Vintage News 2010
VIEW OUR NEW RELEASES AND SPECIALSROMAVILLA 2010 WINTER NEWS
Since the great flood of March we have had only 70mm but the sub-soil moisture is good as we found out recently when putting in some strainer posts. This should be the case over a large area of Queensland, so there will be some good winter crops this year we hope.
A customer from Melbourne recently mentioned to me that his electricity had gone up by 34% and I hear that ours is going up by about 20%. With electioneering in full swing and politicians telling us what they will do for us, we are surprised that the cost of electricity has not been mentioned except by the Opposition, who claim that Labor will increase the price of electricity by a further 20%. We are puzzled that new technologies at the power house and new materials handling techniques have not driven the cost down.
Being curious, I looked up the cost of electricity for domestic use in China (on the internet). The site I looked at said that while it varied from region to region, it was about 1¢ per kilowatt hour. Another site said that third generation Nuclear reactors should be able to generate power for about 3¢ (this includes amortisation on the capitol) which is comparable to the cost of coal and gas fired power stations on the east coast of Australia.
In the U.S. domestic power costs about 7¢ per kw hour. Here at the Winery we pay 19.2c per kwhour.
So it appears that most of the cost of our electricity is incurred in distributing it to us.
If only we had a Nikola Tesla today to tell us how to generate cheap power and to distribute it cheaply.
In 1884 Tesla, a native of Serbia, migrated to U.S.A. He had in his possession a letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison from Charles Batchelor, his former employer. In the letter Batchelor said “I know two great men; you are one and the other is this young man”. Edison hired Tesla who quickly proved his worth solving some of the Edison Machine Works most difficult problems. Tesla claimed that Edison offered him $50,000.00 if he redesigned Edison’s inefficient motors and generators. In 1885, when Tesla asked about the payment, Edison told him that he did not understand American humour. When Edison offered him a raise from $18.00 to $25.00 per week, he resigned.
The history of electricity is littered with sharp practice.
Samuel Morse who believed that Jesuits and Jews had a secret plan to destroy the U.S.A., stole the basic idea of the electric telegraph from Joseph Henry, patented it and made a fortune.
In 1877 Edison accepted an assignment from Western Union, the World’s largest telegraph company to crush Bell. They wanted Bell to leave his prototype telephone which he had patented, with them overnight so they could examine it. Bell, however, was not silly enough to do that.
William Orton, the head of Western Union, hired Edison and Edison did improve Bell’s design by adding an electric current through the phone wire. However, Bell was able to keep the patents.
Back to Tesla; in 1886 he formed his own company, Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing. However, the original investors disagreed with Tesla on his plan for an alternating current motor and relieved him of his duties. But Tesla continued with his plan and in 1887 he demonstrated his brushless alternating current induction motor to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and started working with George Westinghouse who believed that his polyphase system would allow alternating current to be transmitted over long distance. Westinghouse offered Tesla a million dollars plus $l.00 royalty for every horsepower the motors generated, for the patent.
JP Morgan, who with Rockefeller, had formed General Electric, tried to take over Westinghouse to force the abandonment of the alternating current system in favour of DC which Edison and General Electric used. To save Westinghouse from financial ruin, Tesla tore up his contract for royalties and this allowed Westinghouse to continue using AC. This led to what has been referred to as “the current war”. Edison and GE had a lot of money invested in the DC system and so were dead set against AC. Edison carried out a campaign to discourage the use of AC. He spread disinformation about fatal AC accidents and lobbied against the use of AC in State legislature. Edison had his technician preside over the killing of stray cats, dogs and unwanted cattle with AC to show how dangerous it was. Suspiciously Tesla’s New York laboratory was destroyed by fire in 1895.
In 1902 his film crew made a movie of the killing by electrocution with AC, of a circus elephant which had killed 3 men.
Edison paid Harold P. Brown to construct the first electric chair for the State of New York in order to promote the idea that AC was deadlier then DC. The chair was first used on 6th August, 1890 to kill William Kemmler,the first jolt only injured Kemmler, and the procedure had to be repeated. A reporter said “It was an awful spectacle” and Georger Westinghouse commented “they would have done better using an axe”.
In 1895 Westinghouse, with Tesla’s help, built the first hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls to generate alternating current.
Tesla had demonstrated his alternating current motor and polyphase system to a group of Strassburg business men before leaving Europe but they showed no interest in the concept.
Tesla was an original thinker in many fields. He demonstrated that electricity could be transmitted wirelessly and was backed in this enterprise by John Jacob Astor but unfortunately Astor perished when the Titanic went down in1912.He believed that cosmic radiant energy which was hitting the earth could be harnessed to replace coal, oil and gas.
Philadelphia Public Ledger November 2, 1933. . . “Tesla to Harness Cosmic Energy which operates the universe, has been discovered by Nikola Tesla, noted physicist and inventor of scientific devices, he announced today. This principle which taps a source of power ‘everywhere present in unlimited quantities’ and which may be transmitted by wire or wireless from central plants to any part of the globe, will eliminate the need of coal, oil, gas or any other of the common fuels, he said. Dr Tesla in a statement today at his hotel, indicated the time was not far distant when the principle would be ready for practical commercial development. Asked whether the sudden introduction of his principle would upset the present economic system, Dr. Tesla replied ‘It is badly upset already’. He added that now as never before was the time ripe for the development of new resources. While in its present form, the theory calls for the development of energy in central plants requiring vast machinery. Dr. Tesla said he might be able to work out a plan for its use by individuals. The central source of cosmic energy for the earth is the sun, Dr. Tesla said, but ‘night will not interrupt the flow of new power supply”.
Free electricity was not what JP Morgan, Rockefeller and General Electric had in mind for America. However, Tesla’s alternating current was adopted by Samuel Insull, who took over the reigns of Chicago Edison in 1892, as the means to transmit power throughout America. Insull was able to greatly reduce the price of electricity by adopting new technology and evening out the demand over the whole 24 hours.
Insull had overseen an amazing growth in Edison’s business in New York and took a salary cut from $36,000.00 a year to $12,000.00 to take over the Chicago business. Within a few years he had taken over all the other generating plants in Chicago and was expanding all over the country.
Electrically driven commercial refrigeration was in use in Chicago by 1900.
Today here in Australia, we are hooked on it, among other things, to make wonderful 2010 vintage wines.
Our 2010 vintage Chardonnay, Colombard, Semillon, and Rosé are all exceptional.
Cheers, David, Richard and Joy.
Purchase Specials and Mixed Dozens
NEW RELEASES: Colombard - $12.00 Semillon - $12.00 Chardonnay - $15.00 and Rosé - $11.00.
CURRENT SPECIALS - SHIRAZ CABERNET - $120.00 dozen
TASTING DOZEN - $110.00 – 1 bottle each of Colombard, Viognier, Chardonnay, Mist, Gold, Rosé,
No Added Preservative Cabernet Merlot, Cabernet Merlot and 2 x Semillon and 2 x Shiraz Cabernet.
EVERY DAY DRINKING DOZEN - $110.00 - 2 bottles each of Semillon, Colombard, Viognier, Shiraz Cabernet, Cabernet Merlot and Rosé.
ALL REDS DOZEN – $130.00 - 4 x Shiraz Cabernet , 4 x Cabernet Merlot, 3 x Rosé and 1 x No added Preservative Cabernet Merlot.
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