CCNQ

Escaping Silos The Society for Sustainability and Environmental Engineering (SSEE) brings you the SSEE 2011 International Conference in Brisbane on the 24-26 October 2011 at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre. 'Escaping Silos' will showcase pragmatic examples of actions that have overcome change resistance and the elements that contributed to the breakthroughs; engaging business

Keeping chickens and enjoying fresh backyard eggs is becoming more and more popular. Would you like to learn about keeping chickens in your backyard?  This month we are lucky enough to have Andrew O’Hara from Backyard Chooks in Moggill coming to speak to us. Andrew is passionate about beautiful heritage chickens, and is keen to share information on all you need to know about taking care of

Queensland environment organisations have put together a list of environmental priorities for the next election. The priorities cover protected areas, special places, marine, sustainability, fossil fuels and mining and legal reform.
 
Closer to the election, we will publish a key list of issues, based upon our dialogue with all the major parties.
 
Feel free to use and distribute this information. It has been provided to you as our views on the key environmental issues for the future.   Election Position 45.06 Kb

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Piers Akerman (Daily Telegraph Jan 20,2012) is calling for Coal-to-Liquids to be deployed in Australia. Coal to liquids is the technology choice of desperate regimes including the Nazis in Germany during WWII and the apartheid regime in South Africa. It is highly polluting and has only ever been used as a last choice for oil starved nations suffering from energy security risks related to prolonged embargo.

A modern economy like Australia will be moving to electricity which offers the only renewable solution to our transport needs.

Renault-Nissan is going to be producing 500,000 pure electric vehicles per year by 2014. To drive the 16,000 average kilometres each Australian car travels in a year it takes just 2,500 kilowatt hours of electricity. If this electric fuel is generated by solar then it's the same yearly requirement as the output of a small 10 panel 2,000 watt rooftop mounted system which takes up an area as small as 3metres by 3 metres which is the same area as the rooftop where you garage your car.

Germany installed 3000 Megawatts of rooftop solar during the December Christmas holidays in sub zero winter temperatures. If the German December total was installed in Australia this would be enough solar to power between 1.75 Million (Melbourne) and 2 Million (Brisbane) Nissan Leafs.
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The answer to this problem is easy. Freeze all subsidies to Australian vehicle manufacturers unless they're retooling for the Plug-in Hybrid Prius (80% Electric/ 20% Liquid fuels) GM Volt (80% Electric / 20% Liquid fuels) or the Ford Focus (100% Electric). In the mean time give the first 500,000 electric cars a $5,000 rebate to offset the cost of the battery. This is similar to giving $2,000 for LPG conversions only that it gets us off the fossil fuel treadmill and onto renewable energy.

What Piers Akerman of the Daily Telegraph should be calling for is a Feed-in-Tariff supporting 15,000MW of photovoltaic on rooftoops so that we can power 90% of our future car fleet on electricity.

Then Piers should be calling for a freeze of all subsidies to car manufacturers until they retool our existing car plants to Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid, General Motors Volt and Ford Focus electric platforms. And if those companies do not want to they should step aside and let a forward looking company like Nissan come in and run our plants.

Please email comments to matthew@beyondzeroemissions.org

Today in the Brisbane magistrates court, Magistrate Jim Herlihy gave the green light to environmental protestors in Queensland to take action to protect the environment from coal and coal seam gas development.

“This is a great day for Queensland, and a great outcome for the environment” said Derec Davies from Friends of the Earth.

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On the 9 Nov 2011 environmental activist Derec Davies boarded and stopped one of the controversial Gladstone Harbour dredges. Gaining national media attention and connecting the dredging impacts to the Great Barrier Reef and the activities of Queensland's coal seam gas industry.

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Queensland Premier Anna Bligh became the artful dodger when asked about baseload solar energy last month. During the recent Our Say initiative where members of the public could submit questions to Ms Bligh, the Premier ignored BZE QLD Coordinator Emma Carton’s question regarding the Queensland Government’s plans towards building solar thermal baseload electricity plants, instead responding to what she would have preferred the question to be.

Question: Last year, a state government report concluded that “the quality of Queensland's solar resource is comparable to the world's best solar resources.” Rather than build gas plants and expand the contentious coal seam gas industry, what concrete steps will your government take to build baseload concentrating solar thermal power plants with molten salt storage?

And see Premier Bligh’s response here.

At the end of her answer she does address baseload solar power, incorrectly saying, “internationally the world is still some way from finding how to use solar power in a way that will generate baseload electricity”. It will be obvious to readers of this blog that the world has already worked out how to use solar thermal to produce baseload electricity, examples of this include the Ivanpah and Tonopah concentrated solar thermal (CST) plants in the US (under construction) and the Gemasolar CST plant in Spain (now operating).

Frustratingly, Anna Bligh attended the Queensland launch of the Beyond Zero Emissions Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan in October 2010 (see photo), where it was clearly outlined how solar thermal baseload electricity can become a reality in Australia. It is remarkable that she has “forgotten” so quickly.

The Queensland Government’s current stance on energy is benefitting coal and gas companies, whilst according to polls most of the Australian public wants large scale renewable energy investment. Bligh’s forgetfulness when it comes to baseload solar thermal power (the key technology for replacing fossil fuels) may have something to do with her aim to convince the QLD public that coal and gas mining development is in their interests, and that there is no alternative.

In her answer the Premier states that in many respects Queensland is leading the way in solar energy by spending one quarter of a billion dollars on solar energy initiatives. This figure is terribly lacking as one large CST plant will cost at least one billion dollars to construct. In fact, the contribution solar makes to Queensland's energy supply is miniscule, with no plans for a large-scale roll out at this stage.

Premier Bligh outlines some initiatives including the Chinchilla Solar Dawn power plant. Producing only 250MW of power, this plant is not entirely renewable energy as it employs a ‘backup’ fossil gas boiler.

The Premier also discusses the Kogan Creek solar booster which is merely an addition to a coal-fired power generator to increase capacity and efficiency. She makes it sound highly important through telling the audience that it is the first in Australia and the second largest of its kind in the world, statistics which question the efficiency and viability of the technology. In reality it may just be helping the company balance the effects of the carbon tax and thereby continue burning coal.

Ms Bligh further highlights Queensland’s smaller-scale initiatives, demonstrating the lack of large scale initiatives to speak of. These initiatives include rooftop solar panels on government buildings, schools and houses, which unfortunately in this case are totally unrelated to Ms Carton’s question of baseload solar thermal plants.

Ms Bligh proudly promotes the Metricon Stadium solar power project. The annual output from the Metricon plant would power the state for 3 minutes out of a possible 525600 minutes of the year (0.0003% of the energy QLD uses each year). She also proudly promotes the University of Queensland’s large rooftop solar panel installation which produces 1220 kW. It's annual output would power the state for 17 minutes out of a possible 525600 minutes of the year (0.0032% of the energy QLD uses each year).

To compare these statistics, the baseload producing Tonopah CST plant in the US would provide 4804 minutes per year, which is the equivalent of 0.91% of the required energy of the US. Whilst the Gemasolar in Spain would produce 1100 minutes per year providing 0.2% of the required energy of Spain.

Australia should be following these examples of real leadership by providing concrete baseload solar thermal solutions not just playing the artful dodger when confronted by such questions. Ms Carton’s question sites the government report that states “the quality of Queensland's solar resource is comparable to the world's best solar resources.” Let’s utilise this world class resource and make Australia a world leader in baseload CST production.

You don't need a time machine to see the future. This Sunday (22nd) around most of Queensland you can see where our coastline will be in around fifty years.

Twice a year the sun and the moon line up and their combined gravitational pull means that we get the year's highest tides. With rising sea levels that's a pretty good snapshot of what the normal monthly high tides (or 'spring tides') will look like by 2060.

Green Cross Australia is inviting Queenslanders to photograph this 'King Tide'. Then, as a community, we can identify places of vulnerability and start preparing for the future. Visit www.witnesskingtides.org to discover where and when you can capture the King Tide.

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Tom Driftwood had quite a year in 2011.

One of the most active people in his local climate action group, Lismore Climate Action, in February 2011 he travelled to the Scenic Rim area on the NSW-QLD border to join a national workshop with the 100% Renewable campaign. Six months later he found himself being photographed with Rob Oakeshott at Parliament House.

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Months after Friends of the Earth and local fishers brought national attention to the hugely negative effects of Gladstone Harbour dredging on the local ecosystem and economy, the State Government has finally suspended one aspect of the practice due to 'muddiness'.

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With revelations that the Australian Federal Police have spent tax payers money spying on non-violent protesters, Shaun Murray has written a great response from the activist perspective. 

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Please join us for a Grand Opening banquet!   you are invited to the launch of new restaurant ‘Red Ginger’, as a fundraising event for Oxfam Australia’s ‘STOP HUNGER’ appeal. This beautiful new restaurant is being opened by the owners of Makanan Indonesia, who participated in Oxfam’s ‘Shout the Horn’ initiative for the East Africa [...]

With three dead and nine critically injured, questions are being raised about the role of Australian owned company Arc Exploration after a community protest on the island of Sumbawa was attacked by Indonesian police.

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MEDIA RELEASE: Wind turbines wrapped in red tape, while coal and gas drills on

Renewable energy campaigners have today condemned the O'Farrell govenrment’s new wind farm planning guidelines as adding more red tape and more delays to the development of renewable energy in NSW.

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When we look at our christmas wishlist from last year, we must have been good because we now have:

a price on carbon pollution
a Queensland Biodiversity Strategy
new waste and recycling regulations.

We didn’t get all we wanted - perhaps next year…

Thank you to all of you - our supporters and networks - for helping to make a difference.

 

Click Full Story for this year's wishlist.

 

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MEDIA RELEASE: O’Farrell’s renewable energy credibility on the line   More than $10 billion dollars of investment – and Barry O’Farrell’s reputation on renewable energy – is on the line today, as the NSW government considers new wind planning guidelines, says community campaign 100% Renewable.   “The NSW cabinet is currently deciding whether they want the thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars worth of investment that wind farms can bring to NSW,"

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Well, after sitting a team of fossil fuel execs down in a room together for a year or two, Energy and Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson has a produced a plan for Australia's energy future that recommends....you guessed it, more fossil fuels. Gas, gas, gas! to be precise, with an option to go nuclear in the long term.

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There are lots of unanswered questions when it comes to the Coalition and their approach to renewable energy.

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Welcome to our last ebulletin of the year, where we've decided to provide some snapshots of the exciting wins the Queensland environmental movement has had in 2011. It's been a cracker of a year world-wide, with Occupy, the Arab spring and anti-corporate protests shaking the world. Let's remember, strategise and imagine... Where will 2012 take us?!

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The South Melbourne Commons community hub will celebrate its official opening on Saturday 10th December 2011 from 10am-4pm. Please come along if you're in Melbourne!

The South Melbourne Commons is a joint initiative of the Friends of the Earth and Father Bob Maguire Foundation, our vision encapsulates the dynamic social and environmental qualities of both organisations.

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