March summary: family time

In my posting Visions of the Future I suggested that it is not too outlandish to predict that by mid-century Uber-like taxi services will be everywhere, cities, towns and villages. And it is also a fair prediction that by then all cars will be driverless. Travel would be safe and stress-free, driverless taxis whisking you to your destination, before moving to the nearest charging point to await the next call.

In this world there would be little incentive for owning a private car, with all the associated hassle of insurance, maintenance etc, and inter-city travel would be by electric trains and buses travelling on time and speedily on roads uninhibited by congestion.

A month ago I experienced this vision of the future in Phoenix. I arrived back at Heathrow on the first of the month after an 11 hour flight and the day before, while waiting for my Uber to take me to the airport I was amazed to see many driverless taxis whizz past my hotel on the way to pick up passengers. A true glimpse into the future and we are a long way off mid-century!

I met Barbara at Heathrow and we flew out to Luxembourg for a week with Jon and family. 

Luxembourg is a beautiful little country, with narrow medieval streets, castles and densely forested hills.

The 18th century Grand-Château d'Ansembourg

Overlooking Larochette,
dominated by the partly ruined 11th century Larochette Castle.

The country has a rich history, ancient and modern, and Schengen is a small wine-making village and commune in far south-eastern Luxembourg, on the western bank of the river Moselle, which has contributed to recent European history.

Due to its position near the borders of Luxembourg, France and Germany, Schengen was chosen as the symbolic location to sign the 1985 and 1990 treaties to eliminate border controls. The Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 provided for a progressive elimination of internal border controls and the Schengen Convention was signed on 19 June 1990 by Germany, France, and the Benelux countries Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, to allow the gradual abolition of checks at internal borders between the contracting parties.

Since 1985, other states have joined the Schengen area: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia, as well as the non-EU members, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Thanks to the single short-stay visa application, business people, tourists and other nationals can travel to each of the 26 member states of the Schengen Area with one single visa, without having to make visa applications to numerous consulates.

At the European Museum in Schengen

Although neutral, Luxembourg was occupied by the Nazis during WWII and the inhabitants suffered much deprivation, many of the young men being forcibly conscripted into the German army. There was also intense fighting, particularly in the north of the country in the Ardennes forest between Belgium and Luxembourg. The Ardennes offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, between December 1944 and January 1945 was Hitler's last throw of the dice and many of the young men killed on both sides are buried in the American and German war cemeteries outside Luxembourg city. Among the 5,074 graves in the former is that of General George Patton, who took the lead in relieving beleaguered American troups at Bastogne in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. He was killed in a car accident after the war, in 1945.

American and German War Cemeteries

Our week in Luxembourg gave me and Jon the opportunity to plan the programmes for Physical Separation '24 and Mill Circuits '24 in June. The latter will be the first in this series and will include a panel discussion on the future evolution of mill circuits, chaired by Dariusz Lelinski of FLSmidth, who will also present the keynote lecture.

FLSmidth is also one of the conference sponsors, and as I mentioned in my report on the Phoenix SME, they are a huge company who have been involved with MEI Conferences for many years.  The company expanded even further this month with the acquisition of the Canadian engineering company Farnell-Thompson Applied Technologies Inc., a global supplier of engineering services, parts and mills to the mining industry. The company already has a long-standing business relationship with FLSmidth, prior to the acquisition being a consulting partner providing these services to FLSmidth for many years. 

The keynote session in Phoenix was all about why net zero by 2030 is unlikely to happen and why fossil fuels such as coal and gas are going to be needed for many years yet. The British Government must have been listening, as two weeks later prime minister Rishi Sunak announced that the UK needs to build new gas-fired power stations to ensure the country's energy security, the new stations replacing existing plants, many of which are aging and will soon be retired. The government says the plans do not include measures for expensive climate change-limiting carbon capture.

Predictably the Green Alliance said it "flies in the face" of the government's promise to reach zero-carbon electricity by 2035. However the Government's approach is pragmatic, as even if an infinite number of wind turbines and solar panels were built, the reality is that they only provide energy when the weather conditions are in their favour, and in the absence of sufficient numbers of reliable and safe giant batteries fall-back options are needed. Without sufficient nuclear capacity, this means fossil fuels (see also the posting of 11th December 2023) or preferably the use of excess renewable energy on windy or sunny days to produce green hydrogen, a clean source of energy.

On a lighter note, when returning by train to Cornwall from London Paddington after our Luxembourg visit we spotted a number of Cornish Pilot Gigs in the River Tamar, which divides Cornwall from the rest of England. Looking down from Brunell's Victorian railway bridge, we were not aware that Amanda was in one of the gigs, representing one of the Helford River women's teams in the Three Rivers Race, in which 98 gigs were competing.

Amanda (right) in the Helford River gig, rowing towards the road and rail bridges
on the River Tamar between Devon and Cornwall

Amanda certainly has a knack of juggling work and family commitments with her activities. Later in the month we were at the annual Mabe pantomine, where she had, as always, a leading part.

Amanda (centre) in Mabe's in the Woods

And finally, while on the subject of family, thanks to all of you who asked of the whereabouts of my twin brother Bartholomew.  He is fine, and still working with the Bodmin Institute in Cornwall after a brief spell with MEI (posting of April 1st 2015).

With brother Bart on right (or left?)

He is currently working on evaluation of the giant underground cider lake found in East Cornwall, formed by the leaching of the mineral pommerite into the groundwater.  This lake has the potential to rival the huge cider lakes found in Somerset.