At school the teacher let us run, metaphysically. If it was nonsense, but had feasibility aspects, real life inclusions, was capable of construction, and helped mankind, it was okay.
In the 2nd hour of a blackout the teacher asked this. His question, “make electricity reliable in this town, or don’t use electricity to make the world better’, was met with a groan – most everything was groaned at though. He was the best teacher amongst good ones there.
Bracer got his information from a river authority road map. The depth at Collins Bridge over the Namoi near Wee Waa is 412 ASL neat. Then from the big American-style farming conglomerate converting us to cotton, and away from wool, he was told that the ‘suck’, a location where river is lifted up into their irrigation canals, was at 312 feet. That’s 100 feet, downhill.
The river meanders 116 miles from the weir here to Collins Bridge. The distance over the ground, using straight lines because you could, was 73 miles.
All this input is just numbers to me and you but the distance, elevation, over the ground, importantly where you measured those distances, meant a lot to him.
It won’t work but it was pretty ‘revolutionary’ for the time. Bracer Plan to save the world was to draw a series of lines from Collins Bridge across the ground to a point near home, downhill all the way. This was water in a canal surging towards us to topple over some ledge nearby, into a tube, and that tube into a turbine, and that turbine would generate electricity for the use of us. The used water, and its inherent falling dynamic energy now depleted, would then join the Namoi, as destined, only 11 days sooner. On the old Parish map almost the whole trip from start to finish was on, over and through a stock route, 3 to 33 chains wide, and the satisfactory downhill grade maintained, magically, up to a point, but mostly, yes, on public land so not a lot of talking to people for permission.
The cost would be nothing. Electricity borrowed would be repaid when the turbine(s) kicked in.
Electric machinery would be used, electric everything, even battery cars and trucks, re-charged overnight and during smoko and lunch. The railway station had an electric forklift, surely somebody makes a bigger version of that type of mechanism – they’ll want to now if not.
Using text books and with help from the Shire engineer, it was calculated that a body of water falling 43 feet and in a tube of a certain diameter would have a dynamic energy component calculated at 1600 horsepower, give or take a few horses. The town generator was 729 horsepower and kept the lights on admirably still. This new, bigger, generating capacity meant we could sell capacity to other towns not so lucky to have it, and Bracer, and us.
Anyway, the theory was good but the elevations were awry. It ran out of gravity, the ability to flow overland somewhere about 11 to 15 miles out. There was a quiet calculation regarding an aqueduct over that distance, and some more for effect, feeding out of a pond so that at least a trickle or more would arrive here with us. There was an evening of flattening the grade overland, ‘not so much tilt’ is his word, ‘go on, over the grade, the contour, never up hill anywhere, obvious, but try, really try to find a way to get that damn water to us, and in a quantity that mattered’. Nearly but no, not going to happen. Worthy of consideration anyway.
All of this canal magic was well north of the present river and the two would meet, on paper only now, about 2 miles out when the torrent would be redirected towards the turbine. ‘Bracer’s Plan’ couldn’t happen.
Mine, however, was imminently doable. ‘Preposterous Pondage’ it got named and instantly cringed at and with.
A series of ‘barriers’ built over the river, at right angles to impede the watercourse and cause it to pond and swell over the ground, mitigating floods and non-floods. The substance for the barrier, I preferred ‘Trammel’, would be borrowed from the river itself upstream of the barrier and deepened, widened and lengthened until a lake was created, up to nine times over a hundred miles, or out to the shire boundary then if others weren’t forward in imagination.
First engineering would be to straighten and deepen the river, install pipes to carry the water in the river through while building was under way, use dredges, increasing in number to dig methodically, widen and deepen the pond they created, use conveyor belts to carry the dug dirt towards and up to the dumping on the barrier, a 10 foot width increase and a commensurate height addition in that every day after the base was installed. A barrier 100 feet high and six miles in width would take 30 days to construct, working days, 9 hours, 5 days a week, so a month and a half. Delays between digging the ponds were calculated and dismissed, work on one would be finishing while work on another or a third would progress, everything scheduled, everything logistical, magical (that wasn’t me there).
Pipes would be installed in the barrier at various heights so that a rising river would have a means of dispersing its increasing girth, and the barrier, are so big, half a mile wide was the suggestion, that would not be pushed out of the way by the weight of water against them. Digging and deepening would expose fossil era creeks and rising water would flow again into warrambools prevalent everywhere out that way, windmills would work at capacity, not bang and creak as they do presently. All of this construction was powered by electricity because it was being offered at savings for big projects.
The Namoi is in a gully at the bottom of a gulch enclosed in a valley, so it has flood control installed by itself. It is often bullied into flood by the weight of water from the bigger river that joins it just downstream. This confluence is not the Darling, not yet, that comes miles away downstream when some muddy trickle joins it, if it trickles at all it’s a wonder. Disappointing. It would be more appropriate to call it The Darling from where it leaves us. Stupid rule.
One of the benefits would be landing areas for the famers new seaplanes (they would get them) and fish and other water-borne monsters, worms, water, and 9 or so bridges (using the barriers) across a portion of river that has two over the proposed length now, one of those restricted to 40 tons. Tell that to the cowboys from Queensland who broke it once. There was some ‘fine tuning’ to be done for sure, how much was discussed and dismissed, the County Council (electricity distributor) was offering cheap, some free power for big projects and so electric power was proposed for ours. Bracer Plan took that idea and built on it, copy cats.
Other plans from other class groups included drilling and installing a pipe, then putting water in that to drive a turbine. We’ve seen this principle before somewhere. A large cavern would need to be encountered to accept the falling water, or lava (they meant magma) to cause steam to spurt and more generators spinning from that, even steam to the surface for cleaning, heating, cooking on a grand scale, tinned rabbit recipes were discussed, and ‘anti-septic’ work like what the Dentist does to his tools before he drills ‘ya gob’.
Some groups maintained their anti-everything, like in, burn the place down, a grass fire like in Come By Chance, then evacuate everybody to the coast, no need for electricity then, nobody here except crows maybe, save on electricity big time. These were children of musicians, travelers, knife sharpeners and that was learned behavior right there, scamps.
Windmills (turbines) did not get mentioned.
Driving sheep in harness was suggested by one, in circles around the town oval though, so the drovers could live at home and buy lunch and drinks conveniently, those sheep lashed to a turning pole and this chain driven to a generator, not a big one, too noisy because of the Hospital and Aged Care Home nearby. Let the sheep graze on the airstrip during their breaks. What about the planes? was queried, circle overhead until the sheep were done or land on the highway if they must.
You had to have it down as notes, none of this freestyle stuff, you had to be organised, nonsense was okay within reason. Nobody or nothing could get hurt. It was more funny, if that is possible, watching the inputs of persons who were bursting to get their point of view out so that we had to go clockwise round the group so that everybody got their 50 words, strictly applied. It was hot and there was a power blackout happening, daily it seemed.
The Pilliga Scrub due east of our town got included. Each tree, there are a few, generates a millivolt, upwards of 9 constantly, and that value multiplied by the number of trees on the western slopes, facing us, made electricity by moving with the breeze. Air movement as the power to move those trees usually comes because of the low pressure at the coast, or/and the effect of solar heat moving air up and away from the patch of trees. It’s big, that scrub, and probably still the home of ‘The Bulls’, runaways from a rodeo nearby, alright, our town, sorry everyone, again. The tree count per acre was calculated and this number multiplied by millivolt output, reduced for safety to half, meant a potential powerhouse growing near us and very capable of providing power to NSW as a whole, all of it. That output is an exaggeration (as is all of this!). The output was downgraded, twice, because of decimal points being in the wrong place, but still capable of ‘lightning power’, their name for their contribution, they won that prize, naming rights. Plugging in the trees was discussed, on the sinker root was best, and difficult, but we were saving the world, remember. People would be excluded from the place. Only rangers and tree hugging types, and people dumping rubbish and dead pets went there now any rate, so all good.
Our teacher stated we had not used the obvious, the Sun, and a group ran with that at the end so they had all the planning and discussion time left. The principle of heating with solar was known and steam generation came into it, the engines referred to as ‘funky clunkies’ which fits. Solar power generation was discussed, this was overseas somewhere (Japan?) because they copied it from someone and they copy a lot. The generation aspect was explained and interest evolved, there is sun today but what about cloudy days, rain sometimes, what about hail, you do get big chunks of it here, frozen, then frozen again several times before it smashes down and causes thunder on the roof. There was talk about dust, insects after locusts in your bed last year, vandalism connected with hitting golf balls and cricket balls at them. Who does that, oh wait, somebody got a cricket ball through the Court House roof and that is 3 floors up, and 100 years old. Solar screens (panels) underwater was the decision, it’s not the heat aspect of the radiation just the radiation which is still viable under several feet of water. No hail, dust, damage or other harmful aspects now.
Christine won. She suggested electrify the railway line, the line is there already, just put the power ‘thingabobbies’ (her overhead wires, correctly catenary) and plug in to the end of the line.
Electric trains, yay! Save on coal and petrol (diesel, they mean) get a new smooth (level?) rail line, it is already straight as a gun barrel and take the power you need out/off our end.
The generators never stop generating so the other end, the start is good, and railway lines are tough, made of steel and stuff, rocks and now new cement sleepers, and it, electricity, comes into town from say Werris Creek where the coal mines are, plenty of coal, coal for 400 years they reckon and the trains come from Werris Creek so that works. Don’t need those big pylons across the paddocks with wires draped off them at all, interfering with the flight of birds in a big way and causing electromagnetism, stigmatism and spasming and things to shrink and shrivel. That doesn’t sound good, any of that last bit. Still, it cheered itself by being named ‘Lecky Specky’.
It wasn’t big on detail, wasn’t enough time probably, but simply effective. She is pretty good that Christine. You know what, Chrissy continued, we could get rid of rabbits with this, go third rail, pick up the current at ground level and we have rabbitproof fencing right there, save the world alright with those rabbits encroaching going ‘sssst’, shocked and smoking, then quivering before falling over, dead. How good is this!? Emus and roos got a mention, too bad. People shouldn’t ignore the signs, danger, danger for god’s sake, after reading, climbing over the fence, walking up a bank to the railway level, then getting a nasty shock, can’t help but count how many ‘no gos’ in that, then ‘ssssst’ again. Shouldn’t be funny, but it was, hilarious.
Enthusiastic learning is a name for it.
The Marshes on the south-west border of the Shire is a failed river that fed into the lake which filled itself in and over because of the muddy ooze that settled out of the stagnant water. Probably. This area, and certainly a fault that is at right angles to the present river, may feed water into the Artesian Basin below. This basin has been pumped dry relentlessly. If water was diverted from the river into the pondage outline that was very evident as the perimeter now, this would be a benefit, if not now then in the future. It is old water, maybe thousands of years in the making, that water from deep below. It would help replenish that supply which has been wrecked, a lot. Drillings made from the present bed and into the aquifer below would assist the intake, surely. This area is the south-west boundary of a very deep basin and still has the artesian aspect, water bubbling to the surface, and hot and stinky. Elsewhere the output is muted somewhat. It flows to the surface but then has to be lifted overhead to fall again when demand requires that, bore baths and showers.
The value of this resource is depleting, pity. A dunk in the bore baths on a cold night is a joy. Keep that going, they said.
Landing a seaplane was the winner for me, sounds good. The other end of the flight was discussed, taking off from water somewhere near a town somewhere where you wanted to be restricted to. Lord Howe Island was suggested. Farmers go there all the time so that works (for this).
Bracer and I went to Collins Bridge to see it for ourselves. We caught the empty sheep train early, then the Rattler home in the late evening. Just to see the start of something unreal, but good. There were dead sheep in the river, pong, and people yabbying with nets near them. Yum.
The cotton conglomerate explained the variation in height measurement. They surveyed their land their way, using an altimeter/barometer. Then they measured from the pump in-take gland to the bottom of the river and deducted that measurement. That intake gland height became the standard from which all the waterworks were based on/upon.
The cotton paddocks were levelled precisely but the adjunct water works not quite so. Surveyors are expensive and the Government won’t pay for that. Those big axial flow pumps were impressive, lifting several tons of water a minute. A low height was a long way from the previous use of the site, washing sheep before cutting wool off them by hand clippers.
Bracer remained determined and wondered if we could utilise Pian Creek as the transfer channel for his water engine. The creek starts near the proposed commencement of his scheme, then travels well north of the river valley, on a landing or shelf all its own until it joins the river several miles out of our town. The creek has pretty much filled itself in so that a peak flow from upstream only now flushes through it. That peak flow registers near us earlier than the normal, expected, flow in the river proper. Pian Creek was used as the pond to turn the big river boats around in the days of yore (or whenever they were here).
There is a big dinghy in a paddock miles from the river now, washed there by a flood once in 1894?
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