John Tennock's Blog

On Wednesday evening 27 October we attended the Brisbane Launch of the Beyond Zero Emissions Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan.

The consequences of our increasing CO2 emissions is a concern we have been monitoring for some years and it was encouraging to finally see such a well developed plan presented to an enthusiastic audience of around 800 at the convention centre.

The detailed and fully costed plan provides a road map for Australia to move to zero carbon emissions by 2020 using proven technology that is already in use elsewhere.

Premier Anna Bligh addressed the meeting, but was unwilling to make any serious commitment to pursuing or even seriously investigating the plan, attempting to bounce the issue back to the authors demanding that they do more work to come up with a reduced cost model. The trouble with this response is it ignores the related question of the high cost of inaction. It is simply a stalling tactic while we dig more coal out of the ground.

Premier Bligh asserted the government's support for the need to reduce carbon emissions, but suggested that 'the public' were not ready yet. That is a pretty difficult position to maintain in the face of 800 smart, well informed supporters of the plan. She also spoke of the enthusiasm with which the public were taking up photovoltaics under government incentives. Not ready yet?

The Premier did not mention the Cloncurry Solar Thermal Power Station which was reported in November 2007 as follows:

The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, yesterday announced the north-west Queensland town had been chosen as the site for a "groundbreaking" 10-megawatt plant that will use 8000 mirrors to reflect sunlight onto graphite blocks.

...but then in August 2010, in the Courier Mail:

Cloncurry in the state's northwest was meant to be the centrepiece of a radical $30 million plan to use solar energy to heat water and generate electricity, cutting carbon emissions and reliance on diesel – and eventually taking the town off the grid.

But The Courier-Mail can reveal that three years after its launch, instead of a forest of 8000 mirrors the project consists only of four test panels and a fake tower behind a locked gate.

Does anyone seriously think public interest in clean energy has waned between 2007 and 2010. I am seeing a rapidly increasing level of interest.

It is also interesting to compare images of the present state of the Cloncurry project...


With Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) projects in other locations with a similar solar energy profile to much of Queensland...
You obtain a copy of the plan on the Beyond Zero Emissions web-site. Choices are to download a synopsis or the full plan for free, or purchase a bound copy on-line.

The Century of the Self - BBC Documentary from 2002 by Adam Curtis

I'm surprised that I hadn't spotted this before, given that it's been around since 2002.
Very thought provoking in our increasingly consumption driven society.

Four episodes...

1.Happiness Machines

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

2. The Engineering of Consent

The programme explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses.

Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise - that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had led to the barbarism of Nazi Germany. To stop it ever happening again they set out to find ways to control this hidden enemy within the human mind.

3. There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed

In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas in America. They were inspired by the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, a pupil of Freud's, who had turned against him and was hated by the Freud family. He believed that the inner self did not need to be repressed and controlled. It should be encouraged to express itself.

4. Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

This episode explains how politicians on the left, in both Britain and America, turned to the techniques developed by business to read and fulfil the inner desires of the self.

Both New Labour, under Tony Blair, and the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group, which had been invented by psychoanalysts, in order to regain power. They set out to mould their policies to people's inner desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learnt to do with products.

Downloadable here http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12642.htm

I'm still recovering from the trauma of changing Internet service provider (in this case from Optus to Telstra). "Why would you do that?", some asked. It's simple. We used to be able to get close to the end of the month before being throttled to 64kb, but our internet usage has increased significantly, and we were often running out of bandwidth after only 10 days or so. The upgrade plan from Telstra suited our needs better than the Optus plan so, in the spirit of open market competition, we signed up on 13 September. That was the beginning of a miserable and frustrating 36 days until the Steve, the Telstra technician, turned up on 18 October to finish the job. The end result is excellent, but the transition experience was horrendous.

Without going through a blow-by-blow account the ultimate frustration was the impossibility of talking to anybody who could provide accurate information, anybody who could influence outcomes, or anybody who could receive, let alone act on a complaint. Call centre operators (off-shore if the accent is any indicator) seemed to be trained in pacifying angry customers rather than solving problems. I was unable to find an email or postal address that would provide access to useful information, or a complaints desk, and the staff at the nearest Telstra shop are trained to sell products, not to solve problems, process complaints, or provide reliable information.

What a contrast when Telstra technician Steve arrived. He also encountered several problems but overcame them quickly and efficiently. For example, the only way to pull the new coaxial cable from the roadside cable pit to our house was to connect a pull-thru rope to the existing telephone cable and pull it through the buried conduit. So, we now had a length of rope through the conduit, but no telephone cable. Steve then connected the new coaxial cable and the old telephone cable to the pull-thru, sought my help in feeding it through from the far end, lubricated everything thoroughly, and proceeded to pull both cables through.

So simple! Except that when this area was developed 30 odd years ago nobody anticipated the need for multiple electronic connections to a residential property. The conduit was a bit small for two cables, had an excessively sharp bend, and was buried under brick pavers. Everything went fine until the join between the pull-thru met the sharp bend and stuck. No amount of pulling at Steve's end or pushing at my end could budge it. Eventually the pull-thru snapped leaving us with the two cables stuck in the conduit, and no pull-thru.

Of course problem solver Steve had a shovel in his ute, proceeded to lift the required pavers, chop off the offending section and replace it with a new conduit of larger diameter and a larger radius bend. The cables now pulled through easily and the installation was completed. Steve was also a mine of useful information. If only I had been able to talk to someone like him from the beginning, rather than at the end of the process, I would now have no complaint.

So, I now have the internet connection I required but the traumatic experience has left me very unwilling to stay with Telstra for a day longer than necessary. From conversations with others, I am not alone. But Telstra does not seem to be listening.

What if Telstra had offered a more expensive 'first class' option with a personal adviser, a local call centre, or even a nearby shop where I could receive personal attention. Would have paid extra it? No! I was looking for the cheapest deal that provided the service level I needed. Telstra management knows that. They have to balance the interest of their various stakeholders including me, the customer; Steve the technician; the outsourced call-centre contractor and their staff; and their investors.

I think this experience is instructive in understanding the discussion about the proposed National Broadband Network, a discussion that will keep for another day.

Just finished reading Michel Tournier's "Friday" from random browsing a stack that came from prior random browsing at LifeLine BookFest. Can't get much more random than that.

The following portion about time is the one that stuck in my mind:

... suddenly he realized why it was that he had awakened so late. He had forgotten to fill his water-clock the night before, and it had run dry. Indeed, it was the falling of the last drop into the copper bowl that drew his attention to the unaccustomed silence. Turning to look at it, he saw that the drop that should have followed was clinging uncertainly to the bottom of the glass jar; it stretched till it was pear-shaped, hesitated, and then, as though discouraged, resumed its spherical shape; and finally it returned whence it had come, not merely refusing to fall but seeming to reverse the passage of time.

Robinson stretched luxuriously on his couch. This was the first occasion for months when the inexorable dripping had not dictated his every movement as rigorously as if it had been a conductor’s baton. Time had had a stop, and he was on holiday! He sat on the edge of the couch, and Tenn came and laid his muzzle on his knee. So it seemed that Robinson’s omnipotence over this island, born of his solitude, extended even to the mastery of time. He reflected with delight that he had only to plug the hole in the water-clock and he could suspend the passing of the hours whenever he chose.

He got up and stood in the doorway, and such was his state of happy astonishment that he found that he was trembling and had to lean his shoulder against the doorpost. Later, reflecting on that wave of ecstasy and seeking to put a name to it, he called it a ‘moment of innocence’. He had thought at first that the stopping of the clock had done no more than interfere with the routine of his day and make it appear less urgent; but now he perceived that the pause was less his affair than that of the island as a whole. It was as though in ceasing to reach out to each other according to their habit - and to their exhaustion - things had returned each to the essence of itself, were flowering in their own right and existing simply for their own sakes, seeking no other warrant than their own fulfilment. A great tenderness filled  the heavens as though God, in a sudden outpouring of love, were resolved to bless all His creation. There was a radiance in the air; and in a moment of inexpressible happiness Robinson seemed to discern another island behind the one where he had so long dwelt in solitude, a place more living, warmer and more fraternal, that had been concealed from him by the prosaicness of his daily preoccupations.

This was a wonderful discovery. It seemed after all that it was possible to escape from the relentless discipline of the work-schedule and the ceremonial, without of necessity returning to the mire. Change was possible without decay! He could break the equilibrium so laboriously acquired and raise himself yet higher, instead of falling back. Unquestionably he had advanced another step in the transformation that was at work in the most hidden depths of himself. But all this was no more than a flash of revelation. In a moment of ecstasy the grub had seen that one day it would fly. Intoxicating, but a momentary vision, nothing more.

Thereafter he frequently stopped the clock, to pursue experiments which one day, perhaps, would cause the new Robinson to emerge from the chrysalis wherein he still slumbered. But the time was not yet. The other island did not show itself again in the rosy mist of dawn, as it had done on that memorable morning. Patiently he resumed his customary garments and went on with the game where he had left off, forgetting in the routine of small tasks and ceremonies that for a moment he had dreamed of other things.

What you might call a numinous moment!