1980s The Grand Confluence of Technological Innovation (Solid State and Optic Fiber)
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Technology
Increasing dependence on Bulk-generated electrical products from distant large-scale plant – the era of Think Big.
Thermal-magnetic circuit breakers begin to replace fuses on scale.
Advent of solid state meters meters and ripple receivers.
Advent of optic fiber cable enables large-scale information transfer.
Computers, including personal computers, enable large-scale storage of information and potential of load management.
The Dwelling 230v Control Console becomes miniaturized and more user friendly with new insulating materials and solid state devices.
Common uses of electrical products:
household appliance use extended to include computers, ceramic heat stores, tapedecks/video recorders, remote control devices, battery chargers for wide range of voltages
Information
Still mainly visual (reading odometer/cyclometer/LCD display), observing fuse/circuit breaker array and appliance performance* etc.
Data is still recorded manually onto paper or with a computer key board. By the end of the decade information is being transferred on scale using optic fiber cable.
*Many appliances also now have inbuilt clocks and multiple thermostat settings so information is now more dispersed throughout dwelling.
The ability of communities to transfer, store and collate information
of their local situation through their Municipal Electricity Department (MED) or Power Board rises exponentially. This includes information about patterns of behaviour of the users of the network e.g. the impacts of dwelling design, type of appliance use, hours of use etc. Communities through their MED can use information to inform urban design and social welfare planning, as can Borough Councils and Power Boards that share informal networks of links.
Civics
The structural legacy of the era 1910-1980 still prevails. To reiterate: a national network of 60 democratic, freehold 
cooperatives in the form of MEDs or Power Boards 
operates in New Zealand. All citizens can participate through these in the national market for Bulk-generated electrical products.
Governance structure remains service-driven so high degree of civics (resource conservation) can prevail. The degree of civics varies by region from moderate to very good. Excellent civics cannot prevail because of the national lack of science – see below.
Nonetheless some regions of New Zealand are world leaders in local load management.
All citizens of voting age retain the right to vote every three years how their community uses its local electrical potential 
and how the information of their home is used.
However a profound change in institutional memory and belief systems is occurring. The generation born after 1940 assumes control in business, Government, media and education. This generation has no direct experience of war or deprivation. They are inculcated in the inter-related beliefs:
(a) It is our right to burn fossilized biomass on scale,
(b) Planned obsolescence (diseconomy) is normal.
(c) Humans and the provisions of vital needs (heating, communication, lighting etc) exist as commodities and means of private profit.
These beliefs are reflected in this generation’s use of the English language. Electrical engineers and policy makers since the 1930s have propagated the impossible equation
Power = Electricity = Bulk-generated electrical products.
This belief diminishes the state of science in our communities in general and perceptions of our electrical potential in particular. The establishment in1977 of a Ministry of Energy diminishes the national state of science (civics) to a perilous degree. By 1980 NZ is effectively governed using a fatally flawed equation:
Energy = Fossilized biomass = Power = Electricity = Bulk-generated electrical products.
This gross denial of the principles of physics and loss of science (civics) becomes manifest in the following ways:
⇒The emergence of the “Energy Conscious Age” in which well-meaning electrical engineers and Environmentalists/Green teachers begin to propagate the above energy equation throughout our communities;
⇒The adoption of Think Big https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Big and the rejection of solar-electrical options;
⇒The movement to make energy efficiency practice illegal – imperatives to maximize the short-term profits of principal shareholders replace service-driven imperatives;
⇒The accounting system is reformed so that Civil Protection (Civil Defence) measures are valued as liabilities i.e. as needless duplication and “uneconomic investments”;
⇒individuals are defined as commodities while corporations are accorded the rights of citizens;
⇒The emergence of a reactionary Green/Environmental Movement founded in the belief The Environment = Ecology, which tends to propagate that which it reacts against. (The inherent disconnect of the self from the environment works to undermine civic awareness. Put simply “Humans are their environment” becomes “Humans and the environment”.);
⇒ Delusional behaviour and societal breakdown e.g. the new accounting equation means the global price rise in 1979 for mineral oil generates in New Zealand an instant 60% price rise for Bulk-generated electrical products and on-going societal implosion in the form of debt accumulation, inequality, fire sales of national assets, unsustainable hidden subsidies to cars etc.
Common Perception of Dwelling 230v Control Console
The common alienation of citizens from their 230v Control Console increases despite safer insulation and solid state technology. Causes of alienation include:
(1) Most permits for new construction and major renovations 
dictate that the 230v meter and ripple receiver are placed outside the dwelling. Thus dwelling control consoles become increasingly fragmented.
(2) The flawed equation of Bulk-generated electrical products and mineral oil/gas with energy generates a new language that obscures local electrical potentials while enhancing the delusion that it is sustainable to burn fossilized biomass without regard for the consequences.
(3) The corrupt linkage of the price of NZ electrical products with global mineral oil prices disenfranchises and disillusions citizens.
(4) People have less reason to be sentient of daily load management in regions where reticulated mineral gas becomes an option.
Health /ecology
Pollution decreases locally as coal-to-gas plants are closed in urban areas. Local pollution also decreases as “open fires” in dwellings cease to be permitted and electrically heated brick stores are installed. These decreases are offset by increasing reliance of combustion appliances such as wood-burners, cars, buses, trucks
and the global pollution from distant devices. The fringe interest in our local solar and wind potential that developed after the 1973 mineral oil price scarcity is almost eliminated by the new “energy” ethos and associated diseconomy. This ethos is reflected in dwelling and urban design plus national legislation and language that gives zero value to local solar potential and attributes zero cost to pollution.
BACK
1950 – 1980s: 230V Grids become Telecommunications Systems
NEXT
1990s -2011 The Great Dumb-down as Community information is Fragmented and Privatized