Brumby tries to blame the weather for Power Outages

Well, if you have seen yesterday's post then this is more of the same. Except for this report from the Sydney Morning Herald.

John Brumby is claiming this is beyond control, because of the weather. Wrong, Mr Brumby.

Sure it is hot - we acknowledge that.
People do not blame the Government for that.

But the planning laws allow sub-divisions to squeeze the maximum possible number of large houses on small blocks. That means NO trees for shade, Mr Brumby. No builder would dream of building a veranda around a new house, because that would be too "costly". So they plan for air conditioners in all new homes.

Mr Brumby and his Government know these simple facts. But they ignore it, and blame the weather.

My eldest brother was born in a Melbourne heat wave. (2 March 1940, I believe, if anyone wishes to check the weather records.) Babies in the maternity ward were draped in moist towels, to prevent them dehydrating. None of this in new, Mr Brumby.

What is new is the way Governments have allowed Business to build buildings (large and small) which regard the climate as the Enemy, to be fought against. Instead of something to be worked within. I wrote earlier this evening, of ancient Roman buildings, with shaded colonnades surrounding a central atrium, with a small fountain in the middle. Buildings like that work in our Climate, but nobody builds them. Even old country farm houses, with their shade verandas work much better than McMansions, with a double garage fronting the street, blocking out light and air.

If one chooses to fight nature, as the Government and business have done, then, there is a cost - and in this case it is air conditioning. Modern houses are build on the assumption that air conditioning will be installed. And air conditioning requires lots of energy.

Electricity supply systems are meant to be built to peak load standards. Clearly they are failing, in Victoria. The system did not fail because there was an explosion in a power line. That is facile rubbish, Mr Brumby.

The system failed because it was overloaded, and it was overloaded because it was inadequate in its design parameters, Mr Brumby. It was inadequate for the task - as you appear to be, Mr Brumby.And yet, in view of this chaos, you still want to build a Desalination Plant in Wonthaggi, Mr Brumby?

This Desal Plant will be the largest single consumer of electricity in Victoria to be built since Rupert Hamer did a dirty deal to allow Alcoa to build the Aluminium Smelter in Portland - and Hamer arranged for the SEC to run electricity supplies all the length of Victoria to power - just to suit his brother, who was on the Board of Alcoa. Ah, those were the good old days!

Back to the present. How are you going to power this proposed Desal Plant, Mr Brumby? How will you run that and keep the lights on in the rest of Victoria, Mr Brumby?
As I said yesterday, it is simply not necessary anyway. Check out the Watershed Victoria website, to see why.

Blackouts show why Desal Plant is unsupportable

"Massive power blackout hits Victoria"

(click on that heading / link above to read the full report in The Age by Mex Cooper January 30, 2009 - 8:45PM)

"A massive power blackout has hit Victoria with nearly 350,000 residents and businesses without power".

So begins yet another story about Blackouts in Victoria, in The Age.

For yesterday's major report, click here.

I simply ask: how on earth can Victoria justify building a huge, energy intensive Desalination Plant?

How will it be powered?

Will Victorians agree to regular Blackouts, just so Mr Brumby can have his Desal Plant?

It simply is not necessary (in the first place).

Recycle your water; use your storm water; install Water Tanks; and use less water generally.

It is simply bad planning to commit to such a huge and inefficient piece of infrastructure, when Victoria can barely plan for one more domestic Air Conditioner. Indeed it cannot run all those which are there already.

Check out the Watershed Victoria website - for much more information on why the Desalination proposal is both wrong environmentally, and uneconomic. It should not be developed, and the Victorian Government has precious little time to stop itself from getting locked into a disastrous Three Billion Dollar contract with French Multinational companies - either Suez, or Veolia-Vivendi.

Stop the madness now, Mr Brumby, before it is too late.

Perth introduces Desalination

Perth has introduced a desalination plant to produce 17% of its drinking water. It is powering the desal plant by wind power.
And all of this without any great fuss at all.

If little Perth can do this, why cannot Australia's leading State Capital city, Sydney?

Leadership has to be the answer. Western Australia clearly has that, but NSW is lacking it. What about it Mr Iemma?

Decide that this needs to be done, announce it, and get on with it.

I heard today that: "The New South Wales Government is promising to spend hundreds of millions of dollars reducing traffic jams in Sydney and improving public transport. It is part of the plan to help Sydney cope with an expected population of 5 million by 2020."

OK, I think to myself. Its all very well for them to plan roads for 5 million people, but what are those 5 million people going to drink? Surely that is more important than where they are going to drive?

What plans does the SCA have for this population, for which the Roads and Transport authorities appear to be planning? Is this covered in the NSW State Plan "A new direction for NSW", launched this week by Mr Iemma. I cannot find this population figure there, but maybe it is buried inside.

I shall keep on digging.

The Kangaloon Aquifer - The SCA's pamphlet

Here is a link to a pamphlet about the Kangaloon Aquifer, which the SCA was handing out at the Robertson Show on Saturday. This document is extremely vague in its assertions on two critical issues: The age of the groundwater, and whether it is linked to the groundwater that feeds the springs in Robertson and the Kangaloon Range, and other basalt hills in the Southern Highlands.

Is this a separate resource to others in the
Southern Highlands?
The high volumes of available groundwater and very low salinity suggest that the groundwater resource in the Upper Nepean sandstones is separate to the other areas to the south, south west and west of Kangaloon.

Hmmm, “Interesting”. The salinity issue is related to the presence of the Wianamatta Shale in the region, for (apparently) if there is leakage of groundwater through the shale layer, it can increase salinity in the Aquifer. (So I have read elsewhere in the SCA website.) But I am puzzled by the reference to high volumes indicating that the Kangaloon Aquifer is not related to the basalt-based springs in the Robertson and Kangaloon hills. After all, we are in the highest rainfall area in the State.

Will my springs and bores be affected?
Most groundwater users in the area access springs for their water. Springs occur in the higher basalt areas of the catchment and are not connected to groundwater in the sandstone. They will therefore not be affected by SCA
production bores and borefield pumping.

Hang on! In half a page, they have moved from claiming that indications “suggest that the groundwater resource … is separate …” to “Springs occur in the higher basalt areas of the catchment and are not connected to groundwater in the sandstone.”

A categorical statement, to support their proposal, without a scrap of evidence! Worse, it is contradicted by earlier Government studies.

It is my understanding that the basalt rocks which form the hills of Robertson and Kangaloon and many of the typical green hills of the Southern Highlands, were extruded up (in a volcanic process) through the older Sandstone layers (which one sees on the escarpment), and through the Wianamatta Shale layer. The basalt is heavily fractured rock, and so it is permeable, allowing water which falls as rain in the local area to seep down through the basalt, through the shale and into the sandstone layers.

I am not a geologist, but in April 1998, the (then) Dept of Land and Water Conservation produced a paper: “Aquifer Risk Assessment Report”. On P6, there is a table “Sydney South Coast Region”. Within that table there is a category “Medium Risk Aquifers”. It lists:

Southern Highlands Fractured Rock (aquifer) (approx. Wingecarribee Shire LGA boundary).

I am more persuaded by the DLWC scientific assessment of all of the aquifers in NSW than the self-serving propaganda put out by the SCA, to justify a political decision by the Government of the day to drain the Kangaloon Aquifer, and in so doing, let itself off the hook with the proposed Desalination Plant at Kurnell.

More about the age of the groundwater later.