http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/forums.html Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:29:03 -0600 60 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/waste-t8377.html http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/19/2424381.htm
]]> Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:58:18 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/waste-t8377.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Green-Power-t8376.html
I also have a 1KW PV Grid feed system on my roof. In Qld with the new Net Metering scheme I get paid 44c for every KW/hr I generate in excess of my own INSTANTANEOUS useage. (it needs thinking over to get that for most ppl)

I sold my REC's (yeah yeah) for $950 when I installed the system.

Now - when I buy Green Power, what am I buying?

Am I ensuring that Origin buys KW/Hr's from a wind plant? (or some other green source)
OR
Am I buying REC's from wind plants (or other) renewable projects to offset the "normal" power Origin is buying?

Further - with the REC's I sold
That is the entire 15? year allocation of Carbon that my system would save, if it were an equivalent coal station.
If I am buying green power and it is actaully just REC's, the X number I buy this quarter, could take 15 years to be "paid off" in reality.

Now lets go a step further
That power I am generating and shipping to the grid. Origin pays me 44c/KWhr for it.
Is it Green Power as well? Is that what I am buying from someone else?
Because to my way of thinking, I sold my REC's - the power I ship out is no longer "Green" - the carbon credits are now going to some power station somewhere.
And if it's both - Green Power from REC's and from what I ship out - that's Double Dipping - claiming the same carbon saving twice, and selling it twice.

So - what is Green Power?
Is it REC's
Is it from KWHr'sHome PV systems?
Is it from REC's from commercial renewable plants?
Is is KWHrs from commercial renewable plants?

Thanx
Paul]]> Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:58:12 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Green-Power-t8376.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Survival-Techniques-t8375.html
The Situation:
You have: a water bottle, a sharp partly serrated knife, a flint striker and ten meters of hoochie cord.
You are lost and seperated from you group in the middle of the bush with at least a two day hike in any direction to get out and there is someone who know u wen't out hiking and will send for help if he/she doesn't hear from you in tree days.


what would you do?]]> Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:07:48 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Survival-Techniques-t8375.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Combustion-stove-green-t8374.html
http://www.sedo.energy.wa.gov.au/pages/heat_run.asp

Some people think that because they use wood heating that they have opted for the system with the least environment impact.

Arguments that I have heard cited include:

• They save on gas or electricity bills
• The wood is derived from their property
• Its less polluting than burning brown coal in an electricity plant
• There are no transmission losses as occur over the electricity grid

If one scrutinises the article above than the answer may not be that simple. It calculates greenhouse gas emissions for a number of different systems and takes in account the thermodynamic efficiency of coal plants, lines losses and the heating efficiency of different kinds of heaters.

It seems that open fireplaces are the worst offenders (inefficient and polluting). Surprisingly, single unit RCAC is slightly 'greener' than combustion stoves and also have the advantage of providing cooling in summer.

RCAC is an efficient system because of its high co-efficient of performance. For every 1 unit of energy consumed, it is able to move 2 to 3 units of heating energy either in or out of the house. Efficient wood heaters can only achieve about 65% efficiency in extracting the energy from burning wood.

You may also need to factor in other 'costs' if one needs to cut down and transport wood over a distance if you don't happen to have any at hand. Hand cutting and dragging it to your house would have the least carbon footprint.

There is a footnote at the bottom of the table which point out that if one constantly replace timber then the impact will be carbon neutral.

The environment argument for using wood stove is most compelling if one has easy availability of wood and there is a system that assures that it is being replenished with new plantings. Unfortunately in most medium to high density areas it is likely that more wood will be consumed than replaced. Furthermore, the local polluting effect in these situations may make this form of heating impractical.

On the other hand RCAC runs on the 'universal currency' of energy transfer - electricity. If this is produced by more greener sources such as hydro, wind or solar than the greenhouse impact will drop even further.]]> Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:54:43 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Combustion-stove-green-t8374.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Good-news-Coal-t8373.html
There's a full page add in today's Herald, by the Australian Coal Association. It essentially outlines the carbon cycle, and how burning coal has thrown this out of balance. They also go on to describe what they're doing about it, CSC and all that.

Do you see what this means? The industry that stands to lose the most has freely admitted that climate change is happening and that burning coal is responsible. All this quibbling over vested interests in science and poor modelling, irrelevant. The coal industry has admitted that they're causing global warming. The counter to any skeptics argument now becomes "the coal industry has admitted that CO2 emissions are causing global warming. Why do you know any better?" Finally something m ight start to happen!

More info available here:
www.newgencoal.com.au]]> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:08:11 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Good-news-Coal-t8373.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Cooling-advice-needed-t8372.html
I live with the family in a 2 storey split level home facing North (front) and South. I'm struggling to cool the top level of the house, as during summer or any warm days it's unbearably hot. Unusable in fact, and I'm about to move a child into one of the rooms up there. I have just installed insulation in the roof cavity, and that's helped a little, but I need more advice. I'm thinking a couple of whirlybirds might help take some of the heat out of the roof, and also some roller shutters on the side windows, which get alot of direct sunlight during the day. I'm trying to avoid putting in an air con. So anyone have any suggestions? FYI.. The house is modern, brick, with a sloped corrugated iron roof, and sits on the side of a hill.

Cheers
Ivan.]]> Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:16:31 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Cooling-advice-needed-t8372.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/solve-t8371.html

Just thinking has the problem gone away because it is solve already? Or was it just media hype?]]> Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:19:27 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/solve-t8371.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Backyard-Bird-t8370.html
Dear Backyard Bird Surveyor

As spring draws to a close, we hope you have been or will be sending us
some surveys telling us about the birds that are making your garden
their homes this year. We also have a special request for extra
assistance with two research projects being conducted by students in
biology at the University of Sydney.

Katie Lowe is investigating aggression between species living in
human-dominated landscapes, and to help her with her project we have
established a new survey called "Backyard Biffo". This survey involves
recording acts of bird aggression that you might observe while
conducting the 20-min Backyard Bird Survey. The form is very easy to
fill out and any observations you can make would be a great help to
Katie. Please try and contribute to this survey which is located at
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/surveys/backyard-biffo.cfm.

Adrian Davis is undertaking research to determine the extent to which
urban Sydney provides habitat and key resources for parrots. He is also
seeking to identify changes in abundance of various species and identify
any species that may be being out-competed by more dominant parrots. He
is therefore trying to find backyards that host or have previously
hosted nesting parrots. Please email Adrian at
adrian.davis@bio.usyd.edu.au if you have any observations that might
assist him.

Good luck with the spring surveys

Holly
]]> Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:49:17 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Backyard-Bird-t8370.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Fruit-and-Vege-delivery-t8368.html
Do you choose to buy organic produce from them or just standard?

Finding that purchasing fruit & veg from many of the large chain supermarkets is terrible quality and doesn't last very long (in terms of product longevity, not that I consume it fast) and my local greengrocers don't seem to have large enough turnovers to have high quality fruit & veg that I am looking for.

Going to try and establish a veg patch in my own garden in the near future, but until this starts producing, I need to find a source of good, long lasting fruit & veg.

Hippie]]> Sun, 09 Nov 2008 04:44:58 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Fruit-and-Vege-delivery-t8368.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Solar-Hot-Water-Tube-vs-t8367.html
I'm trying to navigate the hundreds of solar hot water systems which are currently available.

Does anyone have any good information about the efficiency of evacuated tube compared to flat panel collectors for the mid north coast region of NSW?

The system would be for a 2-3 person household, probably with a 250L tank.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best Wishes,
Sre
]]> Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:33:34 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Solar-Hot-Water-Tube-vs-t8367.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Edible-Seaweed-t8365.html
He harvested a huge bunch of seaweed in the last episode, something I've wondered about for ages. He was mostly picking the light green soft stuff, very similar to what I call sea lettuce in NSW, which is good for catching Blackfish.

So, does anyone know which seaweeds are edible? More important I suppose is which ones will kill you? The rest just taste horrible I suppose....


EB]]> Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:04:41 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Edible-Seaweed-t8365.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Bamboo-Rammed-Earth-const-t8364.html
So I've been wondering about how it could be used around the house. I'd really like to build a shed in the backyard for brewing purposes. I've been thinking of building a wall out of bamboo, whole poles. There'll be all sorts of gaps and things, so I want to fill those in with mud somehow. My first idea is to board up about 500mm with ply, either side of the bamboo, then fill the cavity with mud or maybe even cement. then let it dry, and go higher. Just an idea.

So, has anyone heard of something similar? There's got to be some potential there. It's just about materials selection.

EB]]> Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:58:58 -0600 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Bamboo-Rammed-Earth-const-t8364.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Attn-Melbournians-Quest-t8363.html
A friend mentioned I should pop my questionnaire on these forums, which might assist my project!

Im trying to get as many people as possible to fill out my questionnaire for a research project which im undertaking at the moment. Thank-you in advance, remember there are TWO sections on this questionnaire, so people who dont use bikes for commuting can still contribute!

Please copy+paste+fill-out A or B listed questions.


My name is Alex Denham, I am an undergraduate student at RMIT University, studying Urban Planning. As part of my degree I've had to design a research project. The topic of this research project is whether "cycling is a viable mode of primary transport for Melbournian's and whether the current infrastructure is good enough to accommodate riders on Melbourne roads". In order to carry out this research, I have designed a questionaire. In this questionaire there are 8-9 questions designed to find out peoples motifs towards not using bikes as a mode of transport and to find the "hot spots" where cycling infrastructure is good or bad. In total this questionnaire should take about two minutes to complete. You may take your own time, and skip any question you are uncomfortable with by not answering it. Once this research is complete, a copy of my report will be placed online, where you can review my findings. If you have any questions regarding this survey, feel free to email me at alex.denham@hotmail.com. Thank-you for your time in completing this questionnaire.


A: Cycling Commuters and Road Cyclists

Age and Sex?
Where do you ride in Melbourne; which cycling routes?
How much time do you spend on your bike per week?
Out of ten, how safe from traffic do you feel on your ride/s?
From what you have ridden in Melbourne, how would you rate the cycling infrastructure around Melbourne out of ten?
What are the problems you deal with, with current cycling infrastructure?
[B]How would you improve the cycling infrastructure on your route/s, if you were in charge of upgrading the network?
Why do you think more people don’t ride bikes across Melbourne?
What do you think is the best way to encourage more people to cycle as their primary form of transport?

I will be using this information to look at where people ride, how safe they feel, what they think of cycling infrastructure, what problems they deal with on bikes, how they would improve the cycling network to be more user friendly and how they would encourage more people to ride.


B: People who use other forms of transport

Age and Sex?
How far from the city do you live?
What form of transport do you use to get around Melbourne?
Out of ten, how concerned about the sustainability of our environment are you?
Would you consider yourself a fit person?
Have you ever considered using a bike as your primary form of transport?
Why do you not use a bike as a form of transport?
What would it take to make you use a bike as your primary form of transport?

I will be using this information to look at the current trends of transport use, the importance of sustainability, fitness levels, perspectives of bike use, reasons behind not using bicycles and what it would take to get them using bikes as their primary form of transport. This information will give us a diverse response looking at all facets behind the reasons people do not ride bikes, leading ultimately to answering whether cycling as a primary form of transport is possible in Melbourne.]]> Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:20:50 -0500 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Attn-Melbournians-Quest-t8363.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Environments-Jeopardy-t8362.html
I'm working on a year nine project called the "identity project" or the "Australia assignment".
the assignment covers a range of different topics from Australian food to Australian films, so i chose "Environments in Jeopardy"
Anyway, I'm having a little trouble locating endangered and/or fadeing Australian environments.

any help or information would be aperciated!

year 9 Australia project

some bloke.]]> Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:51:51 -0500 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Environments-Jeopardy-t8362.html http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Ants-Aviary-t8361.html I was wondering if anyone knew of any natural ways to get rid of ants.
They have infested my large aviary and are really starting to annoy me, not to mention any animal that will need to be in there.
I don't want to use poisons incase any other animals eat the poison or the ants.]]> Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:05:13 -0500 http://forums.envirotalk.com.au/Ants-Aviary-t8361.html