Will the UK's gas holders be missed?(bbc.com) |
Will the UK's gas holders be missed?(bbc.com) |
The UK is suffering from a housing shortage in certain areas of the country and has very few options to expand housing stock that do not involve developing greenfield sites.
I do wish they could have come up with a way to incorporate the existing structures into the new development but this would be perceived as a massive long term maintenance issue and probably not an optimum housing density.
From a city point of view, 2000+ new homes vs three defunct gas holders is a no brainer in revenue generation (£4,000,000 per year in taxes). http://www.bathwesternriverside.com/overview/
As much as it is nice to cherish our past, it seems it's OK for the haves to say let's keep it, when the have nots are struggling with ridiculous rents.
I have run past the same gasometers and I found them fascinating and inspiring for the same reason: a tiny part of the city where the space and skyline is reserved for a unique part of our history that isn't simply converted into modern urban sprawl.
Is it a good idea to convert them into new flats which are 90% landlord owned, if not owned by Chinese investors who leave them empty so they can't support local business - the typical fate of new property in London? How does it help your 'have nots' with their rent? Aren't you just stripping out all the cultural and local heritage?
The housing shortage in the UK is crippling and it will only get worse.
If only there were ways of moving jobs out of London. London housing by comparison needs to go up more - not the >10 story tower blocks, more like 5 storys. Unfortunately this would probably involve clearing a lot of picturesque spacious Victorian terraces.
The UK is a ridiculously unsustainable mix of mega-high demand cities with others in almost constant decline. There's no reason everybody has to work in London, Birmingham and Manchester.
That, and stopping developers sit on land while they wait for house prices to come up. Screw it, if we need houses so much, why aren't councils renationalising housebuilding?
There are so many more, objectively better options than continuing the cycle we're currently locked into.
(I also agree with the points below about the housing shortage being localised. We should do what Silicon Valley did a long time ago and move some firms to a new area.)
The more we fetishise heritage the less acceptable new structures and designs becomes that are "out of context". For example, a wind turbine should only need to generate power efficiently. It should not need to look good.
Beauty is the art of making something pleasing and desirable to humanity.
Engineering and architecture should aim to do both. When utilities are ugly they can depress the price of properties around them, making people less willing enable future needed projects. I mean, is your home a (subjectively) ugly gray box with no decoration. I mean the purpose of a house is to shelter you from the elements.
That's obviously bollocks - human beings aren't machines - they enjoy existing in an environment that they find beautiful. So, we should consider aesthetics when designing technology that is visible.
There's a reason that that area of town used to be tanneries, gas-holders, and chemical works.
Sites like these are politically 'easy' to develop. From a urban landscape point of view, taking an industrial zone and re-classifying it as a residential zone has it's risks in that you drive out the ability for employment opportunities in the city. However, in Bath's case, the industrial sectors are now on the west side of the city towards Bristol.
Then, X years later, when they get taken away, people say they miss them.
Those out liners that do reject change are usually hailed or hurt.
Stories like this, and the current frenzy for listed buildings in the UK makes me feel there is a little too much respect afforded past architecture. Should we be keeping structures that aren't beautiful either by the standards of their time or ours, simply because it is old? Will we be eventually constrained in creating new styles, if we are stuck preserving past ones?
However similar sentiment can lead to stagnation as areas are not developed and instead become depressed from disuse. Now granted most of the push is likely coming from the lack of housing for the rich than trying to find new space for the poor
An averaged-size gas-holder has capacity of ~50,000 m^3 [2]. Gas holders store gas at essentially atmospheric pressure, so the stored hydrogen has an energy density of ~0.01 MJ/L [3] = ~10^7 J/m^3. So the gas-holder energy capacity is ~5*10^11 J = ~140 MWh
In comparison Dinorwig pumped-storage power station in the UK has an energy capacity of ~9000 MWh [4]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas#Composition
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder
Apparently underground low pressure storage has been used successfully: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#Underground_hy...
Seemed to be not to hard with town gas (which was >50% hydrogen)
There's a bunch of this functional stuff that just gets churned over. That's probably mostly good, but it'd be nice to keep a few of them around as examples.
I think we (in the UK) can be dismissive of stuff that's only from the 1950s or 1920s because we have so much that is much much older.
[1] The Nestle factory?
http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/local-news/nestl-factory...
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Nestle+UK+Ltd/@51.50038,...
Gas holders used to dot the periphery of big cities in the US, and some probably still do. But there's actually a newer solution: LNG. This sounds expensive, because large amounts of energy are required to liquify the gas. But the 600:1 volume improvement makes it worthwhile.
Two LNG tanks or 1200 gas holders? You decide! :)
Of course, sometimes things go horribly wrong[2], which is how I first learned about LNG for "peakshaving"[3] purposes.
[1] http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/analysis_publicat... [2] http://www.kulr8.com/story/25118246/fire-and-explosion-at-na... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lng#Small-scale_liquefaction_p...
The Victorians put so much soul in to public utilities it seems a real shame to not recognise them for more than gas tanks.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/The_Octag...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossness_Pumping_Station
They saw public works and modern engineering as a statement of intent about where we where going in the future and they took pleasure in making things beautiful even when it was hidden (indeed it was common for ladies and gentlemen to go on tours of civic works including sewage treatment plants).
I think we could do with a little bit more of that attitude sometimes.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=120093256&postc...
Concerts/Festivals are frequently held: http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/clubs/photos/2012-04-0...
These things were elegant engineering when they were doing something valuable, but it's the elegance of something functional - and they're not functional any more. They take up a lot of space that could be used productively. Good riddance.
I really don't know if underground transmission will ever be economical. In principle it's possible, though, if you want to spend the money.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA9oBEHRLqQ&hd=1
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Auckland_power_crisis
[3] http://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/
There are some limitations; for instance, on long transfer lines underground - we're talking about 100 km here - you may need to convert to DC in between because underground cables have stronger reactive components which makes voltage control difficult.
The pylon shown is the end one — the wires on the left side go down to the ground. It's probably on the edge of a city somewhere, within British cities electricity distribution is buried.
They're not allowed to do so, they don't have the money, they don't have any way to raise it, and it would be vulnerable to NIMBYs.
> If only there were ways of moving jobs out of London.
The goal of capitalism is that stuff is used in an economically efficient way, and capitalism is a bit broken when that doesn't happen.
'Use it or sell it' is needed but dangerous: applied naively, this creates false incentives.
For the most part homes in the UK are designed to fit in with their surroundings not be beautiful. I don't find hundreds of identical red brick buildings particularly asthetically inspiring and decoration is usually kept to an absolute minimum by developers. What we end up with is endless estates that all look exactly the same in order to protect sensibilities. We need to accept some creativity and change.
Yeah, like this. http://www.choishine.com/port_projects/landsnet/landsnet.htm...
I don't think there are any gas holders that are going to become that iconic but a lot of tourism focuses on interesting infrastructure like dam's, buildings, towers, walls, bridges, etc.
Each gasometer was redesigned into a complete urban space by a different architect.
My apartment overlooked one of the hollow central 'cylinders': not much sunlight reached the interior, and - without net curtains - not much privacy (since neighbors opposite had a clear view across the space).
After seeing a huge crowd queuing in the lobby one evening, I realized the basement was used for rock concerts! And yet, not a sound (or vibration) reached the residential areas above.
Great place to stay for a while...