Thank you Mr Edison

..clothes.
When Mike is over for a meal he can at least sing for his supper whilst the
stereo sits darkly in the corner. Sometimes we forlornly and plaintively complain
to the electricity purveyor we are currently signed up to. The frequency and
ongoing nature of the failures seems to indicate that there is little they will,
or can, do about it.
In our circumstances we are calling one of the retailing organisations that
claims to be selling green energy a fact which I regularly confirm from the
brown envelope, recycled paper and greater expense. The electricity itself is
no different to any other stream of electrons but is allegedly generated by
something less pernicious than brown coal. Or so they say – it is really a matter
of trust.
But green or not, supplied by fermentation wind and good intentions, it often
just stops and we sit temporarily marooned in the dark in the bush with only
the sound of frogs or distant cars to keep us company,
After a while the lights flicker back into fluorescent action, the various motors
hopefully not damaged by the fluctuating voltages cut back into action, and
the heating heats and the refrigerator refrigerates. The annoying task of resetting
all the mains dependent clocks gets done and life gets back to normal.
It is hard for our generation to imagine life without the most ubiquitous and
culturally transforming invention since the wheel, the flush toilet, and the
stump-jump plough.
But my grandmother’s generation lived the early part of their lives in
the era of the kerosene lamp, candles and firelight. They went to bed early
soon after the sun set and got up as the sun rose. In the winter they worked
less and in the summer months the worked longer.
With more time in bed there were more of them. The wound their scarce clocks
and watches by hand in an approximate time for the time could vary – not just
between individuals – but between towns and cities. It wasn’t until the
invention of the telegraph that trains and events that required synchronisation
ran to the same time more or less everywhere.

The privatisation of the electricity industry has not been a major boon to
anyone except the organising financiers. It provided a short term hit to the
public coffers when it happened in the Stygian gloom of the Kennett era. Basically
the industry was divided into three sectors, production, transmission and
retail with various degrees of regulatory and overseeing bodies with the sole
purpose of maximising financial return.
With the options of new base-load power generation in the hands of executives
who are unsurprisingly worried about the implementation of a carbon tax moving
away from Victoria’s brown coal backbone is going to be a hard investment
decision. In fact because retailers compete for power it is more profitable
to build short term overload gas turbine capability for when everybody turns
on the air-conditioner as the summer temperatures rise. The decision as how
to replace the base load generation for which Victoria seems to be addicted
to brown coal as a smoker is to his cigarettes remains unanswered .
Power is one of the basic utilities whose the privatisation was political
rather that logical brought about by the few cells of Jeff Kennett’s
brain glowing in awe of Maggie Thatcher whose doctrinaire and wholesale privatisation
has had the same effects in England. Long term investment decisions that benefit
the whole state are not generally going to be made by companies interested
in maximising profitability. It is arguable that Victoria did not have to
sell either the gas or electricity corporations but could have used the income
generated from their operation to steadily rectify what was seen as the then
intolerable financial situation. Whilst I realise that most State governments
have a poor history of running the even the most basic of enterprises it doesn’t
need to be so nor has it always been so. Despite the occasional eye-watering
bastardry of some Australian unions.
We should remember that in Victoria the government took over and unified the
electricity industry in 1920 when it was structurally dysfunctional and inefficient.
Prior to the 1920s electricity generation and distribution was carried out
by municipalities, by private companies under franchise to the councils, or
by joint private-public bodies.
Given the current tea party state of Australian politics there is neither
the appetite nor the money for repeating this take-over so what the future
holds should be interesting.
Though given that the Federal government is in the midst of recreating a new
Telstra after brilliantly having destroyed the previous version, perhaps anything
is possible.