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British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Industry: Broadcasting & receiving
Number of terms: 5074
Number of blossaries: 1
Company Profile:
The largest broadcasting organisation in the world.
A textile bank is a place to take old clothes for recycling. Compared with other materials such as glass, there is, as yet, very little textile recycling in the UK.
Industry:Natural environment
A thermostat maintains the temperature of a system at or near a stipulated level using sensors that tell it when to turn off heating devices. In most household central heating systems, a wall-mounted thermostat is used to set a maximum temperature for the house, while thermostatic radiator valves can be used to set a desired level for individual radiators.
Industry:Natural environment
Thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) automatically open and close as necessary to control the flow of hot water into a radiator and so achieve the pre-set air temperature for a particular room, rather than for the whole house. The level is set by turning a dial on the radiator.
Industry:Natural environment
A toxin is a chemical compound from one organism that is harmful to another organism.
Industry:Natural environment
The lowest level of the atmosphere, from the surface to about 10km. It is the level at which clouds form and where our weather phenomena occur.
Industry:Natural environment
Turbulence describes irregular eddies of air within the general air current. It can be caused when wind flows over obstacles such as trees or buildings and gets 'churned up', so it no longer has a smooth flow. Wind turbines do not handle turbulence well and power production can be dramatically decreased.
Industry:Natural environment
A device used to measure the volume of water used by a household or business. Billing people for the water they actually use, rather than a fixed annual charge, is increasingly common in the UK, and is regarded as an incentive to users to avoid wasting water.
Industry:Natural environment
Water pressure is the force that pushes water through pipes and determines the rate of flow from your taps. Water companies are required to provide water at a pressure that will reach the upper floors of houses, but where this is a problem, pressure can be improved using pumps. However, devices such as power showers, which use a pump to boost flow for a more powerful shower spray, also greatly increase the volume of water used and the energy required to heat it.
Industry:Natural environment
A watt is a unit of power. Power is the rate at which energy is used, and a watt is equal to a rate of one joule of energy per second. Watts are commonly used when referring to the energy consumption of relatively small things like lightbulbs, while kilowatts (a thousand watts) are used for larger machines. Megawatts (a million watts) are used to measure the electricity generation of power stations. See also kilowatt-hours.
Industry:Natural environment
The state of the atmosphere with regard to temperature, cloudiness, rainfall, wind and other meteorological conditions. It is not the same as climate which is the average weather over a much longer period.
Industry:Natural environment