Please Explain

When I woke on Thursday morning it was just getting light although the beautiful clear night when I went to bed had turned to custard and it was raining: a nuisance because I had a whirligig full of washing.  My bedside clock said 0550 which was a bit odd because the sun is usually well up by then but my sleepy mind just assumed it was the heavy cloud and I was back asleep in seconds.  In fact it was not until I woke and got up at 0750 (which is long after I'm usually up) and went through and put the television on for the news that I realised that my clock had had an electronic fit and was nearly 90 minutes fast. It's not just computers that can have fits.

I put it down as 'one of those inexplicable things' put the clock right and got on with things.  So imagine my surprise on Friday morning (yesterday) when the clock was again very fast.  Again I put it right.  When The Family came down for dinner last night Wendy and Martin mentioned that their clock had been 30 minutes fast yesterday morning and caused some surprise.  Both our clocks were fast again this morning.

The common factor with the fast clocks is that they are run off mains electricity.  All the other clocks were ok.

The utility company are replacing the main supply boxes at the moment and we are both on a temporary lorry-mounted generator.  Now I would have expected the utility company to ensure that the current supplied by the generator is exactly the same as the usual mains supply.

In any case I'm not sure how an alteration in current would make the clock run fast without causing damage to other electrical appliances.

Can anyone explain?

Controversial Beauty?

I came home on Monday from a weekend in Wanganui playing in a Croquet Tournament (about which I'll probably blog despite promising a moratorium on such blogs). I decided that, instead of coming through the Manawatu Gorge, I would come across the Saddle Road slightly to the North from Ashurst to Woodville. It comes over the top of the mountain ridge instead of though the Gorge which separates the Ruahine Range (which runs down from Hawkes Bay in the North) from the Tararua Range. The ranges house the largest wind energy farms in the Southern hemisphere: the Te Apiti Farm and the Tararua Farm.

Looking South to the Tararua Wind Energy Farm (The Handbag in the foreground). The windmills are visible through 360 degrees from the point at which I was standing.

Majestic beauty

Whether one is in favour or against generating energy by using wind farms they are likely to provide an increasing amount of New Zealand's electricity. This Country adheres very strictly to a non-nuclear policy to the extent that warships which are powered by a nuclear reactor are not permitted in territorial waters. New Zealand does, however, have supplies of geothermal energy to tap in addition to plentiful hydro sources: Electricity production by source (2001): fossil fuel: 31.6% hydro: 57.8% nuclear: 0% other: 10.7%. These figures were prior to the establishment of the main wind farms. Wind generation currently provides about 2.5% of New Zealand’s electricity. On an annual basis, this is enough electricity to meet the demand of 145,000 homes.