Save electricity

Turn your microwave off at the wall.

Sure you won't have the clock function but did you know that your microwave will actually use more energy to run the clock than the energy used to cook or defrost the food.  I'm sure this is dependent on how much you actually use your microwave, but I would assume most of us don't use our microwaves to cook every meal and as such believe that it is likely that this statement is probably true.

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Solar hot water system...bit of boosting!

Late last year we installed an evacuated tube solar hot water system. I have found the system we installed awesome to date!

Site-specific features of our system include:

• having the system mounted on a north-facing rack. This ensures the system works to its maximum potential, particularly during the winter months.
• a booster when the system doesn't achieve adequate heat through the roof mounted system. For our system we chose to have a mains electricity booster.
• having my booster attached to an overnight tariff. 

The last couple of weeks have brought me some awareness to weather conditions that will challenge the solar component of my system. In the last two weeks we have had overcast weather, with occasional showers. In addition to this inclement weather, we are now entering winter where the sun is positioned further in the north in the sky during the day. All of these factors contribute to lower efficiency in all solar systems, when compared to these systems' performance during prime summer sun positions and certainly has resulted in some diminished performance of my system.

As a result of this cooler, wetter and gloomier weather the water tank that stores my hot water did not maintain a temperature much over 23 degrees. As a result, morning showers were a little cooler than one would consider comfortable and a little shorter than usual (good though for the water level in our rain water tank). But thanks to the boosting system, we flicked the switch and by the time we woke up the next morning we were back to a stable hot water tank temperature of 65 degrees.   

This one night of boosting was adequate and the next day I turned the booster off and the roof mounted tubes managed to kick into doing their job for the rest of the week due to some sunny weather.  Pin It

Where to put your power points?

Having moved in our new home not too long ago and this coinciding with my increased passion for energy efficiency and sustainable home design, many "home renovation" ideas have been added to our family's "to do list".  One of our key considerations, is how we function with existing infrastructure in our house (one of the key "environmental" principle - reuse), or alternatively what we would need to do to the house to make our life easier or improved without creating a significant cost to the environment.

One of the things that should be considered, but may not seem so obvious to most people and surely should be towards the top of the list, is the location or placement of the humble power point or power outlet. Why, you might ask?

(Source: South Australian Government)

In the modern household, power points are typically low down, in the corners of rooms throughout the household or just generally tucked away. However, if you re-locate these to locations that are higher on the walls or just surrounding the "edges" of your furniture, you will be encouraged to turn off your appliances at the wall. Through this simple re-location, you have the potential to create significant environmental and energy savings in your home (particularly, if you live in a typical modern, western household).

The mere action of moving power points to more accessible and more prominent locations means you are more likely to turn them off (at the wall) when your appliance isn't in use and if you're really diligent even remove the appliance's plug from the power point. Why do you need to remove the appliance's plug from the wall as well? There is actually a small amount of current used by many modern appliances even when they are turned off at the wall but remain plugged in, quite often to run memory requirements or maintain batteries, etc. Therefore, the simple act of removing the plug to the appliance from the wall removes this energy requirement and save you money.  

All in all, the action of turning off appliances at the wall means you save electricity, money and  reduce the amount of greenhouse gases and "obviously" save the planet in the process. And all this is more likely to happen if you can see your power points and reach them.  





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Speed Dating a Sustainable Designer

How cool is this concept? The Alternative Technology Association is hosting a series of dating events (advice service) with sustainable architects and designers in various cities around Australia. The event is called "Speed Dating a Sustainable Designer".

The idea is you get 10 minutes with a sustainable designer or architect (or maybe you're extra special and get several dates) to chat about renovations, building ideas relating to your personal sustainable building project. One of the most important things to remember to bring along as many plans, photos, props, etc to help you get the most out of your 10 minutes and to communicate your ideas and aspirations.

There are still upcoming events in Sydney and Brisbane, with Melbourne holding one of these earlier this year. Have a look at the ATA's website for further information about these fabulous events and register your interest.

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Beyond Zero Emissions

I organised a talk by Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) for a local community group on Tuesday night. It was a great night and very informative.

This organisation is promoting the idea that the Australian energy sector could change from non-renewable energy (ie gas and coal-fired power stations) to renewable energy sources in just 10 years. It sounds unbelievable but in this plan the idea is to transition our economy from these existing dirty energy sources to clean energy with currently available ("off-the-shelf") renewable energy technology and therefore can potentially achieve this timeframe!

The best part of the presentation was the presenters' assurance that the plan they put forward may not be the complete solution or the one that ends up being implemented, but it to showcases that such a transition is completely plausible and possible and that such ideas should be examined, supported and in turn allow Australia to lead the world in part of the solution to some of our current environmental predicaments! What a goal!

There are certainly many questions that the presentation raised for me and showcased some of the existing barriers that the plan would have to overcome to be implemented, but the best part of the idea is that they are trying to move forward.

Don't get stuck in the existing model and the doom and gloom that the energy sector puts forward when it comes to alternatives. It is important to examine alternatives on their merit, join in the debate and tell politicians that you would like to see them, their government and big business help Australian citizens achieve their dreams of Australia's renewable future.

Maybe you can get along to one of these talks or organise BZE to talk at your next function or just get involved and ask your politicians to get involved and informed. Pin It

How much energy does your household use?

Would you like to know exactly how much energy you use in your home?

CSIRO is conducting a study examining 500 homes across Australia (Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne) to look at how much energy households are using for cooling and heating. The researchers are presently looking for households that would like to one of the 500 households.

One of the conditions of entry is that your house has to be less than ten years old, which removes my household from participating, as well as many of the people I know, but if you meet the criteria you can sign up and reap some of the benefits.

Have a look at their website: http://www.csiro.au/house to see if you are eligible to take part.

Benefits that CSIRO states households will receive from participating include:

• learning how to reduce your energy bills;
• a report on your home's heating and cooling energy performance;
• a set of infrared photographs that show if you are losing heating and cooling and where it is going 
• $100 cash for looking after and returning a pair of thermometers; and
• some homes may be eligible for installation of an energy monitor, valued at $1500, to provide online access showing where your electricity is being used.

I think this would be so cool, particularly the photos of your house showing the heat/cool leaks!

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Energy Conservation Communities

Energex and the Queensland government have a new strategy to reduce peak energy usage by the general residential community. The initiative is known by the name "Energy Conservation Communities". The concept behind it is to encourage heavy electricity usage to utilise their appliances in the non-peak times (outside 4pm to 8pm) or utilise the appliances in a manner that reduces the demand on the electricity grid during peak times.

The appliances this program are targeting are:

• swimming pool pumps;
• hot water systems; and
• air-conditioners.

The Energy Conservation Communities website has additional information about the incentives and packages that you may be eligible for. Incentives include $600 in rewards relating to the management of your appliances aimed at reducing the energy usage during peak periods.

Have a look and see what benefits you might receive. Alternatively, do as I have done and register your interest in future programs that may be rolled out. Pin It

Don't turn on the fan!

Now that it is warming up, our fans around the house have been regularly on attempting to cool us and the house. I heard something on a Doctor Karl Kruszelnicki podcast the other day that I thought was a useful tip to share with you all in relation to fans.

Basically, don't turn the fan on unless you're in the room. According to Dr Karl the fan doesn't cool the room whilst you're not in it. The function of the fan is to circulate the air across your skin, which in a hot environment where you have sweat or moisture on your skin, the breeze from the fan then cools you directly, thereby replicating the natural body cooling process (wind and sweat). 

So as an environmental measure, don't turn a fan on, unless you're in the room. This will mean that you will be cool and overall reduce your energy consumption and your electricity bill by not using an appliance in an inefficient and ineffective manner! 

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Clean energy future?

The Australian Senate yesterday passed the package of Clean Energy legislation to allow Australia move into a new phase of its history! This legislation is aimed at driving the production of non-renewable energy down and increase the amount of renewables or clean energy available to Australia in the future. The legislation will also attempt to cut emissions that Australia would have otherwise generated by 2020. And the biggest and most publicised component, is that there will be a price on carbon from the 1 July 2012. This will commence at $23 a tonne for the top 500 polluters in Australia.

I was recently interested to know that Brisbane City Council is one of these top 500, but from the information that I recently heard from their Mayor, they are well on their way to looking at alternative sources of energy and ways to improve their activities and how to reduce their "bill" as you might say.

What an environmental step forward our country made yesterday and I am pleased that the government stood up to big business. Pin It

Do you deserve a green star?

A number of projects, particularly commercial construction, have been rated in Australia, using a 'green star' rating system. This sounds good when someone tells you their project has rated six green stars, but what does it really mean?

The Green Star system is a system developed by the Green Building Council of Australia. It aims to rate environmental design and construction of buildings in Australia and is done in a voluntary, national and "comprehensive" manner. Within the Green Star rating tool there are nine categories. These are:

• management
• indoor environment quality
• energy
• transport
• water
• materials
• land use and ecology
• emissions
• innovations

Each of these categories are then divided into credits and a project assessed against the objectives of the categories and awarded credits within each category. These credits are then assessed as a percentage score, with a Green Star weighting factor then applied to then determine the building's overall rating, being four, five or six Green Stars. Six Green Stars indicates that the building project is considered as demonstrating 'world leadership' in environmentally sustainable design and/or construction.

Further information about the Green Star rating system is available on the Green Building Council's website.

How useful this is is potentially questionable, but at least there are some questions being raised about the efficiencies that can be undertaken both during design and construction within a commercial building development and hopefully this then transfers through to the building occupants and they continue to "capitalise" on the green savings the building can generate for them! Pin It

1200 Building Initiative

The 1200 Buildings program is a building retrofit program in the City of Melbourne. It was generated out of a council idea to support commercial building owners to retrofit their buildings with measures that will increase a building's water and energy efficiency and reduce waste. It is also supports the Council's goal  for the entire Council area to become "carbon neutral by 2020". What an idea, particularly since the City of Melbourne doesn't own and cannot dictate these changes to these privately owned buildings. In reality, this goal will only be achieved through support, education and changes made by building owners.

How to achieve this? My goodness I can't even imagine. However, Melbourne city has come up with some very exciting ideas to achieve this, which include some new financial lending models. One of the imaginative models means that finance institutions can forward funding to commercial building owners for activities to achieve the goals set by the Melbourne City Council and then these funds are re-couped to the bank by having a charge in your Council rates to fund these "loans".

I don't know the precise details of how this finance model works, but it certainly seems like an innovative one and one that will break some of the dis-incentives for owners of properties, to undertake sustainability measures, when these buildings are rented out, and it is the tenant that in fact receives the cost-breaks through energy and water cost savings!

If you want to know more about the program have a look at the 1200 Buildings website.

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Solar hot water...things you need to consider

I have now had three commercial companies come and provide me with quotes for a solar hot water system for my house and I feel that it would be easy to get caught up in the sales pitch that these "environmentally-friendly" companies give you. So, here are a few things that I learnt about solar hot water systems and some of the greenwash or sales pitches I have heard.

Things you need to consider:

• Size of hot water storage tank (this will depend on the number of people using hot water in your household)
• Whether you want a split system or not (this is whether you want the storage tank on your roof or not)
• Where you can and/or want to accommodate the solar system on your roof
• What type of boosting system (gas or electricity) you want for your system
• What orientation your roof has (use a compass to find out) and whether it will appropriately accommodate a solar hot water system (see previous post on Solar Hot Water).
• How large your house is in area and where the areas that use hot water are (this will help you position your storage tanks and/or solar collection "panels" on the roof and whether a solar hot water system will efficiently deliver hot water to those areas)
• How much money you have to purchase a system
• What rebates are available to you from the government (if this an important factor)
• What your climate is like and whether is it appropriate to a solar hot system
• Is there enough open solar access for a solar hot water system to be effective and efficient at your location
• The amount of structural capability your roof has and whether it can accommodate a roof-mounted hot water storage tank
• Whether you want to show the world you have a solar hot water system (this will determine whether you are happy to mount the collector panels to achieve best orientation, if needed, or have a flat panel system on your roof)

Now here are some things I have learnt about:

• for maximum efficiency and to increase the likelihood that I can get hot water all year round, I should be positioning my solar hot water collector panels to the north. This is particularly important for those winter months when I want to catch as much of the sun's energy as possible, when the sun is positioned further into the northern hemisphere
• on my house this means mounting the panels on a frame, these are constructed to position my panels in a northerly direction, my problem with my position is that these potentially collector panels will still be shaded in some parts of the year and thus, boosting from either mains electricity or a gas system will be required
• insulation of pipes between the collector panels on the roof and the storage tank below (if you're opting for a split system) will ensure maximum hot water is collected in your tank and therefore you don't loose heat through the transfer process
• the storage tank is either boosted (from electricity or gas) or water re-circulated into the "panels" when the water is lower than sixty degrees Celsius
• in a split system the water is pumped onto the roof with a small motor in the storage tank
• you may require more than two "panels" on your roof if you have a particularly large family or have a significant hot water use
• most of the storage tanks seem to have what is called a sacrificial anode, which corrodes overtime and requires maintenance approximately every five years (depending on the quality of your water)

Here are some things that I am a little unsure about and either smell of greenwash or just outright competition between businesses (there may be legislative requirements but can't seem to figure it out yet):

• one company offers a titanium based panel which means that you can orient them outside of the optimum orientation (north) and not loose efficiency....apparently the titanium has the capability of heating hotter than the standard components and therefore can orient outside the optimum north facing 
• consideration of winds if you are mounting your system on racks. Obviously this is important in some locations, but the amount of winds and strength that we have at my place i think is unlikely to impact on the system, but you should definitely get this checked out
• the size of your storage tank needs to be the next size up from your current storage tank. Apparently, this is because solar hot water can only be generated during the day and not consistently and therefore for continuously available hot water, whenever you want you need a larger storage capacity. To me you just need to train your family to use hot water when available and not demand hot water anytime. 
• If you are mains electricity boosting your hot water storage tank, you're not suppose to have this on Tariff 33 (the overnight/off-peak tariff). I am unsure about this and will have to contact my energy provider to see if this is true. The company that told me this said it was legislation. If this is the case and you only use this for hot water, again this company told me that I should have the meter for this tariff disconnected because the energy company would still charge me a service fee for this meter even if I wasn't using it for hot water heating any more.
• the life span of these systems seem to be about 10 years, but no one will put a firm number on it and there is often the statement that the technology has improved so they are likely to last longer than this magic number. Also from the information I received from the companies it seems as if it is the storage tank that will need replacing first and this is just as you would with a traditional hot water storage tank.

A useful Australian government publication is the "Your Home: Technical Manual", which has a section on hot water systems and provides a lot of facts that you need to consider when deciding what hot water system is appropriate for you and has great tips and facts associated with solar hot water.

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Solar Hot Water Systems

Today has not been wasted!

I learnt that it is in fact best or most efficient to install your solar hot water system's collector panels facing north.

I knew this was necessary for photovoltaic systems (or solar electricity systems), but thought that because there isn't the requirement to transform sunlight into electricity but rather just heat the water it isn't necessary for solar hot water. But it is! According to the information I have read if the panels don't face north, the efficiencies drop off in solar water heating just as much as in the solar electric systems.

So moral of the story, if you are thinking about either of these systems, orient all your panels as close to true north as possible.

If you have any experiences or comments on solar hot water systems feel free to post your comments below. Pin It

Are you letting the cold air out?

My main fridge is about nine years old and starting to look a little daggy. Don't get me wrong I think it still does a marvellous job and wouldn't dream of replacing it, but I was a little concerned that I might be paying a higher price to run it.

Why you might ask? Basically over time the seals around the doors start to deteriorate. This means that your fridge can't keep the cold air in and has to continuously replace this cold air by running the motor which then costs your money in energy usage.

But how do you know if your seals need replacing? I had somewhere in the back of my mind that you place a piece of paper between the door and the fridge, close the fridge door and then try and remove the paper. I did this, but I could easily remove it from multiple locations around the door frame for both the fridge and the freezer. Either my seals were completely dead (which I didn't think was the case) or there was something wrong with my method.

After a quick internet search, another method suggested was to place a torch in the fridge at night, turn off all your lights in the vicinity of the fridge and see if you can see the light coming out of the fridge. If you can see any light you need a new seal. I tried this method last night and couldn't see any light, so currently I am assuming that my seals are ok. See if I can come up with any other methods to test my fridge and freezer seals.

Maybe worth a try at your place.

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US to remove dam to restore catchment qualities

I just came across a 'green' article discussing the US's largest dam removal project. My first thoughts were that this was just greenwashing putting a slant on this event rather than just talking about the removal as a project addressing an aging piece of infrastructure. But it seems my initial pessimism was wrong.

There are actually two dams to be removed, Elwha and Glines Canyon dams, within the Olympic National Park on the Elwha River. It seems that the sole reason for the removal of these dams is to restore river's catchment.

These two dams were originally built for the purpose of generating hydro-electricity. But it seems that the construction of these resulted in a complete barrier to fish between their upstream and downstream habitats. The main value that will be restored once the dams have been removed is this fish passage.

More information about the dam removal decision can be found at the Elwha Watershed Information Resource website. There are also some cool animations showing how the dams are to be removed at the following websites: Interactive Earth Elwha dam removal and Interactive Earth Glines Canyon dam removal.

The only thing I didn't manage to determine was whether there was another renewable energy source replacing the dams electricity supply (if they were still producing). Hopefully the removal doesn't result in a greater demand for an energy source that isn't environmentally appropriate.

Overall, congratulations! Pin It

Did you know NZ has an emissions trading system?

Today I found out that New Zealand established an emissions trading scheme last year (July 2010). This is fantastic news as it shows a first world economy still functioning successfully after the implementation such a system. The NZ scheme incorporates agriculture, industry, energy, liquid fossil fuels, fishing, synthetic gases, forestry, waste and horticulture sectors of their economy and aims to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by putting a price on these emissions. Currently the price for each NZ unit is NZ$25. However, the NZ government only requires one unit be surrendered for every two tonnes of carbon emitted during the transition period, thus effectively pricing each unit at $12.50.

I have heard the level of impact that this system has had on the NZ economy has been almost unrecognisable. There does however, need to be recognition that there have been serious challenges to their economy as a result of the natural disasters that have occurred in their country over the past 12 months. Thus, the level impact that this new trading scheme has had has been potentially dwarfed by these other situations. Nevertheless, it is positive news that such a trading scheme, of similar nature to the proposed carbon tax here in Australia, has been successfully implemented without flattening their economy or causing significant hardships for families and households. Hopefully, this provides some comfort to regular Australians. Further, the NZ system includes fuel (petrol/diesel) in their system, which has been explicitly excluded from the Australian situation, thus further buffering Australian households during our transition period.    

Further information about the NZ government's perspective on their emissions trading scheme can be found on their Ministry for the Environment's website.

It is important to note that I looked, not just the positive, but also the negatives that could be associated with the NZ emission trading scheme. I didn't manage to find any significant negative impacts vocalised by reputable sources from a brief review (20 mins) of a couple of Internet search engines. This may be because the scheme is only new and investigations into it haven't been complete. But I definitely thought I would at least find scores of groups/people that were opposed to the scheme prior to its introduction saying 'I told you so', but almost none of this. Hopefully this situation will be the same here in Australia after the introduction of the carbon tax.   Pin It

What is renewable and non-renewable energy?

Recently with all the talk of the proposed carbon tax there has been a lot of discussion about renewable versus non-renewable energy. Perhaps introducing some of the basic concepts behind this topic might be useful for people.

What are the current forms of non-renewable energy?
Presently, the main sources of non-renewable energy are fossil fuels. These include coal, petroleum, natural gas and nuclear power which is based on uranium. These energy sources are considered non-renewable because they are based on materials that are finite in nature and cannot be replenished in the Earth's environment over a short time scale.

Currently here in Australia we rely heavily on coal-fire power stations to provide us with electricity and are also significantly connected to petrol for use in our cars.

What are renewable sources of energy?
Wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectricity, tidal power and biogas are all typically considered to be renewable sources of energy and are considered as such because they can regenerate naturally. There are even some finite resources such as timber and some metal resources which can produce renewable energy because the resource can either be regenerated (in the case of timber) or recycled (some metals).

Australia has started to invest in some of these energies on a commercial scale, yet the proportion of these types of energy providing electricity to our household is still quite small.  There is however the option for you to pay a premium for electricity to obtain"green power", bringing about consumer demand for further investment in these energy types. Alternatively, putting some solar panels onto your roof and then being plugged into the electricity grid has also resulted in an increase in renewable energy available here in Australia. Pin It

Do you need a new dishwasher?

We have a rule in our house (one that I imposed) that whoever cooks doesn't have to clean. The issue with this arrangement in my household is that I do the cooking and my lovely other half doesn't believe in doing regular, after every meal type hand-washing. I can't stand to see the dirty dishes in the kitchen and also the dishes being unavailable because they are waiting to be cleaned. So the fall-back, sanity arrangement is a dishwasher. We have had one in our houses for the last three years and it certainly has created extra time for all in the house.

We are about to move to a new house and one of my dilemmas is there is no dishwasher. I am completely daunted by this and have started my investigation into the type that I will purchase once we move in. I have just come across a couple of websites that can assist people in investigating the energy and water efficiency of dishwashers currently available on the market.

The Energy Rating website specifically discusses the amount of energy that each dishwasher model uses and the Water Efficiency website discusses water usage. Both of these websites have various options so you can either narrow or broaden the criteria and features that you would like in your dishwasher.

Happy researching! Pin It

Nuclear meltdown

It has been nearly two months since the earthquake and tsunami hit the east coast of Japan, which resulted in significant damage and loss of life. These events are not unheard of or expected in Japan, however the recent ones have had some dramatic consequences in regards to radiation exposure for some of the country's population, food and also a serious incident for at least one of the country's nuclear reactors. The nuclear reactor plant at Fukushima Daiichi has now had three of its reactors having confirmed meltdowns.

You may ask, what is a nuclear meltdown? Basically, this is just a term used to describe a severe nuclear reactor incident, where the core of the reactor has been damaged due to overheating. They are also generally considered serious because of the likelihood of radioactive material being released to the environment.

As background, a nuclear reactor creates electricity by heating fluids via a nuclear reaction which then powers a generator. This process is done through the use of a cooling system, which takes the fluids that are circulated through the nuclear reaction chamber from that location to a generator. Then the fluid that was circulating through the nuclear reactor chamber and consequently being heated is taken to another section of the power plant. At this location the fluid is used as a heat source for a boiler and in turn the steam is used to drive a turbine driven electrical generator.

The 'reaction chamber' needs a continual supply of cool fluids as the byproducts of the nuclear reaction also create heat and continue to produce heat even after the reaction occurs for a period of time (up to several years). If this chamber doesn't receive fresh supplies of cool fluids a 'meltdown'. In the case of the Fukushima power plant, power was lost at the site after the tsunami hit meaning that the cooling system was not functional for a period of time. The cooling system at the plant could not bring cool fluids to the reactors, causing the system to overheat and in turn resulting in several meltdowns.

One of the human health concerns as a result of these meltdowns is the release of radioactive material. Some reports suggest areas within a radius of 30-50km of the power plant have levels of radioactive ceasium to cause concern and iodine-131 within the seawater discharge. However, other research reports state that areas outside the 20km evacuation zone around the power plant have levels of radiation far below human health concerns. There are however still human health risks associated with the consumption of contaminated food and water.

Despite the relative amounts of radioactive discharge from the site and people's concerns in the areas adjacent to the power plant, it is the power plant workers I feel the most for in this situation. These staff continue to work in this environment, knowing there will be consequences as a result of their constant exposure to radiation whilst attempt to bring these reactors back to some sort of stability. These people are selfless and are reducing the risks that would potentially occur if they weren't so self-sacrificing. Amazing! Pin It

In Tune with Nature

To become more in tune with the land, seasons and opportunities for food growing, energy and water capture and the changes in wildlife and weeds in my life and the land I occupy, I am going to start an observation journal. 


What will this entail?


Recording:

• date
• season
• weather - temperature, rainfall, cloud cover, etc
• what is in flower/fruit - food, native and weed plants
• what is happening on the land

and anything else that takes my fancy. 


Overtime, I hope to collect a picture of the patterns in the landscape, what I will need to be doing on the land, what to expect from my food plants and identify things that are out of place or sorts.


I am looking forward to learning from this process.  Pin It