The solar powered what!?

Back when I had a full time job and I was “rolling in money” (a relative term) there were a number of things on which I regularly wasted my money. Of course they were all things I just couldn’t live without!

One of these things was lingerie. I’m not just talking underwear here. It had to be sexy, have lace or pretty patterns or lots of shiny nylon gunk and it had to be a matching set. I’m not exactly well-endowed (a bit like this model) so I don’t need that much support. Sports bra? What’s that?

Desalination in Cockburn Sound

A month ago the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant in outer suburban Kwinana had to cut its production (from 130 million litres of drinking water a day to just over 21 million litres) for about a week because low levels of oxygen were measured in Cockburn Sound [1].

The saltwater outlet of the plant is located in Cockburn Sound, a sheltered bay with marine life feeding grounds in seagrass meadows which are under ecological stress from industry on the Sound [2]. The outlet was not in the open ocean where water movement would disperse the hypersaline water faster, because the cost of a pipeline that far was considered too expensive. Two detailed field experiments were conducted under calm conditions (when oxygen levels are lowest) by the UWA Centre for Water Research and found that the hypersaline outlet is not effecting the environment of Cockburn Sound.

The combination of experimental and numerical modelling results demonstrate that the saline discharge is diluted to such an extent by the action of the diffuser and natural environmental mixing processes that the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant has no measurable impact on the oxygen levels in Cockburn Sound [3].

April Showers

Perth has just had the wettest April on record. (Rainfall records in Perth commenced in 1876.) The Bureau of Meteorology said,

As an example of the relatively dry period that Perth has been experiencing in recent decades, the breaking of the April rainfall record is the first occurrence of a monthly rainfall record in any autumn or winter month since Perth’s July rainfall record was exceeded in 1958.

April (mid autumn) isn’t usually such a wet month in Perth, but in April last year 76.4mm of rain fell – more than double the average amount. The wettest day had 40mm. This April had 153.6mm of rainfall – five times the average. The main culprit was the day 58.6mm of rain fell. This didn’t mean we lacked sunshine or 28°C+ days (6 of them). Rain fell on only 13 days of April. Halfway through April April’s average rainfall was 31.1mm, but because of April 2008’s deluge, the average has now risen to 38.8mm.

If the price of electricity rises…

…use less electricity.

The daily Perth newspaper has been running lots of articles about the projected rise in electricity prices in the next few years. At the start of April the price increase was thought to be

10% in 2009-10, with similar annual increases to be phased in over the following six to eight years. [1]

In mid April it was reported that a future emissions trading scheme would increase the price of coal fired electricity generation by about 15%, still cheaper than the current high export price of natural gas (LNG) [2]. This wouldn’t change coal as the fuel of choice for future electricity generation.

A new (old) fridge and a cat looking for a home

My grandma recently moved into a nursing home and her house is being emptied ready to be rented. I scored her fridge (only owed by one elderly lady). It has a separate fridge compartment and freezer, which my old fridge didn’t. You had to open the fridge door to get to the freezer, so it wasn’t as efficient as a fridge with them separate. I had to defrost the old freezer more often than I would like. Also if you let the ice build up too much around the freezer compartment (which I had a tendency to do) you couldn’t close the fridge door, which meant it had to be defrosted right that moment.

Cheap Coal for Sure (CCS)

I know I should try to write shorter posts, but once I get started, I can’t seem to stop. So make a cuppa before you start reading.

The New South Wales state government is about to privatise NSW’s electricity generation and the retail electricity market. Former Executive Director of The Australia Institute Clive Hamilton, investigated the problems of future emissions trading schemes for investors in NSW’s coal fired generators [1]. I read his report as WA’s state government is experiencing problems two years after privatising our electricity generation. To sweeten the deal for the WA public, electricity prices for small business and households were capped until 2009. I doubt the NSW government will take any notice of what’s happening in WA, but it might help them if they did.

Eating the Garden

Every home needs a garden especially a kitchen garden

– Nada at Grandiflora

I’ve been having so much fun in my garden preparing the winter planting.

Over summer I didn’t have as much success with my vegies as I’d hoped. I planted tomatoes too late (November) and although the bushes grew big and lush, the tomato crop was in short supply and there were quite a few caterpillars in the fruit. I didn’t have enough to cook with, but it was nice picking a tomato when in the garden and eating it on the spot. I did have to have a knife with me to cut out the part with a caterpillar, which most of them had. I’ve learnt for next summer to plant seeds when I’m meant to ie. early spring and use Dipel (Bt) and/or wormwood (soak the leaves in water and then spray on the plants) to kill the caterpillars.

The beans were producing well in December. I’d pick a nice pile every evening to snack on in the garden or cook for dinner. Then the heatwave at Christmas killed the plants and a second lot of bean seeds never did well because of the continuing summer heat. The cucumbers never grew well because of too much direct and very hot sun.

Learning about Climate Change

The Australia Institute, with funding from Australian Ethical Investment, put together a series of teaching materials on climate change for high school teachers of Year 9 and 10. High school teachers and university academics were consulted in compiling the nine modules.

Teaching climate change cuts across a number of different school subjects, including Science, Society and Environment and Economics. The teaching materials address all aspects of climate change and can be used in their entirety or just those relevant to a particular subject.

Is the dingo Australian?

Are you thinking, “Of course the dingo is Australian, what else would it be?”

I just read Animal Nation: The True Story of Animals and Australia by Adrian Franklin (UNSW Press, 2006) and it got me thinking about dingoes, cats and Illyarri gum trees. Animal Nation is about Franklin’s research into our views on animals. At times Franklin’s writing can tend towards the academic (I zoned out a bit during the discussion of Durkheim’s theories of Totemism), but it’s written for a general readership and most of the time the writing is accessible. His references are endnotes, so they don’t interrupt the flow of the text, but they’re available if you want to read more.

Some of Franklin’s ideas are confronting. I was shocked in his questioning of the continued effort to eradicate feral animals, particularly cats [1]. Franklin wonders why we continue in these eradication efforts when scientific opinion shows this can’t possibly succeed (p. 148). I read about feral cat control in Western Australia in the summer issue of Landscope and it’s not pointless. I was both saddened to see the cute litter of tabby kittens that would grow into “murderous moggies” and heartened that small steps toward “conservation gains” are occurring. Cats are amazingly ingenious at learning to avoid baits and survive well in dry and drought-prone environments, common in WA. This, combined with the fact that cats arrived in WA before foxes, and evidence from CSIRO, enables Dr Jeff Short to counter

Tim Flannery’s claim that the majority of those who assert that cats have caused extinctions in Australia are simply cat-haters who have allowed their prejudice to override their scientific reason. [2]

Is that good wood?

Last month Go Greener blogged about the GetUp’s campaign to convince ANZ to pull out of financing Gunns’ pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, north of Launceston, Tasmania. Gunns do most of the logging of old growth forests in Tasmania, but until recently I didn’t know that Gunns also logs in WA forests. Gunns’ three WA sawmills were previously owned by Bunnings – the hardware store who would like to take over the world. There was a boycott of Bunnings (Buy-Pass Bunnings) a few years ago over their logging of old growth forests. Campaigning against the current mill owners might prove problematic, Gunns likes SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation).

In 2001 the WA government ended clearing in old growth forests, but this only saved 331,373 hectares of the 2.5 million hectares of total forested land in WA. The way land was chosen to be set aside was secretive and in some cases, farcical. Jarrah/marri forests continue to be logged, and Gunns mills the timber. These forests are a mix of mature trees and regrowth and have been logged sometime in the past. This may have been more than a hundred years ago and these areas currently provide refuge for a diverse range of plants and animals, some of them endangered species.