Visits

This special trip to CSIRO Newcastle was organized jointly by CAP and
the St Johns Church in Dee Why. CSIRO currently only have two times each year when they show the public through the facility.

Most of the group met at Hornsby and travelled by train to Newcastle and then taxi to the CSIRO. On arrival we were met by the CSIRO education officer and were shown an interesting video of CSIRO activities followed by a two hour tour of the various research sections. Interesting research activities included

• Low cost thin film organically based PV
• Domestic solar powered air conditioning using a desiccant dryer/evaporative cooler principle
• Concentrating solar thermal power station development based on using solar power to heat a turbine in place of fossil fuels – does not need any water for cooling and is suited for outback Australia with lots of sun and not much water.
• Many energy saving features incorporated into the CSIRO building fabric leading to a low energy building

We all enjoyed the on online casinos visit but it could have been a lot better. Our tour guide was not able to answer many of the technical queries from our well
informed group and none of the researchers were present to answer our specific queries.

Some of us are hoping to go up again on an Open Day when all researchers
will be available for discussions – but CSIRO are currently saying there will
be no Open Day this year. Our Group is not impressed and we are making
representations thru Rob Stokes and the like to see why not.

Members of the Group comprised:

Graeme Jessup

Barbara Elkan

Bill Peters

Karin Peters

Sue Guard

Sylvia Sheath

Jacqui Marlow

Felicity Crombach

Lynne Czinner

Audette Vaughn

Heather Andrews

Jo Tulau

And about six from St Johns Church