Green Electricity

 

I love the vistas and landscapes of New England. And, here's a picture I took four days ago looking northwards to Mount Duval.

Two days later I took another picture of Mount Duval from much further away. This time I was with two friends combing the countryside for an electricity farm located near Uralla (c. 21 km south of Armidale). And what we saw took our breath away. Take a look at these mind-boggling statistics. This new development will typically deliver 720 megawatts per day and 1.8 million megawatt hours per annum. It will contribute to reducing greenhouse omissions by 1.5 million tonnes, which is like taking 300,000 cars off the road. And it will power no less than 250,000 homes. Not bad, eh! Even more amazingly, our region (Northern Tablelands) has 80,000 people and possibly has 35,000 houses. In other words, this bunch of solar panels will support 7 times our region's population. As you can see, these panels cover square kilometers.

And, a day later, we were surprised to hear that this solar farm had been officially opened. The day we were there, it still seemed to be under construction.

All up this is likely a great benefit to our region in terms of cheaper electricity, jobs created for constrruction and maintenance, and ... potentially better grazing country for sheep. New England is a renewable energy hub in NSW and a big step forward. Around New England we're also en route to a stack of major wind farms, many other electric panel generation locations and pumped hydro. We'll soon be exporting electricity to a wide range of territory.

See more at: www.newenglandsolar.com.au

AS 

Unusual Event

I regularly go out for a walk in the late afternoon over familiar routes that rarely differ. The other day I reached the top of a downhill and potentially dangerous bike track and to my amazement I came across a possee of school kids on bikes  from a well-known and regarded private school - TAS (The Arnidale School). While I was nearby they were congregating and not riding, but the sheer number amazed me. Has any reader seen such a looming event? Here's the top of the track.

And here is a possee of kids waiting to go.

And here's another group waiting to go!

That's an amazing number of kids from one private school! After taking these pictures I walked home quickly to tea.

AS

Culturefest

In the late-afternoon and early evening of Friday 10 March, Armidale staged a magnificent event - a Culturefest. 

Our town is multicultural with huge numbers of migrants from heaps of different countries globally. And to celebrate this condition, we staged a massive food-share at Curtis Park on the banks of Dumaresq Creek. Located there were maybe 15-20 food-stalls each delivering samples of traditional foods from their country of origin. Each was located in a 'tent' bearing the flag and name of the countries in question - see below. We could sample foods from many parts of Asia, Europe, parts of Africa and South America. Have you ever had a meal from Bhutan or Nigeria or Indonesia?

I mayself chose a meal from Iran, an interesting country I've visited twice and from which I have several friends. It cost me nothing and was delicious! The whole of Curtis Park was crammed with people queuing for food and consuming it. The event was hugely popular and provided an opportunity helping to integrate and welcome people from different cultural backgrounds. It was also for people across all age-groups and often wearing traditional clothing.

The location was also decked in the flags of maybe 80 or 90 different nations welcoming people from those nations.

There were places where people sit down either on the ground or on chairs and a stage where later on bands from different cultures could perform.

What other town of 25,000 people do you know of staging a similar event - and from anywhere on earth?

AS