Dubbo Country Group End of Year Dinner
Dubbo Group of Engineers Australia celebrated the completion of another year with 12 professional development events undertaken and a visit from the Engineers Australia Sydney Division President Ms. Maryam Khajeh and Executive Officer Mr. Steve Finlay.
Maryam and her fiancé John were given a warm welcome to Dubbo with temperatures reaching 40 degrees. The day got hotter with a VIP tour of the Taronga Zoo Tasmanian Devil breading habitat and a close encounter with Juara the Sumatran Tiger.
Stewart Mcleod, Chair of the Dubbo Group and Jillian Kilby were able to show the Sydney Division President two current projects including the Apex Oval stormwater harvesting detention tank and the South Dubbo Pedestrian Bridge construction.
The Dubbo Group end of year dinner was very well attended with over 45 people enjoying a three course meal and a presentation by Mr. John Larkin of Aurora Research. John entertained and impressed the audience with his exciting sustainable energy project, which he is working on with Delta Electricity at Wallerawang. This will be a commercial scale electricity generation plant utilising biomass grown in the Central West around Forbes and West Wyalong. Farmers would be involved in the supply of 1.7 million tonnes annually of biomass which would be railed to Wallerawang for use in new generating units. Biomass utilisation reduces long term carbon emissions because it is a renewable source of fuel which simply recycles existing CO2 from the atmosphere rather than creating new stocks of same. Question time ran over time with significant interest in the project from the guests.
The Dubbo Group would like to thank the Sydney Division of Engineers Australia for their support throughout 2011 as they delivered 12 professional development opportunities for regional engineers.
With 2012 dedicated to the Year of the Regional Engineering Team, Dubbo Group are looking forward to more events, site tours and interaction with engineers from NSW (Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong).
If you would like to find out more about the activities of the Dubbo Group of Engineers Australia – please provide your current email address to stewart.mcleod@dubbo.nsw.gov.au.
