WINDAR LIGHTS - NIXON WIND / SOLAR STREET LIGHTING PROPOSAL

Australia should lead the world by committing to a policy that all streets lights in the entire country must be replaced by combination wind and solar street lighting within three years, powered by energy captured at its point of use.

Features:

Best use of SOLAR CELL technology.
Best use of WIND TURBINE technology, utilising a cylindrical turbine around the top half of the power pole. 
Best use of LED globe technology.
Best use of LENS and REFLECTOR design, drawn from lighthouse experience.
Best possible BATTERY solution.
Built in CAMERA to dissuade thieves and assist in traffic management.

Lights to operate on built-in timers, light meters with manual override. 

Brightest from official darkness then stepping down in intensity until midnight, after which only low-level lighting is required.

Wireless network for self-testing, self-maintenance diagnosis, manual-override, software-upgrading, tamper and car crash alert.

Economies of scale; similar to birth and development by the US Military of transistor technology in the 1950s; will spearhead battery, solar and wind turbine design.

Australia will become the lead country for this technology, developing a stand alone product for sale to existing markets and developing nations.

Involve all levels of government in a ‘wartime effort’ which will have spin-offs including a morale boost, massive employment and depression-proofing the economy.

Bringing the cost of solar, wind and battery technology down to a level which will see the adoption of these spinoff products in many areas of daily life.

EXPAT BRAIN UTILISATION SCHEME

With now over one million Australians living overseas, the Australian Government should draw on the brain power of some of the world’s best and brightest people to assist in making Australia successful.

Many Australian expats would love to move home, but cannot due to financial constraints or because Australia does not have the high-powered positions to entice them back.

The introduction of GST has meant that expats’ income source is of little relevance, as long they spend much of their disposable income back in Australia.

The Australian Government should formalise a scheme with two goals:

1. To include these people in major projects for the benefit of Australia, getting them to donate their spare time working on major projects from their bases overseas; and 

2. Devising a way of helping Australia’s Expats to spend their overseas-earned money in Australia.


POINT ONE: Most expat professionals have a great deal of spare time which, with the aid of the internet age, could be harnessed to work on Australian projects, swelling the country’s R&D output.

In return for the sense of pride, and some sort of official notoriety, they would be happy to donate their time for no cost.

POINT TWO: Expat workers from countries such as India and The Philippines send so much of their money home that, in The Philippines case, it is said to be their largest source of income.

THE AUSTRALIAN FILM INDUSTRY

The French and Italian film industries thrive because they are protected species.

Australia used to have a strong television commercial production industry by demanding that all ads shown on Australian television be shot by Australian crews. 

This led to a thriving business, with many American ads being shot by Australian crews just so that they could show their ads Australia, (Palmolive Soap among others).

Since we stopped demanding this the industry has died. 

Australia could strengthen its film industry by demanding that 35% of all theatre screening slots be filled by Australian-made films.

Whilst such a socialist directive would cause the large distributors to complain, it would only be short term.

A revitalised industry, with a guaranteed stage, would soon grow to produce product worthy of export. The complaining distributors would make export profits.

In the past, great Australian films have flopped at the box office because the American-owned distributors gave wide release to mass-marketed Block Busters on the same day.

The playing field was never level. As the French and Italians say, “Why should it be anyway?”

This was a submission to The Rudd Gvt's Australia Summit

What Happens On the Flight Deck...

...Stays on the Flight Deck.

No names, no pack drill. But really.

An airline can preach Air Safety, Crew Resource Management and professionalism until the cows come home. But what operation allows two of its operating Pilots to sleep their way across Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia - failing to answer radio calls for almost two hours? *

They apparently got a shock when the Slovakians sent up two fighters to investigate.

Lucky the passengers didn't find out ... and lucky that they eventually woke up.


* on or about 23rd April 2006

Customer Service - Australian Style

You get an unsolicited phone call, It’s Peter Clayton from SMARTYHOST offering to host your website for a third of the current price.

You agree to switch and, in my opinion, get exactly a third of the service.

When you try to email to sort it out, he vanishes. I think he's dead.

Two weeks of desperation follows with mail going astray. For days I couldn’t load web pages from my office (through the proxy server), having instead to go to a café and use their unreliable wireless.

Over $200 later, I am back with Web Central / Commander. Gee whiz, everything works like before.

If they employ Peter Clayton, I am leaving them.



Then there is Hawthorn Football Club.

You try to renew your membership (of more than ten years) and their website (probably designed by Smartyhost) doesn’t believe that Bahrain is a country. There is no option for Other.

Three times I have tried to give them AUD $100 (they obviously need it to spend on footballers who can run for more than half the match) and each time no luck.

I have given up trying, sent them a threatening email and am on the verge of leaving forever.

You spend all your life supporting one team. It’s bad enough that they continue to let you down on the field, but now it’s off the field as well.



What makes business people think that their customers should be treated like idiots?


OK, so I may be an idiot … now watch this one walk away!

When The Kiwis Left The Sinking Ship

As a single person in Australia, you are highly-taxed (‘High Taxes Keep Us Away’ Letters 'The Australian' 7/4).

Then your Financial Planner (‘Bad Advice’ p19 'The Australian' 7/4) takes advantage of the fact you are time-poor and, despite supposedly representing your interests, slips you into funds and schemes for which he receives huge commissions; at the same time charging you ‘monitoring-fees’ to watch your money go into his bank account!

Simultaneously exposing you to tax-effective schemes so you spend the next decade fighting un-win-able legal battles. Unwinable for all except the Lawyers and your immune Advisor.

So you leave Australia to start again with absolutely nothing, after giving the spoils of your most income-rich decade to ‘the professionals’.

As a single wage earner it’s very hard to make it in Australia and one million Australians have voted with their feet.

When the Kiwis started returning home it was time to abandon ship. (Feb 2003)*



*"Net migration remains strong, fuelled by fewer New Zealanders leaving and by more returning home. Twenty five per cent fewer New Zealanders left to live elsewhere last year than in 2001, and the numbers of Kiwis coming home on a permanent or long term basis rose by eight per cent. New Zealand continues to be a very attractive destination for migrants."
- NZ Prime Minister's Statement to Parliament (11/2/03) http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=16000

In Bahrain The Al-Dana Turns Turtle

About 200 people gathered to celebrate the conclusion of the building of the Bahrain World Trade Centre's two towers, (see story on the Grand Prix page), taking-in a dinner on the dhow (Arabian Fishing Boat) which cruises the picturesque waterfront, departing from the Marina Club. (Aside: many will know that my first way of learning about a new city is to take a boat trip. That I have never done so in Bahrain is testament to the fact that I have never found the operators’ craft enticing.)

The boat is the Al-Dana and it can take 100 passengers. Nearly double that arrived to start the night. Some guests immediately realised that it was a plan fraught with danger and decided to dine at the Bam Bu Thai restaurant instead. The Indian skipper was not happy with the situation and one report said he refused to serve the dinner on the cruise, requiring staff to serve dinner whilst still tied-up at the wharf. It is known that although he did not want to put to sea, the party organisers insisted.

At least one would-be passenger, who had decided against going, changed his mind, saying he had to go. On the PA he implored people not to gather on the top deck of the newly-refurbished dhow, making it top-heavy. It didn’t help.

Shortly after departing, about an hour late, the boat hit a ‘large wave’. In Gulf terms this probably means about three feet. It was enough to tip the boat. Downstairs, one of the first victims to be rescued told the Gulf Daily News … “the refrigerator and oven slid to one side of the boat and with that extra weight, the boat couldn’t sustain it any longer and we rolled…”

There was no time to get the lifejackets deployed. Now at least 48 are drowned and 27 injured. The Coast Guard was alerted by a passenger with his cell phone. The Bahraini Coast Guard, Navy, Air Force were assisted by the US Navy whose huge 5th Fleet is based here. Divers were in the water immediately.

The people eating their dinner in the Bam Bu received an SMS from someone who knew they had gone to the function and had heard the news. One Fillipina woman was alerted to her brother’s fate by her sister ringing from the Philipines, who had seen it on TV and was wondering if it was the same cruise she knew her brother was taking. The dead include 25 Britons, 20 Filipinos, 10 South Africans and 10 Egyptians.

St.Christopher’s School, favoured by the English expats, has lost three fathers of students. The ranks of building company N.A.S., and contractors Murray & Roberts and W.S.Atkins have been decimated.

In the irony of most shipping tragedies, the weather the next day is clear, fine and sunny. A lone red, white and blue helicopter appears to wander aimlessly overhead. The sea usually takes three days to release its grip on the bodies it takes. We’ll know the final numbers soon.

Information sources: BBC World, AP, Radio Bahrain, Gulf Daily News, Reuters, AFP, witnesses and friends.

There was once a fishing village called Walkerville.

The tiny fishing village of Walkerville, ooh, hang on.... can't say that.

Fishing Village. Mmm ...

We used to be a fishing village; home to Dena and Brigadoon cray boats, Cadeques, Ab-Normal, Ab-Stractor and Slurp abalone boats among many others.

But sadly that title has gone. It appears to be politically incorrect to like boats at the moment.

The anti-boating discussion seems to be led by people who can’t have had a complete education. After all, how could anyone who was taught this at seven years of age be any different?

“There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

[Spoken by Ratty to Mole in Wind in the Willows a children's book by Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932).]

I feel sorry for people who have never gazed lovingly at Walkerville from the Number Two Whiting Spot, and felt that rattatatat of a King George taking a Venus Bay crab.

Some of us think that Walkerville by land is the most spectacular place on earth, only to be trumped by looking at Walkerville, just after sunrise, from half a mile off Gairs.

There must be room at Walkerville for all of us to coexist peacefully … to try to achieve each one’s life ambition. It is important to look far into the future to see how we can accommodate all the groups’ ambitions. We all need to feel winners.

My life ambition is to have a little boat, like the one I saw lying in the soft sand at Gair’s Beach when I was a nipper.

It wasn’t a very grandiose boat. It was a heavy white clinker boat and I think it had a racy red stripe. No trailer, you had to use inflatable rubber rollers and brute strength to go to sea in those days.

But it had the best name of any boat afloat … Slopalong Placidly.

I don’t have a boat anymore, and that bloody tractor going past at six in the morning really annoys me.

But I will defend, to the death, the right of any seven year old kid to be given the chance to watch the rise over Walkerville from the Number Two Whiting Spot off Gairs.

Lucky bastard.

Walkerville Boat Ramp Issues

The jamesnixon option to the Walkerville Boating Issue.

In March 2002 I wrote this, and placed it on my website for comment. Four years later, in March 2006 I have updated-it and had a close look at it. It remains valid and my preferred option.

I am a product of Walkerville, have been a camper, resident, friend, blue-water boat user, deck hand, paid Beach Ranger … I’ve even tagged my share of Koalas, and would like to address the issues raised by the Friends Of Walkerville and others.

At the time of writing I am thankful for the emotive and biased reporting of events. It has prompted me to putting some thought into the matter.

When I had a job flying my Ansett Airbus over Waratah Bay I often looked down on the best coastline in the world. Smiling, as I picked-out rock shoals, beaches and bommies I knew intimately as a child and young adult exploring the rock pools and beaches. Fishing, swimming, snorkelling, diving, sailing and working as a deckhand on fishing and abalone boats.

As an ex-Ranger I have memories of imploring three drunks not to go out in their boat and of the subsequent search for their bodies. I can recall a Father’s anguish as he ran over his own daughter, and have been threatened with a knife by a Local Legend who wanted to park on the wrong side of the beach. I have cleaned your filthy toilets. You all taught me to be amazed, astounded and disgusted by the General Public.

Having seen it all, from different sides, I am saddened to think that if either side of the current argument wins, then kids of the future will never be able to have the chance of receiving such a well-rounded childhood.

The problems are these:

1. The Blue Water Boat Club members want better access to the ocean, by building a breakwater boat ramp.

2. The Friends of Walkerville don’t want to allow the apparent slash and burn mentality of coastline modification suggested.

3. Some people don’t actually like boating activities on Waratah Bay and unnecessarily charge the atmosphere with emotive slanging-off about inexperienced boaters congregating at any new boat ramp installation.

Better to do nothing? I don’t think so.

We live next to a fluid coastline in more than one sense of the word. Changing one thing has a reaction somewhere not too far away. I proffer this after witnessing two coastline-changing activities and am sceptical that no matter how expensive and long-winded the environmental impact study is, nature will come along afterwards and do something totally unexpected.

Witness the change to the beach alongside the road at North Walkerville, from McPherson’s Creek to and including the beach outside Gairs. Within two decades of putting the huge boulders to shore-up the roadway, the majority of the sand has gone, never to return.

What we affectionately call Gair’s Beach, once as majestic as that of South Walkerville, has been reduced in size and quality. The only man-made change was the firming-up of the highwater area with the boulders. I have photographic evidence to prove it.

The other location I have studied is that of Middle Park beach near my Melbourne address. To host the World Sailing Championships a couple of years ago, a new beach at St.Kilda was created from reclaimed sand. A few years later it flourishes to the detriment of Middle Park Beach that has all but washed away. There is hardly any sand. It is pitiful. Last year’s storm washed away their beach completely.

Proof in my mind that if you do something to one beach, it affects another a short distance away. That’s my first point.

Secondly, the future of Australia is tourism. In the last twenty years the population has grown from about 15 million to 20 million, by a third. In our local area, the only real growth segment is in tourism and eco-tourism. I see no reversal of that trend in the foreseeable future.

Point Three. A head in the sand mentality won’t work. Any thoughts of there being a return to the boat-free years are unlikely.

But just when were they boat free?

When Peter Thompson won a major tournament in the USA in the mid 1960’s he celebrated with a seafood dinner at Fisherman’s wharf in San Francisco. So impressed with the delicacy, he brought the shell back to Australia and yelled-out to an old Italian man snorkelling for mussels in the shallows at Carrum, asking if he had ever seen such a Mollusc. The man lifted his head out of the water, raised his face mask and exclaimed: “They’re everywhere, they’re eating my mussles!”

Within minutes the Australian abalone industry was born.

In 1969 it arrived at Walkerville, first at the block on the corner of Waratah Street and later at the camping area.

There were boats and trucks everywhere and they all obtained their fuel from Stan Hancock’s BP station.

Up to 13 high-powered speedboats working an average 100 days a year, not to mention the big sport fishing boats from the camping area owned by Laurie and Joe Pincini, Terry Titchener; and the smaller runabouts operated by such regulars as Ian Latham.

The local home-owners fielded about 10 or 15 more tinnies and runabouts.

Then there were the sailing dinghies, sabots, moths, sailfish, mirrors and quick cats. As well as Tony Landy’s noisy ski boat.

And those old buggers in the blue dinghy from Inverloch who used to pull in boxes of Whiting without ever revealing their spot.

I know. I helped launch and retrieve them all. For two summers I controlled their bedlam at South Walkerville beach when we instigated and enforced the regulation: ‘No cars or trailers south of the ramp.’

It worked pretty well.

So dreams of a return to what? I think Walkerville had more boats 25 years ago.

Fourth is the indisputable fact that fishing is the largest participant sport in Australia, every business started in this locality is doing everything it can to draw more people to the area. So let’s imagine for a moment; more traffic, more people and more boats in the decades ahead.

Fifth. Our responsibility to those at sea means that we cannot remove the ability for large boats to be operated from Walkerville.

As an Ansett Pilot I was listening to the Sydney To Hobart chopper rescues as I flew over Bass Strait on that fateful day and marvelled at the skill and dexterity of their pilots and crews, who time and again, plucked five or six victims from the boiling sea.

Selfishly, I often wonder what will happen when an airliner catches fire and has to be ditched, or when one of the sixty cruise ships that visit Melbourne each year catches fire as it negotiates ‘Burke Street’, the shipping lane through the islands at the bottom of Wilson’s Prom. The size of these ships is increasing every year.

The bad weather for shipping and air disasters is a strong South Westerly, which is the prevailing breeze about 300 days a year. On such days Sandy Point sand bar and Waratah beach are both unnavigable to rescue craft. Inverloch and Welshpool are too far away and the Prom itself is, amazingly, without launching facilities at all. Ramps in Corner Inlet may as well be in another ocean.

Regardless of our feelings for boaties, we have a responsibility to souls-in-need on-the-sea. So there will always be a need for the Police Rescue Squad to be able to launch a 25 foot boat from the protected beach at Walkerville. Whenever they want.

MY IDEA.

1. Everyone joins the Blue Water Boat Club, now we all have a voice.

2. Protect and preserve the beach in front of Gairs and the decaying Bluff area. Block off the beach access for vehicles at Gairs and widen the car park at the end of the beach road at North Walkerville. Make a boadwalk if you wish. No more boat launching from the Southernmost end of Bayside Drive at North Walkerville.

3. Protect and control South Walkerville during peak times of the year. Build a huge car park, similar to those at any other beach at Wilson’s Prom, or Portsea back-beach. At the top of the hill, it would be left of the road, in Crown Land and excavated so as to be below the sight-line from houses west of the main road. It would be connected by a large stairway, coming out near the top of the Limekilns.

During peak times the road would be closed to all except local residents, vehicles displaying Disabled Stickers and Boat Owners actually launching or retrieving their boats. A free shuttle bus and boat trailer Valet Parking Service would operate daily from Christmas until February and during weekends up to and including Easter.

Cost recovery from Boat Owners and Beach Visitors would pay for the service that could be supplemented by a seasonal kiosk situated in the car park, (like they do at Mount Baw Baw in winter).

4. Properly rebuild the boat ramp at South Walkerville. In the past resurfacing has not lasted due to movement of the rock base. The foundation and grade should be of a high quality. The walls should utilise existing rocks to preserve the look of the ramp.

The base of the ramp should extend, underneath the sand, out into the water some fifty or so metres, providing a solid foundation.

5. Only licensed users should be allowed to operate powerboats from the facility. The Victorian Government has legislated for boat drivers to be licensed. If they are worried about novice boaters, the Friends should lobby so that an Open Water component is included in the licence, requiring examination of the process of ‘sand-beach, non-ramp’ launch and retrieval of boats and trailers.

6. During off-peak times boat owners would have to use the steps to the carpark or the boat club could appoint a valet driver for the day – because there would be no parking for trailers and their towing vehicles down at South Walkerville beach. A quiet boat club tractor may actually perform all the actual trailer dunking and retrievals.

7. The Blue Water Club should undertake an education process. A series of regular “Open Days”, when non-boat owning members can be taken on sight-seeing boat trips and fishing trips around the coastline. This would promote harmony with the locals and to swell the numbers of enthusiasts.

A club boat could eventually be purchased for such purposes. Meanwhile the cost of fuel / wear and tear could be borne by volunteering skippers.

IN CONCLUSION

One day, we might even see a huge pier built at South Walkerville beach and up to three thousand people nestled in the surrounding hills. And a Coffee palace on the waterfront.

Just like the old days.

I remain interested in the proposal and will happily work with any bodies to achieve a beneficial outcome.

Oh, and if you reckon my idea won’t work, don’t ruin the beach at Gairs, sign me up for Option Five and sell me the rights to the beach side cafe.



James Nixon
Bahrain
30th March 2002
amended 26th March 2006)

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

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

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

James Nixon 

VIETNAM'S PACIFIC AIRLINES FAILS TO PAY OVER TEN MILLION ... PLANES REPOSSESSED.

On the 26th January 2005 James Nixon conducted the last flight in S7 RGJ, a Pacific Airlines A321, from Saigon to Hanoi, Vietnam.

The Aircraft was parked, manuals, headsets and other ORION documentation removed from the flight deck and the aircraft locked-up.

At 0800 on the 27th the leasing company removed RGL's registration from the Seychelles register, preventing the aircraft from being flown.

The Pilots on the associated contract have now been retrenched.