{(something||other).soft()} » electricity http://www.somethingorothersoft.com About Software Development And Other Stuff By Igor Zevaka Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:03:47 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Dear AGL… http://www.somethingorothersoft.com/2009/10/27/dear-agl/ http://www.somethingorothersoft.com/2009/10/27/dear-agl/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:39:30 +0000 igor http://www.somethingorothersoft.com/?p=152 [...]]]> This is an open letter to AGL marketing department. I post it on my blog because the online enquiry form does not take text over 1000 characters and my rant was well over 2000 characters. Also there is no contact email advertised anywhere, so this is the next best thing as far as I am concerned. I will scan and post the actual letter that I received later.

Dear AGL,

I would like to write and complain about a very stupid marketing campaign that some incompetent hack in your obviously ineffective marketing department has come up with.

I received a letter in the mail that looks like a newspaper, has a picture of some guy who is not me with the text “ZEVAKA IN TRANSFER SHOCKER” in what looks like 36 pt. font.

The letter then proceeded with a number of paragraphs of drivel about me being a valuable team(???) member and asking me to call AGL to see if there is a better deal you can offer.

I have a number of problems with this:

  1. I do not like my name next to a picture of some guy in what obviously looks like negative context. I understand that it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I do not know anyone at AGL well enough to accept that as a joke. In fact I don’t know anyone at AGL at all.

  2. In the text of the letter it mentioned a possible $75 disconnection fee and that I should call to discuss a better deal. Well I did call months ago and I am not liable for a disconnection fee and no, you could not offer me a better deal. If you went to trouble of printing this … thing for me, you could have personalised it a bit more.

  3. It is plain bad marketing. As a reasonably smart consumer I do not like to be treated as an idiot. AGL could not offer me a better deal even after discounting the plan that I was on. This begs the question of why I was not on a cheaper plan to begin with. Do you overcharge all of your customers and then offer then a discount back to the standard rates when they want to switch?

But I digress, that is an issue of its own that I really don’t care about. And the reason for my not caring is because I will now actively seek to switch my gas service from AGL as well as electricity. I do not wish to give my business to a company that send such snide and contemptuous letters to their customers.

Just in case I did not make my point clear. I will not give my business to AGL ever again purely as a result of this stupid letter.

Regards,

Igor Zevaka

UPDATE: I do feel like I overreacted a little bit. To AGL’s credit I got a call later on offering a 7% discount on my gas which I took, plus they were competitive anyway. I am not angry any more, so I’ll give em another chance.

]]> http://www.somethingorothersoft.com/2009/10/27/dear-agl/feed/ 3 Top 5 sustainability technologies we need http://www.somethingorothersoft.com/2009/08/27/top-5-sustainability-technologies-we-need/ http://www.somethingorothersoft.com/2009/08/27/top-5-sustainability-technologies-we-need/#comments Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:37:41 +0000 igor http://www.somethingorothersoft.com/?p=51 Plastic recycling. Most of the waste plastic these days cannot be recycled as high temperatures are required to disinfect it. At high temperatures it breaks down and becomes unusable. With effective recycling we could also [...]]]> Been doing a bit of thinking about what technologies we really need today. Here is my top 5:

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  • Plastic recycling. Most of the waste plastic these days cannot be recycled as high temperatures are required to disinfect it. At high temperatures it breaks down and becomes unusable. With effective recycling we could also reduce our dependence on oil.

    UPDATE: New Envion Facility Turns Plastic Waste into $10/Barrel Fuel (link). This is heaps cool – recycling plastic into hydrocarbon fuel(which we still need for a long time). They clain that 82% of the plastic is turned into energy.

    • <li value="4"><strong>Low temperature heat engine</strong>. Let me explain. A lot of engines waste a lot of energy by emitting heat. This applies equally for internal combustion engines and giant steam turbines at power plants. If there was a good way to convert that energy back it would certainly improve the overall efficiency.

    There are a few things out there (like Stirling engine) but for some reason (an I am sure it’s a good one) there isn’t widespread use of those. It would be even better if this technology doesn’t have any moving parts so it can be used in various portable electronic devices.

    <li value="3"><strong>Energy storage</strong>. Batteries are just not going to get that much better or cleaner. Hydrogen is kinda cool but it still doesn't compare with petrol or diesel as far as storing is concerned. You just can't fit the same amount of energy into the same space and weight.</li>

<li value="2"><strong>Carbon neutral high power engines</strong>. This is so we could still have Formula1 cars. Or V8 Supercars. Kidding. We obviously need planes, so there needs to be a way to power those. There is some work being done converting CO<sub>2</sub> into hydrocarbons using either concentrated solar energy or some biochemical process. It would be super cool if those become common use technologies.</li>

<li value="1"><strong>Clean energy</strong>. Doh. There are lots of candidates for this one. Fusion would be nice but we are long away from commercial deployment. Out of solar/wind/tide technologies I especially like this <a href="http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/08/my-favorite-renewable-energy-concept-the-solar-updraft-tower/">Solar updraft towers</a>. The guy with the letters "PhD" after his name seems to agree with me :) And who says these towers have to be built with concrete? We can just use recycled plastic (and thus solving No 5) attached to lightweight steel frame.</li>
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