Technology – Slugger O'Toole

The past, present and future of cross-border rail

Brendan Heading on March 3, 2024, 1:12 pm

| Readers 4448

Enterprise crossing Craigmore Viaduct near Bessbrook

Recently, to great fanfare, the Irish government announced an €800m funding package in support of its Shared Island strategy aimed at funding public spending on projects in Northern Ireland. The lion’s share of the spend is on the A5 project, and that, together with Casement, is where most of the media attention went. However, there is also an allocation aimed at increasing the frequency of cross border rail services. Before looking at this in detail we should talk a little …

Opportunity is where you find it? Demystifying geothermal opportunities and opportunity-making steps…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on June 13, 2023, 11:00 am

| Readers 1310

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As Queen’s University prepares to open its new geothermal-heated Business School building, Mark Palmer, Joseph Ireland (QUB) and Orla Hanna (DWF Law) consider if the opening of a geothermal-heated Business School marks a new chapter for sustainable energy in the North. The leafy hillside and pristine gardens of Riddel Hall at Stranmillis in south Belfast reveal Queen’s University new Business School building. Nested within a crescent-shaped cluster of woodlands is the new red-bricked building which, at first glance, gives away …

Why hydrogen can’t solve our climate change problems

Brendan Heading on January 29, 2023, 10:47 pm

| Readers 1145

Hydrogen

One of the conversation points that I often encounter in the debate around climate change and the move to net zero/energy independence is the role that could be played by hydrogen. Like many of the other aspects of this debate, it is poorly understood, particularly among the press and policymakers. What is hydrogen ? Chemically, it is the simplest and most plentiful element in the universe, having one proton and one electron. It’s thought that, along with a small number …

Nuclear Fusion power – how long will we have to wait ?

Brendan Heading on December 29, 2022, 2:42 pm

| Readers 2128

Atom

Just before Christmas, it was announced for the first time that researchers at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US had successfully achieved “ignition” within a nuclear fusion reaction. This generated a lot of excitement in the press, not all of it well-informed, so I thought it might be interesting to explore this topic in more detail. What is nuclear fusion ? Why was this news so significant ? When will we begin to benefit …

Revisiting Nuclear Power : Part 1 : how it works

Brendan Heading on July 24, 2022, 9:17 pm

| Readers 1171

It can have escaped few of us that the effects of the war in Ukraine and the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside the ongoing issue of climate change, have led to renewed interest in the possibilities offered by nuclear power and how it can help to solve the problems governments around the world are facing. This is leading to a re-evaluation of the case for nuclear, and, hopefully, objective consideration of its strengths and weaknesses. I believe that it …

Facebook valuation drops $230bn in a single day…

Brian O'Neill on February 4, 2022, 12:23 pm

| Readers 1671

facebook, social network, network

Not sure what your day was like yesterday but I imagine it was better than Mark Zuckerberg’s who managed to lose $29bn of his personal fortune overnight. Facebook has been reeling in recent years from opponents who claim it is helping to undermine democracy, aid genocide and encourage mental health problems. The markets are not known for their morality, instead, the 25% drop in the share price was attributed to slowing user growth and a decline in its ad revenue. …

My battle with BT. The conversation continues…

Felicity Graham on December 5, 2021, 8:02 am

| Readers 1919

sadness, phone, sad bear

Hello, BT here. Chapter Two Having asked for help at the end of October Felicity is still unable to access her account with BT. They can take money out of her account each month but she cannot see her bill and what she is paying for. Friday, 12 November 2021. Text: Hello, BT here. Just a quick update on the BT ID fault. We are really sorry about the delay in this repair. The team are currently working on the …

Climate Action Not Climate Doom

Soapbox on August 24, 2021, 6:34 pm

| Readers 695

hand, world, bullet

Stevie Maginn is the Green Party NI rep for West Belfast Earlier this month, the 6th assessment report of the UN International Panel on Climate Change was published. This is the 6th report by the IPCC since 1988, reminding us that the alarm bells on climate breakdown have been going for some time, and is more stark reading for people and policymakers. It suggests that under all projection models, the Earth is now likely to reach 1.5C of warming above …

Belfast Rapid Transit (Glider) Phase 2 announced

Brendan Heading on August 1, 2021, 1:25 pm

| Readers 6246

This week, Minister for Infrastructure Nichola Mallon launched the public consultation for Phase 2 of the Belfast Rapid Transit (Glider) system. I think this is a welcome development and will improve connectivity, access to and uptake of public transport in the city. I remember when Glider was first launched on the east/west route a few years ago. Before it got off the ground, it was fashionable to dump on it (a common pattern for public transport projects on this island). …

“Absolute silence for 30 minutes on school buses as all girls are using mobile phones…”

Brian O'Neill on June 23, 2021, 11:54 am

| Readers 2446

The headline is a quote from Bloomfield Collegiate School principal Gary Greer in a letter to parents. Pupils were informed this morning in registration that a mobile phone ban would be put in place for the remainder of the term. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, we have real concerns about mental health and the lack of ability to socialise due to too much screen time during lock down. It has been reported to me that there is absolute silence …

Build Belfast Back Better – #imaginebelfast wants your ideas

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 15, 2021, 1:01 pm

| Readers 1039

Ahead of next week’s packed programme, Imagine! festival are calling for your ideas to imagine a better post-pandemic Belfast. How would you Build Belfast Back Better? You can submit up to three ideas that reimagine the city in the face of the pandemic and the challenges presented by Brexit, increased poverty, loneliness and mental health issues.

Tales from the Crypto: The world of digital money is exciting, strange, and full of risk…

Jason Conlon on February 18, 2021, 10:29 am

| Readers 4853

I’m sitting on the toilet at 3am every night, doom scrolling on my phone. I am constantly refreshing and gorging on graphs. I must have the latest numbers… do I buy more, or sell? Am I a diamond-handed alpha, or a paper-handed cuck? Dogecoin – a novelty cryptocurrency – is surging, and the wider world of digital money has seen a remarkable boom in amateur investors recently, driven by online forums such as Reddit. These people are on a hiding …

Brexit may be working in favour of the UK just now, but a better future needs a radically different plan…

Mick Fealty on January 29, 2021, 2:13 pm

| Readers 2381

I’m not a big fan of counterfactuals, not because I don’t think they are useful, but it’s more that some politicians seemsnot to understand that they are in fact abstract thought experiments rather than a rendering of some class of reality. I’m thinking here about Jim Allister and Sammy Wilson or even Ed Poots who told us not to worry about the potential downsides of Brexit and are now railing against a reality they helped bring to pass (and now …

Going internet cold turkey at Christmas…

Annemarie Mullan on December 13, 2020, 8:00 am

| Readers 359

It would be for a week, said Virgin Media – a week before my new modem would be available and meanwhile, long (technical) story, I could not use the old one in the interim period. No bother, I thought. I’m a practising artist. I might even get a lot more work done when I’m not making comments on other peoples’ latest creations; getting sucked into plucking images from Instagram postings onto my Pinterest boards or, reacting to the various Whatsapp …

The scam that resulted in a £57.32 phonecall…

Felicity Graham on October 18, 2020, 7:32 am

| Readers 2625

Once again, my mundane routine of daily atrocities (housework) was interrupted by the landline telephone. A pleasant female voice began to speak. “BT here, Mrs Graham. I am phoning you to say we have noticed you made two telephone calls last Wednesday to HMRC.” (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) “Yes, I was trying to complete my self-assessment tax form and couldn’t get the answer from their web site.” “Did you realise you were calling an ‘09’ number?” “What is wrong …

“Build Back Better” – how do we turn soundbites into a successful reset and recovery?

Soapbox on September 24, 2020, 1:10 pm

| Readers 1107

Sinead McLaughlin is the SDLP’s economy spokesperson, deputy chair of the Assembly’s economy committee and a Foyle MLA. Covid-19 will continue to damage our collective health and our economy for a long time to come. Many businesses will fail and, even more sadly, many more people will die from coronavirus. Yet it should not be too early to consider recovery. The SDLP has put together four principles for that recovery – a new deal for young people; a new localism; new connectivity; …

Mallon’s decision on the interconnector ought to be the thin edge of a positive #Reset wedge

Mick Fealty on September 18, 2020, 2:17 pm

| Readers 2089

Interesting development earlier this week as Nichola Mallon approved the new North-South interconnector from Tyrone to Meath, not least because of the cacophony of noise arising not just from rivals but even from within her own party. The BBC reports… The approval is for the building of a single circuit 400kV electricity line consisting of 102 towers over 34.1kms in length from Moy in County Tyrone to Crossreagh in County Armagh. The first application was lodged on 15th December 2009. …

If we are serious about better economic outcomes, Ministers and political parties have to take on the NIMBYs…

Mick Fealty on September 4, 2020, 2:22 pm

| Readers 2427

Newton Emerson has a nice piece in the Irish Times in which he demonstrates the tight hold NIMBY lobbies have on either side of the border, even on parties who’s main policy plank are in favour as something as seemingly important as the all island electricity market… He starts with the question: Would Electric Ireland be putting prices in the Republic up by 3.4 per cent if the new cross-Border interconnector was in place? The answer, he says, is that… …

We need to stop producing any new books, films and TV shows until we all have had a chance to catch up…

Brian O'Neill on August 16, 2020, 10:34 am

| Readers 1032

One of the stresses of modern life is the tsunami of content out there. Aside from the bottomless pit of social media and online news there has never been such a volume of everything. On my TV I have the BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, Britbox and NowTV. The issue is I only watch about 1 hour of TV a day so it is impossible to even touch the surface of all the new shows out there. …