Solar

The journey back from KL to Bandung was not fun, but there again, it hardly ever is. Something always goes wrong; First, I was caught in traffic heading for the Sepang circuit for the Malaysian grand prix, which is just a few miles away from the airport. Fortunately, I always allow bags of extra time. In twenty plus years of fairly frequent flying, I have never arrived late for a flight. It didn’t matter anyway, as the flight was delayed two hours.

I finally arrived in Bandung and the bike would not start. Several acres of carpark and I parked under the bit with a leaky roof. The bike was soaked every time it rained, which is very often. Even though the hour was now late, six lads stopped to help me with the bike. They spent an hour messing with the plug, the carb and other bits and pieces. They eventually cracked it and I managed to stutter my way home. One thing about Indonesia, people help each other. I have been saved by strangers many times.

Arrived home after midnight. First thing I had to do was sweep the floor, as it was covered in patches of termite dust. Set up the computer, so good to be sat in front of a big screen again, the laptop has a right piddly little screen!

The blip – shot from a cueue on the motorway, close to Sepang. A field of solar panels. Never seen this before. The trees in the background is a palm oil plantation, one of hundreds, maybe thousands.

The solar panels got me thinking; the few meters of ground on the central reservation, between the crash barriers is dead ground, as is about 20 meters of land each side of the motorway. All this dead land could be utilized for solar energy production. Great advances are being made all the time with solar power generation. I think this is the future. Certainly not the eyesore of the wind power generators – what do you think?

Dave