SESB: Loss of revenue due to power theft

AWAS! Stealing electricity can kill! I will not elaborate but there was this recent case near us reported in the local newspaper.

Well, that's the least I can say about power theft. I can always report funny activities by unscrupulous individual or group to SESB but that is all. In fact that is the best we, the ordinary citizen can do. After that it's really down to the licence holder/s of power supply to act.

I read a recent news published by Bernama about power theft by squatters or immigrants in Tenom. SESB denied that this ever happened as "upon inspection" there was no connection (read no cable found, no trace of joint) to the Sport Complex.

Come on now! You can't go and inspect after it was already in the news. If I were to be that thief, I'd have remove all my cables and fittings by the time your personnel made a move. Surely the folks must've inform somebody at the regional office discreetly before going public.

There were cases of power theft by squatters near Arkib Negeri sometime ago and what SESB did was to remove the "hook" connectors on the overhead lines and as expected the illegal connection was intact again few days later. Can we not go to the root of the problem rather than treating just the symptoms. (this particular problem was solved by the construction of Ujana Rimba Tropika recreational park as there was no more space for the squatting houses). But what about the many other places that are still leaking precious energy?

REVENUE LOSS OF RM3 MILLION A YEAR! I'm quoting New Sabah Times.

That is what SESB quoted a couple of years ago regarding loss of revenue due to power theft in Sabah. That is a lot of money. Say a unit of energy cost RM0.30 on average. BTW our tariff is tiered so take this figure as approximation. With that kind of unpaid bill, the energy loss is about 11 million kWH.

That's not very green way to manage energy I'd say!

The 11mil kWH can power up:

1) Two 40-50 MLD of water treatment plant for a whole ONE year, or
2) Three 3/4-star hotel in Kota Kinabalu, such as Hyatt, Promenade, for ONE whole year, or
3) Two medium sized sawmills in Sandakan for ONE whole year!!

Why waste the precious energy when the state is faced with insufficient electrical power supply? Is it because the RM3mil is not my and your money? Well, it is partly mine and yours. Are we talking too much, pacifying, and forget about taking action once the hu-ha is over? It's a shame!

So, act on eradicating the power theft. Not just concentrating on disconnecting the supply of registered consumers after one or two month of default in payment. These are soft target so less resources is required to carry out enforcement.

I say go greener by putting effort to stop 10mil kWH of wastage and spare mother earth of further warming. At the same time save yourself a couple of million of Ringgit in the process.

Stop wasting, stop procrastinating and stop the power theft!

Semoga berjaya!

Water Lily

There are many types of water lily and one that is in this article is the ‘unwanted’ lilies. You can find them growing in the wild but save your horses for a trip to the mountains and caves, for that trip to some bird sanctuary you’ve been itching to go, and head instead to the drains of Donggongon in Penampang. Drain sounds a little less than interesting place to shoot flowers, no? Think about the kind of affluent that the drain might be carrying, the little produce of the less-than-responsible people doing their business there. You know, those squatters, perhaps.

So, getting your feet in the ‘fertile’ drain may not be your first option. Forget about setting up a tripod for a macro and close-up shot down there. Go for hand-held method, crank up the ISO and dial the shutter speed to 1/300s to 1/500s to beat the camera shake. Shoot when Mr Sun is not shining directly on the flowers; a good day would be during cloudy morning. This will give you generally more saturated colours – according to some literature I read somewhere. But that make sense, because the camera metering system will be more at ease as the lighting is less tricky.

Okay, I said no tripod. If you are serious about getting the best result, just ignore what I’ve just said and get yourself half soaked in water. Believe me, you’ll get better images than the samples you see here; miles better!

Don’t worry if you are a beginner – coz I’m a beginner myself. And I keep shooting no matter what.

It all start with a banana-heart shaped bud

The green petals slowly turn to its eventual colour, pink.

Lens fully extended to 200mm.

There’s no way you can tidy up your background if you don’t get your feet into the water.

Cropped

Like us, the lily will grow old and die eventually. New buds will shoot up and entertain the spectator with new blooms.

Other alternative is to take a walk in the park in Tanjung Aru and get to shoot a different species of lily. Such as these:

Now where’s the bigger version of this shot. I can’t be kidding with this tiny thumb-size pic, can I?

Ahaa! Sea of lilies. This was more than a year ago when I’ve just bought my D90 and still struggling to fiddle with the cam features.

Happy Shooting...!!!

Greenest City In Asia: Singapore

There's little surprise about this finding. In fact I was not surprised at all as I've been reading quite a lot about Singapore and was really impressed with their Government's effort to strike a balance between growing concrete jungle and catering for the monkey.

Of course I didn't literally mean that!

This is how the ranking works:

a) SIEMENS commissioned a study, and

b) EIU - Economist Intelligence Unit (independent body) carries it out.

c) 22 cities in Asia were selected, including our capital Kuala Lumpur.

d) Analyse their aims towards green environment and climate protection.

e) Check their achievements.

Few months later Siemens announced and singled out Singapore city as the greenest metropolis. There are 5 categories of benchmark, namely:

1. WELL above average

2. Above average

3. Average <-----(Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur is here!!)

4. Below average

5. WELL below average

Cities in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan occupy the second category, while KL sits "comfortably" (I think) at the AVERAGE.

We had a vacation in Singapore in December 2010 and the first impression as we touch down and then on the drive ways is that the city is clean and the infrastructure is well-organised. Not a place to do your shopping spree tho, especially if you are coming from a country with less than strong currency exchange.

So who are KL's peers scoring AVERAGE? Shanghai, Delhi, Beijing, Bangkok, to name a few. Who are at par with us does not really matter. What matters is the action taken towards achieving the target. Every now and then we hear on our TVs and radios that Malaysia is taking this action and taking that moves, to show that we are committed to going green, and we now have one ministry that looks specifically into ensuring that the country will grow into developed industrial nation while maintaining sustainable implementation of Green Technology.

It is good to have goals and it is good to bore the people to death with the awareness programmes, but is no good getting slow with actions and results. Green technology is not cheap (not just yet) but it's time we start adopting this in bigger scale, starting with energy and infrastructure. In short, think less about our plan to build more coal-fired power plants and spend a bit more on the more expensive renewal energy sources.

Kota Kinabalu city is heading in the right direction with many implemented projects to beautify it, to make it eco-friendly, people-friendly but these are still at infancy. More effort is needed by the new Mayor.

Like yourself, I am also a tax payer and I would not mind at all if Mr. Abidin Madingkir (our new KK Mayor) choose Singapore city as his first official oversea destination.

Best of wishes to all of us in Kota Kinabalu and congratulations, Singapore!