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Footnotes:

 

[12] Denmark is has the largest proportion of wind generation in the world. It is also has the greatest fossil dependency (mainly on imported coal) and highest cost electricity in the EU, over seven times that in France.

 

 

[13] France produced 536.9 TWh of electricity in 2003; is the largest net exporter of electricity in the EU (103.6 TWh in 2003); and has the highest proportion of nuclear electricity in the World.

 

[14] http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2008/key_stats_2008.pdf Energy in Australia 2009 ibid; note that currency fluctuations and varying time-of-day tariffs make non EC price comparisons dubious.

 

[15] Suzlon S88 - Hub Height: 80m; Maximum Blade Tip Height: 124m; Swept area: 6250m2

 

[16] Energy Statistics 2007 www.ens.dk

 

[17] This would suggest that there are some turbines so badly sited that they will not recover the energy consumed in their construction within their 20 year working lifetime (of course this may be a lot longer than 20 years as they hardly get used). Their carbon footprint rises steeply as their capacity factor falls.

 

[18] 2xEnercon E-126; 7 MW; 18,000 MWh/yr; rotor diameter 126m; hub height 135m; Rysumer Nacken, Germany.

 

[19] http://www.suzlon.com/pdf/Capital%20Wind%20Farm%20Flyer.pdf  

 

[20] The Economics of Wind Energy, www.awea.org

 

[21] Counter intuitively, water vapour reduces air density. The molecular weight of water is 18. As a gas water vapour displaces nitrogen molecules (mw: 28) and oxygen (mw: 32).

 

[23] Measured under Standard Test Conditions (STC) : irradiance of 1,000 W/m², solar spectrum of Air Mass (AM) 1.5 and module temperature at 25°C

 

[24] Average pool price in the NEM last year was AUS$42/MWh = 4.2 cents /kWh. The average commercial return to wind farms (after RECs) was around 9 cents /kWh delivered.

 

[25] 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate, in tanks measuring 14 m in height and 36 m in diameter, each storing 375 MWh – from Wikipedia

 

[26] Bayswater B Submissions Report - AECOM

 

[27] For example at a recent workshop of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSC)

 

[28] The present ten largest producers of nuclear energy are in order: USA, France, Japan, Russia, Germany, South Korea, Ukraine, Canada, UK and Sweden. Except for Germany and Sweden, all have new nuclear plant under construction or announced. Worldwide there are presently 53 nuclear power stations under construction and another 432 announced or proposed. There are 31 countries with one or more operating nuclear power stations and 9 more with planned stations, including Indonesia.

 

[29] China has 18 new stations under construction (to raise generating capacity by 70 GWe by 2020); 35 planned; and more than 90 proposed. India has 6 new stations under construction (to raise capacity by 41 GWe by 2020); 23 planned (to raise capacity to 470 GWe by 2050); and 15 proposed.

 

[30] cf. Australia 246 TWh in 2004

 

[31] NSW: total thermal capacity (coal & gas) 11,940 MW; all renewable (mainly hydro) 4,600 MW

 

[32] Financial Times, and AFR, 25 Mar 2010, P63 ‘Nuclear power renaissance in Asia’.

 

[33] By market size: Japan 58%; Korea 12%; Taiwan 10%; India 6%; China 4%.

 

[34] Worth over $13billion in exports to NSW in 2009

 

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Travel

Istanbul

 

 

Or coming down to earth...

 

When I was a boy, Turkey was mysterious and exotic place to me. They were not Christians there; they ate strange food; and wore strange clothes. There was something called a ‘bazaar’ where white women were kidnapped and sold into white slavery. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, or was it Errol Flynn, got into all sorts of trouble there with blood thirsty men with curved swords. There was a song on the radio that reminded me over and over again that ‘It’s Istanbul not Constantinople Now’, sung by The Four Lads, possibly the first ‘boy band’.

 

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Fiction, Recollections & News

Wedding

 

 

Jordan Baker and Jeff Purser were married on Saturday 3rd of December 2011. The ceremony took place on the cliff top at Clovelly.

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Opinions and Philosophy

Australia and Empire

 

 

 

The recent Australia Day verses Invasion Day dispute made me recall yet again the late, sometimes lamented, British Empire.

Because, after all, the Empire was the genesis of Australia Day.

For a brief history of that institution I can recommend Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Scottish historian Niall Campbell Ferguson.

My choice of this book was serendipitous, unless I was subconsciously aware that Australia Day was approaching.  I was cutting through our local bookshop on my way to catch a bus and wanted something to read.  I noticed this thick tomb, a new addition to the $10 Penguin Books (actually $13). 

On the bus I began to read and very soon I was hooked when I discovered references to places I'd been and written of myself.  Several of these 'potted histories' can be found in my various travel writings on this website (follow the links): India and the Raj; Malaya; Burma (Myanmar); Hong Kong; China; Taiwan; Egypt and the Middle East; Israel; and Europe (a number).  

Over the next ten days I made time to read the remainder of the book, finishing it on the morning of Australia Day, January the 26th, with a sense that Ferguson's Empire had been more about the sub-continent than the Empire I remembered.

Read more: Australia and Empire

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