THE ENERGY DEBATE … The Solution

Australia has the ability to be the world centre of excellence for energy in the future.

Australia has the largest uranium deposits in the world. But we must find solutions to all the problems of the nuclear waste and the management of the power plants before we develop the natural resource.

There’s no reason why Aussies can’t make the break through in technology. It will be done by someone … we must ensure that it’s an Aussie research team that does it. Which means we need to fund a centre of excellence to solve all the problems.

But I reckon SOLAR is where Australia can shine.

It won’t be easy.

The Federal Australian Government has to do what the US Government did when transistors were developed after WW2.

The cost of a transistor was prohibitive. Remember valves? In your Boom Box, in the TV?

The US Government bought so many of them for the Military that the unit price came down so much that they could put them in a new form of wireless radio. It became the Transistor Radio and within ten years a kid could buy one for eight dollars.

This is what needs to be done, right now.

The highest priority has to be given to the new photo-voltaic cell being developed at Canberra Uni in conjunction with the CSIRO. The per-watt price of cell will drop dramatically.

The Federal Government has to agree to replace EVERY street light in Australia at its own expense. Such an order will lead to an acceleration of the world-class development of battery technology.

The Federal Government has to subsidise the replacing of roofing tiles with solar-powered tiles to ensure that every new house and as many existing houses as possible can be powered with a secondary low voltage system.

All the kitchen downlights are already twelve volts. In your kitchen roof is a transformer reducing the power, (by-product: useless heat), so you can have sexy downlights.

You can run TVs, all internal lights, sound-systems and computers with low power. (No? how bright are your car’s headlights?),

The heavy stuff is still needed for white goods and cooking.

The Federal Government has to subsidise the replacing of hot water systems with solar-powered systems to ensure that every new house and as many existing houses as possible can switch over.

Only with such a dramatic change can Australia lead the world and make solar power truly viable.

It’s just sitting there to be grabbed.



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THE ENERGY DEBATE … Windfarms

When you drive to Yosemite National Park from San Francisco you come around a corner and see thousands of windmills covering the hills. They are stunning.

Flying over the German countryside, you see individual windmills in the middle of round-abouts, probably providing the energy for the highway lighting.

In the north of the UK, you can see them next to the highway, doing their job … and now there is a movement to bring them to Australia.

But what is their job?

To give money to the German and Belgian gearbox and propeller manufacturers.

In Australia, stupid Governments subsidise them.

I find them very nice to look at … some people hate them.

I seriously doubt that birds, (who daily miss aircraft approaching them at 300kph during approach), are stupid enough to run into them. The blades are just too slow. I reckon that more birds would run into windows in the suburbs of Melbourne than are killed in the world by windmills.


The noise issue for locals living near the wind farms concerns me, as much as the noise of, say the traffic on the M5 near Bristol, UK. You just can’t bring that kind of 24 / 7 noise to rural areas and expect people to just live with it.

But the reason I am against wind technology is because they are only efficient ten percent of the time.

Most time there is not enough wind, especially on hot days when the power load is the greatest.

But worse, they are limited by high winds, so are turned-off when you’d think they’d be most efficient.

Wind farms are used by Pollies as a ready-made solution to the cry that they are not doing anything about sustainable technology.

It’s deplorable.


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THIS ENERGY DEBATE ... Nuclear

The World needs a new form of energy, and fast. This week President Bush has approved the oil mining of the Alaskan Wilderness.

The answer is probably going to be nuclear but before we can embrace it a few things need to be done.

During the hot European summer (2003) over 11,000 people died from heatstroke in Paris. The French Leader said the figure was 3,000, but he was laughed-at by the head of the Funeral Director's Association who said, "Maybe .. but we used an extra 11,000 coffins during the month..."

At the same time the power demand increased. Problem is, the nuclear plants are situated on the rivers and there do not appear to be cooling ponds from the heated water, the by-product from nuclear plants. (We were flying over them every day for nine months and a cooling pond is something you can't really hide.)

On the hot days, when demand was greatest, the river temperature was already increased. The heated water, returning to the river, reached the critical maximum temperature above which fish die. The only way to stop the high temperature water is to shut down the plant.

Apparently, they just applied-for and received dispensations to exceed the water temperature in order to keep the supply of electricity flowing.

And millions of fish died.

We must get smarter, and tougher.

By committing to a using nuclear as the long term major source of world energy we should demand, before we start, that ALL environmental concerns are fixed, including the biggest problem of dealing-with spent fuel rods.

But it’s no use solving a fuel rod issue if, every time there’s a hot day, mismanagement of old, outdated plants causes localized environmental disasters.


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If you have proof that the points raised are not correct, please advise james@jamesnixon.com