Category: Energy

My cousins have had the farm since my uncle passed on, and I’ve got to tell you, tradition will be the end of them. It’s a dairy farm, a pretty big one outside Melbourne, and they keep getting hit by the ongoing milk war and even worse, the crazy expenses of running a dairy. I knew he wanted to find out more about how to keep energy costs down in the industry.  With the price of power continuing to rise, it’s not wonder the poor guy is desperate for a lower cost solution. 

He made a trip into town last week and asked about the company I called in to have my workshop fitted out with commercial LED lighting. Melbourne tends to eat Dave alive so he didn’t hang around and was keen to get home- although that could possibly have been because he was keen to get the ball rolling on some serious savings. Dave pretty much did the same thing as me and fell off his chair when he found out that LED lighting can save up to 80% on a bill and that LED lights have a 1% failure rate.

He’s hardworking guy when it comes to traditional business, but if ever you’ve seen someone who hates considerable change, Dave would outdo him. I think he has been wearing the same gumboots since his feet stopped growing as a teenager. I had to explain to Dave how easy the transition had been for me. This made me realise that most people avoid changes like this because they seem too good to be true- I guess people assume that there’s a huge catch.

Dave has made an appointment with the guys I had fit the shop out by.

I’m not going to say much until he does, because knowing Dave, he will want to completely get the hang of a new system before he says anything about it. Can’t wait to get the low down from him though- it’ll be great to have something to talk to him about that isn’t about the milk wars.

Most of the reason I still read ‘The Daily Moon’ the cartoons. I’d appreciate it if they didn’t keep changing the page they were on, but still, I think in terms of short newspaper cartoons they really do have the monopoly on quality. I like the one about the lazy dog. Always makes me laugh!

Still, their agenda has gotten really aggressive lately, which is why I don’t read the articles. All stuff about how the government is ruining the country, and how we shouldn’t eat certain foods because they’re full of sugar…and the celebrity stories. SO many celebrity stories. The only page I read besides the cartoons is the opinion page, usually because it makes you think a bit. This week’s was all about industrial solar power. Now, if this had been a traditional Moon story, they would’ve been saying things like ‘everyone should be running on 100% solar power and if you’re not then it’s discriminatory to the concept of energy!’ But fortunately, the opinion pieces are a bit more lax on the agenda. This one presented a thoughtful discussion on the nature of solar power, and how we currently think about energy monitoring. Currently, all our stats come from energy monitoring, which is fine and dandy until you get to people who interpret the facts in their own way. Instead of looking at solar power facts and figures and flying into a doomsday panic, we should instead take a good long look at our energy usage and work out a plan for the future.

Sounds great. Except The Moon actually ran a front-page piece last week where they declared that Melbourne has commercial energy monitoring that has proved that we’re all doomed, and global warming will soon mean that Australia is underwater. They said that, last week. So they really need to make up their minds on the issue, you know?

-Miles