Light Pollution at Swanbank January 17th, 2007 Update
I sent a email to CSEngery the operates of Swanbank power station on 30/11/2006 concerning the floodlighting of the chimneys. To which they responded on 04/12/2006. A further email was sent on 17/12/2006 as I had some more questions. This time they responded with a letter. As part of the letter they offered to have a meeting to discuss my concerns. I took them up on their offer. The meeting was held on 17/01/2007 at Swanbank. The meeting was with John James, Site Manager Swanbank and John Green(?) Environmental Officer(?)
I explained to them why I was concerned the lighting of the chimneys from an astronomical view point.
* Good lighting involves the lights pointing down, being shielded and only
lighting the desired area.
* City based astronomers unfortunately accept that there will all ways be light pollution in a urban environment
* The light pollution needs to be controlled, mininised
* If one company is allowed to shine lights into the sky, then another will do it, and then another, so the sky will be wasted
* I explained to them my understanding of what could be happening., the lights are not properly aligned and not shielded.
* I showed them the pictures I have taken, showing the effects of the lighting.
* Astronomers understand the need for safety lighting, like everyone else we
would hate to see anyone get hurt by a plane crashing into the towers, or being injured by working on the chimneys.
* I asked why they couldn't use red flashing hazards as seen on many other tall structures ( like the TV towers on Mt Cootha)
John James then explained the situation from Swanbank view point.
* The lights will be gone by 2011/2012 when the towers are planed to be
removed. (Three other chimneys were recently removed).
* The chimneys are lit to meet CASA air safety requirements.
* CASA requires the top of the chimneys to be lit and be at a certain light (lux?) level.
* Hazard lights need to be placed at certain intervals and on all sides of the
chimneys.
* Access to the chimneys can only occur when the generators that use that
chimney is shut down. There are safety issues with gases and heat.
* Access to the chimneys is via single ladder that goes to top at about 140m, where there is platform. To access the other sides of the chimney requires someone to absail down the side of the chimney.
* A red hazard light has fallen from a chimney hitting a car.
* Swanbank has no particular desire themselves to have the chimneys lit other to meet CASA requirements.
* It costs Swanbank to install and run the lights, they would be happy to save the money by turning them off.
* Unnecessary lighting and other unnecessary power consumption causes the Swanbank to generate more power which in turns uses more water and
releases more greenhouse gases. The use of additional water is a concern due to the current drought in south east Queensland.
My view of John James's comments were that
* They were surprised to see how much light was missing the towers
* The lighting engineer meet the CASA requirements but failed to take into
account the way the light spread / scatters from lights.
John James then took me onto the site so that I could get a close up view of the lights and the chimneys. After the tour of chimneys we returned to the meeting and discussed the situation based on what I have seen.
On seeing the chimneys from their base and the height of that ladder, I can fully understand their safety concerns about having people climb the ladders.
My first impressions of the lights were somewhat disappointing. I had expected to see a series of large banks of lights like you would see the SCG or MCG. Instead around each chimney are four sets of two 2000watt lights mounted on a stand that could be used for netball. A total of eight pairs. Each light would be not larger than about 50cm(?). There is no shielding at all on the lights and the lights point nearly vertical.
On the bright side (bad pun) , sorry positive side there is no large expensive structure or mounting that would need to be modified. The lights sit on simple pivot mount. Loosening a couple of bolts would allow the angle of the lights to be changed. The current lights are in a surprisingly simple setup which any weekend electrician could have installed.
The solution to fix the lights would be have a some sort of hollow tube mounted in front of the lights. The tube would act as a light shield better directing the light onto the towers. The tube would then sit on top of a pole. I would image it would be relatively simple for a lighting engineer to work out what angle the lights should be at and the length of tube to get the correct lux levels and minimise the scatter.
A second part of the solution is that there are two pairs of lights that are located in between to the chimneys. It would appear that these are either redundant or could be set a lower light level because unless a plane is flying between the chimneys a plane would not see these side of the chimneys.
Is anybody a lighting engineer or has a friend that could help out?
John James said that
* He would talk to his lighting engineers about my ideas.
* He would to the light supplier to see if there light shields available
* That I should contact CASA to find out their view on the lights
For me
* I will be contacting CASA to get more information
* Follow-up with John James to see if he did talk to his lighting engineers,
* Follow-up with John James to see if the light supplier provide light shields
* I would like to talk to lighting engineer
There has been 4 letter published by the Queensland Times protesting against the lights. An Additional letter published said "Like to see to work on the towers and get your facts right". To which I responded by asking the letter's writer which facts were wrong and the source of his information. As far as I can tell, the letter's writer has not replied back.
Please complain to CSEngery
EnergyInfo@csenergy.com.au
or email to the Queensland Times letters
letters@qt.com.au
If you do write, please let me know
Brendan
You Crack me up astrojunk 
