Future Visions

I keep being asked why I don’t include Nuclear Energy in my talk about Renewable Sustainable Energy. The person asking the question often follows up with one of the following statement

·        It produces less greenhouse gases

·        We need something that will bridge the gap between the use of fossil fuel and renewables because the renewable technology is not ready yet

·        Renewables can not supply baseload

·        The latest generation of nuclear power plants are much safer than the old ones

My main answer is that nuclear is not sustainable. The more nuclear energy we use the more nuclear waste we produce and it hangs around for thousands of years. Of itself it is nasty insidious stuff and what it can turn into if it leaks into the environment or is intentionally leaked into the environment in the form of nuclear weapons and dirty bombs is also nasty.

 

There is one person who has dealt with this question more thoroughly than I have and I intend to use the rest of this posting to highlight what can be found in the book

“Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy” by Mark Diesendorf, published by UNSW Press, Sydney, 2007 (ISBN 978-0-868409-733).

 

Diesendorf states that the nuclear industry has been seriously promoting nuclear power since 2000 with the following claims

• It emits no or negligible amounts of CO₂
• It can rapidly replace coal-fired power stations
• The cost of the energy is only slightly more than that from coal
• In some countries it is the cheapest form of large scale electricity

To each of these points Diesendorf gives a well considered answer. He discusses the

• CO₂ emissions from the nuclear fuel chain

• The inherent constraints on the speed of building and commissioning new nuclear power plants
• The economics of nuclear power
• The politics of nuclear power

 

The Nuclear Fuel Chain

Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239 are the fuel sources for nuclear power plants. The energy produced when these atoms break down into their daughter atoms is used to produce steam that can run a turbine and therefore produce electricity. While the operation of the power station may not produce significant quantities of CO₂ each of the following steps uses fossil fuel and therefore does produce CO₂

• Mining and milling of the uranium ore
• Conversion to uranium hexafluoride
• Enrichment to increase the concentration of U-235 from the normal 0.7% to around 4% (further enrichment produces weapons grade material)
• Construction of the power station

At the moment there is no commercial reprocessing of the spent fuel which would produce more CO₂ and the decommissioning of nuclear power plants also produces CO₂.

 

Another aspects of nuclear energy production that should be taken into consideration is that there is no well considered long-term waste management i.e. 70 million tones of radioactive tailings are stockpiled at Roxby Downs in South Australia and this amount is increasing by 10 million tones per year. Spent fuel is stored for decades under water to remove the energy still being released by the decay of the short lived isotopes produced by the original nuclear fission. This spent fuel is both radioactive and still producing heat and so it has to be handled remotely behind shielding which is difficult and dangerous. The US has no reprocessing plants. There was one in the UK (Windscale) which has been closed indefinitely because it had been leaking highly radioactive liquid for 9m before being discovered. Reprocessing is being carried out at La Hague in France and there are small plants in India, Russia and Japan. So there are large quantities of highly radioactive fission products in “temporary” storage at nuclear power plants. Even if Yucca Mountain in the US, which has been surrounded by scandal due to falsification of safety data related to groundwater modeling, becomes operational it will not even have enough room to store the high-level wastes from the USA’s existing nuclear power stations.

 

Nuclear power grew rapidly in the 1960’s because of huge subsidies, now because of concerns about hazards and unfavorable economics there is now only one developed country, Finland that still has a growing nuclear industry.

 

High-grade uranium ore (0.1%) is in limited supply (would last 20 years if 50% of the  worlds present energy demand were met in this way) and a nuclear power plant which ran on this ore would take several years to compensate for the CO₂ produced in its construction. Power plants using the more abundant lower grade ore (0.01%) would never compensate for the CO₂ produced in the ores extraction and processing, so the net CO₂ emissions are comparable with those of a combined-cycle gas-fired power station.

 

Diesendorf proceeds to discuss fast breeder reactors, there are non operational anywhere in the world and those that have been operational have been beset with problems and accidents. Pro-nuclear studies think it will be 30years before this type of nuclear reactor could operate commercially. Thorium reactors which use U-235 and Pu-239 to produce the neutrons to change Thorium into U-233 are still in the development stage and only in India. Nuclear fusion has been under investigation for 50 years with the containment of the plasma being the biggest problem. It is estimated that the first commercial fusion reactor may be operational by 2045 if the preliminary tests prove positive. It will still require large amounts of fossil fuel input to build it.

 

Slow Deployment

The sooner we can find technologies to replace coal fired power stations the better so 30 and 40 years down the track is too long for the emerging technology mentioned above. Even the 10 years needed to build a conventional nuclear power plant is still too much time. Large wind farms can be planned, approved and installed in less that one year.

 

Economics

In 2003 the British White Paper on Energy said “the current economics of nuclear power make it an unattractive option for new generating capacity”. Diesendorf discusses how the costs for nuclear power are calculated and how, if the subsidies are removed, it is more expensive than onshore wind at excellent sites in the UK and USA.

 

There are two further sections, one on “Proliferation and terrorism” and the other on the “Nuclear politics in Australia”.

 

This is only one chapter of Diesendorf’s book. The others are equally as informative and accessible i.e. you don’t have to be a physicist to be able to understand the material he presents.

This small conference was aimed at teachers, high school and primary school. The Future Landscapes presentation was compressed into one hour and 19 people took part. Of the 19 responses to the question “What do you think life will be like in 25 years?”

2 gave seriously positive responses

4 gave moderately positive responses

13 gave negative responses

 

The negative responses included

• Increased problems due to climate change
• Loss of biodiversity
• Increased human population to unsustainable levels
• Increased population density in cities
• More greed
• Increasing divide between rich and poor
• Increase in violence and crime
• Harsher conditions for the elderly
• Euthanasia accepted
• Economic collapse
• Social collapse
• No welfare system
• Higher costs for plastics and other oil based products
• Increased pollution
• Decreased resources
• Food becomes more processed and less healthy
• Less farmland, forests and grasslands
• Lower standard of living
• Shortage of food

So these are the perceived problems of the future. Does it have to be like this? Can we make decisions now to sidestep these problems? Can we change the way we do things now to create a different future?

 

Of the positive responses

• Homes designed and built applying sustainable principles
• Solar passive
• Minimal energy usage
• Water recycling
• Gardens used to minimize a persons global footprint
• Edible garden
• Water wise
• Passive solar shading of house
• Transport will be cleaner, more efficient and closely matched to the users use and needs
• Global communication
• Shop at home (just got sidetracked for about half an hour looking for organic / free range produce that is home delivered / shop online and found one in Serpentine – Freshline Organics http://www.freshline.com.au/index.html I have not tried them but they do sound interesting.
• Medical advances will solve many problems
• Increasing number of people working at home
• Increased leisure time with more time for social and family activities and an increased quality of life
• More usage of renewable energy

I think the more we think about the possibilities for the future the easier it is to think of a sustainable future. As one of the respondents put it “I have seen dramatic changes in people’s society’s attitudes over the last 2yrs – I think we have the capacity to make things work”

 

Of the 13 people who gave negative responses to the first question 8 still were pessimistic about the future at the end of the workshop for the following reasons

• They felt things are already out of control and moving too fast
• People wait until there is a disaster before doing anything
• Governments only care about votes
• There is a need for government legislation
• The next generation has to make it work too

Here again are perceived obstacles. How real are they? Do people only feel things are out of control because they are not taking control of their lives and responsibility for their actions? Do we have to wait for a disaster or do we just need to see a problem that can be solved if we break it down into small parts? If governments care about votes that surely this is a way to get them to do something? The next generation has to make it work too so they need the facts and the skills to understand the issues and seek solutions.

 

Other comments at the end of the workshop included

• More people are aware and concerned about the issues so there is more chance of things being done
• People, countries, nations will overcome the difficulties of energy and water out of necessity for survival but our lifestyle may change.
• Still cynical people who see the current “new” technology as the best we can do and don’t see it as a springboard to the things we haven’t even thought of yet.
• I believe we are all capable of being agents of change

 

In these two questions alone there is much to think about. It appears our own attitude is as important in being able to perceive a sustainable future as is the technology necessary to achieve it. If you think it can be done you are more inclined to look for information and solutions. If you prefer a more positive future why not make decisions in the light of this preference?

On Friday I gave another of my Future Landscapes presentation to a group of around 40 teachers and I will post the results as soon as I have had time to analyse them. It was a timely presentation as the latest report from the IPCC had been released the previous week and some of the teachers were genuinely looking for ways they could move towards a sustainable future.

 

One of the questions I was asked during the workshop was something like “Are you prepared to give half your salary to a family in Africa because that is what it will take”. I stood for a while trying to formulate an answer but in the end gave up and carried on with the workshop. For those of you who were at the workshop and wondered why I blanked, what was going on in my head was something like this.

 

Could I give up half my salary now, do I have that much disposable income? I support myself and one other so the answer was probably no.

 

Could I sell my place and move into something smaller so I could afford to give half my salary away. Well I live in a unit which I guess is like a small house because it has no walls that adjoin any other house but there is not much land around it and I share the space with another person. To sell my place and buy another I would probably have to move further from work, so transport costs and energy usage would increase, as well as greenhouse emissions in order for us to get to work. So this is not a solution either.

 

Would giving half my salary to a family in Africa solve the problems of limited fossil fuel energy resources and climate change? It would make that family more wealthy, and possibly their village, so they would be able to afford food and clothes and schoolbooks which would be a good thing, but I can not be sure it would work towards solving the energy crisis or deal with the climate change problem.

 

Where does my money go? That’s a big question and I will have to leave it for later. So I faded back into the world around me and went on with the workshop.

 

It is now later and I have a little more time to think.

 

Why haven’t I got lots to give away to help other people? Well I purchase 100% renewable energy so my electricity bills are higher than they would be if I didn’t and the money goes to promote renewable energy in Western Australia. We do eat some meat and I get this from a butcher that has free range chicken, lamb and beef and all of it comes from the local region. I buy free range eggs from a friend who has chickens in her back yard and I buy local fruit and vegetables from an independent grocer. All of these things cost more, money-wise, than buying them from a supermarket but they cost less in energy and hence greenhouse gasses because there is less refrigeration and less transport.

 

Now and again I have to go to the Eastern States which is a hazard of living in one of the worlds most isolated cities. This means flying which uses lots of energy so I offset the emissions by buying carbon offset credits. The people I purchase them from spend the money in the third world providing communities with sustainable renewable energy resources. Sustainable in that they tailor the resources to the needs of the people and train them to look after the resources. In a way therefore I am giving some of my income to families in Africa but I am giving it in a way that also is working towards a solution to the energy resources problem.

 

I have a small energy efficient car, probably eat too much and should take the bus more often so I am not a saint but I am trying. I have started growing my own leafy vegetables and herbs in pots on shelves on the North side of my house (a food wall) as I don’t have room for a veggie garden. This reduces food transport costs even more. I recycle, have a worm farm and compost bins thus reducing the amount of rubbish that needs to be disposed of. During the winter I captured rainwater for the garden and now I capture the grey water from the washing machine. We use solar passive heating and cooling as much as possible (open and close windows and curtains). All my light globes are fluorescent, there is insulation in the ceiling and other conservation measures that are now just a way of life. What I am trying to say is I walk the talk as much as I can and it does cost me, in time and money, to do this. Yes I could do more – we all could.

Today is Blog Action Day – a day for thinking about the environment.

 

My last post was a look at how the urban landscape might change if we were to embrace sustainability principles and the point was mainly to illustrate that it did not have to change drastically to make a start. To list all the changes that could be made I would have to write a book and I don’t have the time. There are plenty of resources for those who want to do something now to make sure there is a sustainable future. Try

·         Other blogs / livejournals

o       50 ways to help the environment,

·         Libraries – local and university

·         Local councils

·         State government offices

·         Federal government offices

 

Many have information on their websites or have books / booklets, it is just a matter of looking. Since I started writing this livejournal the amount of information I have come across relating to this topic has increased exponentially over time. The profile of energy conservation, global warming and climate change in the mass media has also increased dramatically. The time seems to have come for the idea of “living for a sustainable future”.

	Photo: Scanpix/Tom Hevezi
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)	Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr.

If I am making predictions I may as well go all the way. What do I think a Sustainable Future could look like?

 

Let’s start at home with energy production

 

PV is already used for stand alone lighting and small devices that it is hard to run electricity to like pond pumps.

 

Solar hot water systems could be on every roof, public and private. Yes this will take resources and energy to produce them so it should be done now while energy is still cheap. The effects would be immediate, the technology is proven and fairly simple, and the lifespan of the unit can continuously be extended by good maintenance and sacrificial anodes. Their use would reduce demand for energy (gas, electricity) which would buy us more time as long as the demand for energy does not increase in some other area.

 

Solar thermal energy could also be used for space heating and cooling in every building. New houses could employ solar passive designs and existing houses can be retrofitted to take advantage of it also.  Using solar thermal energy can be as simple as allowing the sun into your house on cold days to help it warm things up. It can get more complicated as in building Trombe walls to collect the heat and pump it into the house or adding green houses / conservatories on the sunny side of your house and shady ferneries on the side of your house in permanent shade. The green house can be used to collect heat in the cooler months and this can be directed into the house. In warmer months the air form the green house is allowed to vent to the outside drawing air into the house through the fernery where it has been cooled through evaporative cooling from the moist surroundings. So even if there is not a breath of wind outside there still could be moving air within the house. There are many ways differential heating like this can be used to heat, cool and move air.

 

Water has a high heat capacity which means it can store a lot of heat energy for every degree Centigrade that the temperature raises. So if the sun could be used to heat the water during the day that heat could be released to keep a house warm at night. There are again simple ways of doing this like standing drums / tanks of water in the patch of sunlight from your sun facing windows and covering the windows at night with heavy curtains to sop the energy finding its way out again. There are also complex systems like having a large volume of water under the building which is circulated through pipes on and in the roof during the day to collect as much heat energy as possible and transfer it to the storage tanks during the day / over the warmer months. Then circulate the water under the floor / through the walls at night / during the colder months. I did see an article about something like this being used to keep roads ice free in winter.

 

Building a building with high thermal mass means that it will take a long time to warm up and when warm a long time to cool down. So this will even out the outside temperature variations. How this is used depends on the climate. The buildings in my area of the university have high thermal mass – lots of concrete. So it is a nice cool place for most of the summer however it can get very cold and most unpleasant in late winter and early spring. Still thermal mass coupled with good design principles can reduce energy demand for heating and cooling in many climates.

 

Wind turbines are not usually seen in suburban back yards because they are large, take up a lot of space and are very visible. This last factor may become less important in the future as society turns more towards renewable energy supplies. At the moment though large turbines can be found on wind swept cliffs and in sheep paddocks and not everyone is pleased about it. In Germany however the government has to put quotas on how many wind turbines a community can build because the community sells the energy to the major energy supplier at a profit. So every time you hear the turbine whooshing you know that means more money for the community to provide / improve facilities.

 

Smaller turbines are being developed that can sit on a house roof much as whirly bird ventilation systems do now. They could provide reasonable amounts of energy which would be enough to charge storage batteries providing energy for 12V appliances and lighting.

 

The urban landscape will not have to change much for these measures are to be adopted. Solar hot water systems and whirly bird windmills on every house, swimming pools converted to gather heat energy during the day and releasing it to warm the house at night in winter and used in reverse to cool the house in the summer, green houses on the sunny side of the house and shade houses on the other, greenhouses growing food, shade houses removing impurities from the air. All sounds rather pleasant really.

Tomorrow is Blog Action Day
http://blogactionday.org/

"On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future".

Over 12,000 blogs and websites will be participating and several will be accessible from the above site, what a fantastic resource! An opportunity to find more like-minded people and a way to get people thinking about the environment and how it relates to them. What a powerful idea.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/10/2055351.htm

A new report says a 30 per cent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2020 is an achievable target for Australia.

The study says legislating for more efficient energy-use in buildings, and converting from electric to solar heating is now an affordable reality.

It also factored in a shift from petrol and diesel cars to electric and hybrid and improvements in public transport.

The report's author Mark Diesendorf from the University of New South Wales, says these implementations would deliver immediate, big cuts in emissions.

"If we don't have short-term goals we won't reach long-term goals but because we're focussed on 2020 we had to focus on those actions which will get big reductions quickly," he said.

"With the acceleration in global warming we really need to get some runs on the board fast."

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071003/full/449518a.html

A recipe: take a roomful of French farmers, fishermen, trade unionists, captains of industry and environmentalists, then mix in scientists and politicians. Ask them to come up with an agreed blueprint for a green revolution in France and leave them to simmer for ten weeks.

This is what they came up with

• All newly built homes to produce more energy than they consume by 2020. Renovate all existing buildings to save energy. Ban incandescent light bulbs by 2010. Reduce greenhouse-gas emission by 20% by 2020.

• Increase renewable energy from 9% to 20–25% of total energy consumption by 2020.

• Bring transport emissions back to 1990 levels. Reduce vehicle speed limits by 10 kilometres per hour. Taxes and incentives to favour clean cars. Shift half of haulage by road to rail and water within 15 years. Develop rail and public transport.

• Reduce air pollutants quantitatively.

• Create a national network of 'green' corridors and nature reserves.

• Increase organic farming from 2% to 6% of total acreage production by 2010 and to 20% by 2020.

• Ecological groups to be stakeholders, like trade unions, in government negotiations.

• Create a body to review planting of genetically modified crops on a case-by-case basis.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/02/2048420.htm

By Matt Peacock

Posted Tue Oct 2, 2007 8:32am AEST
Updated Tue Oct 2, 2007 8:47am AEST

Two of America's biggest power utilities have unveiled plans for a multi-billion-dollar expansion of solar power supply, backing the argument that solar energy can indeed become a viable alternative to coal-fired electricity.

<snip>

the utilities are confidently predicting that their solar power will soon be providing baseload electricity - that is, day and night - at prices competitive with coal

<snip>

The solar technology developed by Dr Mills already exists here in Australia, in the form of small pilot plants attached to the Liddell coal-fired power station in the New South Wales Hunter Valley. A plant officer explains that the system's emphasis is on simplicity, with near-flat mirrors on giant hoops tracking the sun.

"Sunlight, on a clear day like this, strikes those mirrors and is gathered up onto the tower, and there's an absorber underneath that tower," he said.

Out comes steam, ready to drive a conventional power turbine.

<snip>

baseload power supply is just what Ausra is now being contracted to supply for the insatiable US market. It says that within two years it will be able to economically store its hot water for more than 16 hours.

<snip>

Dr Diesendorf says the huge US investment into solar will soon make talk of clean coal and nuclear as solutions to climate change redundant.

"Basically, the solar thermal technology will be on the ground, certainly in the United States and many other countries long before so-called clean coal and nuclear power," he said.

There are people out there who dare to dream - yay!

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/74
Worldchanging.com founder Alex Steffen offers a fast-paced round-up of radical (but possible) answers to our planet's greatest challenges, ranging from green cities and buildings, to digital collaboration tools, to ingenious tools for the developing world (flowers that detect landmines; straws that purify water as you drink; merry-go-rounds that pump water using the energy expended by children at play). As Western-style consumerism spreads to developing countries, we must re-imagine our world -- a process he believes is slowly happening in such cities as Vancouver and Portland, Oregon, and also in the developing world, where new technologies and new forms of collaboration are combining to solve 21st-century problems.

Renewable sustainable energy sources come in many shapes and sizes. Some can have large amounts of conventional looking infrastructure for example hot rock and geothermal sources. Other sources like micro-hydro you would hardly notice. Still others while being very obvious are definitely not conventional, take a field of solar reflectors sprouting PV cells. How will the introduction of renewable sustainable energy supplies change our future landscape?

 

At the moment most Australians live in towns, cities and suburbs and our energy supply comes from a few large “power stations” dotted around the country. In Western Australia many of these are linked together to form the Western Grid and the engineers keeping an eye on the supply bring generators on-line at the different power plants as and when they are needed to meet demand. Problems in one power station can mostly be covered by increasing the output of another and it is not often that the energy supply is interrupted. Still there are a limited number of power stations and problems at more than one at a time can lead to blackouts depending on the weather, time of day and therefore the demand.

 

People in the remoter parts of Australia, and by remote I mean those where it is too expensive to connect to the local grid, provide their own energy to meet their own needs. Historically this has been by using diesel generators for the homestead and wind turbines for water pumps to fill the troughs for livestock. These people were perhaps the first to recognise the value of an independent energy supply and the costs of obtaining diesel or electricity from the grid made the expense of installing PV cells competitive. Most are realists and do not depend on PV for all their energy but have a combination of renewables and fossil fuel energy supplies.

 

So what would our suburbs, cities and towns look like if we were to copy the Remote Area Power Supply (RAPS) systems of the people in the bush? I don’t think we would have PV cells on every roof because of the cost, and the requirement to keep them working at maximum efficiency in order to maximum energy returns for the energy invested in their production. It would be most efficient to have a localised concentration of such devices that would provide full time work in maintenance and monitoring for one or two local people. These PV power-stations could be constructed in any unused flat open space e.g. rooftops of shopping centres or other large buildings, covered car parks, along train tracks even on the land used for fossil fuel power-stations at the moment. All these places are already connected to the grid. These “islands” of PV could be owned by the local community who would be paid for any excess energy produced.  In this way it would be in the communities interest to take care of the resource and it would also be in their interest to look at ways of reducing their energy demands so that they would maximise their profits.

 

This scenario would require some improvements to be made to the physical distribution network for safety reasons. If one section of the grid goes down and a linesman goes out to fix the problem they want to be damn sure there are not still one or two islands producing electricity within that section of the grid or they could end up being electrocuted. This is only a technical problem and can be fixed using appropriate switching equipment where the PV arrays are connected to the grid. Another problem is monitoring energy production and distribution because in this scenario there would be many energy suppliers rather than just the handful there are today. Again this a technical and not insurmountable problem. The main problem is bringing about a change in attitude as to how energy is to be sourced and distributed and finding the leadership prepared to make the changes. Other countries have been able to do this so, there is no reason why we can not.

Germany is a shining light (pun intended) in this area and Wikipedia gives a quick overview of its achievements in this area but I found a nice paper on-line by Preben Maegaard given as a keynote address to the EUROSUN 2000 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on 20th June 2000 that explains the governments policy which lead to this success. Of course the German Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology has some useful information on its site and links to “Renewables Made in Germany”. In other words they have built a whole new industry based on renewable technology, again there is no technological reason why this could not be happening here.

 

Such PV power-stations would then give us an independent distributed energy supply. Independent is important. At the moment in Western Australia our energy supply is fairly independent as we have plenty of coal and gas. An independent energy supply means economic security. Energy supplies can not be delayed, cut-off or in anyway used as a bargaining tool by the foreign supplier, so the industries that need the energy know they will be able to meet their production deadlines.

 

A distributed energy supply is also a good thing. It is less vulnerable to disruption due to environmental reasons or from malicious and wilful damage (terrorist attacks). Problems in one area can be covered by energy supplied from another area.

 

Further away from the urbanised areas local networks could supply local communities, again giving them independence and autonomy. Even within urbanised areas small stand alone off line systems might be used to supply energy for such things as emergency phones along the freeway or public lighting i.e. situations where the energy cost of laying cables is prohibitive.

These people are thinking about the big questions  that need to be asked and then answered if we are to move to a sustainable future

http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/wfchistory.html

<clipped from their site>

The World Future Council Initiative was launched in London in October 2004, having first been mooted in 2000 during an interview on German radio with Swedish writer and activist Jakob von Uexküll.

Von Uexküll’s idea for a global council made up of wise elders, thinkers, pioneers, and young leaders, was born out of a frustration with global politics and its apparent inability to take the necessary steps to secure our common future. His first-hand experience of working with both the United Nations and the European Union persuaded him that there was no end of good ideas for tackling the problems we face, but that the existing institutions seemed incapable of making the most of these.

<end clip>

Look for the "Hamburg call to action"

I think this will be a website worth watching.

I think when you are trying to change the world it is good to know you are not alone. This is what the following website is all about
http://www.worldchanging.com/about/

Their manifesto is as follows

WorldChanging.com works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it's here. We only need to put the pieces together.

They raise ideas for discussion, they showcase what people are doing and they have some good ideas, perhaps some not so good but all will make you think.

How cool is this? Very cool!

By Nicole Butler

In remote western Queensland, the town of Windorah is about to become one of Australia's greenest communities, with the construction of the state's first solar farm.

Five solar dishes, each 14 metres in diameter, will generate enough electricity to power the small community during daylight hours.

It seems this is just the start of Australia's awakening to renewable energy sources, which experts say have been 'going gangbusters' overseas.

Power company Ergon Energy plans to start building the five solar dishes in Windorah in September.

Spokesman David Smyth say the $4 million facility will generate 360,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year and significantly reduce the community's reliance on diesel-generated power.

Question:

How could the use of Renewable and Sustainable Energy and Energy Conservation change the look of our cities and suburbs / farms, country towns, mining sites, wilderness / scrub?

 

Answers:

 Houses / buildings

It is not sustainable to rebuild our cities and suburbs. So it is better to retrofit e.g. solar panels, collect water from roads and store for use in buildings, double glazing, central heating using heat pumps.

More green belts to reduce the temperature extremes.

Construction of smaller houses or more people sharing the larger places in the cities and suburbs.

Still basically urban but more self sufficient.

More households growing their own food.

New houses built with passive energy designs and established houses retrofitted.

More buildings domestic and commercial using active energy saving systems.

Local Community

People would become more dependant on the local community to meet their needs so there would be community gardens, sharing of produce and better social networks.

There would be an increase usage of solar electricity so there would be solar panels on more roofs. Any extra electricity produced by a community could be fed into the grid and the money made by this used to benefit the local community.

The need to reduce transport costs would create / lead to the development of smaller, sustainable “village” communities as opposed to the ever increasing urban sprawl we are currently experiencing.

There would be a return to distributed supply, more locally grown produce, working and living within our “village” as opposed to travelling huge distances.

 

Energy Production

More solar panels on roofs would not really change the look of our communities.

Wind towers could be an eye-sore. Having them built into towers in cities is a great idea, the only problem might be the noise.

There could be concern as to the look of our great coastal areas if wind / tidal / wave energy were used.

Comment: The price of what things look like is a small price to pay.

Comment: Designs can be made more aesthetic and the closeness to settlements also needs to be considered.

Comment: Aesthetics, energy efficiency and functionality don’t necessarily have to be compromised. Some energy efficient measures could actually improve the look of some things e.g. planting more trees would “soften” urban hard edges.

 
Public / Private Transport

A more efficient public transport system to reduced usage of personal vehicles (possibly free?).

Restrict the use of cars travelling into the city – congestion charges / alternate day use / expensive parking / park ‘n’ ride.

Electric busses / trams in the CBD

Encourage electric hydrogen vehicles

A more efficient public transport system could mean less use of private transport. This could free up some roads to be turned into parks / orchids / food growing areas / cycle ways / walking paths. This would make the area safer and more pleasant to get around in.

Question:  How can you help to integrate into formal education and life-long learning the knowledge, values and skills needed for a sustainable life?

Answers: 

In general

Make it relevant and real for those you wish to educate. Provide problem solving situations that engage them and has them actively participating. This gives awareness of the problems and the power to feel that they can make a difference.

 
Experiment: alter current energy use – personal / home / community

 
In the classroom

Need students to consider their current habits / ideas / values then explore other possibilities / challenge ideas.

 
Develop an action plan and then undertake a project which has personal meaning for students either as individuals, in groups or as a class. It is important that any action plan is well defined and has direction as it is not possible to do everything at once. Once the project has reached completion have a public celebration (local / community) of the outcomes – media / verbal communication to reward the students and to educate the public.

 
We need to make it real for our students and incorporate real life situations.

 
Starting locally is a good way to begin then these local concerns can be developed into more global concerns. I think it requires good planning and the opportunity to do this.

 
Teaching content is easy but identifying what is important and developing this so students can incorporate this into their lives and transfer knowledge is what we need to do. Apart from the real life situations looking at developing processes such as how to effectively conduct research and how to go about solving problems need to be dealt with.

 
I think it is encouraging that our students understand more about sustainability than I ever did at their age. It is up to us to develop this understanding by exposing students to sustainability issues so they will be well informed / well balanced people who can play their part in the community. So many of my students are already well on the way which is great!

 
Start with children as young as possible – as soon as they are in school.

 
Teachers and schools should be modelling what is needed within the classroom and the school environment as a whole. Maybe also promote good practice by giving rewards to environmentally friendly actions by students.

Fundraising at school to raise community awareness of sustainable living – use the money to buy into tree planting programs run outside the school.

 
Use technology to communicate world wide with other students.

 
One of the participants is already developing special projects for schools which promote sustainability e.g. ways to make the school carbon neutral.

 
Each year circulate a carbon budget for the school.

 
Encourage schools to plant trees and encourage families to plant trees.

 
Another initiative by one of the participants in the workshop is writing material for schools which will promote sustainable practices and educate people / students as to their importance.

 
Curriculum

The knowledge, values and skills needed for a sustainable life should be totally integrated within the curriculum throughout school life.

 
It is necessary to teach thinking skills combined with enquiry based / problem based learning styles. The problems about to face today’s youth will help to generate thinking.

 
Science course which is issues based (in South Australia this is called “Contemporise Issues and Science”) – works best with local issues – often the issues are environmental.

 
A workshop participant is already helping to write a science curriculum which focuses on embedding sustainability as a concept and as a basis for scientific inquiry.

 
Teach the youth to teach the parents, needs to become part of the Education Board Curriculum.

 
Parents

Encourage parents to participate in activities within school which will help to educate them about the issues.

 
In the Community

Engage the people within the community by doing research / support (financial, physical, mentoring)

 
One workshop attendant makes sustainability practices a focus for competitions which an associate runs in their state.

How much more could they probably have thought up if they were given longer, or there were more people from more backgrounds who had lived through more experiences?

In 5 minutes the pens flew and pages were written in answer to the question “What are you doing now that is helping us move towards a sustainable future (at home, at work, with clubs and societies, on a national scale, on an international scale)? One person even stayed behind to write more. So there are people out there doing “stuff” and this is what they are doing.

 
Summarising phrases

Sustainable starts with personal behaviour

Be conscious of moving towards a sustainable future

Daily decisions

 At Home

Get started

Train the kids

 House

Solar hot water system

Buy an established house rather than build a new one

Retrofit your house to be more sustainable

Changed all the bulbs in our home to energy efficient bulbs

Using more energy efficient appliances (star rating)

Examine options for more efficient energy use at home

If building get an architect to design an energy efficient house

Garden

Native garden

Rain water used for garden watering

Go carbon neutral by planting trees

Worm farm enrich soil

Mulch waste for garden compost and enrich soil

Transport

Walk

Use public transport

Ride to work or sport etc.

Change to a smaller more fuel efficient car or get a hybrid

Use the smallest car when ever there is a choice

Consumption and waste minimisation

Simple behaviours

Use sustainable food sources

Consume less

Reduce

Don’t use plastic bags

Minimal packaging e.g. avoid multiple shopping bags when buying stuff

Reuse

Recycle

Worm farm

Mulch garden waste

Recycle food waste in compost

Energy conservation

Simple behaviours

Take care with energy usage

Turn off unnecessary lights / appliances when not in use

Open windows for ventilation / heating / cooling

Wear appropriate clothing

Short showers

 Water conservation

Rainwater tanks for watering, toilets, washing

Short showers

Dual flush toilet

No lawn

Mulch

Recreation choices

Visit natural areas because it is good for the soul!

Carbon neutral leisure activities e.g. sailing, kayaking, land yachting, fishing (catch and release)

 
Work

Get started

Simple behaviours

 Reduce

Use less paper

Use electronic storage and creation of documents

Reuse

Recycle

 Energy

Thinking about alternatives (geothermal, ethanol from crops, tidal, solar energy)

Reject nuclear energy

Look for “stop gaps” to tide us over

Transport

Car pool

 

Design exhibitions on ecological earth system and evolution themes to enhance understanding of these in the visiting public.

 Running competitions for schools where children are encouraged to examine sustainable practices.

 Designing a new “bush” school and the budget allows me to build sustainably i.e. water tanks with solar pump to toilet / laundry, solar panels, passive heating, waste heat from fire used for water heating

 
Other areas of influence

Work with my children’s school on sustainability e.g. water tank, veggie garden, native planting

 
Government

Choice to buy green power

Rebate for water tanks

Policies that realistically look at the future and are not tainted by the influence of big business

Lobbying politicians

Communal action and protest

At the recent conference on Science, Technology and Education (WorldSTE2007 http://www.worldste2007.asn.au/) which had as its focus “sustainable, responsible, global” I had the privilege to present a workshop on “Future Landscapes”.

As part of the workshop the 11 participants were given 20min to answer 4 questions (5 min a question). This was an attempt to collect as much information as we could in the short amount of time available. We were lucky that the people taking part in the workshop were from diverse backgrounds relating to education and were motivated to share their knowledge.

Here is a summary of their responses for the 4 questions. Remember there was only 5min for each question so all of the ideas below could be extended upon and explored further.

 
Question

How can you promote energy conservation?

 
Answers

As a person

Set an example

·         At home

o        Encourage your own family to be more conscious of energy wastage e.g. turning the lights off

o        Use energy more wisely e.g. when heating at night close curtains etc.

o        Reduce energy use by insulating the home – in the roof cavity

o        Change the car for a smaller one

o        Don’t use the car to go to the local shops – walking is better for health

o        Install solar hot water system

·         In the classroom

o        Turn off lights / fans / /heaters when leaving the classroom especially at recess and lunchtime

o        Include energy conservation awareness into the teaching programs

Influence others

·         Raise awareness of the need for energy conservation with students / other teachers – look at the issues

·         Set a good example and encourage students and work colleagues to follow

·         Use environmentally friendly products e.g. soap powders

·         Car-share

·         Teach the big picture to school kids and friends i.e. Prof Low’s presentation

·         Possible teaching strategy – give students different problems to solve around the topic and stress there are no correct answers but lots of possible solutions

Use money to promote change

·         Invest in energy efficient devices e.g. white-goods

·         Talk about the money saved by changing energy uses / habits

Use your specialist knowledge

·         Invent something

·         Publish material through association newsletters on energy conservation

·         Do social research on the barriers to the uptake of renewable sustainable technology

Be an informed citizen

·         Letter to politicians

·         Contact council to see what support they give people who adopt better energy use methods

 

As a community / country

Urban development

·         Solar passive housing design

·         Landscape design

Local councils

·         Free energy audits and advice for households

Legislation

·         Shame industries that are energy inefficient

·         Set carbon limits

·         Petrol rationing

·         Price cars and fuel to reflect the environmental costs

·         Stricter controls on new houses

Utilities

·         Exponential bills – the more you use the more you pay