Oolite Bulletins

Wildeblood wrote:

Bugbear wrote:

But hey, the referendum was lost with a very small margin - something like 49 vs 51, so the above is merely my opinion (maybe I'm just getting older and more cantankerous).

Your memory is playing tricks on you. The referendum had the same overwhelming result that the previous referenda had.

Bugbear wrote:

Personally, I'd be all for a compromise where we shift the WA time zone 30min and simply leave it there all year round.

Which is what we already have; WA's time zone is centred on Kalgoorlie, and the clock time in Perth is already shifted about 20 minutes from mean solar time. But try explaining things like that to the economic refugees and all you'll hear in response is "Why don't you have trams in Perth?"

The three great whinges of Homo sapiens australis 'Victorian' x 'Cashed-up Bogan' x 'Economic refugee':
- "We had daylight saving in Melbourne. Why don't you have daylight saving in Qld/WA? You should have daylight saving."
- "We had trams in Melbourne. Why don't you have trams in Qld/WA? You should have trams."
- "Why can't you get a decent cappuccino in [anywhere]. We had great coffee in Melbourne. You can't get coffee as good anywhere else."

In their demented world-view, daylight savings + trams + "decent coffee" = world peace + technological singularity + cultural revolution.

Wildeblood wrote:

In their demented world-view, daylight savings + trams + "decent coffee" = world peace + technological singularity + cultural revolution.

Ranthe wrote:

Wildeblood wrote:

In their demented world-view, daylight savings + trams + "decent coffee" = world peace + technological singularity + cultural revolution.

Dang! There goes Wellington's bid for "world peace + technological singularity + cultural revolution"!
We have daylight savings and great coffee here in Wellington, but no trams - unless you count a cable car and trolley buses as tram substitutes

Paladin Tux wrote:

Well to be honest I'm not sure if trams are good. Because everytime I get on any Victorian public transport (everyday) I fear for my life. Is the bus driver going to go terrorist on us? Will he crash into that big tree again? Will I even make it to the bus stop?

Wildeblood wrote:

Just when you thought Aussie politics couldn't get any stupider...

cim wrote:

Wildeblood wrote:

1. There's an economic benefit to the extra hour of sunlight because of the rising popularity of rooftop solar.

It occurs to me this may actually be true. Electricity is impractical to store, so generation as needed is considerably more efficient. If changing the time zones aligned peak demand better with peak sunlight, you'd need to generate less from other sources and/or invest less in storage, which reduces the costs.

Imagine that Australia used UTC, so everyone went to work in the dark. Businesses would get virtually no benefit from their rooftop solar - they could sell it back to the grid, but no-one would be buying at that time when almost everyone is asleep. Adjust your time zone back to a sensible one for your longitude, and they can use that electricity on site with maximum efficiency. In that case, it would certainly be true (though there would be more immediate reasons to make the change)

Whether or not Queensland would receive a noticeable benefit from this I don't know - I can't be bothered to check how the electricity demand curve matches up with the current and predicted solar generation curves - but it may not be as ridiculous as it sounds.