While the view remains gorgeous, the fact that it was 11 degrees Celsius on a winter’s day at 1400 metres above sea level was pretty disturbing. The high country is suffering from the effects of climate change. It’s playing a small but fascinating part in doing something about it as well

It has been a warm June so far in the high (and not quite so high) country, in Canberra this year the June average maximum has been 14.8C, compared with a mean since 1974 of 12.3C; the June average minimum has been 5.8C, compared with a mean of 1.4C.

But, in a broader context, it’s an example of the likely earliest responses to the emissions trading scheme – not particularly glamorous, in many cases using familiar technologies, and almost invisible to the general public.

A few months ago I went to a public lecture where it was stated that much of the reductions in emissions in the first phase of the EU ETS were from a switch from brown coal to black coal, with brown coal fired power plants being turned off on the weekends. I suspect that even a modest carbon price will lead to significant reductions in emissions from changes in how the national electricity market works.

In this specific case, no new dam has been built, so it’s not an issue.

I think the claim in this case was it is a continuing problem after the dam has been built due to the significant changes in level of the dam cyclically converting vegetable matter to methane. I’m a bit skeptical given that growing the vegetation in the first place should act as a carbon sink, but then methane is meant to have more impact as a greenhouse gas than CO2 so perhaps it is true.

Mind you, you’ve got to actually have some water in the first place – something droughts make difficult.

In short: the more the water, the higher the dam, the greater the MW output.

If you can think of a place in Straya with a lot of water and a long water drop, that would be a good place to build a hydro plant. Otherwise it’s a case of building a lot of smaller ones, which as Robert says, is unlikely.

Regarding power generation below an existing hydro plant. That is possible if there is a lot of water coming out of an existing generator combined with a steep enough grade to maintain the inertia contained in the water. The trouble with that set-up is if you lose flow through one generator, you lose it in both. You need a way to store energy, hence Rob’s Bogong “buffer” dam. But all that takes a lot of drop and a lot of water. The simplest way to achieve a series of hydro plants is this: get bigger mountains.

Robert, so is the hydro plant just downstream from the village and the little lake?

And the vegetation in that area does tend to recover (unlike higher up, which takes a long time to grow back). There’s a walking track in the area which shows this pretty dramatically; one side of the track got burnt in the 2003 fires and the other side didn’t. You can tell the difference, but you have to look pretty hard.

Obviously, at the hydro plant the trees have been completely knocked down, but I’m pretty confident the area will recover well.

And, frankly, Monash was probably quite right at the time. While we can blame John Howard for ignoring greenhouse science, I think Monash gets a pass…

Sounds worthwhile. Thnx for the info Robert. You’re doing a good job filling us in on all these enegy-generating schemes. Certainly helps give a rounder picture of the energy situation. I’m pleased a few people have got solar panels, just in case of emergencies. And they can feed back into the grid eventually. But it does seem that resources for them are getting scarcer…at least for the older models.

I still like your idea of shifting the solar focus to larger buildings…such as pools, community centres…& of course schools (a Labor initiative). It’s hilarious to listen to the Coalition griping when they did sweet f all until the last coupla years, when under pressure from the polls. And didn’t they take credit for a number of State initiatives? Perhaps you can clear that up.

Regarding carbon emissions – yes as robert says, it’s a matter of where – tropical vegetation for some reason rots as methane underneath the water for up to 50 years after flooding. Not nearly such a problem in temperate areas.

My understanding of the reason the system is smaller goes back before the 50s. It was closely considered in the 20s, but John Monash thought brown coal was a far better bet, and he had the last word.

There are no observations for Bogong that I can find, but the mean for Falls Creek this June has been 6.5.

The observations for Falls Creek for May were pretty much spot on the mean.

So my conclusions are:

The weather in that part of Victoria seems to have been unusually warm for June so far, but it’s early days.

Robert was possibly not as far up into the cool air as he thought he was.

chrisl is being a pain.

That said, it was one unusually warm day in a decade of unusually warm and (particularly) dry temperatures in the Victorian Alps.