Apr 26, 2015: Party Pics and Random Bits.  Our 1st Earth Day Party was a fun and encouraging event.
Thanks to everyone who came along to our 1st Earth Day Party on Wednesday evening to help us celebrate the outstanding success of the first year of the Greeny Flat Experiment. We had about fifty people come through which, considering the amount of rain we had that night, was an excellent turn out and was about all we could handle inside our little house. It made for a very cosy affair which was nice on a cold and wet evening in the Southern Highlands. We were very grateful for all the kind and encouraging comments we received from our guests. We love our little Greeny Flat and it’s nice to hear that other people appreciate it too.
What’s next?
Now that we’ve proved conclusively that it is fairly easy to build a small, simple, affordable, comfortable, energy positive, low-maintenance, elderly friendly, fire resistant and water efficient house we are looking at a number of ways to encourage more people to do the same. I have a number of consulting jobs for people who are either wanting to build their own energy efficient house or to improve the comfort and performance of their existing buildings. I have articles to write for ReNew magazine and I am involved in a strategic planning process through our local council to look at ways for our shire to encourage responsible and sustainable economic development.
This week I also started the process of talking to the big project home builders to see if I can persuade one or more of them to offer a small, simple, energy positive home as an option to their potential customers. It is going to be very interesting to see what sort of response I get from them. As I wrote in our Dec 14 Newsletter, I think that every new building in Australia should be made to be energy positive. We’ve got a long way to go to get there and it’s the project home builders that build the most number of homes each year. They have a lot of customers and they have a very efficient building process figured out. So, if I can get them interested in the concept, they might be the perfect vehicle with which to drive the Greeny Flat idea into the mainstream.
I’ll let you know how it goes…. meanwhile below are links to some interesting things I learned about this week.
More floating solar farms
Two weeks ago I wrote about a couple of floating solar farm projects, one in Brazil and one in Australia. This week I learned about a couple more being built in Japan. The more I think about it the more it makes perfect sense to place a large array of solar panels on water which helps to keep the panels cool (making them more efficient). The shade from the panels also helps to reduce algae growth in the water and evaporation from the surface. Plus, in the case of a man-made lake or pond, the land has already been inundated so why not use the same area to make electricity instead of taking over more land for the solar panels. If you were to build two ponds covered with floating solar panels, one at the top of a hill and one at the bottom, the excess power made by the solar panels during the day could be used to pump water from the lower pond to the upper one. Then when the sun isn’t shining or you need more electricity you simply let it run back down again through a generator. What a simple and elegant way to both make and store energy! Click on the following link for more on the projects in Japan http://www.gizmag.com/floating-solar-power-plant/37156/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=20ef66d781-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-20ef66d781-91792929
Smart home controller
 The Oomi smart home controller.
I suppose it’s the way of the future but I’m pretty sceptical about the benefits of the ‘smart home’. Most of what I’ve seen along these lines seems to add layers of cost and complexity to buildings whereas I’m doing my best to make them simpler and more affordable. In spite of myself, I am quite impressed with what I have read and seen about the Oomi Smart Home Controller that is currently under development and should be available soon. It certainly promises to make the process of automating home controls much simpler (although it won’t be less expensive than controlling your home yourself).
The one thing I would like to be able to control automatically in our Passive Solar Home is the opening and closing of our insulated blinds in the winter time. As it is, if we know we’re going to be away from the house during daylight hours, we have to decide before we leave whether to leave the blinds open or closed. If we leave them open they’ll let the sun in to warm to house but if the sun doesn’t shine we’ll lose more heat through the windows. If we leave them closed it will keep the heat in better but it won’t let the sun in either. It would be nice to have a device that automatically opened the blinds when the sun was shining and closed them when it wasn’t. Not what the Oomi was designed for but I bet it could do it.
Energy Positive Office Building in Seattle
 Seattle’s Energy Positive Bullitt Centre
It calls itself ‘The Greenest Office Building in the World’ and I think this might just be true. The Bullitt Center in Seattle has just become the first office building in the world to achieve Living Building Certification ‘the most challenging benchmark of sustainability in the built environment.’ Among a raft of other stringent criteria to meet the Living Building Challenge, the Bullitt Center had to prove that it could make more energy than it used in a year. It recently completed its first year and, like the Greeny Flat, passed with flying colours, producing 60 percent more energy than it used.
Also like the Greeny Flat (but on a much bigger and more difficult scale) the team behind the Bullitt Center wanted to show that it’s possible to build much better buildings. As CEO Dennis Hayes puts it…‘If Living Buildings can be built and operated in Seattle, the cloudiest major city in the contiguous 48 states, they can and should be built everywhere…’ and that should be doubly true for sunny Australia.
It’s a truly impressive achievement and our congratulations go out to all of those involved in making this vision a reality.
Graphene’s at it Again
In last week’s Newsletter I asked the question, ‘Is There Anything Graphene Can’t Do?’ Well, as if turning electricity into light and vice versa weren’t enough, now I read that graphene has been used to make a ‘high-density supercapacitor that ‘stores six times more energy than a conventional supercapacitor, holding more than twice as much charge as a typical thin-film lithium battery in one fifth the thickness of a sheet of paper’.
One implication seems to be that this form of energy storage could be built right into solar panels. ‘Supercapacitors are usually stacked on top of each other and packaged into a single unit, but the researchers have been able to take advantage of the thinness of their device by integrating it inside a solar cell array. In this application, it was found that the supercapacitor could quickly store electrical charge generated by a solar cell during the day, hold the charge until evening, and then power an LED overnight.’ This could really be a game changer…oh yeah, and they can also charge in seconds… oh, and it’s also completely non-toxic. Click here to read more.
I don’t mean to bore you by going on about it but the more I read about graphene the more astounded I am. ‘Graphene has unmatched capabilities in both electronic and material/mechanical capacities. For example, it has the ability to convert almost every photon that it absorbs into direct current, meaning theoretically it could be used to make the holy grail of solar cells – one that is 100% efficient. This unmatched conductivity also means it could greatly improve energy storage and transmission, meaning everything from EVs (batteries and super-capacitors, etc.) to large-scale grid storage to transmission efficiencies of power and optical communications, and other infrastructure components may become so much better as to be disruptive to existing approaches to all these things. Graphene’s ability to be formed into nanowires means it may provide the smallest and most size and speed efficient circuitry for electronics and LEDs to date, by far. Graphene is the strongest material ever measured, ~200x stronger than steel, making it extremely light and resilient, offering the possibility of making many things we use, from vehicle chassis to airframes both lighter and more durable, like carbon fiber did decades before. At one molecule thick, it is also transparent, meaning it offers possibilities in touch screens and displays and means that windows may become PV modules in time.’
The strongest material ever measured!!!! AND it can convert every photon into electrical current!!! It’s mind boggling to think what this could lead to and it will be fun to watch it develop.
The Economics of Off-grid vs Grid-tied Solar
Here’s another excellent article from Solar Quotes which takes an in-depth look at whether it currently makes economic sense to disconnect from the grid with solar power. It’s a long article and worth the read if you’re interested but the bottom line is that you ‘would save much more money with a much smaller investment by installing on grid solar rather than going off grid… And this should hold true for all on grid households in Australia. It is difficult to think of any circumstances where going off grid would currently be the better option.’
The Good, The Bad, and the AGLy.
I have read before that AGL is Australia’s largest single emitter of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) so I was astounded when I read this article from the Sydney Morning Herald which claims that AGL ‘has vowed to close all its existing coal-fired power stations by 2050 and will not build or buy new conventional plants in the meantime’. The company is also Australia’s largest single producer of renewable energy with 17% of it’s generation coming from renewables. CEO, Andrew Vessey, is quoted in the article as saying that ‘companies such as AGL need to take the lead’ in keeping global warming to less than 2degrees of pre-industrial levels.’ I wonder what Mr Abbott thinks of that statement… personally, I thought it was amazing.
But then I read this other article from the Energy Matters website about the ‘Dirty Three’; AGL, Origin Energy and EnergyAustralia who, together, are responsible for 13% of Australia’s carbon emissions.
‘The ‘dirty three’ power companies often present themselves as champions of renewable energy. They operate behind a smokescreen of sustainability that makes it hard for their customers and Australian consumers to understand the real story.”
Perhaps a signal of the ramifications of the axing of Australia’s carbon tax, the report states emissions from EnergyAustralia and Origin’s dirty power stations increased by more than 500% during the last year.
Following its acquisition of Macquarie Generation, AGL is now Australia’s worst polluter in terms of carbon emissions says the report, and emissions from AGL’s dirty power stations are now more than 20 times higher than five years ago.’
The article also claims that ‘AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy have been lobbying against Australia’s Renewable Energy Target’ which doesn’t sound like the actions of a company committed to reducing GHG emissions but does sound a lot more like the old AGL know and love to hate.
|
We will not share your information with anyone else and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Recent Newsletters
-
Apr 1, 2022: These floods are no joke
-
Mar 4, 2022: Disasters of Our Own Design
-
Nov 12, 2021: Free Zoom Screening of ‘Now’ Movie on Sunday
-
Nov 5, 2021: The Times They Are A-Changing
-
Oct 14, 2021: Sustainable House Day is Back… virtually
-
Sep 24, 2021: Two Years In the Cottage
-
Jun 25, 2021: Cheap and Simple EV
-
May 14, 2021: 3D Printed Earth Home
-
Feb 26, 2021: Doing Something About It
-
Feb 12, 2021: Barangarooted
-
Jan 29, 2021: Our House on the ABC
-
Jan 8, 2021: Electric Vehicle Madness
-
Dec 12, 2020: Water Works and Solar Cars
-
Nov 13, 2020: Arts Trail Open House
-
Oct 2, 2020: Another Year of Living Positively
-
Sept 18, 2020: Virtual Sustainable House Day on Sunday
-
Sept 11, 2020: Back in Mittagong
-
Aug 28, 2020: One More Week in Port Macquarie
-
August 21, 2020: Progress Report
-
August 14, 2020: This week’s progress report
-
August 7, 2020: Port Project Photos
-
July 17, 2020: Port Macquarie Project Progress
-
June 26, 2020: All Electric Workhorses.
-
June 19, 2020: Port Macquarie Project
-
June 5, 2020: Mount Gibraltar Stone Stairway
-
May 22, 2020: Morrison Wants To Give $11M To A Coal Baron
-
April 22, 2020: Happy Earth Day
-
Mar 13, 2020: Coronavirus makes me feel lucky
-
Feb 20, 2020: Kitchen finished
-
Jan 31, 2020: How To Build a Fire-proof House
-
Jan 24, 2020: Back To Work
-
Jan 3, 2020: Childhood Beach Devastated By Fire
-
Nov 22, 2019: Energy Positive Success
-
Nov 1, 2019: Art Studio Trail This Weekend
-
Oct 18, 2019: Solar Monitoring and Upcoming Events
-
Oct 11, 2019: Queen St Renovations
-
Sept 28, 2019: Greta vs Growth
-
Sept 6, 2019: Sustainable House Day 2019 next weekend.
-
Aug 30, 2019: Solar Installed
-
Aug 23rd, 2019: Solar System Ordered and Other Notable Stuff
-
Aug 16, 2019: Two Projects Finished and Sustainable House Day Coming Up.
-
July 12, 2019: The Beauty of Bamboo
-
July 5, 2019: Back To Russell Island
-
June 28, 2019: Kitchen Upgrade
-
June 21, 2019: What’s Your 2040?
-
May 24, 2019: Public Meeting in Bowral on Friday 31st of May
-
April 26, 2019: Reader Feedback on Granny Flat Economics
-
April 12, 2019: The Economics of Granny Flats
-
Feb 20, 2019: Russell Island Home Tour
-
Feb 8, 2019: Russell Island Nearly Finished
-
Jan 25, 2019: Progress and Other Good Stuff
-
Jan 18, 2019: New Leaf and Progress Photos
-
Jan 4, 2019: Doors and Architraves
-
Dec 28, 2018: Russell Island house progress.
-
Dec 12, 2018: Back on Russell Island
-
Nov 16, 2018: Greeny Flat For Rent
-
Nov 9, 2018: A Tale of Two Houses
-
Oct 2018: Is The Housing Market Starting to See the Light?
-
Sept 16, 2018: Greeny Flat Testimonial.
-
Sept 7, 2018: Lighter Roofs and Cheaper PHEVs
-
August 31, 2018: Windows and Cladding
-
August 17, 2018: Adamant About Eaves
-
August 3rd, 2018: Raising the Roof
-
July 27, 2018: Progress Photos
-
July 13, 2018: Project Progress
-
July 7, 2018: Affordable Housing Project in QLD
-
May 11, 2018: DIY Retrofit Double-Glazing
-
May 4th, 2018: Greeny Flat Available to Rent – Jun/Jul/Aug
-
April 20, 2018: Why you MUST monitor your solar system.
-
April 6, 2018: 4th Earth Day Party – April 22
-
March 30, 2018: It’s a Great Time For Solar
-
March 23, 2018: Beware of Tradies In Your Attic
-
March 16, 2018: More Sustainable Subdivisions
-
March 2, 2018: More Solar For Landlords and Renters
-
Feb 23, 2018: The Reroofing Begins
-
Feb 16, 2018: Record Year for Rooftop Solar
-
Feb 9, 2018: Cooking With Compost
-
Feb 2, 2018: Waste-to-Energy Systems
-
Jan 16, 2018: Should I Replace My Tile Roof
-
Dec 12, 2018: More About Keeping Cool
-
Jan 5, 2018: Keeping Your Cool
-
Dec 29, 2017: Happy New Year
-
Dec 22, 2017: Upside-down Season
-
Dec 8, 2017: Bitcoin Climate Disruption
-
Dec 1, 2017: The Coming Disruption
-
Nov 24, 2017: Suncrowd Review – 0 Stars
-
Nov 17, 2017: Tesla Tiny House Here Next Week
-
Nov 2, 2017: Montana Off-grid Eco Tiny House
-
Oct 27, 2017: Glorious Rain and Good Results
-
Oct 20, 2017: Cattle… Good or Bad?
-
Oct 13, 2017: The Snow Shows Where the Heat Goes
-
Sept 6, 2017: Tesla Tiny House coming to Bowral
-
Sept 29, 2017: Home Solar and Double-dipping on Carbon Emissions
-
Sept 22, 2017: Time to Load Up On Solar
-
Sept 15, 2017: Sustainable House Day This Sunday.
-
Sept 8, 2017: Project Progress, Yellowstone, Etc
-
August 31, 2017: Day Tripping in Montana
-
August 25, 2016: Electric Vehicle Update
-
August 18, 2017: State of The States
-
August 11, 2017: Cool Stuff
-
August 4, 2017: Going to Montana
-
July 28, 2017: Episode 13 – West Side Shade Awning and Deck
-
July 21, 2017: Now That’s True Sustainability!
-
July 14, 2017: How To Choose The Best Electricity Retailer
-
July 7, 2017: A Year of PHEVing It.
-
June 30, 2017: Case Study – Holiday House Energy Upgrade
-
June 23, 2017: In The News This Week
-
June 16, 2017: Grow Your Bricks and Monitor Your Energy
-
June 9, 2016: A New Ethical Energy Retailer
-
June 2, 2017: Dark Days and Bright Spots
-
May 19, 2017: Things That Caught My Eye
-
May 12, 2017: The Sublime and the Ridiculous
-
May 4, 2017: Episode 12 – Replacing the Sewer Lines
-
April 28, 2017: Doing the Dirty Work
-
April 21, 2017: Ban the Bag
-
April 14, 2017: One Down, One Billion to Go.
-
April 7, 2017: 3RD EARTH DAY PARTY – April 22
-
March 30, 2017: Electric Shocks
-
March 17, 2017: Big Changes Coming
-
March3, 2017: Massive Erections
-
Feb 24, 2017: PHEV Love
-
Feb 2, 2017: Every Home Needs This!
-
Feb 3, 2017: Episode 11 – How To Make a Solar Air Heating Wall
-
Jan 20, 2017: Episode 10 – Why Build a Solar Air Heating Wall?
-
Jan 13, 2017: Agents of Change and a New Local Brew
-
Jan 6, 2017: Starfish and the Cost of Australia’s Poor Quality Houses
-
Dec 23, 2016: Episode 9 – What’s a Trombe Wall?
-
Dec 16, 2016: Episode 8 – Retrofitting Passive Solar
-
Dec 11, 2016: Episode 7 – New Windows in Old Walls
-
Nov 25, 2016: Repower Excitement and Episode 6
-
Nov 18, 2016: Community Renewable Energy Investment Opportunity
-
Nov 4, 2016: Window Replacement and Tesla’s New Battery
-
Oct 28, 2016: Suncrowd! What a Buzz!
-
Oct 20, 2016: Episode 4 and Catchpower Answers
-
Oct 14, 2016: Episode 3 – Borers, Rot and Underfloor Ventilation
-
Oct 7, 2016: Episode 2 and SunCrowd Invitation
-
Sept 30, 2016: Home Energy Retrofit Video 1
-
Sept 23, 2016: Catch Power – So What’s The Catch?
-
Sept 16, 2016: What To Do at the End of the 60c Feed-in Tariff
-
Sept 9, 2016: Happy Sustainable House Day!
-
Sept 2, 2016: The Beginning of the End of Solar Subsidies in NSW
-
August 25th, 2016: Lessons from an Infrared Camera
-
Aug 19, 2016: Open Source Tiny Homes
-
August 12, 2016: Sustainable House Day 2016
-
Aug 4, 2016: Solar Bulk-buy with SunCrowd
-
July 29, 2016: ‘Free’ Power with Repower
-
July 21, 2016: Fibro Cottage Energy Retrofit
-
July 15, 2016: Science With a Conscience
-
July 8, 2016: Election Day – Droning On
-
June 25, 2016: ‘Renewable Electricity’ is NOT ‘Renewable Energy’
-
June 19, 2016: The Power of TV and The Rise of The Machines
-
June 12, 2016: Magnetite, Drones and Climate Action
-
June 4, 2016: Stools to Fuels
-
May 29th, 2016: The Future of Energy?
-
May 21, 2016: Concrete Alternatives and PCM’s
-
May 15, 2016: First the Good News
-
May 8, 2016: Underslab Insulation
-
May 1, 2016: Counting Comfort and Costs
-
April 24, 2016: Celebrating Two Years of Energy Positive Living
-
April 17, 2016: Gimme Three Reasons
-
Apr 10, 2016: Second Earth Day Party, 4-7pm April 22nd.
-
April 3, 2016: Home Battery Updates
-
Mar 26, 2016: An Electric Transportation Revolution
-
Mar 18, 2016: Mould and Other Fun Stuff
-
Mar 12, 2016: Reader Feedback and Lithium Issues
-
Mar 6, 2016: Beware of ‘Standard Practices’
-
Feb 28, 2016: Fossil Fools
-
Feb 20, 2016: Grow, Cook, Eat – Offgrid Power – and Welsh Cars
-
Feb 14th, 2016: Gotta Love These Little Houses
-
Feb 7, 2016: Renewable Energy Prepares For Take Off
-
Jan 24, 2016: PHEV Goes Bush
-
Jan 17, 2016: 1.5L/100km
-
Jan 10, 2016: How To Reduce Our Carbon Footprint
-
Jan 3, 2016: PHEV Goes Camping
-
Dec 27, 2015: Electric Driving Less Than Half The Cost of Petrol
-
Dec 20, 2015: Our First Week With an Electric Vehicle
-
Dec 13, 2015: Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is.
-
Dec 13, 2015: Paris Talks Waffle?
-
Nov 29, 2015: Walking for Climate Action and Driving Electric Vehicles
-
Nov 15, 2015: Battery Storage Options
-
Oct 8, 2015: The Big Disconnect?
-
Nov 11, 2015: 7,377,870,064 Elephants in the Room
-
Oct 25, 2015: Pros and Cons of Granny Flats
-
Oct 16, 2015: Greeny Flat Wins Green Globe Award!
-
Oct 11, 2015: What’s Wrong With This Picture?
-
Sep 27, 2015: Build Tight, Vent Right
-
Sep 20, 2015: Driving Sustainability
-
Sept 12, 2015: Greeny Flat Named 2015 Green Globe Awards Finalist
-
Sept 6, 2015: Sustainable House Day
-
August 27, 2015: Water, Water Everywhere!
-
August 23, 2015: Back in Brazil
-
August 14, 2015: Ranch Life and Sustainable House Day
-
August 7, 2015: Greetings From Montana
-
August 8, 2015: Renewable Choice for Oz Voters
-
July18, 2015: Whoops, I Spoke Too Soon
-
Jul 12, 2015: Nice Weather for Eskimos
-
Jul 5, 2015: Solar Planes, Trains and Automobiles
-
Jun 28, 2015: Greeny Flat Welcomes Sustainable Lifestyle
-
Jun 21, 2015: Happy Winter Solstice!
-
Jun 14, 2015: Test Drive the Greeny Flat
-
Jun 7, 2015: Visit to a Local Food Forest
-
May 31, 2015: Exciting Times!
-
May 24, 2015: The Heat Goes On
-
May 17, 2015: DIY Solar Air Heater Prototype
-
May 10, 2015: K.I.S.S. My House
-
May 3rd, 2015: Tesla Reinvents Electicity
-
Apr 26, 2015: Party Pics and Random Bits.
-
Apr 22, 2015: Experiment Declared Resounding Success!
-
Apr 19, 2015: Greeny Flat’s 1st Earth Day Party this week
-
Apr 12, 2015: Sand Wars, Floating Solar Farms and other Fun Stuff.
-
Apr 5, 2015: Invitation to a Party
-
Apr 4, 2015: UK’s First Carbon Neutral Town
-
Mar 21, 2015: Latest Results and Reader Feedback
-
Mar 16, 2015: Our Double-glazed Windows
-
Mar 8, 2015: Form Follows Function
-
Mar 8, 2015: Reader Feedback
-
Mar 1, 2015: Some Fun Stuff
-
Feb 22, 2015: Proof Positive
-
Feb 15, 2015: Case Studies – Heat Doesn’t Rise
-
Feb 8, 2015: In all sorts of hot water
-
Feb 2, 2015: Rethinking the way we design and build
-
Jan 25, 2015: Latest Results and Electric Vehicles.
-
Jan 20, 2015: The GreenPower plot thickens
-
Jan 18, 2015: Switching to Green Power
-
Jan 11, 2015: Our surface-mounted electrical system
-
Jan 4, 2015: Our Solar Power System
-
Dec 28, 2014: Sandwiches for Cathedrals
-
Dec 24, 2014: December Results
-
Dec 16, 2014: Eco-home Display Village Concept
-
Dec 14, 2014: All New Homes to be Energy Positive by 2016.
-
Dec 7, 2014: $41 Energy Bill for last three months
-
Nov 25, 2014: Think light for a cooler roof
-
Nov 22, 2014: Staying cool in the heat
-
Nov 9, 2014: The benefits of a small home.
-
Oct 26, 2014: Last Sunday the Greeny Flat made 4 TIMES as much energy as it used!
-
Oct 12, 2014: Lessons learned so far
-
Oct 10, 2014: Why an all electric house?
-
Sept 22, 2014: Great Day for Renewable Energy
-
Sept 21, 2014: Greeny Flat Cost Analysis
-
Sept 11, 2014: $10.63 worth of energy in 3 months.
-
August 30, 2014: Greeny Flat open for Sustainable House Day
-
August 22, 2014: Four months and going strong.
-
July 22, 2014: Three month’s results… All Positive!
-
July 4, 2014: Energy Independence Day!
-
June 11, 2014: Cintia’s winter
-
May 27, 2014: Greeny Flat on ABC
-
May 27, 2014: Cool Fridge Wins Energy Star Wars
-
May 23, 2014: Testing the air-tightness
-
May 19, 2014: First month’s results… VERY promising!
-
Apr 22, 2014: Earth Day marks the start of one year of monitoring
-
Mar 24, 2014: start of a big week
-
Mar 7, 2014: BASIX is a JOKE!
-
Mar 6, 2014: starting on the kitchen
-
Mar 1, 2014: Pumps and Solar Hot Water: decisions, Decision, DECISIONS!
-
Feb 24, 2014: Greeny Flat in the news
-
Feb 20, 2014: surface mounted electrical system
-
Feb 19, 2014: end in sight for the construction phase.
|
Leave a Reply