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  • Transparency of acq and cost per house

    2) Good question.  Questions can be asked about the $6bn at Senate Estimates C’ttee time in Canberra, but the buck has been quickly passed to state govts, so the questions will need to be raised in state parliaments by vigorous opposition parties.
    2-1) The ‘Reverse Garbage’ building at Addison St, Marrickville has been built with straw bale.  Also has a full water tank.  Not sure about multi-storey, multi-residential structural engineering calculations in straw bale though  ; )
    Cement is also highly energy-intensive to produce.  Interestingly, a new ‘green’ cement made from volcanic fly ash called ‘pozzolana’ has been rediscovered recently in Cuba due to shortages — it resembles the cement originally discovered by the Romans and used 2,000 years ago, and takes much less energy to produce than Portland cement — and the cement is also hardier and less likely to get concrete cancer!  So a green future for cement…  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzolana
    2-3) It would be interesting to investigate what the ratio will be of new build bought directly from developers against purchasing existing privately held dwellings, and when the new builds were approved and built.  Entire blocks of flats are put up for sale fairly often, but not that many people have $2-3M lying around unleveraged by borrowing to spend on such an acquisition, so it shouldn’t be too hard to acquire some of these either.  The state govt will have to advertise for such vendors to come forward to bring it to their or their accountant’s attention — above and beyond one newspaper article.  After all, they’re advertising the FHOB on the sides of buses…
    Cheers,
    Sean

    From: hwg-bounces@lists.nsw.greens.org.au [mailto:hwg-bounces@lists.nsw.greens.org.au]
    Sent: Friday, 15 May 2009 4:50 PM
    To: GREENS Housing WorkGroup TheGreens
    Subject: [HWG] Transparency of acq and Cost per house RE: NSW government plans to buy 1, 000 homes

                                 
    [ 1 ]
         
    Exactly what is the cost per house? 
            
    At just $1 Billion by NSW Govt:
        
    Cost per house              =  $1,000,000,000  /   9,000 houses
                                      =  $   111,111      per         house     
         
          
    What $ value from  Federal    $6,000,000,000                      for NSW?   
               
    [ 1-1 ]
    Why am I asking that The Greens check the arithmetic?  
         
    Because, I am in the middle of Audacity of Hope – Barack Obama,
    with  many unsavoury insights from USA that sadly fit Oz system;
    which includes a reference to dodgy costing.
         
          
           
    [ 2 ]    
    How do The Greens ensure a transparent process for this “acquisition of public housing”?
          
     ~  What if a Co-op of public spirited citizens offered to look in to, and even drive
         the process?
                
    [ 2-1 ]
    Ideally, Govt. should get a few public servants/Architects in to Green Housing/ allocate
    some land and do straw-bale mud houses – per my Permaculture class teacher a 8.5 score
    against normal concrete that score 2.
        
     ~  That’s all I know – I have been in a small straw bale house, and it felt good.
         I am yet in my 2nd class – introductory level.
         Houses are probably covered at Advance Level course – but,
         Permaculture orgs would have experts who wish these houses are in wider use, I feel.
         Humans did live in houses before concrete.
         And, old mud houses still stand in dessert ruins.  
         
     ~  Probably can build a straw bale house with just the first home owner grant!
         
     ~  Anybody wants to run a project/work bee re Greens stance – I offer my
         voluntary services as a willing researcher  for a good cause.
        
    [ 2-2 ]
    Nice if they start with old houses either abandoned or in Public Trustee care needing
    renovation etc.
         
    [ 2-3 ]
    Or, this is one way of unloading all the unsold developer housing with ALP donations
    already costed in to it. 
        
    If no proper process, public funds will cover another price hike to cover funding
    a snap election called in one of PM Rudd’s tantrums – when they are unsuccessful
    in having their way – all the way.
                      
    At the least we should watch out for an ALP’s already set-in-stone plan to wipe-out
    the  allocations in a worst possible way.
             
              

  • Australia commits $2m to ‘Amazon of the Seas’

     

    Environment Minister Peter Garrett says the Australian aid money will mainly support programs in coastal communities in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

    “This region is the Amazon of the Seas and we recognise how important it is that concerted regional action is taken to secure the health of the ocean environments,” he said.

    “It’s about food security. It’s about the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people in this region. It’s also about recognising how critical the health of the ocean environment is.

    “We want to see some support go in the first instance to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

    “We want to provide the opportunity for additional information learnings, for communities that will be doing this work, and we want to see strategies in place which will really start to deliver the on-ground actions which are necessary to protect the coral triangle itself.”

    Conservationists have backed the plan, with WWF director general Jim Leape saying the regional agreement is a landmark event.

    “What comes out of this commitment is a plan of action which allows, mandates, the ministers, ministries in each of these countries to work together to begin to conserve the tuna stocks that are so important here,” he said.

    “Also to begin to save the endangered sea turtles that live here, to begin to better manage the coastal ecosystems on which so many of their people depend.”

    Tags: conservation, marine-parks, australia, indonesia, papua-new-guinea

  • Beach bought for hard headed birds

    Related story from the UK Guardian

    Maleos – chicken-sized birds with black helmet-like foreheads – number from 5,000 to 10,000 in the wild and can only be found on Sulawesi island. They rely on sun-baked sands or volcanically-heated soil to incubate their eggs.

     

    The US-based Wildlife Conservation Society said it has teamed up with a local environmental group to purchase and protect a 14-hectare (36-acre) stretch of beach in northern Sulawesi that contains about 40 nests.

     

    The environmental groups paid $12,500 for the beach-front property on remote Sulawesi, one of Indonesia’s 17,000 islands, to help preserve the threatened species.

     

    “The protected area is already helping raise awareness about this bird,” said John Tasirin, WCS programme coordinator on the island, adding that is especially significant because humans are the greatest threat to the maleo’s survival. Villagers often dig up the eggs and harvest them for food, he added.

     

    The maleo, which has a blackish back, a pink stomach, yellow facial skin, a red-orange beak, lays gigantic eggs that are then buried in the sand or soil. The chicks hatch and climb from the ground able to fly and fend for themselves.

    “The population of maleos are decreasing quite steadily,” Martin Fowlie of the UK-based BirdLife International said of their new white-sand beach. “So any protection is going to be a good thing.”

     

  • An Early Double Dissolution?

     

    Turning the ‘Alcopops’ legislation into a trigger for a double dissolution provides the government with an alternative path to pass the legislation after an election. But more importantly it provides the option of a double dissolution at any time.

    If the government has key budget measures or the CPRS legislation blocked, the government can use the ‘Alcopops’ double dissolution trigger to frame an early election on the basis of the Senate obstructing other legislation. A double dissolution trigger is a mechanism to achieve an early election, not necessarily the main issue for an early election.

    In the current situation, the government’s first option would be to have its ‘Alcopops’ legislation passed into law. Its second choice would be to accept the double dissolution trigger it has been provided with and liberally use it as a threat to get the Senate to pass other government legislation.

    Its third option would be to call a double dissolution election, though the current state of opinion polls and the predicted path of the economy must mean that some in the government will see using the double dissolution trigger to call an election is the second rather than the third option.

    The mechanics of the constitution on early elections are clear in broad outline. The House of Representatives has variable terms, the Senate fixed staggered terms. Where the two chambers are in conflict, Section 57 of the Constitution is a deadlock resolution provision allowing for a double dissolution of both the House and the full Senate.

    The current House was elected on 24 November 2007. Its term is for three years timed from its first sitting after the election, 12 February 2008. So if the government does not call an earlier election, the House of Representatives will expire through the effluxion of time on 11 February 2011. Under the timetable for elections set out in the Constitution and the Electoral Act, the last possible date for a House election is 16 April 2011.

    However, the government can request a House election at any time. The government could request an early House election as a way of claiming a new mandate to overcome Senate obstruction. All the Prime Minister would have to do is request an early election stating his reasons, and the Governor-General would almost certainly assent to the election.

    But the Governor-General could only issue writs for a House of Representatives election. The Constitution would prevent the issue of writs for a half-Senate election. Section 13 of the Constitution states that writs for a half-Senate election can only be issued in the last year of a Senate’s term. This means that writs for the next half-Senate election cannot be issued before 1 July 2010. The first possible date for a half-Senate election is 7 August 2010. There cannot be a normal election for the House combined with half the Senate before 7 August 2010, only a double dissolution or separate House election.

    On a technical note, the fixed Senate terms only apply for the 72 State Senators. The terms of the four Territory Senators are provided for in legislation. Their terms are maximum three years, with the terms tied to the terms of the House of Representatives. An early House election would also be for the four Territory Senators, though it would almost certainly return one Labor and one Coalition Senator for each Territory, the result that has occurred at every election since 1975.

    The only way that the government can change the Senate numbers before 1 July 2011 is to call a double dissolution. A double dissolution is a deadlock provision designed to allow the House of Representatives to overcome the blocking power of the Senate. It allows the government to force the whole Senate to the electorate at once, breaking the Senate’s fixed term and changing the Senate numbers.

    There is little doubt the government would find this option attractive. The Coalition currently has 37 Senators, Labor 32, with 5 Greens, Senator Xenophon and Family First’s Steve Fielding. On current numbers, the Coalition need to lure only one of the cross-bench Senators across the aisle to block legislation.

    A double dissolution would almost certainly reduce the Coalition to 32-34 Senators, even less if current opinion polls are to be believed. Labor would probably gain Senators and stand a strong chance of gaining a majority of seats in conjunction with the Greens. Senator Xenophon would be re-elected, perhaps with a colleague from his ticket, while Senator Fielding would be unlikely to win re-election, ending his term which currently runs until June 2011.

    However, by reducing the quota for election from 14.3% to 7.7%, a double dissolution could also bring into the Senate a rag-tag collection of unknown Senators from micro-parties, elected thanks to the vagaries of the Senate’s preferential voting system.

    The double dissolution provisions are contained in Section 57 of the Constitution. It states that a bill must first be passed by the House and then be rejected, fail to pass or be unacceptably amended by the Senate. After a period of three months, the same bill must be passed by the House and then again be blocked, fail to pass or be unacceptably amended by the Senate. This provides a trigger which allows the Prime Minister to request a DD. The trigger does not have to be used at once, but must be used before six months from the end of the term of the House. So the announcement of a dissolution for a DD must take place by 11 August 2010, meaning that a double dissolution could take place as late as 16 October 2010.

    After a DD, the government must again present the legislation, and if it is again rejected by the Senate, then a joint sitting of the two Houses can be called under Section 57 at which legislation can be passed by both chambers voting together. The only time a joint sitting under this provision has been held was in 1974 when the Whitlam government passed four major pieces of legislation that had previously been blocked by the Senate.

    The ‘Alcopops’ legislation passed the first test of the double dissolution mechanism on 18 March when it was defeated in the Senate. By trying to pass the legislation again after 18 June, the government meets the three month delay requirement of Section 57. If the ‘Alcopops’ bill is then defeated in the Senate, the government has a trigger to request the Governor-General to issue writs for a double dissolution. It is a trigger the government does not have to use at once but could put away to be brought out from time to time as a threat to the Opposition in the Senate, or to unveil for real in asking the Governor-General for a double dissolution.

    Again it should be stressed that in re-introducing this legislation in a manner that allows it to become a double dissolution trigger does not mean the government is about to call an election. Introducing the ‘Alcopos’ bill in this manner increases the pressure on the Senate to pass the legislation, using the threat of an early election to force a legislative ‘blink’ from the Senate.

    Also, if the government does achieve a double dissolution trigger, it does not mean it is about to call an early election. Yes the government is well ahead in the opinion polls. Yes the budget reveals that the economy may be in a worse position in the second half of next year when the government is due to face the electorate. But we have seen in the past that governments that call early elections have seen enormous opinion poll leads disappear as an election forces voters to focus on the real choices at hand.

    An additional problem with an early election is the fact that redistributions are currently under way in both New South Wales and Queensland. This does not make an early election impossible, but does make it administratively messy.

    Given an election in September/October 2010 has always been the government’s preferred option, having a double dissolution trigger may actually be a useful option for the government. A double dissolution in October 2010 may be a preferable option to a normal House and half-Senate election.

    Holding a double dissolution rather than a normal half-Senate election may give the Labor Party a better position in the Senate.  No doubt some Labor number-crunchers have already looked at that option. But more importantly, a double dissolution would change the Senate at once, where under a half-Senate election, Labor would still be at the mercies of Senator Fielding and the Opposition through until June 2011.

    Posted by Antony Green on May 14, 2009 at 11:38 AM in Federal Politics and Governments |

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  • Entrepreneurs go wild for algae

    Algae-based technologies could provide a key tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and other carbon intensive industrial processes.

    Driven by escalating global climate change concerns and the rising cost of petroleumbased energy, companies are now starting to examine using certain forms of algae to reduce carbon emissions from power plants, generate renewable transportation fuels, and produce feed for fish and livestock.

    Using an intricate photosynthetic process, trendsetters have developed biodiesel and ethanol from an unlikely source – algae – that, given optimal conditions, can double its volume overnight. Up to 50 percent of an alga’s body weight is comprised of oil, whereas oil-palm trees – currently the largest producer of oil to make biofuels – yield just about 20 percent of their weight in oil.

    Soy produces some 50 gallons of oil per acre per year; canola, 150 gallons; and palm, 650 gallons. But algae are expected to produce 10,000 gallons per acre per year, and eventually even more.

    Algae are the fastest-growing plants in the world. But if it were easy to extract the fuel,
    most of the world’s biodiesel would already be made from microalgae grown on nonagricultural
    land, close to coal-fired power plants. It’s critical to understand how to select the right algae species, create an optimal photobiological formula for each species, and build a cost-effective photobioreactor that can precisely deliver the formula to each individual algae cell, no matter the size of the facility, or its geographical location.

    See the full advertisement at http://energybusinessreports.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=2148&affillink=EATC

  • Middlebury College’s Biomass Heating and Cooling Plant

     

    As the biggest of its emissions-reduction efforts, the college invested in a biomass-fueled, district heating and cooling system. After a feasibility study by the Biomass Energy Resource Center (BERC) showed the idea to be practical, Middlebury broke ground in 2007 on an $11 million biomass gasification plant. The new system is expected to be the primary heating and cooling source for the school’s district energy system — and steam from it will also help fuel the college’s cogeneration system, which meets about one-fifth of the campus’s electricity needs.

    When the college began looking at biomass in 2004, the price of number-six fuel oil — of which it was using about 2 million gallons per year — was $0.89 per gallon, notes Tom Corbin, director of business services. By summer 2008, it was more than $3.00 per gallon. Middlebury expects the biomass facility to cut its fuel-oil usage by half, replacing that million tons of oil with 20,000-21,000 tons of chips per year. At fuel-oil price levels in summer 2008, that predicts an annual cost savings of about $2 million.

    At the same time, the college has planted ten acres of fast-growing willow shrubs, on fallow farmland that it owns, as a test project to determine if it can raise enough biomass to meet up to half its system’s needs.

    With or without the willow project, Middlebury also expects its biomass plant to:

    • cut by almost 12,500 tons per year, or about 40 percent, the volume of greenhouse gases that it emits;
    • replace a distant fuel source with a local one, as the college requires that all of its biomass must come from less than 75 miles away;
    • generate 2 million to 2.5 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, with a renewable fuel;
    • benefit the economy of its home region, especially its forest-products industry — along with area farmers, if the willow project catches on; and
    • serve as a learning and demonstration lab for biomass gasification technology in action.

    “Our hope is that the college’s entry into biomass will greatly stimulate the growth of the local, sustainable wood chip market and bioenergy economy in Addison County and Vermont,” says Nan Jenks-Jay, Middlebury’s dean of environmental affairs.

    Added college President Ronald Liebowitz: “The biomass plant exemplifies the college’s longstanding commitment to the environment—not only as an academic subject, but also as an integral part of the institution’s operations.”

    “Maximum Participation and ‘Onboardness’”

    Middlebury students have played key roles in evolving the college’s commitment to going carbon-neutral. Formed in 2002, a Carbon Reduction Initiative Working Group included student, staff, faculty, and administration representatives—and students successfully urged the trustees to adopt its two successive carbon-reduction goals.

    “Middlebury’s approach to reducing its carbon footprint was, and continues to be, maximum participation and ‘onboardness,’” write Jenks-Jay and Byrne in a chapter they co-authored for a recently published book, The Green Planet: Meeting the Challenge of Environmental Sustainability (APPA, 2008).

    The carbon-reduction working group noted that three-quarters of the college’s emissions came from burning number-six fuel oil for heating and cooling — and a woodchip system could displace half of that. A BERC study affirmed the potential for a biomass system that would use locally harvested fuel and could generate economic and learning benefits.

    In 2004, trustees committed Middlebury to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. In late 2006, trustees approved the biomass-system plan — and in 2007, they voted that the college would go entirely carbon-neutral by 2016. To meet that goal, the college is also moving on a brace of additional strategies, from mixing 20 percent vegetable oil into the fuel used in furnaces for 100 buildings not on the biomass district system, to replacing college vehicles with hybrid cars and electric carts.

    Test-Growing a Fuel Supply

    “Really looking at the supply question, for us, was the critical piece,” said Jack Byrne, the college’s sustainability coordinator, in summing up lessons learned in the process of moving to biomass district energy. Initially hoping to find a single, nearby supplier for all its woodchips, the college found that wasn’t possible and contracted instead with a New Hampshire wood-products broker. Middlebury has required that its chip supply be obtained from within 75 miles of the campus, and that a stockpile of it be stored no more than 25 miles away.

    “That guarantees us a six-week supply,” said Byrne, who expects the biomass system to meet all of the college’s heating and cooling needs “for probably eight months of the year.”

    “The other question it’s important to ask, that we asked for our willow project, is: Okay, right now there’s sufficient [fuel] capacity. But what happens five years from now, if many more people switch to wood as a fuel source, which is quite likely to happen?”

    In hopes of ensuring its own, reliable, sustainably produced supply, the college looked into farming trees for fuel. It found that the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse had been growing, testing, and studying willow crops for several decades.

    “They said, ‘You should do a test planting, and see how it goes,’” says Corbin, the college’s business-services director. So the college planted about 10 acres in 2007.

    The willows — in this case, more fast-growing shrubs than trees — are first harvested after four years, then on a three-year rotation. The college hopes to harvest 25-30 tons per acre, the yield achieved by SUNY ESF. If it does, then planting and/or contract for the planting of 1,200 acres would meet half of the college’s biomass needs.

    “That’s a lot of willows — and that’s a lot of work!” says Corbin. “The logistics are not going to be easy, but we look at it as investing in the willow crop.” Several people in the area area have already inquired about raising willows, he said. The college has advised them to wait and see how the test plot fares.

    “Ten years from now, I may look real smart,” Corbin quips. “Who knows? We’re going to have to try some of this stuff. We’ve got a lot of options.” One key aim, he summed up, is to “control your supply of fuel — to know where it’s coming from, and how ‘green’ it is.

    “On balance, our fuel source now is greener. That’s where we’re going.”

    To watch a video of the biomass gassification plant in action at Middlebury college, click here.

    The Biomass Energy Resource Center (BERC) is an independent, national nonprofit organization located in Montpelier, Vermont with a Midwest office in Madison, Wisconsin.  BERC assists communities, colleges and universities, state and local governments, businesses, utilities, schools, and others in making the most of their local energy resources.

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