back to article Sydney's CBD heading off the grid

The City of Sydney is going ahead with its long-planned “trigeneration” proposal, in which localized power plants on building roofs and basements will supplement – and eventually partly replace – the coal-fired electricity that currently powers the city. The council has approved the first $100 million stage of a $AU440 million …

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  1. Graham Wilson
    Angel

    And the band played on.

    "...And the band played 'Believe It If You Like',

    and it rained bullshit all day."

    (If overseas readers knew Sydney Council then you'd all be singing the ditty too.)

    1. LaeMing
      Alert

      Was this the region...

      ...that a dozen-odd years ago had its council forcibly replaced by an auditor, and when the next election came around, everyone complained they wanted to keep the auditor because it was the first real local govenance they had experienced in decades? (It was one of the councils up that way, IIRC.)

  2. Wombling_Free
    Thumb Down

    For those of you who don't live in Austfailia, or Shitney in particular....

    Lord Mayor Clover Moore wears a dog collar.

    No, seriously, she really does wear a dog collar - all the time. She is never seen without it.. I don't know why.

    Imagine what you would get if you crossed a hipster with Judy Davis and Germaine Greer. - Clover Moore is a nightmarish version of that foul abomination.

    Gas generator plants - on building roofs? What could possibly go wrong with that?

    Mind you, it fits with our glorious council's slogan - 'City of (Third World) Villages'. Maybe we could power the gas plants with dog turds (parts of Shitney CBD are starting to smell like Paris (both versions) FFS.) and use wind co-generation with hills hoists covered in plastic shopping bags - that will give the place a rustic hipster-craft village feel for sure. Oh, and ban cars and force everyone to ride unicycles.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Um what?

    So rather than pipe in electricity they are going to pipe in gas and run micro-generators?

    I'm having a hard time figuring out any way in which that makes sense.

    How does it make them "self-sufficient"? Do they produce the gas locally? Seems like an accounting trick to take losses of the balance sheet.

    1. LaeMing
      Unhappy

      Re: Um what?

      Plenty of hot gas produced at the Council Chambers.

      Don't think it is the right kind, though.

    2. JohnSmitty
      WTF?

      Re: Um what?

      The gas could be piped in from western Sydney. I suppose, instead of making more ugly vistas with long distant high voltage power lines from the hunter valley, and unlike power lines they'll stick the gas pipeline underground.

    3. -tim
      FAIL

      Re: Um what?

      The current gas loss in Australia is 3.4 to 3.8% based on whos numbers you trust. As they close down the coal plants, the acceptable level of loss will exceed 5%.

      If these people have ever heard a co-gen plant, they wouldn't want one upstairs. When the wind stops, what happens to all the exhaust gasses?

    4. catprog

      Re: Um what?

      it makes sense if you can use the heat generated in the building. Then you get electricity and heat instead of heat.

      I think they are using "self-sufficient" as in we already need electricity so lets not count that. (see the 70% self-sufficient not 100% )

  4. Meyrick Thomas
    FAIL

    Greenwash!

    And how is the local grid going to handle this unregulated generation? I'm glad I live on the other side of the planet from these idiots.

  5. david 12 Silver badge

    First city to roll-out LED street lights?

    That would be because other cities, like mine in Melb. Aus, found that the price quotes they were getting just made it all far too expensive to do a 'roll out', and that there was no compelling political reason to do a long-term replacement program only for lamps which needed replacing.

    My guess would be that the Sidney council has more money than sense.

    However, I expect that in residentail suburbs the LED lamps will be popular because they will be more directional, and shine less light into your windows and garden.

    This will make street lighting less effective for securiity (expect an increase in security lighting), but not much less effective as street lighting for driving, since many streets are presently over-illuminated by that measure.

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