Local rip off

August 17, 2008 at 11:52 am · Filed under Environment

As cost of electricity is constantly rising, I started this year a personal project for the installation of photo-voltaic cells (PVC) on our roof. I contacted four different local companies specialized in the installation of these systems just to realize that they all have nearly the same prices:

for 1kw/h eur 8000.00 excluding the government rebate of eur 1160
for 1.5 kw/h eur 12000.00 excluding government rebate of eur 1740
for 2.0 kw/h eur 14000.00 excluding the government rebate of eur 1740

The costs of beams have to be added.

After I decided to go ahead with one of the companies, I was really surprised about the contract terms: basically it was entirely in favor of the supplier. I have to pay 50% deposit, no delivery date or installation date are specified and if the price of the PVC goes up in the meantime, I have to cover the difference.

I canceled the order and I started doing a research in Germany, which is know to have many PVC installations in place. I was most surprised when I received a quotation:

for 1kw/h eur 4500.00 excluding the government rebate of eur 1160
for 1.5 kw/h eur 6500.00 excluding government rebate of eur 1740
for 2.0 kw/h eur 9000.00 excluding the government rebate of eur 1740

The transport costs have to be added, which amount eur 160 per cubic meter of volume. The PVC are available for delivery, and shipment to Malta takes two weeks.

It is not acceptable that importers abuse of the local situation, charging high commissions and basically adding the government rebate to their revenue.

So if someone is interested in installing PVC on his roof, please feel free to contact me and I will guide you with pleasure.

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Strengthening of the regulation of internet provision

August 15, 2008 at 9:39 am · Filed under Communications

The Malta Communication Authority is urged to strengthen the regulation of the internet provision in Malta. Recent events have shown how fragile the current provision of internet in Malta can be. There are for the moment only two cables connecting the local internet to the European backbone, each of them owned by a private company. Regulations should be in place for extraordinary events: each cable operator has to be allowed to use appropriated bandwidth from its competitor when technical faults occur in their cable connectivity.

During the internet cable connectivity interruption occurred to GO ten days ago, the public realized that there was no real fallback procedure in place. GO users were not able to use the international internet connection. As Malta has a particular geographical position and connectivity to the international hub is only provided by two companies, the MCA has to make sure that these serious events should not happen again. It is not acceptable to have to wait months or years till alternative cables to the next hub are set in place. The existing infrastructure has to be fairly shared between the two operators  under the supervision of the Malta Communication Authority in these extraordinary situations.

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Italy to rescue 120 migrants stranded on drifting boat

August 8, 2008 at 11:27 am · Filed under Uncategorized

Many comments to the article published in The Times of Malta on Thusrday made by bloggers were really chocking.
Our first duty is to rescue every person in distress on sea, regardless if it is a refugee or not. It would be important to find out how these refugees end up in the middle of the sea on their little boats, common agreements have to be found between the South European countries to have that part of the Mediterranean sea better monitored by patrol boats or by satellite observation. These “passers” have to be stopped and arraigned in front of international tribunals. Asylum seeking procedures should be speeded up, giving the refugees a freedom of movement when the criterias are met, legal immigration channels have to be created.
Ref.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080807/local/120-migrants-stranded-on-drifting-boat

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MIT Researchers Discover New Energy Storage Solution

August 6, 2008 at 12:16 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Solar power is currently a daytime-only energy source because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With this announcement, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers say they have discovered a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. “This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said MIT’s Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT. “Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.”

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera’s lab, have developed a process that will allow the sun’s energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power a house or electric car, day or night.

The key component in Nocera and Kanan’s process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it’s easy to set up, Nocera said. “That’s why I know this is going to work. It’s so easy to implement,” he said.

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

“This is just the beginning,” said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution project and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. “The scientific community is really going to run with this.”

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

The complete article can be found at http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=53214

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Support of the proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL concerning the EU Global Online Freedom Act

August 5, 2008 at 12:46 pm · Filed under Freedom of information

I am supporting the proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL concerning the EU Global Online Freedom Act presented by 8 MEPs to the European Parliament.

More and more authoritarian states as Belarus, Burma, the People’s Republic of China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam censor the internet by blocking websites and filtering search results and intimidate internet users through ‘cyber police’ and obliged registration. As this constitutes a clear violation of human rights under article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, EU action needs to be undertaken, especially since European companies are cooperating with authoritarian governments to restrict the access of citizens to the provision of Internet and information society services.

Technology companies from the US even have succumbed to pressure by authoritarian governments to provide such governments with information about Internet users that has led to the arrest and imprisonment of cyber dissidents, in violation of the corporate responsibility of such companies to protect and uphold human rights. Due to the current lack of self-regulation in the European internet industry the possibility exists that European technology companies will also succumb to such pressures.

The European Union therefore needs a directive on global online freedom and follow the American example where legislators are working on a Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA).  This European counterpart of the American GOFA, the EU Global Online Freedom Act (EU - GOFA) must make sure that Europe stays in the fore front of the global promotion of human rights and democratization and the protection of dissidents.

The EU GOFA is a directive which contains provisions on the promotion of global internet freedom, minimum corporate standards for European companies who provide Internet and Information society services and export controls and trade sanctions for internet-restricting countries. The first 8 articles are on the promotion of global internet freedom. Amongst others they state that it is EU policy to promote global free speech on the internet and global free flow of information and provide for the annual designation of Internet restricting countries commissioned by the European Commission. They also provide for the establishment of the Office of Global Internet Freedom (OGIF) as part of the European External Action Service and designate 20 million euros for the development and distribution of anti-censorship tools and services.

Articles 9 until 15 of this directive are on minimum corporate standards for European Internet companies. They contain provisions on the protection of EU and Member State -supported online content, regarding Internet censorship and search engine filtering and rules for European business with content-hosting services in order to create more transparency. The articles also contain provisions on the integrity of user identifying information through the prohibition for European businesses with internet content hosting services to provide personally identifying user information to officials in internet-restricting countries except for legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes. Search engines should also not be located in “internet restricting” countries. The last article of this section contains penalties for failure to uphold the above stated minimum standards for corporate behavior.

The last four articles of this directive (article 16, 17, 18 and 19) are on export controls, regulating the export of products and services which could facilitate internet censorship and on the policy of treating internet censorship as an international barrier to trade.

Freedom of information and speech are basics rights of every human being. It is not acceptable that some countries still do not provide these fundamental rights to its citizens and it is not acceptable that companies from the ‘free’ world support these countries by providing the required technologies or transmitting the data of ‘non-free’ citizens  to these countries. The latest breach of freedom of information has been clearly shown by the Chinese government in the attempt to prohibit the access to certain websites to accredited journalists covering the Olympic Games 2009.

Ref. http://www.julesmaaten.eu/_uploads/EU%20GOFA.htm

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Renegation of Internet freedom during Olympics

July 31, 2008 at 4:31 pm · Filed under Freedom of information

On Wednesday, China announced a back flip on Internet freedoms for the foreign reporters covering the Olympic Games.

Despite the announcement two weeks ago by IOC president Jacques Rogge that there would be no internet censorship on the media, specific internet sites will remain censored for the foreign press at Olympic venues.

In bidding for the games seven years ago, Chinese officials had promised that the media would have complete freedom to report.

The Olympic Games are the games of everyone and the foreign media should have all the freedom to report the sporting event and events taking place around it.

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A visit to Smart City

July 24, 2008 at 2:49 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Today, I managed to find Smart City, it took me almost an hour from St Julians to find my way through our nice little villages, stopping for ladies with their shopping bags to cross the road, horning the sleeping dogs away from the roads…

I arrived at a nice location, in the middle of nowhere, next to relict from the old world: old tanks, antennas, a fort in decomposition. A guardian house with a lonely man inside, two barriers, behind a car park and a red and white new building. There were flags of Smart City everywhere, and a huge Smart City sign. The guard has happy to see a soul and let me in. I parked the car in front of a huge zone where basic work has started (the cleaning up of the place basically). Franco DeGabrielle, the sales&marketing manager welcomed me and directed me to the model of Smart City to give me an introduction of the project…

Here are the headlines and plans:

- round 85 ha of surface
- mixture of office buildings, retail outlets, max. 3 hotels (150, 80, 40 rooms)
- apartments and villas
- projected workforce of 5600
- constructions split in several phases: phase 1 consists of 3 office buildings, the first one delivered in Q2 2009
- first building has MEPA permit issued, local developer will build it, 80% of space already leased out
- buildings will according to LEED Silver (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_in_Energy_and_Environmental_Design#Certification
- the site will be pedestrian, there will be a circular road around the site
- the public will have access to it

Story to be continued…

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Tuesday Waste Collection

July 22, 2008 at 9:52 am · Filed under Environment

There was a time when we used to drive, at least some of us, to the bring in sites to dispose of some parts of our waste in the appropriate containers hoping that these will be recycled accordingly. It was already a good idea, although I think that waste should be tackled at source. We should rather focus not purchasing products with excessive packaging, and re-use some of them when we do our shopping, like in former times. Since a few weeks, the Tuesday Waste Collection madness has hit the island. The waste which, as said, some of us use to separate and bring to the bring in sites, is now put in this nice yellow bags (more plastic again), un-separated. We still need to dispose ourselves of the glass. All these nicely yellow bags are collected once a week and sent to Wasteserv, where these are manually separated by poor unlucky workers. As on the photo shown in The Times of Monday 21st June on page 2, the workers lack of the basic health protections (no masks for example), being exposed to germs and bacteria! These poor people should be replaced by machines! I would also be great if we could get some information and figures: where is the waste exported to? Is it really recycled or just dumped in some third world country?

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The Freedom of Choice

July 18, 2008 at 10:27 am · Filed under Education

I am welcoming the news that the Maltese government is entertaining the deployment of open source software (OSS) in the Maltese public service. More and more European Governments and companies are considering to move parts of their applications to Open Source.
Following this trend, the government shall revise its IT education strategy.

In today’s world, it is not acceptable that schools are obliging parents to purchase products of a certain brand so that their children are able to do their homework. Education should be freed of any product branding, concepts should be taught instead. We also must go away from the copy/paste mentality.

The program of studies at MCAST needs to be updated, students should have the freedom of choice for the content of their studies. The IT world is a very open world, standards exists but they are not concentrated on brands or products, but on concepts.

It is pointless to “produce IT clones” having all the same skill, IT is about diversity. This is very important considering the venue of Smart City.

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Let us end roaming rip-offs for text messages abroad

July 15, 2008 at 5:46 pm · Filed under Communications

The 2.5 billion text messages sent every year by roaming customers in the EU cost over 10 times more than domestic short messages (SMS), show figures released by the European Commission. Calls on the industry for self-regulation and voluntary reductions of roaming prices for text messages have not been answered. The European Commission will therefore start working on measures to ensure that consumers benefit from a truly single market for mobile text services. The European Commission will also seek to put an end to “bill shocks” that can hit roaming customers using a mobile connection to surf the Internet.It is not fair on the consumer to pay a much higher price for these services while being abroad and especially not being properly informed about the charges incurred. The mobile phone operator should inform the consumer of the price of the service rendered, for example by sending him a SMS with the cost of the last service used.

Reference:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/index_en.htm

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