A zero carbon future means ditching gas for solar power

TOGETHER, Australia’s houses could produce more electricity than they use, according to think-tank Beyond Zero Emissions. And the transition need not take long.

The analysis, released last month in its Zero Carbon Australia Buildings Plan, shows that comprehensively retrofitting our buildings with insulation, double-glazing and efficient lighting and appliances could more than halve their energy use.

On our rooftops, we have space to accommodate enough solar panels so that our homes would collectively produce more energy than they consume, averaged over a year.

The report’s lead author, Trent Hawkins, says energy efficiency has a crucial role in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

“About one quarter of Australia’s emissions come from our buildings. We could carve that out really rapidly.

“The climate science says emissions need to peak internationally by 2016. Building efficiency is something we can roll out now that will give us big cuts,” he says.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

The plan has been several years in the making. One of its key planks is to stopping using gas altogether.

“You can’t have zero emissions if you’re producing carbon dioxide, so that rules out fossil gas,” Mr Hawkins says. “The building industry should be looking at shifting to 100 per cent electricity, and then advancing the broader debate about renewable energy and decarbonising the grid.”

Mr Hawkins explains that while air conditioning is often demonised, Victorians actually consume eighty times more energy warming our homes than we do cooling them. The average across the whole country is ten to one.

“In Victoria we use a large amount of fossil gas. We’ve become dependent on it to be comfortable, and ignored the fact that our building envelopes are generally very poor,” he says.

Ducted gas heaters are common, but they’re particularly wasteful; they heat the whole house, not just a single room. Often, because of tears and rips in the tubes, they’re blowing hot air under the floor as well as inside.

The buildings plan advocates replacing all gas heating with efficient reverse cycle air conditioners. Mr Hawkins acknowledges that on certain summer days, air conditioners present a problem – we all turn them on at once, and electricity demand spikes – but he says we can solve that with smart management and incentives for homeowners.

The plan also proposes replacing all gas hot water systems with heat pump systems, which use similar technology to air conditioners. In our kitchens, gas burners can be replaced with induction cooktops, which are more efficient and responsive than traditional electric stoves.

These retrofits have a price tag, but it’s an investment, not simply a cost. Mr Hawkins says the worst-case scenario – “the most you’d have to spend” – is covered in the case study of an old, detached Melbourne house, with little insulation. The full overhaul, including double-glazing and replacing all major appliances, would cost about $36,000, plus another $10,000 for solar panels (unsubsidised).

Nevertheless, over thirty years, residents will come out well ahead (by up to $6000). “We would be sinking money into energy bills anyway, with no long term benefit,” he says. “We can spend that money to upgrade our buildings and we’ll be better off financially.

“One of the main benefits is that it gives households energy freedom. Today we’re all paying heaps of money on bills. Anyone can follow this plan, and it will give them permanent insurance against rising energy prices.”

Read this article at The Age online

It’s time to question what’s in the kitchen

THIS year, for the second summer, dozens of residents in South London have planted an unlikely crop in their gardens, backyards and allotments. They’re growing hops to supply the Brixton Beer Company.

The results of last harvest, a pale ale called Prima Donna, were particularly popular: the beer was served in three different pubs, and downed in a single night.

The project was coordinated by an organisation called City Farmers. Its purpose wasn’t mass production, but rather, to get fingernails dirty and loosen lips on the matter of urban agriculture and the sources of our sustenance.

That’s exactly kind of conversation Nick Rose and his collaborators replicated around Australia during Fair Food Week, which finished recently.

There were nearly 100 events around the country, from forums and films to farm tours and suburban food swaps. In Wodonga there was a cheesemaking workshop; in Beechworth, an open day for the neighbourhood kitchen; and in West Brunswick, a tour of the community garden and food forest.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

“The idea of Fair Food Week is to shine a spotlight on the inequities and unsustainability of the way the food system is developing – this push towards very few big farms producing a small range of commodities, and the retail sector being dominated by a couple of companies,” Mr Rose says.

“We’re concerned about the long term sustainability and resilience of that system – I’m talking about problems like the obesity pandemic, the degradation of our soils and the cost-price squeeze on farmers, as well as the loss of our food processing capabilities and our vanishing high streets and greengrocers.”

The week was coordinated by the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance. The organisation also released the “People’s Food Plan”, a document prepared with input from hundreds of people in dozens of meetings around the country.

“Our vision is for something much more diverse, much more decentralised: a whole ecology of food production, processing, distribution and retailing which is about connecting people with the source of their food,” he says.

Householders can help those alternatives grow. “For fresh produce, particularly in a city like Melbourne, there are so many sources – markets, farmers markets, or vegetable box schemes, such as CERES’ Fair Food, which operates with local growers.”

Mr Rose was also a contributing author on a recent report on urban food security prepared for the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility.

The academics noted recent floods had revealed the fragility of food supply lines into cities and concluded that the viability and productivity of our current farming system is “likely to be seriously compromised” by climate change.

They concluded that while cities wouldn’t become self-sufficient, urban food growing could contribute nutritionally, environmentally and socially. Because local food systems reduce dependence on oil and cut wastage, and also, bring people together, they can help cities both moderate and adapt to climate change.

“We found that Melbourne is a hotbed of urban food in Australia,” Mr Rose says. “There are outstanding examples of people growing large quantities of food in their own gardens, as well as different models of community gardening and productive streetscapes.

“Through Fair Food Week we’re promoting a broader public discussion about the challenges of our food system, but we’re also celebrating the achievements of the fair food pioneers in Australia who are working for something fairer and better.”

One million Australian households now produce solar electricity

IN March 2012, Sian Dart had solar panels installed on her roof in Footscray. But it was late May before the system was finally connected to the grid. In the meantime, she spent hours chasing paperwork between the installer, the electricity distributor and the retailer.

It took another four months before the last mix-up was resolved. “It was very frustrating, and I’m not sure how long it would’ve taken if we hadn’t followed up so doggedly,” she says.

Earlier this year, the 1 millionth Australian household – about one in nine across the country – installed solar photovoltaic panels. There are half a million with solar hot water services too.

The process doesn’t always go as expected, for reasons both practical and political: rebates and feed-in tariffs have been in flux in every state. But now there are so many systems on roofs, solar homeowners are gaining a stronger public voice.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

In Victoria, the electorate with the most solar households is Lalor, held by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, with just over 10,000 homes out of 80,000. Other solar strongholds include regional seats McEwen, Indi and McMillan. Altogether, Victorian homeowners have invested about $1.3 billion in solar electricity.

Those statistics have been gathered by advocacy group 100% Renewable Energy, which has prepared “solar scorecards” rating each member of parliament before the federal election. The organisation has also started Solar Citizens, a community project to transform the growing people-power into pressure for solar-friendly policies.

“As individual consumers, we’re isolated and relatively powerless compared to big energy companies who have enormous influence over governments,” says Geoff Evans, from Solar Citizens.

“We want to unite solar households, and people who like solar, to call on decision-makers to grow this technology that enables people to save money and produce clean energy.”

Dr Evans argues solar electricity is unfairly blamed for increasing power prices, and that solar owners must not be lumped with high fixed connection fees.

The Productivity Commission’s recent report on the electricity network, released in late June, supports his claim about price rises. It attributed most of the jump in bills in recent years to “spiralling network costs”, caused in part by poor regulation of the industry.

Regulators and utilities here have so far resisted the shift to distributed power generation, but in New Zealand there are signs of change. Vector, the electricity distributor for Auckland and surrounds, has begun a pilot programme offering a 3-kilowatt solar panel system together with battery storage. It costs $2000 up front, with a monthly fee of $70 for 12 years.

For an average household, that equates to about the same or less cost than normal bills. Participants remain connected to the grid, but the battery storage will help reduce the evening peak demand on the network.

In Footscray, with her panels in place, Ms Dart’s electricity bills have fallen by more than two-thirds. Unexpectedly, generating her own power has also made her more “militant” about avoiding unnecessary waste.

“Since we got the glitches sorted, it’s been drama-free – they’re sitting there doing their job,” she says. “If it’s sunny during the day, I feel good knowing we’re making a few dollars.”

To help avoid the trouble she had, you can prepare yourself with the Clean Energy Council’s guide to buying household solar panels, which includes a step-by-step installation checklist.

Read this article at The Age online

Budding wattles and bellowing koalas reveal the change in the weather

BY our upside-down European calendar, spring starts in September. But look carefully at your backyard or street, and you’ll see changes before then.

In Victoria, keep your eyes open for the flowering of silver wattles. The bright yellow flowers, which usually bloom in August, mark the coming of Guling, or Orchid season.

“We’re nearly there,” says John Patten, from Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at the Melbourne Museum. “We’ve already come through the highest rainfall, but we’re in the lowest temperatures.”

Mr Patten is showing me a display in the museum’s forest enclosure, which describes seven different seasons understood by the Kulin people – the five Aboriginal nations in the area we know as Melbourne and central Victoria.

The Kulin calendar, like all Aboriginal seasonal knowledge, is defined by the interactions of plants, animals and weather, as well as the length of the days and the movement of the stars.

The cold, wet time of year – Waring or Wombat season – lasts from April until July. Days are short and nights long, and wombats emerge to bask and graze when it’s sunny.

Next, around August, Orchid season lasts only a month. Wattles bloom, orchids flower, and at night, male koalas bellow and the caterpillars of the common brown butterfly feed on grass. Then, in September and October, Poorneet or Tadpole season arrives, in which days and nights are of equal length and the pied currawongs call loudly and often.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

Mr Patten is a Yorta Yorta (northeast Victoria) and Bundjalung (northern New South Wales) man. He says it’s important to recognise that the traditional seasons vary greatly between places.

“For example, non-Indigenous audiences understand that we have wet and dry seasons in the Top End, but some groups up there identify with a calendar of six or even 12 different seasons.”

The Kulin calendar at the museum is a modern interpretation, pieced together by Koori people and academics. “The records for the seasons in Victoria are incomplete. We have records that suggest there were five, six or seven seasons. It was in flux, because people were reacting to what was happening around them,” he says.

As well as yearly cycles, the Kulin people observed a regular fire season, which occurred every seven years on average, and a flood season, every 28 years.

Also in the museum’s forest enclosure, just a few metres from the exhibit on the Kulin seasons, stands the chimney of a homestead burned down in the Black Saturday bushfires. Traditional knowledge helps us understand and stay prepared for natural disasters, Mr Patten says, noting that many of our cities and towns have been built on flood plains or in bushfire zones. “A lot of people don’t appreciate the complexity in the way this continent works.”

The science of the timing of natural cycles is called phenology. As temperatures rise and weather patterns shift due to climate change, these cycles are moving.

In 2010, a study showed that a one-degree increase in Melbourne’s temperature had led to the common brown butterfly emerging from its cocoon ten days earlier than it did mid last-century. That’s significant because mismatches with other species could have cascading effects in the ecosystem.

Citizens can help scientists understand what’s happening by taking part in ClimateWatch, as website where participants monitor and record the behaviour of common species of birds, plants and insects.

Read this article at The Age online