Archive for May, 2020

A history of synchronous condensers in Victoria

In the past decade wind and solar generation has been displacing older coal fired power stations in Australia, with the stability of the electricity grid coming into question. One of the proposed solutions is something called a synchronous condenser – a technology that the State Electricity Commission of Victoria took advantage of fifty years ago. […]

COVID-19 related public transport observations

I’ve managed to completely avoid the topic of COVID-19 over the past few months, so here goes – a quick collection of coronavirus related public transport observations. Changes I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work from home since March, but I ventured back in early April to pick up some stuff from the […]

Old and inappropriate subdivisions of Victoria

A recent theme on my blog has been “zombie subdivisions” – suburbs that were created but never took off, resulting in empty streets in the middle of nowhere. It turns out Victorian planing policy has an official name for them – “old and inappropriate subdivisions” and a method of dealing with them – “restructure overlays”. […]

Photos from ten years ago: May 2010

Another instalment in my photos from ten years ago series – this time it is May 2010. New construction around Geelong There was plenty of work happening around Geelong, with construction of the stage 4A of the Geelong Ring Road underway at Waurn Ponds Passing over the original 1868 stone bridge built by the Barrabool […]