A year of solar water heating

Hot water accounts for more than 30% of energy used in the home. [1]
I’ve had solar water heating for a year. I wanted a gas booster, rather than the electric booster which was installed. My dad (who is my landlord) has had bad experiences with a gas booster, so he didn’t get one. He [...]

Read Full Post »

Kyoto ratified

Australia’s newly elected government has ratified the Kyoto Protocol [1], as the next stage is discussed in Bali, where the United Nations Climate Change Conference opened yesterday. [2]
Australia will now enjoy full participation in negotiations for a post-Kyoto treaty to fight global warming. [3]
ACF has previously said ratification will:

strengthen Australia’s ability to urge China and [...]

Read Full Post »

Carbon neutralling your life

Going carbon neutral helps, but it’s not a silver bullet [1]
I had a solar water heater installed at the start of the year. Recently the company that manufactured it sent me a bumper sticker that says,
My solar water heating offsets the emissions from my car
I have issues with the concept of carbon neutrality so [...]

Read Full Post »

Another Political Event Couldn’t…

…achieve anything useful.

Over the weekend of 8-9 September I was in Sydney for my cousin’s wedding. It was a beautiful wedding, but I won’t bore you with that. That weekend also happened to be when the 2007 APEC meeting was held in Sydney and the powers that be of Sydney were in lock [...]

Read Full Post »

Why aren’t there Big Solar Projects in Australia?

Businesses developing renewable and energy efficient technologies search in vain for a sympathetic ear in Canberra. (p.66)
Matt from The Coffee House and Environment Solutions asked,
Are there not any big solar building projects going on in Oz?
My original answer to Matt was,
The University of NSW and Australian National University are internationally recognised in solar technology development, [...]

Read Full Post »

Coal and its Consequences

Clive Hamilton, the executive director of The Australia Institute, and George Monbiot, journalist and environmentalist, have been writing back and forth about the ideas presented in Monbiot’s book Heat. This started with Hamilton’s review of Heat in the New Left Review.
Hamilton has most recently written,
I was taken aback at Monbiot’s endorsement of carbon capture and [...]

Read Full Post »

Garbage in, Garbage out

Doing the right thing here means more than recycling; it means rethinking, and so reshaping, the place we want to be.
– John Vella, 2006, “Trailertrashed” Island no.107
My local council has only one bin into which we put everything and it’s sorted into recyclables and landfill, at the Atlas Materials Recovery Facility. The City of Stirling [...]

Read Full Post »

Carbon Trading in Australia

Australian Prime Minister John Howard received the final report of the Emissions Trading Task Group last week, which suggested a carbon trading scheme could be up and running by 2012.
The report recommends a cap and trade system, in which polluters are issued permits and trade them according to their emissions. Companies could buy pollution permits [...]

Read Full Post »

Desalination in Kwinana

The premier of Western Australia, Alan Carpenter, officially opened the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant last week on 18 April, in Kwinana, 25km south of Perth. Premier Carpenter said,
Western Australia has become the first state in Australia to use desalination as a major public water source. By harnessing water from the ocean, we have acquired an [...]

Read Full Post »

Kyoto in 2010

The Australian Greenhouse Office of the Federal government projects Australia’s greenhouse emissions trends. Tracking to the Kyoto Target was released last year just before Christmas (so no one would notice it). Even though Australia never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, a government department has still found Australia will not meet its Kyoto target of 108 per [...]

Read Full Post »