Blogging politics, culture, sociology and life from Brisvegas
For context, try the Wikipedia as usual.
The serious point to take away from all this is wind power has not insubstantial NIMBY issues (the orange-bellied parrot pretext for federal intervention in the Bald Hills wind farm is the best-known Australian example). If wind power is to supply a substantial fraction of our energy needs, it’ll be interesting to see how those issues are overcome.
Please read the comments policy. If you would like an icon beside your comment, please register a Gravatar.
There is a Comments Preview function below the typing box which activates when you start typing.
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
I saw this last night on the comedy channel and p*ssed myself laughing.
Well,I dont know.Perhaps ,a questionaire of what would make these wind mills aesthetic should be proffered.I looked up some wind sites last night,but they arent to pleasing to look at,although a scluptured plastic one, like a shell was good,so was the Russian ones. I was always offering ideas about things years ago and somewhere near Gosford was this piling coming out of the water, and I thought a sculpture on that would look good.And surely to goodness why dont they paint them a colour that constantly mixes with the background,this camouflage stuff is an American invention.You can easily make a joke of the Kennedy s and they are seriously hard to comprehend,but what it may be to them, may not be outside the range of anyone who has relative power. These things on the horizon maybe having a symbolic meaning to them. I think you have to let them explain the aesthetic values these wind turbines arent meeting. I think it is simple,unwanted technology on the horizon where it wasnt before. Why arent they mobile in some manner. I am only impressed by Wind turbines,if they serve more than one function,and all the support of the Australian industry doesnt seem to allow this..accept putting money into some peoples pockets.As the man indicated,the Kennedy s have a abundance of weighted down pockets..a different approach maybe needed.I mean under their system and our very own,land ownership and rights at law are freedoms to be debated,in any forum for the sake of freedom.Pity I havent got that income,I would say build them to please my discerning eyes or…f…off.
If the people of Nantucket Sound are so concerned with visual pollution, why don’t they campaign against advertising?
Great video. No parrots about, but quite a few NIMBY galahs “fighting to protect their (private) views”.
And this clanger:
I find it interesting that so few homes owned by wealthy people have no solar panels on their roofs, yet they often have 3 or more luxury cars in their garage at over 100K each.
The residents and holiday home owners of Cape Cod, Nantucket Sound (and close to home, Portsea, Middle Park and Sydney Harbour) would do well to consider installing windfarms and solar panels. It would be much cheaper than moving their $3m+ homes 3 metres higher when sea levels rise due to climate change and global warming.
Now there once was a man from Nantucket
who saw a plan for a windfarm and said F ckit.
Ted is a disgrace and the family home ugly.
is this just a simple reaction fear of the New? Who was glad to have 3 Mile island, or Dunreay or Wallerwang built next door?
Unless we’re to return to eating raw roots & bark (as the Raving Right fulminate)there needs to be some industrial infrastructure, so bring on the Dark Satanic Mills.
Or NOT.
The point about virtually ALL the alt.tek energy sources (much to chagrin of the MultiMegawatt Quixotes setting up Straw Windmills to attack with vorpal lances) is that are LOCAL, anathema to a capitalist society even more so than Kommunistic ones (which were only HGWellsian extrapolations of socialism+electricity=Utopia).
Anyone with a modicum of DYI nouse can fit and maintain 24 or 48V DC, solar hotwater, as long as you wish to remain OFF the mains,power & water.
Which will happen anyway, before your current swaddled babes are adolescents, whatever we do.
The difference is will they be fighting for the last can of beans or growing their own?
Amphibious, I think your observations about the “fit of technology” are salient. Well said.
Government in Australia has morphed into a power/control clique - an oligarchy even - which loses its power and control when small scale human friendly distributed solutions are implemented.
These small scale solutions suit people better as they are more manageable, scalable, and under direct local control for both acquistion and operation. If we had large scale local distributed power generation (solar & wind for residential + gas fired co generation for industry) then we don’t need to keep building new coal fired (or nuclear) power stations or keep expending THE GRID. But, this is bad for business for the Government and industry deal makers.
Look at the track record of the Bracks (now Brumby) government:
* $4b desal rather than domestic rainwater tanks & local stormwater usage (& stopping logging in catchments)
* a NEW $400m brown coal fired power station for the LaTrobe valley
So we the people need to put maximum pressure on our so-called “elected representatives” for appropriate local solutions rather than large scale industry/government clusterf*cked disasters that are ruining our planet (like Howard’s “nuclear solution”).
Can the Editor removed my first post? I had a power outage here and assumed that it’d been lost.
The number of small scale solutions to large scale problems are limited only by imagination. And physical situation.
I doubt that the megacities can survive but we are fortunate to have a vast hinterland, lacking only people with vision.
Until the mid 90s in was ILLEGAL to have a rainwater tank in urban Sydney.
When i was growing up Fairfield was on the edge of the bush with dunny pans & raintanks. It’s now midwestern subs.
More than half of all children (
Done, amphibious.
Brian, thanks mate.
Don’t know what happened to the rest of my last post.
I’ve forgotten the majority of it now but the final sentence [posted] should read “More than half of all children (