Solar power realities

A comment by someone who knows from professional experience -- received via a reader. The report focuses on Tasmania, which is in roughly the equivalent latitude to Italy. So what is bad in Tasmania will be worse in Britain (for instance). As for Sweden or Canada, stop laughing!

I am one of those people who supply and maintain solar and wind power installations to power electronic systems at remote (unpowered) sites -- e.g. two way radios up on mountain tops.

Twenty plus years ago, a couple of us had a good look at the possibility of making a dollar or two out of flogging this emerging technology to the great unwashed. We didn't bother because it didn't stack up energy wise or financially. I admit the efficiency of the solar panels us mere mortals can afford has improved a bit since then (at least 8%) but the figures are still similar.

A loose look at the energy required to make the things verses the energy output of them during their average lifetime was not really surprising. The panel would return enough energy in the first year to smelt the aluminum in its frame and its mounting and transport the manufactured panel to us. We could not get energy figures for melting the silicon so the wafers could be grown and then cut up to make the semiconductors but overall it will be high so we guessed that it would take at least 100Kwh . This equates to 3 years output from the panel used up by the time it is delivered on site.

But it doesn't end there. Over the life of a set of panels the owner will probably need 3 or 4 sets of batteries. These are full of nice things like lead and acid and plastic and are very heavy. Then there is the magic box called the inverter. This is the box that converts the panel power up to the 230 volts mains power that we use. These are full of electronic things that take a lot of energy to make and have a reasonably short life span - say 10 years. You must include the energy costs for making and transporting these items to site in the overall energy that the solar panels must return during their lifetime. A battery pack of say 13kw h weighs in at approximately 500kg. So during the life of a set of panels you are going to have to transport 2 tons of them from (say) Sydney to Hobart and back again. Do the energy calculations on that one considering that the energy output per annum from each panel equates to about 4.5 litres of petrol.

I must qualify the above by saying that in our lovely clean green (work in the tourism industry or starve) state we don't get a lot of sun for large chunks of the year. When we are working out the energy budget for a solar site we allow an average of 3.5 hrs a day full output from the panels and have battery backup to allow for 14 - 28 days (site dependant) with no output. When the batteries are fully charged you can store no more so you effectively get no output from the panels. Therefore the extra output in summer is not usable unless you seriously upscale the battery capacity. Up in Queensland you can get away with less than half the number of panels for the same load. In drier climates panels seem to last a bit longer as well.

There are some interesting practical considerations that must be considered when using these things. It never ceases to amaze me how many people seem surprised to discover that a solar panel needs to get actual direct sunlight on it to give a worthwhile output. This can be a simple task of (wait for it - shock horror - sit down Rev. Bob in case you have a nasty turn) cutting down the trees to the height of the panels because the sun gets pretty close to the horizon down here in winter. Or if you have built your house on the southern side of a hill or taller building it is even simpler - you need to move the house or increase the number of panels to compensate. An extra $10k - $40k will usually suffice.

In Tasmania more than 50% of houses don't have a clear enough view north to make solar panels worthwhile and if you elevate them you begin to shadow the house to the south of you. This means you can never optimize the energy return from the panels. And what about our nice green leafy suburbs? When your northern neighbour's trees get high enough to shade your panels you lose output. Or if a leaf blows onto one of your panels the output goes down. (if you cover approximately 5% of the face of the panel the output will drop to almost zero.) The government will have to bring in draconian chain saw laws and you will have to have a photo license and a chainsaw safe to own one. Panels need to be cleaned regularly. Feathered airfoil excrement is especially effective in stopping them working.

Every time you need to have the system serviced the serviceman will use petrol in his van to get there. This will probably average using the equivalent energy output of one panel for a year for each trip and that does not count the energy required to make the van in the first place.

There is little doubt that in Tassie a solar installation as a collective item over its life is a net energy sink not a source. It is no different financially. My last electricity account for my workshop lists the cost as 18.5c per kwh or 21.4c including supply charge and for this my installation costs can be amortized over a 50 year life span. Over a 20 year life an $800 panel will return me 900kwh or $166.50 worth of electricity. Don't forget that out of the massive savings you have made there you must buy batteries, inverter, have it installed, pay the interest on the money you borrowed to buy the system and maintain it.

Note that this energy consumption would require 136 panels ($110,000.00), 14 day battery backup $13,500.00 (weight 1.6 tons, life 10 years), three phase inverter $15,000.00 (expected life 5 - 10 years). Interest alone would exceed $1,675.00 for the same period I paid the electricity authority $334.95. (Don't forget that if the batteries went flat and I had no electricity to run the workshop I would still have to pay my employees so a system failure could wipe me out. I would have to have a generating plant and/or duplicate equipment to allow for that. Even if you quadrupled the energy output from the panels the figures don't add up.








Maternity hospital shrinkage

Just what is needed now the birthrate has risen

EXPECTANT women in the Blue Mountains have been told that as of today they can no longer give birth at their local hospital because of staff shortages, and will have to travel to Nepean or Lithgow hospitals. This is despite the fact Nepean Hospital is struggling with midwifery shortages. A Sydney West Area Health Service spokeswoman has also confirmed Lithgow, with only low-risk maternity services, has just two postnatal beds. The Health Department did not start notifying women until the beginning of this month.

The recent Garling inquiry into public hospitals heard Blue Mountains Hospital in Katoomba - which can only take low-risk deliveries and has had no full-time obstetric service since August, 2004 - regularly sent women to Nepean Hospital or as far as Westmead Hospital to give birth. A Blue Mountains Hospital midwife, who did not want to be named, said that in the past few years not one woman had been sent to Lithgow to give birth. "We always send them to Nepean or Westmead. I know women [who need to be rebooked] will not go to Lithgow because there's no [comprehensive] maternity unit there and there's only a couple of beds," she said.

The Opposition health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, said the decision would put increased pressure on an already strained local ambulance and patient transport service. She said the Health Minister, Reba Meagher, and the member for Blue Mountains, Phil Koperberg, "must explain to Blue Mountains residents why staff shortages have been allowed to get so out of control . and when the birthing unit will be reopened," Mrs Skinner said. Birthing at Blue Mountains Hospital was shut in June 2002 due to staff shortages and resumed in April 2003.

A spokeswoman for Ms Meagher said there was a worldwide shortage of obstetricians and midwives. She said the Government had recently recruited obstetricians from Britain and Canada, and was also spending $46.4 million over the next four years on maternity services.

A local childbirth educator, Natalie Dash, said women were "shocked" by the decision and were planning a rally at the hospital today at 11am. "They're incredibly disappointed . if they wanted to birth in another hospital they would have booked in nine months ago," Ms Dash said. The hospital's general manager, Andrea Williams, said despite extensive recruitment efforts, there were still maternity service vacancies. "We've taken the decision to suspend birthing services to ensure the safety of mothers and babies," she said.

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Forgotten Iraqi Christians

Below are excerpts from an article by a minister in the present Australian government. The previous government had similar concerns

"Even casual observers of the international situation would be aware of the conflict between Sunni and Shiite communities in Iraq. But what has achieved less prominence in the national and international media is the fate of other Iraqi minorities: Assyrians, Chaldeans and Mandaeans.

Mandaeans, followers of John the Baptist, have non-violence as one of the tenets of their religion. Any form of violence, even in self-defence, is forbidden. They have thus been particularly vulnerable to attack. The much more numerous Assyrians and Chaldeans have also suffered significantly. This group are descendants of the ancient Assyrian empire, but no longer have a nation state to call their own. They predominantly live in Iraq's north and are Christians.

It is hard to pinpoint the numbers of these minorities in Iraq. However, credible estimates put Assyrians and Chaldeans as 4 per cent of the population of Iraq, while they have constituted 40 per cent of the refugees leaving Iraq. Jordan and Syria have 2 million Iraqi refugees living within their borders, and they are not allowed to work. They live, by and large, in squalor, and they often rely on their children to bring in a little income. Thousands of children are being turned to crime to support their family.

It is estimated that there were 1.5 million Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq before the war; 600,000 are left, at most. Two thousand Assyrians and Chaldeans are still leaving Iraq every day. Churches have been bombed, priests and bishops kidnapped and murdered. Hundreds of thousands of Assyrian and Chaldean refugees live in desperate circumstances in Syria and Jordan. It is simply too dangerous for them to return.

There are of course, many millions of people from different groups around the world who face diabolical human rights and humanitarian catastrophes, all of whom deserve greater attention. However, in all the public debate about Iraq over recent years the Assyrian and Chaldean minorities have received scant attention from both governments and the media. Their plight is one of the untold stories of the narrative of post-Saddam Iraq. Their situation as minorities in Iraq has substantially worsened since the war.

As others have pointed out, the exodus of refugees from Iraq has been greater than that after the Vietnam War. But because the exodus has occurred quietly and to other Middle Eastern countries, as opposed to by boat, the crisis has become largely invisible. There is no monopoly of suffering in Iraq. But the suffering of these minorities has received scant international attention.

Of course, as a relatively small country on the other side of the world we are limited in what we can do to help. However, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, has recently met two delegations of Assyrians and Chaldeans to discuss what more can be done, and he raised the issue with the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq on his visit last month.

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Imprisoned illegals in Australia are floating high

Many of these have been imprisoned for years -- since before the Howard government's crackdown on "boat people". Others are visa overstayers and failed "refugee" claimants

Immigration officials are adamant there is no drug problem in immigration detention centres; there is, however, an abundance of "unidentified white powder", "green vegetable matter", "liquid with alcohol scents" and numerous "unidentified tablets".

Amid reports last week that immigration detention centres were hotbeds of drug and alcohol abuse, the Immigration Department has issued figures on the number of prohibited substances seized in centres in 2006-07.

The 31 prohibited substances confiscated in seven centres across the country included 10 quantities of liquid - believed to be alcohol - 14 unidentified tablets, four quantities of ``green vegetable matter'' and three unidentified powders.

The powders included two quantities of an unidentified white powder, both found in Melbourne's Maribyrnong detention centre, and one quantity of brown powder, which Immigration officals believe was kava.

Sydney's Villawood detention centre topped the list, with 19 seizures. Maribyrnong had four seizures; Brisbane had three; Perth's two facilities had two seizures; Darwin had one; and there was one seizure at one of Sydney's residential facilities.

An immigration spokesman said seized items were not tested or positively identified by detention centre staff. Instead, suspicious items were handed over to local police. A spokeswoman for NSW Police refused to comment on the drug claims, citing "operational'' reasons.

Refugee advocates have said drug use in immigration detention centres is common. Ngareta Rossell told The Australian the drug problem in Villawood was concentrated in the so-called "stage one'', or maximum security area, of the centre. "It's nothing new,'' she said. "It's been going on for years.''

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