Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is what could happen if drought continues worsening. This is not saying that this WILL happen. Aquaponics, amongst other things, could be severely affected by this sort of thing.

At least we have an idea of what could happen & can both prepare & start changing out behaviour to help the situation. Really the time to start being more careful with our electricity useage!!!

Click here for article --> Canberra Times - Blackout: power cuts threatened

23 May 2007

Blackout: power cuts threatened
Cathy Alexander

Electricity will be completely cut from Canberra households for hours at a time if the drought continues to hit power supplies.
Rolling two-hour power blackouts will sweep across the city under an emergency plan drawn up by Actew-AGL.

The company has a hit list of suburbs that will be the first to be cut off.

"If there's not enough power to go around, there's not enough power to go around," the chief executive of ActewAGL, John Mackay, said yesterday.

"Canberra has never in its history faced power shortages as a result of not enough electricity ... [but] it can happen.

"It happens all over the world."

ActewAGL is also reconsidering building a gas-fired power station at Hume.

The general manager of networks with ActewAGL, Michael Charlton, said the rolling electricity blackouts could be introduced this summer, but not before.

The blackouts would be most likely to hit in the afternoon and evening because that was peak time for summer electricity use.

"We have a schedule of who we would shed," Mr Charlton said.

"There would just be no power at all available [to those areas]."

"After two hours we'd turn those people back on and turn others off."

The drought is hitting Canberrans hard. Outdoor use of tap water is to be banned under looming Stage4 restrictions, with indoor water restrictions mooted for the summer.

The electricity pricing regulator wants to increase power prices by 14per cent. Now Canberrans have been told they might have no electricity at all at certain times.

Mr Charlton said if power blackouts were activated in Canberra, emergency services would be on stand-by to help the elderly and infirm cope without electricity in the summer heat. Hospitals would be the last to have their power cut.

The drastic blackout plan might have to be activated because the drought is gutting Australia's capacity to generate electricity.

The Snowy Mountains hydro scheme which provides a peak-time power boost to cities including Canberra is at a record low.

Water levels in Snowy storages are about 8 per cent of active capacity, according to Snowy Hydro. That's the lowest level since the scheme opened in 1973. The drought has also hit Australia's coal-fired power stations, which provide base-load power to the ACT. They need water to make steam to generate electricity. Power stations in NSW, Queensland and Victoria have been affected by the drought.

Mr Charlton said the equation was simple: if electricity demand outweighed supply, then there would have to be cuts, called "load-shedding" in the industry.

"That means people's power gets cut off," he said.

All eastern states and territories, including the ACT, are part of the national grid, with a common pool of electricity administered by the National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO).

Mr Charlton said it would be NEMMCO's call to cut power. ActewAGL would simply follow orders.

The ACT's power supply was closely linked to that of NSW, so if there was insufficient power to meet NSW's needs then "we would all share the pain".

While the ACT had high demand for electricity in winter, NSW's peak season for electricity use was summer because of air-conditioning.

That meant blackouts were most likely in the ACT in summer, MrCharlton said.

Mr Mackay said Canberra's power would only be cut as part of general cuts across the national grid. Heavy industry would be first to lose electricity from the national grid, followed by cities.

Mr Charlton said if the ACT was affected, residential areas would be cut before business areas. This was mandated in ActewAGL's blackout plan, approved by the ACT Government.

Supermarkets and shops in residential areas would lose their power like everyone else.

Mr Charlton said if people kept the doors to their fridges and freezers closed, the contents should survive a two hour blackout. He did not think it would be necessary for people to install backyard generators to maintain electricity flows.

He said ActewAGL had been testing the blackout plan with NEMMCO.

"It's one thing to do an exercise, it's another thing to be turning people's power off," he said.

Mr Charlton said he "sincerely hoped" the plan never had to be activated. One way around the blackouts was if Canberrans could reduce their power use voluntarily. People might be asked to turn off their air-conditioning and lights in summer, including at work, he said.

Mr Mackay said with electricity supply dwindling, ActewAGL was taking a fresh look at the long-running proposal for a gas-fired power station for the ACT.

"That is front of mind for us, I'm working on it at the moment."

He said a gas-fired power station could be built at Hume "in the forseeable future".

NEMMCO representatives were not available for comment late last night.

Just another reason to get a couple of solar panels on the roof to help cooling (it's hottest when the suns shining, why not use that power to cool your house?) and gas for heating.

Wow. I take that back. Solar panels are ~$600 for an 80W panel. A reverse cycle air conditioner consumes in the kiloWatts (~6kW). That's going to cost a pretty penny. If only the government got behind solar big time. You know, do something pro-active with the surpluss.

The fat lady hasn't sung yet G. That's a big surplus for Mr Costello to spend up big on election "promises". I am sure their big guns haven't fired yet. LOL

They will..... votes for sale..... votes for sale.... com'on line up ya mugs..... votes for sale ..... LOL

I still subscribe to the theory that we can't just sit on our laurels & expect the gov't to do something about it in the short term future.. WE have to be responsible for cutting down on our own electricity usage, reduce our reliance on things like aircon etc.

I still know many people who walk around their houses in shorts/skirts & T's when it's 5degrees celcius outside, just because they have heating. To me, that isn't right.. hmm

I'd much rather know that this stupid tax cut that I'm getting was getting pumped into health, education & ensuring our sustainable future(s). stinkin politics.

I totally agree. I don't think subsidies are whats required. But solar doesn't have the investment it needs to get off the ground as a really good source of power. i.e. not enough research/mass manufacture because there is not enough money in it for those companies to pursue them.

It's a cyclic problem really, nobody buys it because of the price, the price remains constant because there's nobody buying it. A big investment could break that cycle. Basically if the government (or a big company) got behind it big time and threw lots of money at it, the technology would be developed and we'd have more efficient and cheaper cells. In the long term, we could have a country run by solar.

</dreaming>

Amen Gemmell

But it won't be until the technology is such that it becomes comoditized. Until then, it will be price prohibitive, afterwards, it will no longer be economically feasible for a company to recover their costs via prices.

IMHO, there are 2 factors that will cause the breakthough-
1- inexpensive, sustainable power generation (whether it be solar, ethanol, biodiesel, or nuclear)
2- inexpensive storage and transport of power (whether they be kinetic, fuel cell, or chemical, or capacitative).

Generation- photovoltaic are nice, but as noted, expensive.

Storage - For a static installation (home), the most cost-effective is kinetic batteries - they can store megawatt-hours in a 1mX30cmX30cm casing, but they are subject to vibration degradation. For mobile installation (car), they haven't gotten better than Li-Ion, but they are expensive. The other issue with mobile is quick-recharge, weight, and convenience. That is the big reason that alternative fuels and electrics have not taken hold in the mobile market - you have to be able to tank up.

Yeh, storage is the real killer eh - there's been little or no advancement in them for yonks. Because we don't have a good way of storing energy, we can't use "spikey" alternative energies like wind (or solar for that matter).

So true about Snowy Hydro...I have been working on T1 T2 power stations over the last few months and they have been pumping from one dam to another just to keep the turbines running..summer will be a different matter if it doesn't rain this winter, although it snowed on Monday night there..it was mighty cold last night when I left

Here in my area, the MidWest of the US, we have been seeing natural gas fired power plants popping up quicker than weeds. In most areas they are welcomed like long lost cousins and in others like the tax assessor.
There is one town, about 50 miles from me, that had power plant built against local opposition. (In fact the local government had refused to issue a building permit, but the power company went ahead because the state government had issued a permit based upon need. The local government took it to court and the Judge has issued an order to have the multi-million dollar plant torn down. It currently is in the process of appeals, and probably the local government will lose.)
As for wind power plants, there are a number of them here in the US, and thier numbers are increasing. The biggest problem is finding areas where there is an adequate number of days or hours per year to generate enough power to make the construction costs recapturable. So far Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, parts of Missouri and Iowa are looking very promising. Unfortunately wind generated electricity will not fill a large part of the demand due to problems with transmission and the cost of construction.
As far as solar generated electric we do have some solar power "farms" here in California and Arizona, but once again the costs of construction, the average number of days with adequate sunlight and transmission problems are limiting it. Locally it might have a chance.
The one area that is overlooked is the idea of home and other structure construction. To reduce the cost of heating and cooling we need to look at doing more to design and build houses which require less energy. One of the things being touted here is the compact flourescent light bulb. The biggest problem with it is that it contains mercury and poses a health risk if broken, and at present very few areas offer recycling programs to get rid of old ones.
I know that many areas around the world has tried to conserve water and to be more active in converting gray water back into usable potable water. Here in Missouri the state has been doing research into developing and using wetlands as a means of filtering waste water back into safe, clean water. So far it has been very positive and the experimental projects they have set up far exceeds the estimates of what they could do.
Personally, I am puzzled as to why some of the power companies have not looked into the possibility of using tidal forces to power an electricity generating plant. As Australia, like the US, has a large part of its territory adjacent to the ocean it would seem a no brainer to think, "hey, we could use some of the power of the surf to run bi-directional turbines that would give us clean, cheap power." Once again, the old boys in charge have thier fingers somewhere they shouldn't be.

Kevin

Hey Kevin.... thought you might be interested.... about 50km up the road from me is Australia's second, but newest and most promising wave power generator (500kW).... others in Portland Vic.....

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/renewable/ ... e/one.html

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/renewable/ ... /wave1.pdf


Only other really commercial operation seems to be in Portugal ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power

There was a wave power capture method on Catalyst ABC last night that looked very cool. _Very_ cool!!! (It was on after 'Crude' last night.. anyone see those?)

I still think that people need to step back a couple of notches & reassess their energy needs (not desires) & revise their consumption. Turning off the 'wall warts', turning off the 3 extra sets of lights, putting on jumpers in winter.. the lot of it.

We can't keep going the way that we're going, there is absolutely no doubt about that.

I think that putting more money into education (& not just the school kid kind, but also education of the masses) would go a lot further than it currently does.

Thats cool Rupert! I would love to see more of these installed and operating. Our problem here is we have some environmentalists who are opposed to them because of "risks" to marine animals, we have developers who are opposed to them because of "damage to scenic views", and then we have others who are just opposed to them because they don't want to admit there is a potential solution to a problem that doesn't require fossil fuels.

Kevin