on a load from one point or fifty, and deliver it to one point or fifty more. Rail and water transport lose that delivery edge; they can be faster or cheaper for the segment that they transport the load, but they still end with a requirement for point-to-point shipping which has now become greatly reduced in efficiency; the shipper still needs to maintain road transport but one which now does very little for its investment cost. A road distribution network tied directly to the water/rail network as a single company might be a start at helping with this end of things, but keeping the convenience would be a major issue to any business acceptance, assuming that the overall speed/cost ratios could be shown to be advantageous.

Why not use the existing railroad system to begin with? At night when passenger traffic is scarce, trains carrying all sorts of goods could use the tracks. It was once so in most of Europe, but unfortunately most of that traffic is now moved to trucks. I say the entire EU should put a major tax on transport by truck if it's not inside the same city (or county or whatever that might be appropiate). That would move goods back to ships and trains. That would be good for the environment and for the traffic situation all around Europe.

Firstly, I found the article thought provoking but alas, this sounds like an idealistic proposal rather than a particle way forward.

I live near the Rochdale Canal and walk it's tow paths on a regular basis, often I've pondered whether it would be feasible to return the canal to a working state.
The problem is moving barges up and down canals is slow business, especially when you hit a series of locks which maybe only 100's yards apart. To move cargo interrupted, the canals would have to perfectly level for very long distances.
The trouble is, in these times, all goods (including building materials) are required yesterday. Goods have to be delivered in hours, employing the fastest transport methods available. Having them held-up in transport is not desirable from a economic point of view as goods need to be delivered and then paid for as quickly as possible. It's what keeps the world ticking over and prevents us sliding into recession. Really, I think you are challenging the concepts of modern economics and globalisation here.

As for the idea of supplying water to inner cities via the canal, also not realistic. Canals have a number of lakes & reservoirs along their length to top-up and regulate their levels. So if you are going to have to build new reservoirs anyway, why not just use them to supply the cities directly?
Besides, we all know the problem with water shortages in the south east of England is really a management issue with the utilities companies. (Prioritising infrastructure maintenance?)

The idea for wind generation peaked my interest. Pumping water when the wind is up, then switching to hydro generation when the wind dies down? I think some university physics student (if there is any left!) should do the maths for this. I'd love to know what the efficiency ratings what be. I would expect very energy lossy, but then again, it's “free” energy I suppose.

I'm afraid this proposal is a non-starter.
In the UK, we seem to be digging up our remaining green areas in our never ending quest to build more housing, mainly since the nearly 2 million economic migrants turned up on our shores in the last few years. Do you really expect there to be any land left for building canals?
Besides, this is yesteryears technology and it didn't work then, hence the invention of the railways, then trucks and the modern road network.
But saying that, they brought the trams back! Never understood that. People will happily use the trams but not buses. Yet isn't a tram a bus on rails?

If they are going slow enough, then even a fairly low spec computer could use AI techniques to plot its way down a canal... nice flat surface with banks that rise about the surface... the only thing you'd really need to watch out for is stuff like vandals throwing stuff in the canal, exceptionally low periods and silt causing grounding and other unforseen events. I suppose the other problem would be people hijacking cargo if its unmanned.

Flib

Do barges really need crew?

Given the speeds involved and the lack of traffic, couldn't they be piloted with GPS and some clever programming? I reckon human crew should be the exception.

As for burning heavy oils, why not use electric motors, battery powered, and have battery exchange points every 20 or 30 miles.

If you want to make the whole venture properly enrgy efficient, take another lesson from the early canal days and uses horses and buttys (a towed narrowboat with no living quarters). during the industrial revolution these proved remarkably efficent and sustainable

Great idea, many seem to have forgotten that low-tech simple solutions are often the best.

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." Einstein

Some good ideas knocking about. I support them in general while recognising the hugely significant problems involved in just implementing one aspect, the biggest opposition being the entrenched interests. Perhaps it needs to be floated in front of someone looking to get the green vote at the next election?
Might be an issue extending the canal system given our current levels of employment - lots more immigrant labour needed all over the country! Imagine the response given it is a current hot topic.
The water distribution aspect seems to have the most legs, I think.
I agree with Roger Greenwood on the transport issue - lots of industries seem to have got into the "just in time" ordering system, but it should still be feasible.
The energy generation might / might not be feasible - someone academic needs to do a study and complete the arithmetic!

While we're talking about power generation, what about microgeneration systems?
Old water mills or windmills could be put back into operation with turbines or small generators (no-one's ever complained about those pretty old-style windmills in Norfolk, have they?). Combined heat and power (CHP)boilers instead of simple gas boilers? You could cover the roofs of houses, business units and (especially) data centres with Solar Photovoltaics (PV) to provide daytime power, with mini wind turbines on them as well. By distributing the generation around the country in this way, you reduce the local impact of wind farms, nuclear, etc. and also the power distribution costs. Sure, you'd still need some power stations and a national grid to sync' it all together, but it'd help, wouldn't it?
Would probably need a bit of subsidy to get it started, but we could save the planet if we all did a bit!!

I think your idea has merit for a number of reasons, but not necessarily for the solution proposed. As with all ‘obvious’ ideas there is a large amount of subtle thinking that is needed to make it work and money, political will, economic climate…blah, blah, blah.

 “it's obvious that someone could do some joined-up thinking here”
  - By Guy Kewney, Newswireless.net

This is what I believe this forum is for, to allow that group-thinking to identify the various issues; the point being I hope to mitigate them. Saying that I’m about to put forward and issue that I think beyond this solution to solve, that being “capitalism”. Note: I am not a “capitalism” basher, it’s given me a good education, medical services, infra-structure and living, but in no way do I think “it” did it for my benefit.

Capitalism is based on the profit motive and a component of profit is based on the time of delivery & timeliness. Many businesses are now structured for ‘just-in-time’, where much of the ‘stock-management’ based on reducing the time between order & fulfilment, i.e. profitability (and stock-market valuation) is dependent on holding the least inventory possible. So with competing suppliers for any material/service then the market defines the unit price based on the timeliness to fulfil a contract, i.e. 1 tonne of coal delivered in 10 days has a greater profit than 1 tonne delivered in 20 days. So a major re-alignment of stock-market assessment for primary material businesses would be needed. I’m assuming finished good businesses would still be using road-haulage, as these are far more sensitive to stock-level management.

Just as I’ve done the web surfing and so others may as well benefit. I found a report http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5330&sequence=0, which defines the energy requirement for an inland barge is 990 BTU’s per tonne-mile with the "best" being trains at between 900 BTU & 2000 BTU’s per tonne-mile; dependent on the unit trains design. This of course can be mitigated through solar & wind energy production, but with a noted decrease in energy density and hence conversion to motive power.

Saying this, the solution would seem to fill two of its target criteria; energy storage and water distribution. As to material distribution this I think would be best left to “local” benefit for bulk materials in which there was no profit component based on time, such as waste disposal. An idea may be if these emerging multi-service companies i.e. water & energy companies, could get their consolidated act together and seriously analyse the business case.

But the most important aspect identified in the article I believe is that major projects have a massive energy demand and if this or any re-structuring project has to be done it needs to be done during “this” energy rich period.

So more thinking which attempts to create a virtuous circle of the demand/energy cycle with creating in-built benefits, is needed! Then if we could add a lot of political will and a smidgen of enlightened-self interest we may actual stop this “barge going over the waterfall” (sorry for the parody).

Now where’s the spade! ;-)

You're not going to get this with BW as they are at the moment. Here's an example - moving water from the rainy north to the parched south. They've been talking about this since the late 90's, and even put money into setting up a "Water Grid" control centre. Hear anything about it? Notice any relaxing of hosepipe bans? No? Not surprised. A good subject to have meetings about though. Even better if you're a project manager - job for life!
If anyone thinks that BW is a bit short of cash, think again. They must have been doing backflips when London got the 2012 games, as they own much of the land to be developed for the stadia and facilities. They've got a few bits of Docklands round Canary Wharf too.
BW = Bureaucrats Waterways

"The canals of Great Britain. Falling into disuse." You don't need to read any more than this to know that the article title states it for what it is: Canal dreaming.

FROM: http://www.mike-stevens.co.uk/maps/1950/index1950.htm

1942 saw the most ambitious waterway proposal ever in the UK. J F Pownall's proposed Grand Contour Canal was to be a lock-free ship canal on the 310ft (95 m) contour connecting most parts of England, and linked to the main river systems by boat lifts. The surface width of the canal was to be 100ft (30.8 m) and its depth 17ft (5.2 m). In addition to shipping, it was proposed to use it for water transfer. Sadly the proposal came to nothing.

At the end of WW2 the canals were handed back to their owners once again, and this time there was a real fear that the growth of road competition, in addition to the existing railway competition, could bring the final death-knell of the system. This prompted the formation in 1946 of the Inland Waterways Association to campaign for the retention and use of the waterways.

The 1947 Transport Act nationalised most of the waterways. This was almost certainly not a major target of the Attlee Government, but incidental to their nationalisation of the railways, who owned much of the waterways system. GUCCC, the largest carrying fleet, became part of the nationalised industry, and Fellows Morton & Clayton, the second largest, sold out to them in the following year after the first loss-making year in its history.

The last years of the decade saw the first signs of a fight-back against decline, with the successful campaign, initiated by John Gould, to prevent the nationalised industry from abandoning the semi-derelict Kennet & Avon Canal.

At some future date I hope to extend this series of maps to bring the history up to date and show the successes of the restoration movement.

- Great idea, we all need to think outside the box like this and harness the low-tech skills and knowledge from the industrial past. Solutions like this are all around us, if we care to look for them and care less about Oil prices, Stocks and shares etc. What use are profits if you live in a waste-land.

I like the idea of bringing the canals back into commercial use. Were you watching a recent Fred Dibner programme on the canals by any chance Guy? I watched the programme and thought at the time that we could surely still make use of the canals in modern times.

People used to transport freight by train as well of course, which, while perhaps not being as environmentally friendly must surely have better efficiency than road haulage? Apparently it is no longer cost effective to do so now though, to the extent that even Royal Mail gave up a while ago. The problem, it would seem, is that road haulage is just too cheap by comparison to other methods, and in a country with very high fuel prices too.

On the power front, it is something that I have given thought to as well. I believe we are going to have to use more nuclear energy in future, if we want to reduce pollution from our declining supply of fosil fuels and continue our energy hungry lifestyle.

I was wondering whether there are more opportunities to build hydroelectric power stations like Dinorwig in Wales or Ben Cruachan in Scotland that would have a minimum impact on the scenery of surrounding land?

Even if the power capacity of these types of station are small compared to other methods of generating electricity, they would seem to be very useful for generating extra capacity when anticipated demand suddenly rockets, such as people making a cup of tea during the ad breaks in Coronation Street!

For wind power, I wondered if we could perhaps run platforms of wind turbines in the North Sea? It would mean that they are out of sight and not an eye sore on scenic land (although I think they have a beauty of their own), but I'm not sure how practical it really is?

There was far more there about power generation than canal regeneration, but it's a very interesting discussion.

I think water distribution is feasible. Transport is feasible but of limted use - it will take 50 years to unlearn not having things delivered next day again, and the amount of bulk items that go by road which can already be delayed will be less than you think. Power generation is a separate issue, and would need a greater head/flow of water than the norms of a canal system (MUCH more if you think of replacing all our power needs). The two could run in tandem though, to ensure enough water to the busiest part of the canal system.
All we need now is the will to change the law to allow a windmill to be built anywhere, with objections on the grounds of "I don't like it" to be ignored. That would be a start, and could be done this year.

This is an excellent idea.

I agree with Neil Barnes, the only way to get this going is to prove the concept with what we have in place now. If that works and provides real benefits to business then everybody will want in on it.

The last thing you want to do is the usual Government style 'big bang' approach, those sorts of projects tend to fall behind and even get cancelled due to complexity!

Keep it simple, prove the theory, show the benefits and in 100 years time you could be remembered as the creator of the next stage in industrialisation! (using 300 year old technology (-: )

As a narrowboater this is something that strikes a chord with many of us..

British waterways is facing financial diffculty as DEFRA is cutting funding as they need to pay for the c*ck up with the farmers payments systems, currently the pleasure boaters are expected to foot significant parts of this tab - industrialisation of the canals is a viable alternative, and one that will not price the users off the water (and lead to the collapse of the system).

Canals are being used to carry the excavations from the 2012 olympics out of the city - new wharves are being built to enable this.

Chester is supplied with water from the welsh mountains via the langollen canal. there is a noticable current, but as this pays for the upkeep of the canal it's a good thing.

Most towns in the uk are on or below the 320ft contour if a canal could be cut at this level water would flow around the country. The four main rivers in the UK are linked by navgable canals Severn, Trent, Thames & Mersey. Thomas Telford built canals that avoided many contour changes via cuttings and embankments (look at the shropshire union) he even flattened some of the original route built by James Brindley to speed up travel by eliminating contour changes (Locks).

The infrastructure issue is the key here - a standard canal barge will carry 20 tons, with a butty in tow it will take 40 - problem is a health and saftey one - how many people would it take to crew one of these given the European Working time directives etc? I'd suggest we'd need a crew of 3 or 4 people and to make that cost-effective compared to a truck barges will need to be upwards of 150tons. That's one hell of a canal that will need to be built - and of course they will burn heavy oil - one of the most polluting fuels in the world.

Some of this could be achieved - using the canals as a water trunk network, using wind to pump water - hey they used to do this - windmills anyone?

Lets see where this goes... Simon.

I live in Dubai, and here the main motorway from the hi-tech industrial area to the city centre 20km way is one long car park for much of the day, despite being 5 lanes wide in places.

Of course, they're building a rapid transit rail system, but the first line won't open for 3 years, if it is on schedule (and like most projects of this type, it probably won't be).

Since development is concentrated along the coastal strip, I'd suggested to a friend that the 2 hr (yes TWO HOUR) drive from the business park area to the city would be only a pleasurable 40 minute ferry ride. Build a couple of terminals along the coast, a couple on the creek (the 'river' inlet into the city) and even if everyone switched to water transport, you're not going to run out of ocean. You could even carry cars.

Water transport could save energy and would be quicker than roads in many cases; it truly is an under-used resource and needs a fraction of the investment that a subway/rail system requires.

Slightly off topic.
If the government subsidised rail frieght by as much as it subsidises road freight or passenger rail, that would take a lot of lorries off the roads.

Well it sure beats every other idea put forwards, and it's much better to have large canal boats drife near silently past than to have lorry after lorry thunder past your frount door.

Edited by author 09-11-2006 06:07 AM
I seem to remember there was one of those "and finally" items on the Midlands news saying a company was using the canals for low priority, bulk-goods transport again, however I'm fairly sure it was more of a publicity stunt than anything else.

IMHO, the idea is sound but as you say all of the leisure interests have got a stranglehold on the existing canal network. The concept of using low energy input to shift large, bulky, non-time-critical goods should be a no-brainer...

Perhaps a letter to various MPs?

Great article!

--Harry

Interesting idea. Unfortunately those who own premium canalside property are likely to have more money and influence than average. Supplementing locks with hydraulic boat lifts would greatly multiply capacity of the existing system without needing much widening or so much water fed into the top reaches. With more passing points and deepening, widening could be minimised, resulting in a doubling of the width and deepening draught of feasible canal craft ( given adequate boat lifting capacity for bypassing the locks).

As to reducing energy use of computers is concerned, server virtualisation, higher electricity prices, yet smaller silicon chip features and the end of Microsofts desktop monopoly resulting in more efficient software could all help. I also dispute the view that wind is unsuited to generating electricity. When you have enough wind turbines connected to the grid, there are very, very rare occasions when there is little harvestable wind available within premium collection areas (Western hills and coastal waters). Other energy needs could be better met through energy conservation, solar heating and district heat and power.

This makes a lot of sense as looking around the River Lea navigation (which I live next to), there are gravel pits next to the river near Northumberland Park, the Edmonton rubbish incinerator and still some industrial estates all of which could use the canal for transport.

It would be difficult to do much in the more built up area like London, Manchester or the other big cities, but there would be scope for movement from edge to edge using road purely for localised stops.

I think the idea of using the canals to transfer water from region to region has already been floated as it has little cost associated and would work even though the canal currents are slow. The low pressure in the canals and rivers due to the massive volume they carry compared to the water mains means the currents don't have to be that high and mains water has to be at quite high pressures to go up high buildings.

What a load of utter bollocks. Do you get paid to come up with this?
Why don't you get a real job that could make a genuine positive contribution to people's lives?

Fantastic article. I wish you luck with your efforts.
Thanks,
Matt

There was a proposal, which I honestly can't remember the name of, which points out that there is a line that will work with almost no locks from Liverpool to London, with branches off in various directions. The problem otherwise with long-distance canals is the need to feed water to the summit levels. Look at the Grand Union: it was upped to double-width from London to Warwick in the 1930s, but then had massive water-supply problems at Tring.

Seeing as people insist on building new houses on floodplains, perhaps canals could also be used to mitigate flood water levels by absorbing the extra precipitation and channelling it away from affected areas. Once again the electricity generated could be used it lifting up more water for later conversion back into electricity.

Companies may not like having to plan ahead for the movement of material, unless they would have lost money on storing the goods. I'd still like to see it used for recreational purposes though.

Using the canals for the purpose that they were intended makes complete sense to me. Trouble is, the whole infrastructure is now dominated by "leisure interests" (and that includes British Waterways). They are removing any industrial support and infrastructure as fast as they can and every year that passes makes your suggestions on usage less able to happen. One also has to cope with the mentality of the Dept. of Transport which seems to be firmly of the opinion that the train is "old hat" and should be replaced by road and canals? What are they again?

Having said that, your reminder to us about using wind power to move water about, whilst seeming to drag us kicking and screaming into the 17/18th century (before windmill driven pumps were replaced by steam) is still a good one - although I think you may not realise just how many windmills would be required. Look at contemporary pictures of Holland or the Norfolk Broads to see what I mean.

Moving water as a way of storing electricity is also interesting, but expensive to implement. Largely because, to do it efficiently, you need a lot of water flowing very quickly and that causes all sorts of engineering problems because water is heavy, incompressable and (at these pressures) remarkably corrosive stuff. It requires huge sums of money, amounts of concrete and steel and several years of unsightly building works. Not in my back yard it isn't!

Canals (as you have pointed out) need flat areas and should have very small currents. Not really electricity generating territory. However, in the US, there are some schemes being talked about (maybe even built now) which use windpower to move water as part of a more conventional pumped water generator - so that is a definite possibility.

A few years ago I saw a major water main burst and was amazed at the incredible volume of water flowing. I havn't done the maths on this, but I strongly suspect that if you move enough water to satisfy Southern demand you would end up with something more suitable for white water rafting than teenagers pulling barges. Just that one burst turned a fairly wide road into a rapidly flowing river, and that was just the supply to one half of a smallish town.

Perhaps widening the existing system isn't the primary need? There's still a lot of capacity there - I suspect it's the speed of the locks that limits it rather than wall-to-wall barges.

And we *know* how to get maximum capacity on constricted networks, no?

Use the system as it is, with containers suitable for existing barges, and get it as full as you can. Use end points as near as possible to present termini. Get the traffic moving. The more traffic moves, the more water moves, too.

Because without that visibility, it's not going to happen. Let's start to see barges on the canals that people see - Regents Park perhaps? Once a working cheap system can be demonstrated, there will be much more chance of further financial investment.

An excellent article! Re-using the canal system for the transport of non-perisable goods may not be a new one, but using that same infrastructure for generating power for the "e-industry" on the other certainly is. Whilst we may not be able to move water around the country, we can certainly move electricity through the Grid. This would also provide a great way to increase the value of exports from the mountainous and wet areas of North Wales and the Lake District without impacting the environment!
Of course, you could also relocate the data centres to business parks in these (more rural) areas, so also increasing the employment prospects.

When you consider that a single, medium-sized data centre can consume the same amount of power as a city at around 10-15kW per square metre, we will really have to reconsider how we do computing in the future.

Oh, splendid! An excellent idea, Guy, and very well-put. I've been thinking along similar lines myself for some time, recently encouraged by a visit to Foxton Locks in Leicestershire & a tour of its museum.

However, I can't see much prospect for widening the current system.

Some sort of tax incentive might persuade companies to use them once again for moving freight, but back in their day, they cost; this was how they were funded. Trying to get them back into use /and/ expanding the system will cost a fair bit, and how to make them both cheaper than road haulage /and/ fund maintenance, repairs and expansion is a pretty problem.

But your tie-in to power and water movement is inspired and may be an answer!

An interesting and thought provoking article. The idea of using the canal infrastructure more intensively is appealing; the idea of enlarging the existing canals four fold isn't. As you said, not an easy idea to sell. The nuclear option is the only realistic one with current technology.

I agree that its completely stupid to spend all this energy just shifting non-perishable products around. Although it might be easier to get funding for a concept more like a water motorway network... where you have a massive canal infrastructure delivering stuff to the general vacinity of where it needs to go and the last few miles is delivered by truck/train/horse.

If we make the barges solar powered, then its essentially a zero emission network (excluding initial manufacture and local delivery).

Canalways: water and energy conservation

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Please add your comments to the Canalways idea, and maybe we can start a web site and a lobby?

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