Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

 Am astonished at my old mate John Pratt's comments, re "Luddites".  What an appalling, patronising and elitist dismissal of the rank and file and the whole concept of bottom up, grassroots politics as the bulwark  for democracy against plutocracy.

Richard:  Whew, talk about making an entrance..

As to the money raised by the fudged processes to be implemented, did you not read the contents of the links Ian MacDougall thoughtfully provided?

Issues such as the indemnifying and compensation of purchasers make the whole antic appear even more of a corrupt grab than appeared possible previously, if the comments from the sites involved are correct.

Ian, many, many thanks. 

The media appears to blacked out the realities involved with this crucial issue. It is the most serious issue to have surfaced since the FTA issue of a few years ago, and as with that issue, the  Mushroom  Treatment , eg "kept in the dark and fed on Bullsh-t", is a hint to as what's really at play and at stake, as to pure corruption and theft on an almost inconceivable level.

Richard:  Hello, stranger!  Good to see you again!

Hi Scott. I agree that shallow geothermal is a very useful souce of low heat and note that it is used a lot in Switzerland. There is also a good page about it in Tasmania. Prof Tester also has a really rivetting video [Fiona: I’ve linked to the page where the video can be accessed – the direct link that you supplied, Sheila, wasn’t working for me] but you have to read the pdf file to understand the limitations. The video has a bit of a slow start due to being in a classroom but is well worth sticking to. Make yourself comfortable and take notes; it lasts about an hour. I cannot get that long pdf link to work either. There is a short pdf file available which also gives you Tester's email address; perhaps you could contact him y'self?

There is also an address for hard copies. Otherwise let me have your email address and I will send you a copy from my computer. If you are interested in geothermal I could discuss more offline.

Fiona: Thanks for this information, Sheila, but I hope that you and Scott continue the discussion online, as it is a topic of interest to several Webdiarists.

This is a response to a remark that geothermal holds great potential in Australia.  Whilst it is true that there are some very good areas of radioactive heat present in granites about 5km down in this country, deep geothermal has nonetheless to get over a very big problem. The problem is that we have no success as yet in controlling the flow of water injected into fractures; we cannot predict where it will go and we cannot get it back yet.  Without solving this problem the proposed technology is a no-starter.

I agree that it is worth working on the problem, but I wouldn't base any serious expansion on a solution until we have one.  See The Final Energy Crisis, Ed.2, Pluto Press, due out September 2008 for a considered article, or have a look at the MIT's Prof Tessler's report, although you have to get in pretty deep to get to the problems.  Fascinating read though.

Ian, I have never looked into the coal to gas conversion. However, I would surprised if conversion was all that difficult.

Looking ahead, the other issue to consider is the security of the grid if the increasing number of extreme storms, and the extreme storms eventuate, as seems probable to me.

It wouldn't be difficult to build a network in a restricted area that would be all but bulletproof. Not cheap, but your own system in your own community, self interest might just persuade people it was worth doing.

Nice piece related to this thread in the SMH today by Ross Gittins.

I was completely underwhelmed by Peter Debnam's performances as leader of the NSW Opposition in the run up to last year's state election. However, he has surprised me - pleasantly - by resigning as Opposition spokesman on  infrastructure and energy this morning.  According to Alex Mitchell writing in today's edition of Crikey, Mr Debnam explained his decision thus:

I have been opposed to Michael Costa’s electricity privatisation and despite lacking the numbers in Parliament to stop it, I’ve argued for the Coalition to take a strong stand against the privatisation and in favour of clean renewable energy. However, in my view, the conditional acceptance announced late last week by the Coalition effectively surrenders to Costa’s privatisation. Given my strong views, it is untenable for me to continue as the Shadow Minister for Energy and remain on the frontbench simply biting my tongue.

I recommend that people watch closely what is going on in Bolivia. This country is led by President Evo Morales a man who seems to have more backbone and common decency than all of the Australian Labor Party. He is re-nationalising telecommunications which had previously been privatised behind the backs of the Bolivian people. I have put together some material in the story Evo Morales re-nationalises energy and telecommunications companies, denounces biofuel-driven starvation. Unfortunately, he is facing an organised right-wing campaign of destabilisation. He has confronted it it by conducting a recall referendum.

Let's wish him well.

Australia is uniquely endowed with heat-producing elements under its surface that could provide potentially unlimited amounts of geothermal power for this country, says geoscientist Dr Sandra McLaren.

Dr McLaren is winner of the Australian Academy of Science’s Dorothy Hill award for women in geoscience.

She says that west of the line between Cairns and the mouth of the Murray River lies a belt of rocks containing the enriched elements uranium, thorium, and potassium that are around 1.5 billion years old. These enriched elements are essentially a heat source located in the upper part of our continental crust.

‘Our status as one of the most prospective countries in the world for geothermal power generation is due to this extraordinary enrichment in uranium. That’s because when we bury these enriched rocks, even beneath only about two or three kilometres of sediment, they’re capable of generating extremely high temperatures which we can use to generate geothermal power.’

She says that nuclear power and geothermal power use the same source of fuel – enriched uranium.

As we prepare to leave the coal age behind, the government needs to sell off all the coal fired powered stations to enable us to raise the capital required to move into the new technologies such as geothermal power. The Luddites that refuse to recognise the future are just echoing the people who fought against the industrial revolution.

James, yes, mine it for all you're worth, so long as Webdiary Management is happy.

Alan, when I was a student in Sydney years ago, my landlord was a power station operator. He wanted to get out because it was such a high stress and demanding job. It's a bit like driving a semi-trailer. It looks bloody easy till you actually get behind the wheel and try it. So I'd be a bit reluctant to call any of them 'clowns', Chinese T shirts or not.

Scott: "I can see nothing wrong, now that the need has passed with the ACT government divesting itself of very valuable real estate which is currently and foreseeably underutilised."

The need for schools and their sports ovals and playgrounds has not 'passed'. Not anywhere: Canberra, Sydney; Woop Woop. You name it. What has happened is that in some suburbs and towns the houses contain a relatively high percentage of 'empty nesters'. There are relatively few school age children. But this does not last forever, even if some politicians want to pretend that it will. As the 'empty nesters' pass on to eventide homes, Heaven or wherever, their houses are auctioned off and a new generation moves in. The suburb now has a lower average age than before, and demand for school places rises.

I have seen this happen many times, the first in the old working class suburb of Paddington in Sydney where I used to live. In the 1960s Paddo was gentrified by young middle class couples buying up the trendy terrace houses from the old working class occupants. Paddington Primary School went from very low enrolment to absolutely chockers inside a few years.

When you think about it, it is obvious that this must happen to the suburbs where the ACT Government wants to flog off the schools for housing. So where will the occupants of those houses send their kids to school? Or will there be no kids born to future generations? Once sold off for housing, the land can never be got back for sports ovals and playgrounds.

Peter, my concern is that electricity distribution companies are likely to have sweetheart deals with generation companies, and will refuse to buy power from rooftop solar suppliers, even if the latter can produce it more cheaply (and 5c a unit will be cheap) than conventional steam turbine generation, whether gas or coal fired. My understanding is that coal fired stations can't be converted to the more greenhouse friendly gas, and that carbon constraints will force their closure and demolition. Electrical strife ahead, quite likely.

Ian, a thoughtful piece.

While I agree that if the Labor MPs had had any guts they would have dumped Iemma and his bully boy side kick — before the cave in was announced I was thinking that if Iemma was told, ‘resign as premier or face a no confidence motion', would do the job ... if he can sell it, it might in the long run prove to be a brilliant move.

Have you ever wondered what it is they put in the water in the parliament houses? Whatever else it may do, it certainly dissolves backbones!

You touched upon the reasons that the proposed sale could well be fortuitous. The cost of setting up solar power is continually dropping, becoming more efficient and far less troublesome than it was some years ago.

While at present the feed into the grid option is the way to go, it might be a less attractive option in the (privatised) future. However, depending upon the neighbourhood you live in, the prospect of setting up for the whole block might be worth exploring.

(I remember recently reading about a doctor who started upon some environmentally positive project, and eventually managed to get the whole village involved.)

The Californian solar power project being headed up by Professor David Hills is going to be able to provide power 24 hours a day. While the process of storing sun generated power has yet to be disclosed, there must be some prospect of the process being adapted to a small scale, or at least point people in the right direction to develop such a facility. At that point small towns, villages and even some city blocks will eventually have to look at the prospect of setting up their own system.

The legal set up for this would be fairly straightforward. Take out a loan for the project secured by each individual property in the community. Tie it up so that the loan related to the property, not the person owning it, so that the liability for the loan remained with the property if it was sold, or bequeathed. Allow those who could afford it/wanted to, to pay up front. Who paid what, how the shares were defined, etc are simply politics and could be worked out without too much difficulty.

Seaside towns and villages will, I believe, soon have a cheaper, simpler option.

[I have long had an interest in renewable energy, in more recent years with money invested — wasted!? — in several projects.]

I was amused by your ‘We could in addition have private security companies contracted to perform work presently done by the police.’ Currently police work restricted hours because of the ‘stress’ the job imposes. In their off-duty hours they are permitted to work for private security firms, particularly in the vicinity of major events. The line is already very, very blurred!

Tonight on Four Corners there was a piece on defaulting loans. I was struck by the imagery: Giant houses, giant vehicles, giant people and giant greed.

Combined with being in the midst of a rebuttal for one of the most ignorant, bigoted pieces on alternate energy that I have seen in a long time, [elsewhere] it dawned upon me that in fact we do not want/need the alternates coming on stream to be taken up too quickly. We need people to suffer real pain, for governments to be compelled to introduce really hard-hitting, high impact laws upon the greed and ego-driven ethos of ‘bigger is better’. Otherwise people will just continue on consuming.

You seem to have two threads going here, Ian, and I'm not referring to the title; one being the merits or otherwise of privatisation and the other of the political processes of not only NSW Labour but of Labour nationally.

I'll address the latter first. It has long been a source of frustration for me that the union movement has been politically impotent for a long time. I've stated similar sentiments before but consider they bear repeating.

The "Labour" party was formed to be the political arm of the party but the tail has been wagging the dog for decades now. Not only that but the union movement itself became corrupted; some of them by criminal elements, others by academic opportunists. Hawke got rid of the criminal element but the academics remain, fellows who've never done a tap on a building site, shearing shed, or any other real work face represent those that do. Still some element of the union ethic remains which explains the opposition to privatisation but these people have lost the plot. This is typified by an old Scot with whom I used to share a snooker table and beer back in the eighties in Royals Rugby Union Club in Weston. This man had spent almost his entire working life dedicated to the union movement. When I railed against the Hawke/Keating regime for their essentially anti-union stance, (most especially the secondary boycott provisions which gutted the unions), his only response was that "they've got to be better than the other mob." No they weren't. In fact they were worse; no coalition government would have risked the industrial disruption. Hawke's accord, facilitated by the threat of a return of the coalition, fixed that. Socialism died with the Whitlam administration.

To my mind the solution is simple. What's left of the union movement needs to reinvent itself; form an alliance with the Greens (who desperately need to improve intellectually), the remnants of the Democrats and even the Social Democrats to form the third force in Oz politics that has been called for in this forum. The threat should be enough to call the likes of Rudd and Iemma into some form of compromise but be prepared not to be bluffing.

As to the merits of privatisation, my views are well known.

"What happens when the demographic cycle brings young families with children into these suburbs once again?

Ian, it's not going to happen. Canberra is a special case growing in size by a multiple of 5 since I first lived there. Every new suburb complete with its proportion of "Govies" (housing commission homes) was dubbed "nappy valley". The city has matured to the point where every suburb has an even mix of age demographics. I provided the storm water pipe rejects for Holder infants school playground and my late thirties children were schooled there. Those days are gone and I wonder if children still crawl through those pipes. I can see nothing wrong, now that the need has passed, with the ACT government divesting itself of very valuable real estate which is currently and foreseeably underutilised.

James Sinnamon, I also find it hard to find words to express the disgust I feel at the actions of union hacks dressed in chinese made tee-shirts. These clowns are not representative of the people of NSW, but are just trying to protect their own backsides because some of them will lose their jobs. If NSW electricity is privatised, it will not take the new owners long to weed out the deadwood amongst the workers. So what are are the unions worried about, with the so called "skills shortage" (Sharan Burrows' words) they should be able to get new jobs in no time.

As for "Iemma had given the unions a clear undertaking not to privatise NSW's electricity prior to the 2007 elections", well, welcome to the club. He also promised the people well run transport and health systems and look what we have. Time for the unions to to get out into the real world, it is not 1917.

Thanks, Ian McDougall, for a thoughtful, informative and timely article. I intend to mine it for useful information for my own website at candobetter.org/NswElectricity if that is OK with you. (Comments that site, either by anonymous or registered users are welcome.)

It's hard to find words to express the disgust I feel at the actions of Iemma-Costa junta and at the capitulation before them by the whole NSW parliamentary Labor caucus on 6 May which would have to be a display of political spinelessness with few parallels in Australian history.

They capitulated almost without a word of protest in spite of the fact that, as Ian has pointed out, the vote against privatisation was 702 to 107 at the state conference, that opinion polls show overwhelming opposition by the NSW public, the rightful owners of the assets, that privatisation was roundly rejected by the electors the last time it was put to them in an election in 1999, and that Iemma had given the unions a clear undertaking not to privatise NSW's electricity prior to the 2007 elections.

If Labor Parliamentary ostensible opponents of privatisation could not, on that day, find it in within themselves to muster the courage to take a stand for what was clearly right, then they never will.

The Labor Party, or at least those within it who remain loyal to the original principles of the Labor Party, would be better off if the entire current NSW Parliamentary Labor Caucus were disendorsed and replaced with candidates with a commitment to honour decisions arrived at democratically at conference.

If the Labor Party were to do this with resolve and determination, I believe there is every reason to hope that they could win government at the next scheduled elections if not sooner. We should not allow ourselves to be paralysed by the fear that by the Labor Party taking a principled stand as it did in 1917, it must necessarily condemn itself to opposition for years to come (and even if such an outcome were to prove to be unavoidable, it would have to be preferable to the Labor Party continuing to be complicit in the outrages now being committed in its name by the NSW Government).

Even if this is all judged as unlikely to occur, this still needs to be said loudly and clearly.