The Energy Realists of Australia are about to progress the program that started three years ago with a series of briefing notes to 800+ state and federal members. Some will recall the letter-writing campaign that was a part of the program, whereby volunteers would write to their local member at their electoral address to follow up the mass mail and ensure that the member was aware of the note that was probably buried by his green minders in the Canberra office.
It turned out to be too hard to get useful interactions happening with the local members and the letter-writing stopped.
One aim was to put the pollies in a position where they could never say that nobody gave them good advice to avert disaster, we did not expect very many to change their minds, and certainly not to admit that in public.
That is a very minimal aim and more is required to get a shift in the public mood about energy policy. Hence the plan.
We are now aiming to get more support in local electorates so the members become aware of a groundswell of public opinion in their own electorate. .The thing is to get out of our own bubble .
The first thing is to recruit letter-writers to cover all the Federal representatives. Of course writers will be invited to get to their state member as well. We don’t expect them to take any notice but the point is to put them in a position where they can never say that they were not given access to information that they needed to be realistic about energy policy.
The next thing is to recruit people to be more active, ranging through different levels of commitment to the pinnacle where some people are working practically fulltime.
Two things about this. First, unlike the requests that are made by political parties, the commitment does not involve donating money, spending hours doorknocking, making a public spectacle of yourself or pushing pieces of paper at people who don’t want them.
Second, we are speaking to the condition of people who are upset about their power bills and the threat of blackouts. Unlike the climate realists (and of course we are all climate realists) the commitment does not mean trying to change people’s minds about things that they can’t understand.
We are kicking with the wind and not against it, provided we don’t get sucked into useless confrontations with green fundamentalists.
To summarize the plan at this early stage.
Network of agents of influence
Purpose: To shift the opinions of politicians and the public on energy matters.
Strategies:
- Notes to politicians, continue as before.
- Follow-up from local agents to ensure that they have seen the notes. Build beyond the 70 recruited two years ago.
- Irrigation system to get to the grass roots of the electorate. The twin purposes are to find more people who will personally contact their local member and also to build the body of public opinion in favour of sensible policies.
The dam or reservoir for the system is the body of information in the notes and supporting material on our website
This material will travel through every channel we can find. The big channels are the big lists that reach a large number of people. In addition to the usual suspects like Jim Simpson and Viv Forbes I want to persuade the list of 20 or so liberal/conservative groups -IPA, CIS, Mannkal, Advance Australia, Aust Taxpayers etc to distribute material or advertise our site even if energy is not a part of their portfolio.
Smaller channels are people with local groups, some formed to fight wind farms, anyone with some organizing ability and the initiative and energy to organize a network and especially any good independent candidates from the recent election who are prepared to continue to be active on this front, using the networks and contacts that they formed for their campaigns.
The smallest channels are individuals who are prepared to talk to friends and relations with the benefit of our information.
A critically important initiative that I have not managed to get under way is a youth group using social media to get to their own generation.
A critically important initiative that I have not managed to get under way is a youth group using social media to get to their own generation.
The very best of luck with that one as it is the Youth who have already been seriously brainwashed by the Education System and by their own Social Media (gossip channels).
Standing by to learn more.
I had a chat with a guy at my local Total Tools the other day.
Turns out there are no submersible pumps, as well as very few generators available for sale due to the floods in Queensland. Everything was sent up there to help out.
Anyone wanting a backup supply should be getting it now, before the outages start on mass and there is nothing available at all.
…before the outages start on mass… Leave the Church out of it.
Democracy in action!
We don’t know what the actual cause is. We know the source of the problem but we don’t know who was causing it
It shows how complicated grid management is becoming. I know an ex electrical engineer for Transgrid (is it?) who mentioned 10 years ago just how complicated and erratic it was becoming (and he’s a light green by default). At the time they were putting solar farms where lines had no capacity to take the power and major upgrades being required, where as the old one was very old, but just fine for existing use and would be for another 100 years. Low cost infrastructure vs high cost.
Summed up by showing how hard it is to sync
Authorized Personnel Only – How to Start and Sync a 400,000 Watt Turbine Hydroelectric Generator
From the Comments
Typically when you initiate a “Start” on a hydro unit the governor will open the gate servo to a preset “Speed no load ” position to roll the generator off close to syncronous speed . Excitation to the generator field can then be applied either manually or automatically by a speed switch (now you will see generator AC voltage slowly building up on the meters) . Generator output frequency and voltage can now be matched to the bus frequency and voltage by slowly increasing the water flow applied to the turbine to adjust the frequency and the field current applied to increase or decrease generator output voltage being compared to the bus AC values . With a properly tuned governor you should be able to adjust the generator speed so the sync scope is slowly moving in a clockwise (gen freq faster than bus freq) and every time the pointer passes through 12 O’clock on the meter the generator is momentarily in sync with the bus and the generator breaker can be closed syncronising the generator to the grid . After sycronizing you can load the generator by increasing the governor speed setpoint and putting more water on the turbine . The generator speed cannot increase now as it is held at 60 hertz by the grid you will see watts increase out of the generator now with the water increase .
If you were to adjust the speed setpoint down now to the point where you are not producing generator watts output you are then “Motoring ” the generator but generator frequency will remain at 60 Hz. held by the grid . Increasing or decreasing the generator field current will result in Vars out , unity power factor . or Vars in condition but that is a lesson for another day.
Hope this helps people who expressed interest.
Worth reading the rest of the Comments
A great effort, Rafe. Thanks. It least they can’t plead ignorance down the track.
Form letters?
I did ths with my state MP over COVID, and my ‘I have established a message trail which means you don’t get to say you didn’t know when the trials are held’ got me a police visit…
That’s nice, dear. Cup of tea?
That’s the closest thing to a sane comment that m0nty-fa has made today!
Commendable initiative. Still I don’t think long term sustainable change can be achieved buy targeting top tier issues.
bespoke says:
June 28, 2022 at 7:28 am
No offense and all that, but what are you trying to say?
Sometimes you leave out the guts of your message in your posts. Is that intentional? Begging for a response?
Welcome back Monty, it was not the same without you!
How is your team travelling this year?