Well, it’s a dark day here at the Greeny Flat. We learned this morning that Donald Trump has decided to back out of the Paris Climate Accord complaining that it is ‘very unfair to the US‘. I wonder if anyone has pointed out to him that the US, with 5% of the world’s population, produces something like 18% of its greenhouse gas emissions. Hardly seems fair to everyone else, does it?
That is undoubtedly true but it’s hard to see how we’re going to stop this insanity. And it’s particularly depressing to reflect that Trump is due to hold the most powerful office in the world for at least another three-and-a-half years.
Meanwhile our own Prime Minister, Malcolm Turncoat, has stated uncategorically that Australia will remain in the Paris deal. Personally, I don’t believe a word he says and, in the meantime, his government wants to allow the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund coal-fired power projects as long as they include ‘carbon capture’. This is where some of the carbon dioxide is pulled out of the smoke stack and pumped underground for ‘storage’. What a ridiculous concept to think that pressurised carbon-dioxide is going to stay in the ground for more than about five minutes.
‘The technology depends on local geology, and has proven prohibitively expensive. A $2.4 billion carbon capture and storage flagship program announced by the Rudd government in 2009 yielded little and was gradually wound back before being discontinued under the Coalition.’
But that isn’t stopping Turncoat from trying to divert millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money (that has been set aside to foster renewable energy projects via the CEFC) and use it to promote more fossil-fuel development. I can just hear Tony Abbott whispering in his ear, ‘Coal is the future mate.‘
The puppet master.
Enough of that depressing stuff. Here are some of the bright spots for this week.
Computational Wizzardry
Have a look at the video below and consider the computational speed and accuracy required for this little drone to calculate the trajectory of the ball, consider all the possible routes to catch it, choose the best, get there, catch the ball, bring it back and drop it in the guy’s hand. It’s astounding. But bear in mind that most humans can do this without even thinking about it.
Sign of The Times
I read this week on RenewEconomy that there are plans to build a 1,021MW (ten times bigger than Australia’s largest) solar plant in the oilfields of Oman. This will be the world’s biggest solar power installation. Unfortunately it will be used for ‘generating 6,000 tons of steam per day to coax viscous oil from Oman’s Amal oil field’ but I suppose it’s better than burning fossil fuels in order to extract more fossil fuels.
Canberra’s Solar Suburb
A solar suburb in the states.
In a move that will hopefully be copied throughout Australia, the new Canberra suburb of Denman Prospect will require all new homes to have at least 3kW of solar on their roof. As reported in this article from SERREE (the South East Region for Renewable Energy Excellence), ‘every house … will have a minimum 3kW solar system that will generate around 4146kWh of electricity annually, reducing yearly carbon emissions from fossil-fuelled generation by about 3.7 tonnes for each house. ActewAGL began installing the first round of solar systems on the first 350 homes in the suburb in December last year… collectively, they will generate electricity equivalent to a 1.05MW solar farm.’
It’s a bit frustrating living so close to Canberra. It’s only two hours drive but it is so far ahead of NSW in terms of its Renewable Energy policies that it might as well be on a different planet. Of course, it’s important to remember that adding solar is the last step in making a house more sustainable. Firstly you should do everything you can to reduce the amount of energy required by applying the principles of Passive Solar Design and then using the highest efficiency appliances and equipment you can find. Once you’ve got your energy use down to a minimum it’s much easier to meet you requirements with a solar power system.
Plastic Bottle House
Plastic bottle house in the Sahara. (Source: UNHCR)
The picture above is from a refugee camp in Algeria where a Sahrawi refugee named Tateh Lehbib Breica is putting a serious waste problem to good use. As described in this article from Huffington Post, most of the plastic bottles that find their way to these refugee camps are not recycled. By filling them with sand and using them as a building material, Breica is not only keeping them out of landfill but also making more durable and comfortable homes than were previously being built in this camp.
Personally, I’d be interested to see what would happen if they used empty bottles. I’m sure the insulation (and therefore the comfort levels) would be better but the light weight might cause durability problems. Anyway, it’s an interesting idea and hopefully brings a little comfort and relief to the poor people who have lived in this camp for over 40 years.
Which is yet another reminder of how incredibly blessed and lucky we are to live in this cozy little house in this beautiful, peaceful and prosperous place.
Cintia and I had a lovely holiday in Port Macquarie last week and now we’re happily home again in our cozy little Greeny Flat. It’s too wet to do any work on the Energy Retrofit of the old cottage next door so I thought I’d provide you with links to a bunch of interesting things that have caught my attention over the last couple of weeks.
Predicting the End of Petrol Cars and Fossil Fuels
This article from the Financial Post just came in from one of our readers who is also a physics teacher at a local high-school. The article credits Stanford University economist Tony Seba with the following predictions:
Image source: treehugger
No more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century.
‘Certain high-cost countries, companies, and fields will see their oil production entirely wiped out. Exxon-Mobil, Shell and BP could see 40 per cent to 50 per cent of their assets become stranded,’ the report said.
These are all large claims, though familiar to those on the cutting edge of energy technology. While the professor’s timing may be off by a few years, there is little doubt about the general direction.
EVs will increase U.S. electricity demand by 18 per cent but that does not imply the need for more capacity. They will draw power at times of peak supply and release it during peak demand. They are themselves a storage reservoir, helping to smooth the effects of intermittent solar and wind, and to absorb excess base-load from power plants.
Experts will argue over Seba’s claims. His broad point is that multiple technological trends are combining in a perfect storm. The simplicity of the EV model is breath-taking. The Tesla S has 18 moving parts, one hundred times fewer than a combustion engine car. “Maintenance is essentially zero. That is why Tesla is offering infinite-mile warranties. You can drive it to the moon and back and they will still warranty it,” Prof Seba said.
Whether you believe it or not, I think it’s worth considering just how dramatic, rapid and world-changing the shift to electric and self-driving vehicles might be. No new petrol cars in eight years time…. that’s certainly food for thought!
Autonomous Electric Garbage Truck
Image source: New Atlas
Don’t believe the above? What if I told you that Volvo is currently testing a prototype Autonomous Electric Garbage Truck? According to this article from New Atlas this trial is already underway in Sweden.
The truck is similar to a project Volvo has undertaken with autonomous mining vehicles, using very similar technology, but programmed for urban use. The truck is first manually driven through the garbage collection route as it maps and records the path and its various stops. Subsequent visits will then be driven by the truck itself, which continuously senses its surroundings to react to changes in the environment.
Self-driving Cars Smooth Traffic Flow
On the subject of autonomous vehicles, this New Atlas article reports on a study which showed that just adding one self-driving car for every twenty human-driven ones had a big impact on traffic flow.
Based on test track results, the teams says that having a mix of only five percent automated vehicles can eliminate stop-and-go waves while producing fuel savings of up to 40 percent.
It seems that, by simply driving at a steady speed (compared to humans who can’t resist going as fast as possible until they come up behind the car in front then hitting the brakes) the autonomous vehicle was able to cause all of the human drivers to stick to a steady pace as well. Traffic control heaven won’t have any human drivers in it at all.
Five Minute Car Charging
Also from New Atlas comes this article about a new type of ‘Flash Battery’ which has the potential to take on 500km worth of electric car charging in only five minutes.
The FlashBattery makes use of something called nanodots to deliver fast charging. Nanodots are chemically synthesized peptide molecules. They form the basis for a multi-function electrode, allowing super capacitor-style rapid charging with a slow discharge similar to a lithium-ion battery. The chemical compound isn’t flammable and has a higher combustion temperature than graphite, which cuts the resistance of the battery.
From a production standpoint, the nanodots are made from a range of environmentally friendly bio-organic raw materials that are naturally abundant and, according to StoreDot, cheap to manufacture.
It’s these sorts of developments that might make Tony Seba’s predictions into realities.
Wave Swell Energy
Image source: ABC
I’ve written in the past about a West Australian company called Carnegie Wave Energy and their CETO electricity generator. Lately I’ve been hearing about a Sydney startup called Wave Swell Energy (WSE) which has a very different type of wave energy generator. The CETO system, and most of the other ocean generators I’ve seen before, bob up and down in the water and use that motion to generate electricity. The WSE system however stays stationary and uses the force of waves entering a fixed chamber to compress air which powers a turbine to generate electricity.
What I like about this concept is that it seems much less susceptible to damage from either corrosion or extreme weather conditions. Having owned an ocean-going yacht I’m painfully aware of how difficult it can be to maintain anything in the corrosive and rough conditions the ocean produces. So a system that is protected from the worst of these seems like a very good idea.
According to an article in The Australian, WSE is currently raising funds to build its first wave power plant on King Island in Bass Strait.
The expected cost of energy production using WSE technology is 10c per kilowatt hour, which makes it comparable with new hi-tech forms of coal power. ‘That is a very competitive rate for the first iteration of renewable technology,’ said WSE founder Tom Denniss. ‘And we would expect in five years’ time to be delivering energy at half that cost.’
This looks like the most promising wave energy technology I’ve seen to date and you can see an ABC video story about it by clicking here.
Other Items
This Press Release talks about a new ‘Energy-on Demand’ system that sounds extremely promising. Certainly one to keep an eye on. ‘While the technology draws from my invention – the CLAS (Chemical Looping Air Separation) process which is patented by the University of Newcastle – it also features a number of unique characteristics which make it distinct,’ said Professor Moghtaderi. ‘It’s a poly-generation process capable of simultaneous production of heat, power, oxygen, hot water and chilled water for air-conditioning. As a result, the overall efficiency of the process is in excess of 90 percent.’
This Energy Matters article quotes a report by the Climate Council stating ‘that gas isn’t any less polluting than coal as an energy source and will ultimately further push electricity prices up … and… that renewable energy ‘can provide a secure, affordable alternative to new fossil fuels’. Personally I think we’re about to see dramatic increases in the cost of both grid electricity and natural gas. This will make renewable energy even more competitive, especially because it should also cause an increase in Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) which is the amount your energy retailer pays you for any excess solar power you put back into the grid.
The last point is emphasised by this article from Solar Quotes which predicts that electricity prices will rise by about 20% over the next 2-3 years and that solar FITs will double as a result. So, if you haven’t already installed a solar power system… now is definitely the time to do it. You’ll save more from the grid power you don’t use and you’ll make more from the solar power you put into the grid.
Image Source: News.com.au
Lastly for this week we’ll briefly revisit the plastic waste issue. Many of you have probably seen the first show in the ABC’s three-part series entitled War on Waste. If you haven’t seen it yet you can watch it on iview here. It’s an entertaining and thought-provoking look at how much waste we produce and what we might do about it. This is timely in light of the recent discovery of a deserted island in the Pacific that is completely covered in plastic rubbish that has washed up out of the ocean. And it is helping to push support for the petition I mentioned a few weeks ago called Ban The Bag which now has over 134,000 signatures.
It finally feels like something has shifted in the movement towards reducing carbon emissions and pollution and improving energy efficiency and sustainability. Higher prices for ‘traditional’ energy sources will make many of these new technologies and existing renewable energy sources more cost-competitive and hasten the shift to cleaner and greener ways of doing things.
This week Cintia and I are on holiday in Port Macquarie which we’re discovering is a delightful place. Apart from getting to surf everyday we’ve been on wonderful walks along the coast, had delicious meals in fancy restaurants and today we went to visit the koala hospital. They really are the most adorable creatures and the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital does very important work helping to ensure that the species survives in the face of multiple threats from loss of habitat, disease, feral animals and vehicles.
‘David’ – a permanent resident at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital
Holiday Reading
Another joy of being on holiday is having some time to read. So far I’ve finished two books which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.
The two books I’ve read this week.
The Sublime
Regular readers will know that I often rant about the absurd global obsession with ‘GROWTH’. Countries all over the world measure growth in terms of Gross Domestic Product or GDP. This is an awful measure of the success of a nation. Focusing on increasing GDP creates the illusion that consumption is good and should be encouraged. This leads to increased waste, debt, environmental problems, health problems, over-population, etc, etc, etc.
Bhutan is one of the few countries in the world that has chosen to focus on something other than GROWTH. I have a few friends who’ve spent time in Bhutan (located in the Himalayan mountains between India and Tibet) and it sounds like a truly remarkable country. One of these friends is lending us their apartment for the week and I found this amazing book ‘Bhutan – A Mosaic of the Dragon’ sitting on the coffee table. I couldn’t find any information about the author or publisher so I’m guessing it was produced by the Bhutanese government.
I was particularly impressed with the chapter entitled ‘NORTH STAR FOR THE NATION – Gross National Happiness, a Beacon of Hope for a Better World’ by Thakur S. Powdyel who was Bhutan’s first democratically elected Minister for Education and winner of the Global Education Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education.
For anyone who’s interested in reading the whole chapter (which I highly recommend) you can click on this link to download a pdf of the full text. The essence of it is that Bhutan, which has been insulated from the development obsession that has gripped most of the rest of the world, has had the opportunity (and the wisdom) to learn from everyone else’s mistakes and to develop a different plan.
Bhutan’s over-arching development philosophy of Gross National Happiness is founded on the belief that:
The ultimate desire of all human beings, regardless of time and space, is to be happy. It is, therefore, the responsibility of governments to create the necessary conditions to support the experience of happiness.
The profound needs of human beings are not necessarily material or physical, but that there are other deeper dimensions of life – natural, social, cultural, spiritual, psychological, aesthetic, moral – that make life worthwhile and meaningful, and that they need to be
There is no necessary relationship between the level of material well-being and the level of happiness – they could in fact be antithetical to each other.
The goal of life cannot be limited to an endless cycle of production and consumption, more production and more consumption…
The conventional, linear, uni-dimensional measure of progress, otherwise called GDP, is too limited and reductionist, as it leaves out other significant, non-economic factors. Gross National Happiness is therefore, a more holistic, integrated, and balanced approach to
In honour, therefore, of the integrity of life and of society, Bhutan has made a conscious decision to harmonize the needs of the body with the yearnings of the soul. To this end, we have identified four principal domains otherwise called pillars to support the architecture of the Gross National Happiness programme.
Balanced and equitable socio-economic development,
Conservation of the natural environment,
Preservation and practice of culture, and
Promotion of good governance.
We believe that if we care enough and share enough all of us in the world will have enough…
Isn’t that a beautiful philosophy? Personally I would have chosen a different word than ‘Happiness’. To me it is just as absurd to expect people to be happy all the time as it is to expect economies to grow all the time. I disagree with the idea that ‘the ultimate desire of all human beings… is to be happy’, to me this seems much too shallow and one-dimensional, but I do think that people generally want to feel good about themselves and most seek some sort of contentment in their lives. So if I substitute ‘Contentment’ for ‘Happiness’ in the statements above I think it makes a great deal of sense.
To me the four ‘pillars’ seem remarkably similar to the Triple-Bottom-Line philosophy, which considers the Environmental and the Social as well as the Financial results of our decisions, and was a guiding principle in the design and development of the Greeny Flat. And the addition of ‘Good Governance’ is particularly welcome in the light of the appalling leadership we are witnessing in both Australia and the USA.
The chapter continues with equally moving paragraphs on the importance of protecting the natural environment, educating the population to become the realisors of the national dream, preserving cultural identity and holding the countries leaders to the highest standards of integrity and service. If more countries around the world adopted a similar national plan for BALANCE rather than GROWTH we could find ourselves living in an entirely different future than the one we seem to be headed towards.
The other book, ‘The Architecture of the Absurd – How ‘Genius’ Disfigured a Practical Art’ by John Silber, is about how ‘super-star’ architects like Frank Gehry have abused their position of trust and influence in order to persuade naive clients to build ridiculous buildings that cost absurd amounts of money and do not meet the needs of the people who use them.
Frank Gehry explains his philosophy of architecture
To me this is the logical result of the way architecture is taught and practiced around the world. My own personal experience of studying architecture at Sydney University was deeply disturbing. The entire focus of the program was on ‘originality’. It was all about making grand ‘aesthetic’ statements and nothing about creating functional buildings that are affordable to build, heat, cool and maintain, keep out the weather, serve their purpose and delight their occupants. From the buildings I see getting built, it appears that this method of teaching architecture prevails in schools around the world.
Gehry to me is the epitome of the grand-standing modern architect who adds ‘weirdness’ to his buildings simply to be original. The bizarre curves and ‘organic’ shapes that critics seem to think are so wonderful simply add enormous cost to his buildings without adding anything in the way of improved function, reduced maintenance, better energy performance or greater protection from the elements. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. His buildings are horrendously expensive, awkward, difficult to upkeep, expensive to run, leak like sieves, don’t meet the needs of their occupants and, in my opinion, generally ugly as sin.
Gehry’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
Thankfully, it’s not just my opinion, in his book Silber (who was President of Boston University for 25 years and commissioned countless buildings) states
I am not critical of Gehry’s twisted metal shapes because they are different but because too often they make no sense, are out of scale, wastefully expensive, and on the underside offer not the honest exposure of Louis Kahn but what seems more akin to indecent exposure…
His misconception… that architecture has no distinct purpose or consequent limitations that distinguish it fundamentally from painting or sculpture has led him to impose on clients works that are profligate in cost and grotesquely unaccommodating to their purpose. Perhaps there will always be clients who are happy to fulfill Gehry’s artistic ambitions, despite the waste and inutility inevitable when architecture is practiced as a fine rather than a practical art.
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who thinks Gehry’s buildings are over-priced rubbish
And he’s just the figure-head for a global movement in architecture that ignores the needs, budgets, and practical requirements of building owners and occupants.
But hey, Gehry won’t be around forever and hopefully this trend in architecture won’t last either. Perhaps tougher economic times might cause the people who commission and pay for buildings to be more careful with their money and more concerned about the ongoing running and maintenance costs they’ll be forced to pay.
This week we have a new video to share about the ongoing Energy Retrofit of the old fibro cottage next to the Greeny Flat. If you’re new to our site you can catch up on all eleven of our previous short little videos about the project by CLICKING HERE.
Our latest episode (below) shows us replacing the underground sewer lines on the west side of the house in preparation for the new deck and awning roof we plan to build. Replacing sewer lines might not seem like it has much to do with an energy retrofit but everything affects everything else.
In this case, we have had trouble with roots getting into the old, earthenware sewer pipes in the past. That’s not the end of the world when the pipes are buried under the grass in the back yard but it could become a much bigger problem if the pipes are inaccessible underneath the new deck.
So what does that have to do with improving the performance of the house? Well the deck will be covered by an awning roof running down most of the west side of the house. This is where the hot afternoon sun comes from in summer so the roof will help to shade the west wall, keeping the house cooler and more comfortable and reducing the need for air-conditioning.
Cintia and I are going away for a bit of a holiday and when we get back we’ll start building the new deck and roof. I’m planning to use a prefabricated steel frame for the new structure. This will be a new experience for me and I’m curious to see how it goes. So watch for more little videos as the project progresses.
Adani Disaster
In our Newsletter on April 14th I showed images of the coal spill from the Adani port facility at Abbott Point into a sensitive wetland adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. Yesterday I got an email from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) with more detail about just how bad the situation is.
‘Tonight, it was revealed that Adani breached their licence, spilling highly polluting coal slurry next to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
Adani got a special licence from the Queensland Government to release discharge into the Caley Valley Wetlands and the ocean from their Abbot Point coal terminal.
Even with this special licence to pollute, Adani exceeded their permitted limit to the ocean by more than 800 per cent. The ABC is reporting that Adani faces a possible multi-million-dollar fine.
It’s outrageous they got this license and even worse that they massively breached it. It’s outrageous that they turned the wetland black. Weeks later, locals and scientists are still picking up coal.
Adani cannot safely operate a coal port on a cyclone-prone coast. There’s no way we can let them dig Australia’s biggest megamine – which threatens to drain and pollute groundwater, wreck our climate and destroy our Great Barrier Reef.’
If this bothers you as much as it bothers me I suggest you visit the ACF website and consider joining and/or donating to their fight to stop the Adani Megamine.
New Local Solar Installers
I am often asked by people in our local community (i.e. the Southern Highlands of NSW) who I can recommend for installing solar systems in our area. There are a number of local installers. Some, like my good friend Manuel Cilia (owner of Cilectric Pty Ltd), have been installing solar in this area for donkey’s years. But Manuel prefers to focus on larger projects and off-grid installations.
So what about smaller, grid-tied systems for homes and businesses? Lately I’ve been hearing about a new company in our area called Simmark so I thought I’d better find out more about them. It turns out they’ve been installing solar in the Nowra area for over twenty years and have only recently expanded their business into the highlands.
Earlier today I met with the owners of the company, Mark Horsfall and Matthew Simms, to hear more about the company and what they have to offer. I was impressed with both gentlemen and particularly with their philosophy of understanding their customer’s energy requirements and encouraging them to find ways to conserve energy before installing solar on their roof. Regular readers will know that I preach the same sermon.
I also learned that Simmark does not restrict themselves to solar installations. They also do heating and air-conditioning systems, electrical, plumbing, security systems and maintenance work on all of the above. The following video is a short introduction to their business.
To be clear, I have not worked with Simmark on any projects and I do not receive any kind of payment from them. I can’t vouch for the quality of their work or their customer service but, from what I have learned today, I suspect that both are excellent. So I suggest that, if you need any of the above work done, you consider contacting Simmark for a quote. And please let me know how it goes… I will be very interested to hear about your experience with them (or any other local installer for that matter).
Solar Payback Period
Finally, the following link is to a piece that the above-mentioned Mark Horsfall wrote on Linked-In about the Payback Period and Return on Investment for a solar power system. I agree with Mark’s assessment that…
‘…6-7 years implies a 10.3 – 12.0% compounded annual return.
This opportunity needs to be put in relative terms. What other asset class is going to provide that kind of after-tax return in a world where $12 trillion of sovereign debt (or about 1/3 of all government borrowings worldwide) are now attracting negative yields? This is particularly the case when viewed on a risk –adjusted basis (i.e. the return on one’s solar investment is a virtual certainty as far as I am concerned, and easily competes with the aforementioned sovereign risk).’
Replacing the sewer lines down the west side of the house next to the Greeny Flat.
It’s been a busy week here at the Greeny Flat. We’ve been replacing the sewer lines as part of the energy retrofit of the old fibro cottage on the property. For new readers, you can catch up on the progress of this project via a series of short YouTube videos we’ve made over the last seven months. CLICK HERE for links to all the videos.
I’ll try to find time to make a new video next week with an update. We’ve now got our Solar Air Heater up and running, we’ve added paving down the south side of the house to help deal with moisture issues, and we’re getting ready to build a deck and awning on the west side to help keep the house cool in summer. This is what led to the sewer line replacement, because the deck will be built over the top of where the 70-year-old earthenware sewer pipes were buried. This would make it quite difficult to fix them later in the future so we thought it would be wise to upgrade them now while we can get them relatively easily.
As you can see from the photo above, it was a dirty day’s work but it all went well and we’ve now got the yard back into reasonable shape and ready to start work on the new deck. More on that soon. The good thing was I got to drive the excavator for the day. I haven’t done that for a while and it’s always fun. And I only bumped into the house once.
Ban The Bag Update
Following on from last week’s Newsletter in which we encouraged our readers to sign a no-brainer of a petition to ban single-use plastic bags, I just received the following update from the campaign. So far 120,000 people have signed, including our local legend, Jimmy Barnes which you can read about (and sign the petition if you haven’t already) by Clicking Here.
Wind and Water Power
The Waterlily portable Wind and Water Turbine (Image source: NewAtlas.com)
I don’t know why it never occurred to me before and it seems pretty obvious when you think about it…. a turbine that can generate power from wind could also be capable of making power from flowing water. And that’s just what this new gadget called the Waterlily is designed to do according to this NewAtlas article. It is designed for camping and can deliver 25W of power from either a 7.2km/h flow of water or a 72km/h wind.
Personally I’d rather go camping in a place where the sun is shining and you can make 25W from a small solar panel than somewhere it’s blowing 72km/h. But for those rugged types who like to do it tough (while still being able to power their devices) this could be just the thing you’re looking for.
Australia Needs an Energy Policy
My lovely Cintia forwarded me the link to this story from The Guardian which claims that Australians could save $100bn if we had a clear and comprehensive national energy policy.
The report’s estimated $100bn in cost savings is a function of governments rolling out nationally consistent policies that would encourage the two parts of the system to work harmoniously together – the current poles and wires of the national market, and the virtual grids in homes and businesses. Allowing efficient co-optimisation would prevent overinvestment in poles and wires.
A Corella inspecting the poles and wires near our house. Photo by Andy Lemann
The same policy could facilitate the transition to a clean energy future.
The report suggests by 2030, around 40% of generation could come from renewable technologies in Victoria and Western Australia, with an increasing share in New South Wales and Queensland as coal generators are retired.
But the report points out that the massive technological transformation is rolling out in a policy vacuum.
“There is currently no enduring, clear long-term climate policy. There is also a lack of integration between electricity sector planning processes and climate policy,” the ENA report says.
And even more remarkably, the article reports a major swing, across a wide spectrum of industries, back to the idea of some sort of market mechanism to reduce carbon emissions.
The final piece of good news for today is that Westpac has finally ruled out the possibility of providing funding to India’s Adani Coal Company to build Australia’s largest coal mine in the Galilee basin in Queensland.
In our Newsletter two weeks ago I wrote about Malcolm Turncoat’s offer to provide a billion dollars of taxpayer money to help Adani build a railway line from the mine directly to the Barrier Reef where the current coal stockpile recently contaminated a sensitive wetland during cyclone Debbie.
The other three big banks had previously ruled out funding the mine but Westpac were dragging their feet. So it’s good to know that ‘the world’s most sustainable company‘ (that’s Westpac by the way, no joke) is now unwilling to back this massive fossil-fuel project. Hopefully no-one else will either.
Tomorrow is Earth Day and, as detailed in our April 7 Newsletter, we’ll be hosting our 3rd Earth Day party at the Greeny Flat (16A Queen St, Mittagong) from 4-7pm. Everyone’s welcome. We’ll be cooking pizzas and we’re asking people to bring something to drink and a bit of finger food to share. Hope to see you here tomorrow!
Petition to Ban Single-use Plastic Bags
I know… I’m getting a bit political again… but this one’s a no-brainer. There are only three states in Australia that don’t have an existing (or pending) ban on single-use, non-biodegradable plastic bags. They are NSW, Victoria and WA. This new petition on Change.org seeks to remedy that by calling on the premiers of all three of these laggard states to catch up.
In case you still need convincing that this is a good idea here are a couple of quotes from the petition web-page:
‘Australians use an estimated four to six billion plastic bags each year. That’s 10 million bags every day. Every minute, we send 7,150 plastic bags to landfill. But 80 million plastic bags never make it to landfill, and instead end up in our litter stream, killing 100,000 birds and marine life every year.’
‘On average, it’s estimated we use a single-use plastic bag (like you’d find at Coles and Woolies) for just 12 minutes. And that same bag could take up to 1,000 years to break down.’
It only takes a couple of minutes to sign the online petition which, in just the first two days, has already been joined by over 91,000 people. So please CLICK HERE to sign up and help spread the word.
First up this week I’d like to remind everyone that we’re having our 3rd Earth Day Party at the Greeny Flat on Saturday, April 22nd, 4-7pm. You can read all about it in last week’s Newsletter here.
One Down – Hazelwood is Dead
R.I.P.
The good news for this week is that one of the world’s most polluting coal-fired power plants, the Hazelwood power station in Victoria, is now closed. You can read more about it in this ‘Energy Matters’ article which states that the plant was responsible for about 3% of Australia’s Greenhouse Gas Output along with an annual dose of:
about 15 million tonnes of CO2
25,000 tonnes of nitrogen oxides
14,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide
7,700 tonnes of hydrochloric acid
74 kg of arsenic
140 kg of lead
4,800 tonnes of fine particulate matter
6,900 tonnes of carbon monoxide
440 kg of mercury
This is great news for the environment. I just hope that the poor governmental planning surrounding the closure (we’ve known this was coming for years) doesn’t destabilise our electricity grid to the point where we do crazy things like the following.
One Billion to Go – Turncoat Offering Taxpayer Money to Help an Indian Company Destroy the Great Barrier Reef.
How do you begin to describe the insanity surrounding Adani’s proposed Carmichael Coal Mine. We know we have to stop burning fossil fuels. We know the Great Barrier Reef, one of the most beautiful and beloved ecosystems on the planet, is in a state of collapse. We know our government is withdrawing funding from social services and yet our esteemed Prime Minister Malcolm Turncoat is over in India offering to use $1 Billion dollars of taxpayer’s money to help build the biggest coal mine in Australia, stockpile the coal near sensitive wetlands and ship it through the Great Barrier Reef.
The Abbott Point Coal Port is right next to the Great Barrier Reef
Just this month we had a timely and tragic reminder of the madness of this scheme when Cyclone Debbie caused a massive release of coal-laden water into sensitive wetlands next to Adani’s coal stockpile at the Abbott Point Port.
Satellite photos of the Caley Valley wetland next to the coal stockpile at Abbott Point before Cyclone Debbie (left) and after Adani released a huge amount of coal-laden water (right).
‘A vast swathe of the Caley Valley wetlands has been blackened by coal-laden water released from nearby Abbot Point port after Debbie’s torrential rains inundated its coal storage facilities last month.’
Join the Fight
Here at the Greeny Flat we try to avoid politics as much as possible. The only trust I have in politicians is that they will serve their own interests every time by doing the bidding of whoever gives them the biggest political donations. I don’t belong to, follow or believe in any political party, in fact I think party politics goes against the whole idea of democracy. But I can’t sit by and watch this outrageous injustice be committed against the future inhabitants of this beautiful planet and do nothing.
Saturday, April 22nd marks the global celebration of Earth Day as well as the end of our third year of living in and monitoring the performance of the Greeny Flat. Hopefully the rain will stay away or we might be packed in like sardines as we were for our first Earth Day Party (see photo below). But, come what may, we’ll be opening our doors from 4-7 pm and welcoming anyone who would like to come and see how the Greeny Flat is looking and performing after three years.
Friends helping us celebrate our First Earth Day Party on April 22nd, 2015
It seems to be becoming a tradition for us to cook home-made pizzas for everyone, so we’ll do that again. Feel free to bring something to drink along with either an appetiser or a dessert (finger food is great to limit washing up). We look forward to celebrating another successful year of life in our energy positive house. As you can see from our Results Page, we continue to export more than twice as much power to the electricity grid as we import from it. Even though we’ve had our Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) for over a year now and been plugging it in every day to charge the batteries we continue to be well and truly energy positive. This is very exciting for us. It means we’ve been able to reduce our carbon footprint even further by doing a lot of our local driving using renewable energy instead of petroleum.
We hope to see you here on Saturday, April 22nd to help us celebrate our great good fortune and our wonderful community of friends…. not to mention the following…
Thanks very much to Deborah McIntosh, the editor of Highlife, for a very nice article which appears in the current edition of the magazine and to Tony Sheffield for some wonderful photos (like the one above). Speaking of Tony, if you like nice photos of the area and/or old maps, I would encourage you to check out Tony’s gallery which is at the back of the Brown Bookshop, 311 Bong Bong St, Bowral. Tony takes badly worn old maps and restores them to beautiful condition and his photos are charming.
Another local couple who were also featured in this edition of Highlife are Deb and Jacob Newman from the Eden Brewery. I wrote about this new, local, green brewery in our Newsletter on January 13th, which was the day they opened. Since then they have been going great guns and are just managing to keep up with the demand for their delicious brews. They are now on tap at the Mittagong RSL Club, the Hunger Therapy restaurant and the Imperial Hotel in Bowral, and soon to be in a number of other local venues.
I’m particularly excited to try their special Anzac Beer which will be available from next Wednesday. Deb tells me that Jacob put together the recipe for a big vat of the brew and then chucked in 400 Anzac Biscuits to give it a special taste for the occasion. Jacob told me today that he thinks it’s going to be really good. If it’s anywhere near as good as the Irish Stout he made for Paddy’s Day then I reckon I’m going to love it. It will also be on tap at the RSL Club for Anzac Day and available at the brewery at 1/19 Cavendish St, Mittagong. If you haven’t been yet and you like beer then do yourself a favour… they’re open Wed to Sunday, 12-8pm.
Are you prepared for significantly higher electricity prices?
I have a friend who works in the solar industry and watches the wholesale price of electricity on the National Energy Market very closely. He tells me that for about the last six months the wholesale price has been double what it was last year. So instead of 4.5c/kWh it has consistently been over 9c/kWh.
I was also contacted for advice last week by a company that has just been told by AGL that their electricity price is going to increase by 57% when their contract comes due for renewal in the next couple of months.
How long do you think it will be before residential customers see similar increases? My guess is, not long at all.
While I know this is going to hurt a lot of people, there’s a part of me that thinks this is the best thing that can happen. For many years now I’ve been saying that the only thing that will make people start to think about how much energy they use (and how to use less) will be significantly higher energy prices. What this will do is 1) make more people and businesses look at how they can improve efficiency and conserve energy and 2) make renewable energy (with storage) more cost competitive in the market. Already solar and wind energy are the cheapest forms of new electricity generation but the obvious problem is that they only make power when the sun shines or the wind blows. Storage is the key to making renewable energy work on a broad scale and there are lots of ways of storing energy.
The obvious one is batteries but we can also use renewable energy to pump water uphill when there’s an excess then let it run back down through a generator when more power is required. This is called ‘Pumped Hydro’ and is what Prime Minister Turncoat is touting as our latest ‘Nation Building Exercise’ (anyone seen Utopia?) in the Snowy Hydro Scheme. By all accounts this is a program that was conceived thirty years ago and has been languishing in someone’s drawer in Canberra due to very high costs and dubious benefits. In the Turncoat version there is very little indication of how much it will cost, when it will be completed or where they will source the power to pump the water up the hill. By some accounts it is, in fact, a fossil fuel project with the plan being to use dirty coal and gas to power this ‘renewable energy scheme’.
There are also plenty of ‘Solar Thermal’ projects in the pipeline which can store the sun’s energy in the form of heat either by melting salts or heating big blocks of pure graphite. Another way of storing energy I read about recently is to use electricity to convert hydrogen into ammonia which can be stored and transported in liquid form (using current LPG and LNG infrastructure) then converted back into electricity via a fuel cell. There are also other forms of chemical energy storage as well as physical ones like using electricity to lift a weight then using gravity to produce power or using excess energy to turn a flywheel which can be drawn upon later for power generation.
For now, batteries are the simplest, most cost effective and most readily available way for you and me to store excess electricity. But before you rush out and put a deposit on a new Tesla Powerwall2 you probably need to know about AS/NZS 4777.1:2016. This is the new Australian Standard for ‘Grid Connection of Energy Systems Via Inverters’ and, according to this article from Finn Peacock at Solar Quotes, it may well make it illegal to install a Powerwall2 on most houses with solar in Australia. This is because most houses have single-phase power and there is now a limit of 5kW of inverters per phase. The Powerwall2 contains a 5kW inverter so you would be fine to install one if you didn’t have any solar but, as soon as you add solar panels (with their required inverter/s) you would exceed the allowable inverter limit.
This is why we need a standard for battery installations!
The image above shows what can happen when a cheap lithium-ion battery explodes and is the reason why there is also a new Australian Standard in the works for Battery Installations. The word I’ve heard is that it will most likely require all batteries (both the cheap exploding kind and the well-built, water-cooled Tesla varieties) to be installed in a fire-proof enclosure outside of homes and garages. This will add a LOT to the cost of a battery installation.
So you could get around the 5kW inverter limit by buying even more solar panels, a couple of Powerwall2’s and going completely off the grid. But, especially with the coming Battery Standard, this is likely to be a very expensive proposition and is a fundamentally bad idea. As I’ve been saying for a long time now, in order to effectively go off the grid you’ve got to install a lot more solar and batteries than you really need (in order to get through a period of cloudy weather). Not only is this expensive but, as soon as the batteries are full, there is nowhere for all that excess solar power to go so it is simply wasted. If we stay tied to the grid we can properly size our systems and any time we have excess renewable energy it can go into the grid and be put to good use by someone else.
If only Mr Turncoat’s government would get behind this idea and make it easy and affordable for people and businesses to do it we could go a long way towards solving our looming energy woes. But for now they seem more interested in propping up the dying fossil fuel industry.
Meanwhile these guys are propping up some ‘energy harvesting glass’.
On a brighter note (pardon the pun) a reader (and old high school friend) sent me this article from the ABC a couple of days ago about a team based in Perth that has developed the world’s first commercially viable clear, solar glass.
‘We call it energy-harvesting clear glass,’ Professor Alameh said… ‘This is a glass that can pass the visible light through, while blocking the UV and infrared components of the sunlight and routing them to the edge of the glass for conversion to electricity via solar cells placed around the edges of the glass.’
Depending on the cost, this could have promising applications in greenhouses and skyscrapers. If we’re going to build these ridiculous buildings covered in glass and air-conditioned 24/7, at least let’s make them so that the glass produces some energy.
Happy St Patrick’s Day! I have nothing to write about that relates to anything Irish or alcoholic but some of it might be green. This week I want to talk about some major changes that seem to be heading our way and might have a big effect on the way we work, drive, build and live. One is electric vehicles and the other is 3D printing.
I’ve been reading lately that India now has a plan to change it’s ENTIRE car fleet to electric vehicles by 2030. According to this article from Green World Investor, which is based in India…
‘Last year the NDA government proposed a plan to transition to 100% electric vehicles by 2030. It is a huge target set by the Indian government. … The launch of electric vehicles in India will not only reduce the country’s dependence on oil imports but will also help in fighting the increasing level of air pollution in the Indian cities. This will in turn help India achieve its target of reducing the emission intensity of its GDP by 33-35% by 2030.’
It’s amazing to think that India might be contemplating such a revolutionary transition while our ‘Innovative’ Government is still talking about ‘Clean Coal’ and upgrading the Snowy Hydro Scheme. I’ve said for a long time that someone needs to come out with a really simple and affordable electric vehicle. Sure, a $150,000 Tesla would be nice, but most people just need a cheap and efficient way to get from A to B. We don’t need SUV’s with reversing cameras and satellite navigation systems, just something that works. Ideally a small electric vehicle covered with solar panels that can charge itself while it’s parked in the Aussie sun. So it seems to me that, if India is serious about their 100% EV goal, they will be pouring a lot of money and effort into developing really affordable and practical electric cars. This could well put them at the forefront of a huge global market and one day soon, we might all be driving one of these.
The SERVe (Solar Electric Road Vehicle) from Tata Solar Power and the Manipal Institute of Technology
Of course our ability to afford one might depend on whether or not we still have a job.
I’ve been in the building game for about thirty years and I’ve always been struck by the inefficiency of our western building systems. On the other hand, they do employ a LOT of people. As in many fields where technology and artificial intelligence are taking over and taking people’s jobs, there is a very real prospect that carpenters and bricklayers might soon be replaced by printers.
Here are a few recent articles from New Atlas that illustrate the point.
The Apis-Cor 3D-printed house
This first article describes a recent project in Russia where this little house was printed in place in 24 hours under a tent in brutally cold weather…‘The machine didn’t do all the work, though. The roof, insulation, windows, and other components were all added later by humans. The total cost for the project came in at just US$10,134, not including furniture or appliances.’
That’s an impressive price for an impressive little building. The two things I don’t like about it are 1) it’s likely to put builder’s like me out of work and 2) it was printed using cement. As you probably know, Portland cement is an environmental nightmare being responsible (by various estimates) for somewhere between 6 and 10% of the world’s carbon emissions. So that’s where the next technology comes in which is all about 3D printing with cellulose.
This next article describes recent work at MIT to develop a new method of using cellulose as the feedstock for 3D printing… ‘providing another renewable, biodegradable alternative to popular petroleum-based polymers like ABS currently being used. The researchers also believe printing with cellulose could be cheaper and stronger than other materials and even offer potential antimicrobial properties to boot.’
Imagine the little house shown above but printed with cellulose so that it is lighter, stronger, better insulated, cheaper and made from a renewable resource. It’s enough to scare the brickie’s smile right out of his pants.
As Nancy Reagan put it…’Just say no to Crack!’
Add to this the further development of a 3-D printing system that mimics the micro-structure of plants, bones, corals, shells and other natural materials that have very high strength-to-weight ratios as described in this final article….
And a picture starts to form of a future where extremely light, strong and affordable buildings can be printed on site in a very short time using renewable and highly insulative materials by machines that can work 24 hours a day.
It’s hard to see how our current building industry is going to survive…. maybe that’s not such a bad thing but who’s going to be able to pay for these wonderful buildings when all our jobs have been taken by robots?
On the subject of autonomous vehicles, 
