Dome City Blog 5 - Churches, Mosques, Synagogues & Temples
Dome City Blog 5 - Churches, mosques, synagogues & temples
We are coming to the end of the Easter Weekend as I write this. Therefore, it seems appropriate for me to comment on churches, mosques, synagogues and temples within the Dome City.
I believe that on balance religion is a power for good. As a practicing Christian I see the merit in having a set of beliefs and guides for living that encourage me to love my neighbour, to be honest and to be trustworthy.
If a Dome City is going to be a success it will need to be the sort of place people want to live. Having good neighbours is one of the factors that I would list as important to making a place somewhere that I want to live. Religion can play a role in this is 2 ways. The first is as a guide for peaceful living and the second is the way that religion brings people together for religious observations, celebrations and works.
Therefore, I would suggest that space be set aside for churches in the Dome City. In my mind, the obvious place for a Dome City in the UK would be near London. In Britian as a whole according to the Office of National Statistics, based on the 2011 census data, 59.3% stated that they are Christian, 25.1% of the population state that they have no religion, 7.2% did not respond to the question, 4.8% stated they are Muslim, 1.5% stated they were Hindu, 0.8% were Sikh, 0.5% were Jewish, 0.4% were Buddhist and 0.4% were other religions. If this were an accurate reflection of the people who chose to live in the Dome City it is clear to me that around 75% of the population would have a religious affiliation. Of course not all of them would be regular participants in their religious community but a reasonable number would be.
The data for the above paragraph was taken from http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_290510.pdf
In the spirit of interfaith pluralism I would suggest that the churches, mosques, synagogues and temples be placed close to each other, probably on the same level of the Dome City.
In Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser it talks about a suburb of Houston called Woodlands. One of the things that intrigued me about this suburb is how the developer, George Phydias Mitchell, recognised the importance of religion for promoting social capital. The paragraph that captures this best for me has been extracted and is shown below:
One of the most interesting, and almost urban, aspects of The Woodlands’ management is its focus on social capital. The Woodlands works precisely because it is not a collection of isolated individuals; its social infrastructure has been designed to foster interpersonal connections. In 1975, Mitchell hired a Wharton-trained Lutheran minister to run The Woodlands Religious Community Incorporated, now called Interfaith, which was meant to “plan the religious community and all the human services in this new town.” The minister bought a motor scooter and followed moving vans , meeting new residents as they arrived. Interfaith made sure that The Woodlands provided appropriate space for social, particularly religious, activities. Because nothing sours an area like religiously motivated hatred, Interfaith makes sure that religious messages are kept positive. In the aftermath of the 9/ 11 attacks, Interfaith managed to get rabbis to pray for Palestinians and Islamic leaders to pray for Jews.
Glaeser, Edward (2011-03-18). Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier (pp. 181-182). Macmillan Publishers UK. Kindle Edition.
Aside - Those interested in energy matters like I am will recognise the name "George Phydias Mitchell", this is the man credited with developing the techniques to extract natural gas from tight shales using hydraulic fracturing (fracking). - end aside
I would hope that a UK Dome City would encourage the same sort of thing taking into account the differences between American and British religious views and practices.
Joe Heffernan 6-April-2015
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Dome City Blog 6 - Ring Park
Something I feel strongly about is that it is important to spend time outside and to have public parks that are easily accessible from the Dome City. Therefore, I would like to see the Dome City surround by a ring of park land 500m wide.
This Ring Park would provide parkland with an area of 235 hectares (580 acres).
To put this into context, in London, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens together are 253 hectares (625 acres) while New York's Central park is 341 hectares (843 acres). Of course, for the residents of the Dome City, would never be more than 500m horizontally from the Ring Park unlike residents of London and New York who could be much further away from these outstanding green spaces.
Some of the features i would hope to see in the Ring Park are sports fields with modest amounts of spectator seating for football, rugby, cricket, and field hockey. There should also be some outdoor tennis and basketball courts. Pitches and courts for these sports would also be available within the Dome City but with limited head room due to height restrictions of the levels in the Dome City. These are the sports I would choose but ultimately it would be for the residents to decide.
I would expect that we would make allotments available for residents who want them to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs and other plants.
There should be a wide range of play parks for children of all ages and I would include a skate park within the Ring Park.
I would hope that there would be a lake where water sports such as swimming and kayaking could take place.
Somewhere in the Ring Park we should have a cemetery.
Aside - I understand that the largest municipal cemetery in the whole of Europe is in Greenock, the town next to where I live. It is 31 hectares. If you are ever in Greenock and have a at a few hours visit this cemetery, it is fascinating - End aside
Within the Ring Park here should be a range of different habitats such as grasslands, forests and marshes. These habitats should become a haven for wildlife.
Footpaths and cycle ways would exist to encourage walking and cycling.
These are my initial suggestions and I think that the residents of the Dome City should have a say in what they want from the park.
Joe Heffernan - 8 April 2015
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Dome City Blog 3 - Energy production in the city
In today's blog I plan to talk about energy production and use within a Dome City.
In general, residents of cities use less energy per capita, then people in rural areas. Some reasons for this are:
Distances travelled can be less,
Mass transportation systems can work well,
Shared walls in housing lead to lower heating requirements,
If energy sources are located in the city then combined heat and power can be used, and
Less resources are used to provide infrastructure for high density populations compared to low density ones.
A Dome City should have nearby power resources large enough to cover the needs of the population for electricity, heating, cooling and local transport within the city. Transport away from the city would most probably provided in standard cars and trucks powered by gasoline and diesel.
I would propose that the Dome City has a electricity power station sited just beside it. This power station would be located close enough to the Dome City to allow the waste heat, which arises from electricity production, to be used to provide hot water, heating and if required, cooling, to the city. This is known as combined heat and power (CHP) or as cogeneration. When a Dome City is sited in a tropical location then a "trigeneration" systems which includes refrigeration could be provided. The typical efficiency of thermal power plants for electricity is 30% to 40%. This waste heat represents a significant resource. District heating would be feature of the Dome City. This heat supplied to residents and business would form another source of income for the city.
My preferred method of dealing with electricity production would be with Nuclear Power. Nuclear Power is a low-carbon form of electricity production that is not so climate dependent compared to wind or solar. Furthermore, while wind and solar can be excellent sources of low-carbon electricity at the right locations, these forms of energy production are intermittent. This intermittentcy requires back up power sources to cover the times when these renewable sources cannot provide power.
There are proposals for new smaller reactors known as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). By definition these reactors have electricity outputs of less than 300 MWe (Megawatts electrical). The suggested size of these reactors varies from 2 MWe for the UPower proposal to 130 MWe for the B&W MPower proposal. The system that I would most want to see would be 3 number NuScale 45 MWe reactors to provide electricity and heat to the city. A combined output of 135 MWe would generally provide more power than the city would require. I would estimate that the city will consume around 100MWe. However, the additional supply could be used to entice power hungry industries to move to the city. Some energy intensive industries are data centres or heavy manufacturing. Alternatively, the additional supply above the needs of the city would be a useful source of income for the city.
The NuScale reactors have a refueling cycle of around 2 years. Refueling would be staggered such that no more than one reactor is off line at any one time. In the UK, the city should be connected to the National Grid and any shortfall in power during a refueling shut-down could be supplied from the grid.
The use of 3 number SMR's has the advantage of "right-sizing" the plant to the population of the Dome City. The Dome City will take several years to build. Once the lower levels have been constructed I would expect that people would begin to move in. However, to reach the full population of around 100,000 people will take a number of years. Initially a single reactor would provided for power. The second and third would follow in later years when the population as grown large enough to justify the additional generating capacity.
I would very much hope that the power station for the city be owned and operated by the municipality.
I appreciate that there will be some reading this blog that are opposed to or afraid of nuclear power. In addition, the NuScale SMR is still in the design and licensing phase. We are still waiting for the first one to be constructed. An alternative to an SMR that would accomplish much the same ends is to have a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power plant producing electrical power for the city.
This brief outline on the supply of electrical power and heat to a proposed Dome City has set out what I consider to be the "best" option. The compact nature of the Dome City would allow Combined Heat and Power to be feasible. The power station would have 2 sources of income. One comes from the Electricity produced and the second is the hot water and heat supplied. This would increase it's financial performance and make it easier to find financing for this aspect of Dome City development.
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This is a blog where I can write those things that interest me, including but not limited to, Nuclear Power, Climate Change, Engineering, Open Water Swimming and Economics.
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