Energy efficiency

Australia is sometimes criticised as having a "small island" mentality; despite spanning over 7 million kilometres and hosting a population of over 22 million people. Australian politics since the Howard era has been characterised by a reluctance to embrace change, a fear of Australia's ever-vulnerable borders being breached and a reluctance to let go of the coal-mining, land-dependent image of the Aussie battler.

Despite students and the unemployed emerging from the Global Financial Crisis with $900 worth of stimulating spending money and the rest of the continent left relatively unscathed, Australia hangs on to the "times are tough" mentality - responding with hysteria to pricing carbon, hysteria to asylum seekers travelling by boat and slowly shifting denial to the realities of climate change.

Globally, Australia is comparatively doing fine. We don't have thousands packed in protest in one of our busiest streets. Nor do we have unemployment at a devastating 9%. We don't have widespread unease and violence, nor do we have an immanent fresh water crisis with no long term solution.

Matthew Wright, November 24:

The contentious issue of coal seam gas has become a federal government concern in the dying days of the 2011 parliamentary sitting year. To gain the backing of independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor for the minerals resource rent tax, the Labor government has agreed to set up an independent committee to study the environmental impacts of CSG, but the new body won’t end the uncertainty surrounding the controversial industry. 

According to reports, the $150 million Independent Expert Scientific Committee will advise governments on the impacts of CSG extraction on the environment and water. This is definitely a step in the right direction, but it is essential that the scope of the inquiry includes a comprehensive evaluation of the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of CSG, particularly fugitive emissions.

 The prudent course of action would be for Australian governments to impose a moratorium on CSG mining until its impacts, particularly on water and greenhouse gas emissions, are properly understood. To proceed without this understanding risks irreparable damage to Australia’s productive farmland and aquifers, and a pulse in emissions that could easily eclipse any emissions saving made under the Clean Energy Future package. In the meantime, these uncertainties represent a very real risk to those investing in this embattled industry.

By Matthew Wright

CLIMATE SPECTATOR reports: A year ago I retired my old, dirty and inefficient gas wall heater, when I had it confirmed that it was using a significant amount of energy heating up outside rather than just inside my house like I would have expected.

Australians are generally unaware about the renewable heat resources available to domestic households, as a clean, safe and efficient competitor to dirty fossil gas.

That's why I bought six air conditioners. Air conditioners have a bad name and a bad wrap and it's completely unearned and unfair. Air conditioners are wonderful technology, like a laptop computer, smartphone or radiology machine. Air conditioners should rightly be called heat pumps, because they pump heat from one location to another. In doing so they concentrate that heat. They can pump heat out of our room making it feel cooler. Or than can pump heat into your room making it warmer.

There is nothing to feel guilty about here.  What you should be feeling guilty about is if you don't have a reverse cycle air conditioners, and you're heating with gas or electric resistive (bar radiators, oil filled heaters, electric fan heaters etc).

AUSTRALIA should concentrate its clean energy funding on research, according to federal independent Tony Windsor, rather than controversial schemes like ''pink batts or cash for clunkers''.

Mr Windsor, a member of the government's multiparty climate change committee, spent last week researching clean energy facilities and policy-making in Europe, including an inspection of Torresol Energy's groundbreaking 20 megawatt Gemasolar power station near Seville, Spain.

Gemasolar uses 2650 mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays on to the top of a central ''power tower'' and heat salt to more than 500 degrees. The molten salts store heat, which is slowly released to power a steam turbine, generating enough electricity to power 25,000 homes.

Last month, Gemasolar became the world's first solar thermal power station to supply electricity into the grid for 24 hours - including throughout the night - a key test for solar's ability to provide baseload power.

By Trent Hawkins

Energy efficiency measures for new houses are proven to work and simple to implement. The government should create stricter building standards to achieve quick and easy greenhouse savings.

ONE WOULD IMAGINE THAT the main question being asked at the annual Built Environment Meets Parliament Conference in Canberra this week is: why are we still building low-performance housing?

At a time when the cost of electricity continues to rise, high-performing energy efficient homes offer much needed respite from cost-of-living pressures, while responding to the challenges of the climate crisis.

Our governments need to take the side of working Australians and set clear efficiency standards and reform the incentives for the building industry. Only then will Australians have comfortable and affordable housing that is climate-friendly.

Beyond Zero Emissions is launching a new research initiative to investigate pathways to a zero emissions buildings sector.

Following the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, which was released in partnership with the University of Melbourne last year, the group has turned its attention to the built environment.

“Australia's building sector contributes around 23 per cent of the national carbon footprint,' said Matthew Wright, Beyond Zero Emission's Executive Director.

Experts in the field of building energy efficiency met in Melbourne last Tuesday at a Buildings Retrofit Workshop co-hosted by Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) and the University of Melbourne Energy Research Institute.

Among the many distinguished participants were RMIT Adjunct Professor Alan Pears, John Macdonald from DesignInc, Shane Esmore from Umow Lai, John Duffin from ARUP, and academics Dr Dominique Hes and Dr Sara Wilkinson. Participants pooled their collective expertise to devise retrofit strategies for non-residential buildings that would achieve maximum energy demand reduction for Australia's existing building stock.

Climate change solutions think tank Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) is launching a new research initiative to investigate pathways to a zero emissions buildings sector. Following on from their Banksia award-winning Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan released in partnership with the University of Melbourne last year, the group has turned its attention to the built environment.

'Australia's building sector contributes around 23 per cent of the national carbon footprint,' says Matthew Wright, BZE's Executive Director. 'It presents a fantastic opportunity to achieve sizable carbon reductions.'

The Zero Carbon Australia Buildings Plan seeks to quantify the carbon reductions that existing buildings can achieve through retrofitting, and that new buildings can achieve through cutting-edge sustainable design. It will also quantify the maximum feasible contribution from distributed onsite renewable electricity generation.