vivweb01blog

Warning to low Electricity and Gas users:  If you are anything other than a high user of both fuels, don't be tempted by offers from your supplier to fix your tariffs now. These are coming in thick and fast on the back of the latest price cap rise, with OFGEM  actually 'co-conspiring' with suppliers to try to get you to fix. The rationale being peddled is to "...protect yourself against future price cap rises...". If you do succumb to the temptation, however, you'll lock yourself into a contract lasting at least a year with exit penalties, and won't be able to take advantage of any No-SC tariffs that appear this winter....beware. ------------------------------- Why are No-SC tariffs important, and when are we likely to see them ? Our Electricity prices in UK are acknowledged to be the highest in Europe.  Despite this rather serious indictment of our pricing structure, as discussed in a previous blog , our Electricity and Gas suppliers have continued to p...

  I first published this blog in February 2022, just before Putin's invasion of Ukraine.  A    report   last year of  the possibility of life existing on another planet in another solar system also presented a good opportunity for a fresh look at the question. This seems even more relevant now, given the increasingly fragile state of our planet's ecosystem and our own continuing descent into resource-driven conflict. Present idications suggest that our present society may not have long left, and all in all,  perhaps it's a fitting time to consider whether there might be a possibility of alternative accommodation for humans elsewhere in the universe.... The combination of dimethyl sulphide (DMS), CO2 and methane in the atmosphere of  exoplanet K2-18b in significant quantities is seen as a possible 'biomarker' for life there - although it does not by any means confirm the presence of life , it is certainly intriguing. At a distance of 124 light year...

  A couple of years ago I attempted to answer the question ' Are we alone in the universe '.  At risk of appearing to be a 'glutton for punishment',  I thought it would be useful to follow this up by looking at an even weightier and perhaps even more topical question - 'How did the universe start and how will it end ?'. There is a lot of argument about this currently, with the principal 'Big Bang' theory, until recently taken as gospel by cosmologists, now being challenged in the light of new evidence from the JWST. More evidence suggesting the presence of 'bio-signature' gases in the atmosphere of a 'nearby' (relatively speaking!) exoplanet has also caught the media's attention and promoted discussion about our place in the universe recently, thus re-igniting the debate. Read on for a short 'journey into cosmology' to whet your appetite for the arguments to come... Introduction The Big Bang theory still remains the favoured...