Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
In the future, we might be heating our houses with dog poop.
As San Francisco, Oakland and other Bay Area cities strive to reach
self-imposed goals of keeping every bit of trash out of landfills by 2020, even
animal waste is being scrutinized to see how it might be reused or recycled.
And so San Francisco has become the first city in the country to consider
turning Fido’s droppings into methane, which can heat homes, cook meals and
generate electricity.
Plans to expand to 26,000ha: Cubbie Station now has about
16,500ha planted with cotton, but under an aggressive corporate plan
for expansion, it aims to increase that to 26,000ha by September next
year.
500,000ML storage capacity: Cubbie Station manager John Grabbe
said the station had an allocation of 150,000 megalitres a year from
nearby Balance River – part of the Murray-Darling system – and the
flats around it, but it had storage capacity of 500,000 megalitres
through a series of interlocking dams.
Operation within allocation: “What you do with the water is more
important than the volumes you have,” he said. “We operate completely
within the allocation we have from the Queensland Government.
Water would evaporate anyway: “A lot of people criticise us for
diverting water from the floodplains, but all of the water we divert
into our property would otherwise evaporate and be lost. If Cubbie
didn’t exist, the same amount of water would be going downstream,”
Grabbe added.
Plans for better crop rotation: Grabbe said the company could
manage the expansion without extra water by making efficiencies –
better water storage and better crop rotation.
Reduced rate of evaporation: The main measure the station has
taken to improve its water use has been to store it in larger and
deeper dams, so the rate of evaporation – important in a hot climate –
is reduced.
Dams as deep as 8m: In the area where Cubbie operates, the top
1.7m of the water in any dam is lost through evaporation. The station
dams have a depth of up to 8m, far deeper than most of the dams in the
surrounding area.
$440m public company: Cubbie has recently joined another cotton
operation at nearby St George to form the Cubbie Group, an unlisted
public company chaired by former Queensland treasurer Keith De Lacy,
with assets of $440 million.
The Australian, 23/2/2006, p. 2
The cost impact of wind energy outside the broader energy market should
be considered, Origin Energy said in its submissions on the Victorian
Department of Infrastructure issues paper on “Driving investment in
renewable energy in Victoria – Options for a Victorian market-based
measureâ€Â.
Valid part of sector: Origin said wind energy represented a
steadily growing component of renewable generation in Australia, and
therefore a valid part of the sector’s capacity to abate greenhouse gas
emissions.
Two forms of support needed because of intermittent nature: It
said extra wind capacity would require two forms of generation support
because of the intermittent nature of the underlying energy source:
• variability outside 5-minute dispatch intervals – gas turbine
generation, which can take between 15 and 30 minutes to reach maximum
output, was either required to run to adjust for wind generation
variability or to stand idle as back-up support ; and
• variability inside 5-minute dispatch intervals – ancillary services
generation was required, sometimes at significant extra cost, to cater
for wind generation variability.
Consumers pay for extra support: Origin said energy consumers
ultimately bore the costs of both forms of generation support.
Moreover, these costs were magnified as greater amounts of wind
generation were connected to the system and more generation support was
required.
Different situation overseas: In a footnote, Origin said that in
countries where a substantial proportion of the energy supply mix was
wind generation (such as Denmark and Germany) the effects of
intermittency could be minimised as the number and spread of wind farms
increased. Australia’s wind industry was not of a comparable diversity
and magnitude, nor was the interconnectedness of the National
Electricity Market (NEM) as advanced as it was in Europe.
Reference: Submission by Origin Energy on Department of
Infrastructure issues paper on “Driving investment in renewable energy
in Victoria – Options for a Victorian market-based measureâ€Â. 1
February. Address: Level 21, 360 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. Vic.
3000. GPO Box 186C, Melbourne. Vic. 3002. Phone: (03) 9652 5555. Fax:
(03) 9652 5553. Department of Infrastructure address: Level 14, 80
Collins Street, Melbourne. Vic. 3000. GPO Box 2797, Melbourne. Vic.
3001. Phone: (03) 9655 6666. Fax (03) 9655 6752.
http://www.originenergy.com.au
Erisk Net, 23/2/2006
The Australian Financial Review, 22/2/2006, p. 21
Source: Erisk – www.erisk.net
A full copy of the paper Western Australia: Water Policy Issues in Climate Uncertainty may be downloaded from the ATSA website http://www.atse.org.au/