Somebody's done the maths
If we pool our fingers and toes, we'll be able to count to sixty.
This comment was sent in by ciccio2010. One sort of wishes the Nationalist Party had brought out its calculator and got in there first.
As for Joseph Muscat’s calculator, it can’t possibly be the same one he used when giving financial advice as an investment adviser with Alfred Mifsud’s firm (you’re well rid of him, Alfred).
Joseph Muscat spoke from a podium surrounded by 12 containers stacked in a semi-circle.
Those dozen containers, he said, showed the amount of fly-ash which the power station extension will produce every week.
A banner on one of the containers bore the legend “31 tonnes of daily toxic waste”. Let us assume it is all fly-ash. Fly-ash weighs 143.52lbs per cubit foot (the information I have is given in the Imperial system).
31 tonnes are 70,000lbs. A thousand pounds convert to 453.592kg, and that’s assuming Muscat’s tonnes are metric and not Imperial, because he’s progressive.
So we’re looking at 13.592 cubic metres.
The volume of a Standard 20 container is about 33 cubic metres. The volume of a Standard 40 container is about 68 cubic metres.
This means that the fly-ash generated in a week would fit into 2.9 Standard 20 containers.
Shall we ask the Auditor to investigate the difference?
Or we can ask Astrid.
32 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
As Evarist Bartolo famously declared on Bondiplus, “Il-kalkolu huwa zbaljat”. [cue snarl and contracted eyebrows]
Forsi “inbazwru ftit ‘l hawn u nbazwru ftit ‘l hemm” u naslu.
Bir-rispett kollu Sur Bondiiiiiii…..
Classic comment. The EU is criticised for wasting too much taxpayers’ money on financial checks, audits and reports and the mastermind expected to win an election on that argument!
Re the tonnage – should we be surprised? Not really – they did not even get the maths right on the referendum results in 2003, so do not expect anything better.
It is disgusting how we are being treated in the south and also disgusting are those people making fun of whoever is trying to fight for us.Maybe they have nice clean air like we used to have……to think about all the spin when the first power station was build and a beauty spot ruined for ever…now beside the new poluting power station there will be an incinerator and also a bigger freeport with cranes in people’s balconies.
No wonder hardley anybody in Europe bothers to vote for MEP s as the hope we had before joining that Europe will protect us from apparent corruption and ‘the riding rough shot over us’is not happening.The EU has no teeth and soon also the maltese will not bother about its electios
Did you complain when we had a power cut?
Silvio, Joseph Muscat’s main war cry is about corruption, and it is only because the Auditor General did not find evidence of such that he has squeezed in the health issue now. Given all the clowning by Evarist Bartolo, the least I was expecting was a couple of ministers walking through the dreaded Kordin gates).
Muscat is now in a Catch 22 situation: promoting clean-air technology while lambasting the government for hefty electricity bills.
If the discussion is purely on health issues, well then, yes I would agree that we should go for diesel fuel rather than HFO…..but I would expect PL and all social partners to agree too.
Mr. Farrugia, the south is the ONLY logical place for a power station to be. The reason is simple: the prevailing winds in Malta blow from the north-west (on average about 65% of the time, if I’m not mistaken).
Most of the time any emissions are blown out to sea. By putting the power station in the north any emissions would have been blown over the entire country – including the south – except on the minority of days when an easterly or southerly wind was blowing.
All this NIMBY whinging by southerners about the power station is really quite illogical and selfish.
Silvio, where do you want to build the power station? In Mellieha? Bugibba? Gozo?
Perhaps it’s time to ask Joseph Muscat where he would build it if he were prime minister. Or would he leave us without electricity and water as Mintoff and KMB used to do?
I’m sure he tells himself that what other people think of him is none of his business.
Silvio Farrugia: at 0030 in the morning you had better take a nap instead of putting stupidities on this blog.
What other solution is the school boy suggesting?
Marie, solutions, are you serious? Would you buy a diesel engine car to save some money on fuel cost when you know that in a few years time you would be forced by law to change the engine to petrol?
Changing the burners of boilers is no big deal. I recall the great Dom when he switched from oil to coal….. and Marsa was full of soot.
The Bulk density of Heavy Fuel Oil Fly Ash is 0.49 Tonnes per M^3
31 Tonnes Per Day = 217 Tonnes per week
Volume = Mass/Density = 217/0.49 = 442 M^3
Capacity of One Container = 39 M^3
Total Number Of Container per week = 442/39 = 11.35
Round this up to the nearest whole number = 12 Containers per week!
This is very serious.
For once I thought YOU would be the first to hit at this contract; it is full of question marks. We are talking about our health here.
Somebody with the name of John Manduca posted the material above on the times.online on 5 May.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100505/local/muscat-urges-nationalist-mps-to-vote-with-the-opposition-on-the-power-station
The difference between our calculations lies in the density value.
Tal-Muzew, is using a density of 0.49 tonnes per cubic metre. I have used a density of about 2.3 tonnes per cubic metre.
This is an important difference. I have used more than one source of information which suggest that my density value for fly ash is correct.
Of course, the higher the density, the lower the number of containers since a higher density means that more weight can be packed into the same space.
I bet when they came up with the container idea they thought it was brilliant and couldn’t fail. The Labour faithful may eat this up but the people they are trying to court see through these pathetic gimmicks.
Tony got the joke, but Anglu apparently did not.
The lines on the container read 31 tons of toxic waste each day but the number of containers at Marsaxlokk represented a weekly haulage. This was explained by Joseph Muscat during his speech which is recorded on U tube.
Charles, I can assure you the maths above is based on 31 tons daily multiplied by 7 days.
It is more likely that since only approx. 3 of the smaller containers (standard 20) are needed weekly, then the PL was showing the number of containers required per month.
I say, good business prospects for the container operators. Shall we ask the Auditor General if they had their fair share in corruption as well?
Yes Charles but why did they have a banner showing the waste per day but then put enough containers for a week? It was bound to create confusion and perhaps that was their intention.
We are talking toxic waste, never mind the numbers of containers, a bucket full would be one bucket too many.
[Daphne – What do you think the existing power stations produce, Charles? Non-toxic waste? You have a solution: emigrate to the Australian desert and live in a hut without electricity.]
“Twenty containers stacked in a semi-circle” Hey! They’re circling the wagons!
Smajtu jghid li l-wiehed u tletin tunellata ta’ irmied kien se jidhol f’sider it-tfal taghna.
Mela ahna li m’ahniex tfal dan mhux se jhassrilna sidirna?
U nghid jien, dawk il-kaxxi ta’ l-azzar ghaliex kienu warajh, jewwilla dawk huma l-isdra tat-tfal taghna?
Af li hawwadni il-mexxej, ghax filli se jibghatu l-irmied barra u filli se jidhol f’sidirna.
Sa fejn naf jien l-irmied jispicca fit-tahlita tal-konkos. Imma jien irjurant.
Imma ghandi l-vot!
Suldat tal-azzar,
I didn’t hear Joseph Muscat say that 31 tonnes of ash will all go into our children’s “chests” but he has to decide what it’s going to be: is the ash going to fill all those containers or children’s lungs?
You got my point, Antoine. The boy shoots from the hip; he’s inconsistent.
Are the Leader and Gadget in that photo cardboard cutouts or is it just me seeing things?
If they take their clothes off, they can count to 63.
[Daphne – Oh god, how I laughed.]
Tim, you said that because you’re assuming that they’ve all got one. Now you can laugh louder, Daphne.
Hey guys, are you aware that we are living the ‘darkest hours of Maltese political history’?
Not my words – http://alexsaliba.blogspot.com/2010/05/bondis-popularity-meter.html
This is so much better than Facebook.
Something that may be added about fly ash is that it is used in the production of concrete. So it does not need to be disposed of in some third world country as some are telling the Maltese public. And there may be some value that can be recovered for it.
It is to be noted that the demand for concrete is mostly in urban developed or developing centres. Concrete is never really produced in locations distant from where development takes place, due to transportation costs.
[Daphne – Careful, or you might inspire yet another conspiracy theory involving Polidano Bros.]