McDonalds Chooses Green Coffee

After reading this article today in the Herald Sun, "Maccas hopes green beans are new short black", I have come to a few conclusions which I have listed below;

1. McDonald's may have a green conscious after all,
2. They are trying to bring green products to the mainstream market,
3. They may be trying to capture a large percentage of the coffee drinking market from other companies,
4. It maybe just marketing hype to suck people into their restaurants to impulse buy the other crap they sell. Super size me baby.
   

Coffee is one of the most energy intense crops to bring to the western market place, and is grown mostly in tropical areas which is far from the markets it is sold in. The food miles, and therefore the oil utilised, to bring a cup of coffee from where it is grown in South America, to where it gets drunk in Australia, is staggering. They could have picked an easier product to "go green" on, and get some eco kudos in the process. Even by changing to organic pickles or using wholemeal buns would have been easier. And don't get me started on the disposable paper cups with the plastic lid! Not very sustainable at all, unless they are made from recycled materials.

Don't get me wrong, I like coffee, and I think that the Fair Trade branding is a good thing for producers, but I believe that we waste a lot of resources by drinking a cup of "green coffee" from McDonalds imported from South America, when we could either buy coffee from East Timor or other Asian countries, or beans grown right here in Australia. A lot less resources would be used if we all adapted this methodology. Locally grown produce is always a better option than shipping or in some cases flying produce from the other side of the world to your plate.

With all things considered, it may not be such a bad thing that McDonalds are tying to do, because I have found from experience, that once a mainstream citizen buys one green product, they start to ask many more green type questions about themselves and the way they live. They then do a little more research and start to buy more green products, and it is a cascade effect from thereon in. Next thing you know, they will have solar PV on their roofs and be driving a hybrid! Seriously! Funnier things happen at sea, I know, I have been there.

Saving Energy in the Kitchen

On Sunday night, I cooked our dinner in my new pressure cooker. The results were outstanding, and where just as I remember from my childhood. The meat was so tender, the tastes were amazing, and it only took 30 minutes (once the pressure built up) to cook the meal! Before I cooked the first meal, I had to season the cooker by boiling 2 litres of milk and 3 litres of water. Apparently, because it is aluminium, this boiling of milk/water seals it and stops the stains from forming.

I started out simple and made a Beef Stew, with seasonal vegetables. Here is the recipe from memory, as I whipped it up on the fly when I cooked it.

Gavin's Beef Stew

500gm Stewing Steak or any cheap cut of red meat, 2 cm cubes
3 large potatoes, diced 2 cm cubes
1 stick of celery, chopped coarsely
1 large onion, slices
3 large carrots, sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
100gm mushrooms, sliced
1 sprig fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 litre beef stock, low sodium
3 tablespoons cornflour
3 tablespoons gravy powder
1 half cup water
2 tablespoons oil
salt & pepper to taste

Heat oil, add onion, garlic, rosemary and celery to soften. Add beef and brown. Add remaining vegetables and stock, seal pressure cooker, and cook for 30 minutes from when the control valve starts to jiggle, reduce heat so valve just moves. After 30 minutes, turn off heat, reduce pressure as per cooker instructions and remove lid. Make a paste out of water, cornflour, gravy powder and thicken stew. Bring to boil with lid off, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with mashed potatoes and crusty bread. Serves 6 with sufficient seconds!

A fantastically simple meal, and it was very hearty on a cold Sunday evening after working on the chook house all day. I could not believe how tender the meat was, especially after only cooking for 30 minutes. Kim was very impressed, because she is normally put off by beef because of its chewyness. Normally that type of steak would take at least 90 minutes to get to that stage in the oven. The vegetables all kept their natural favour and were really distinct in the mouth, with the potato breaking down just enough to help thicken the stew.

This type of cooking is not only energy efficient (I cooked on the medium gas ring on the lowest setting), but you can utilise the cheapest cuts of meat, and they will be tender in no time. I reckon that even game, such as kangaroo and emu would become very tender in a short time. Every time I have attempted to cook roo it has been tough as old boots! I might give it another go now.

I also found heaps of recipes on the net at the Pressure Cooker Centre, where Kim ordered it from. It is a Perth, W.A. based company, and it took 2 days to get to Melton. The model I have is a SILAMPOS Classic aluminium 10 litre. It was simple to figure out how it worked and the instruction manual was easy to understand. I would recommend this cookware to anyone who wants to lock in nutrition, and to cook meals quicker without resorting to processed fast food.

I dare say that I will be cooking many more meals in this great piece of cookware.

Chateau le Poulet

Finally, we made a start on the chook house on Sunday. However, to complicate things, we are doing two projects at once. We are converting the area around the clothes line into a vertical garden as well. This will serve two purposes, one, to block out the low fence to the neighbours, and, two, be able to grow passionfruit and kiwi fruit in a tight space.

For the vertical garden I am using CCA treated logs as the main supports as they have served us well in the past with the ones I put in 6 years ago not showing any sign of rot. They will be all joined together with three cross beams, which will support the trellis. We will then put in some raised, narrow, no-dig garden beds at the base of the trellis and plant passionfruit and kiwi fruit, and maybe there will be some space left for some runner beans in the summer. Here is a picture of Megan digging one of the seven holes that were required for the support posts.

Note the string line so that all the holes and therefore the posts are in a straight line! And here is Amy taking a break, and she looks so impressed. They took turns digging half a hole each with my trusty auger. They were a great help, honestly, and I thank them very much!

Adam then set the posts in place with quick set concrete, whilst I made sure they were level. Here is the what we have completed so far. Here is the four poles against the fence line. Note; the fence is on a lean, not the posts!

And here are the last three posts against the shed. We managed to get all the required posts in the ground for the vertical vege-patch garden. You can see the existing pea beds to the right.

The chicken coop or Chateau le Poulet, as Adam and I have named it, will mostly be made up of an existing structure that we are adding a largish roosting/nesting box to, and will enclose a 3 sqm area in chicken wire. Kim has told us that it has to look aesthetically pleasing to the eye, as does every other project I embark on. Adam has done all of the hard work whilst Butch and I supervised. Here is Butch checking out the standard of work now in his very dapper jumper!

Here is where Adam took up some of the paving stones and weed matting. This is so we can then build the structure. The hole is for the nesting box that we are building. It should be big enough for them to roost in during bad weather. There will be another post where Kim's shadow is, for the fourth corner, and there will be a door facing the plum tree.

We have designed the nesting box so that it will have a hinged lid to get to the eggs and so that we will be able to clean it. The main cage will also have a door and the floor will be covered with sugar cane mulch, and when it gets mucky we can rake it up and put it straight into one of the compost bins to add to the vegetable patch later on. Here are a few photos of Adam and I attempting to construct the nesting box. It is 85 x 90 x 85 cm so that it will fit in the hole in the structure.

We managed to get one side on by the end of the day, and we are making the walls of the box by overlapping some fence pailings that were given to us by a friend. It is just like aluminium cladding but with wood. It will have a corrugated iron roof that will be hinged as mentioned before. We plan to do some more work on it tomorrow night, and should have most of it finished off and fitted into the main structure by next Sunday. I also plan to get the chicken wire and the rest of the cross supports on the weekend, so we should have all the materials to finish off both jobs.

The total cost to date is $240 for both projects, but only about $60 for the chicken coop. My estimates are that it will probably cost another $170 to finish everything off, but that will not include the timber for the raised no-dig beds that will be going under the posts and trellis. I will have to find some cheap red gum sleepers from somewhere.

So far so good, and with another few days of hard labour from the kids and careful supervision by Butch and myself, we should be able to fill the cage with about 3 to 4 bantams or Isa Browns that we should be able to find locally. A big thanks goes out to Adam, Amy and Megan for helping out with the physical labour. I treasure your muscle-bound, young, hard-working bodies!

Why Oil Prices Are Going Up

If you have been reading or watching the News over the last few days, you would have noticed that the price of crude oil has been going through the roof. We have been given explanations, like, the oil companies are profiteering, companies like Coles are profiteering, increased taxes on fuel, oil companies increasing their refining costs, blah, blah, blah. All plausible explanations, but not the real one, because the real reason is very, very scary and that is why we don't hear about it in the media.

Here is my simple explanation why the cost of crude oil and therefore everything else we use (food, goods, services) are also going up. Demand has outstripped Supply, or in another term you may have read about, Peak Oil. Look, I will make it even simpler for everyone. Here is a graph that Dave Cohen of ASPO USA has kindly let me use. It was used in a recent post to help explain why the oil prices have run-up of late and to quell the debate.

World Oil Supply & Demand (all liquids) from 2003-2007
Source: EIA supply and demand data

Pretty simple really. We can't pump the stuff out of the ground fast enough (and it is a finite resource after all) to meet the growing demand from the worlds users i.e. all of us. So compare this to the price of oil and look what has happened this year so far.

Source: Economagic Data Series up to last week

Looks scary to me. What do you think is going to happen next? Well, I believe that we may, quite possibly, have reached the peak of global oil production or a very close to it. If there was a way to increase production and flog us more of the black stuff then the oil producing countries would jump at the chance with prices this high! It doesn't matter if the Australian Government takes away a 5 cent tax, as that would be gobbled up in a matter of weeks with price rises.

So you want it simpler? Well, I will do my best. Here is a picture of the Lemon Meringue Pie that Kim made for my birthday yesterday (by the way, it was wonderful). I will use it for a peak oil analogy.

The pie is made up of three layers of consistencies. The top layer (the meringue) is soft and easy to eat, and the lemon is tart and thick and takes a while to consume, and the last layer is the crust which is hard. Getting oil out of the ground is very similar. When a oil well is first tapped the oil is easy to extract, and comes out under pressure and is just like the soft and easy to eat meringue layer of the pie. We, as a civilisation, have essentially used up all of this easy to extract oil. We are now into the bottom two layers of the pie. We are now extracting heavy crude and tar sands in various places around the world, and pumping the very last drops of the light crude in the Middle East. A bugger of a way to keep the addiction to oil going! It is all downhill from here on, in so far as extracting oil is concerned. A simple analogy, but I like it.

I won't go on about the alternatives (ride a bike comes to mind), and I have probably harped on about this long enough, but have a look at Dave Cohen's original post titled "The Age of Aquarius", and get the real facts. While you are in a peak oil kind of mood, have a look at ASPO Australia for more local news on the issue. In the next few days, I will post some things that we can do to adapt to the shrinking supply of oil in our daily lives.

Blowing My Own Trumpet

I know that blowing your own trumpet is not a very Australian thing to do, but it is my birthday today! I am 44 years young, and am having a wonderful day. Kim and the kids are making such a fuss, and it feels great to be alive. This post will not be about anything specifically sustainable or green, just about the great day I am having.

The day so far. I awoke at 0640 and had the Hybrid booked in for it's 30,000 Km service at Westside Honda in Werribee for 0800. Amy wanted to come along with me, so after a cup of coffee, we headed off. It was my first long drive for a few months, so Amy was my insurance if I couldn't take the pain. The trip was uneventful, but the traffic was very heavy all the way down the Western highway to the Werribee turnoff. There are so many road works going on to improve the travel times from the outer towns to the city of Melbourne, that is is slowing down traffic. I haven't got the heart to tell them about my next post! They really should be beefing up the public transport system, and forgetting about the roads. We got to the dealership at 0745 and had to wait for 2 hours, even though they had a 45 minute guarantee for their express service. Their lame excuse was that there were low oil levels in the CVT transmission, and they had to find the correct type of oil for the Hybrid. You would think that because I booked it in two weeks ago, that they might have checked their stocks before hand. Not very professional at all. If I can go to the effort of leasing a lower emitting car from them, they can at least get their act together.

Amy and I then went to get Kim's birthday present, as it is her birthday in two weeks time. I won't spoil the surprise, but it is what she has been after for a while. Then we had breakfast. Not much choice for organic or non-fast food produce at Werribee Plaza so we had some Chicken Schnitzel Foccacia and a hot chocolate each. Not very green, but it is my birthday after all.

When I got home, it was card and present time. Kim bought me some new cookware. A pressure cooker, which cooks in a third of the time of normal cooking techniques. I remember that when I was growing up, my mum used to use a pressure cooker all the time to make stews and casseroles. I am so looking forward to trying it out tomorrow night. I have some really crappy cuts of beef in the freezer that should cook down really well in the pressure cooker. I also received a frying pan with a glass lid, a book about Chickens and Companion planting from Amy, a Jamie Oliver herb basher from Ben, a Solar powered fan in a baseball cap, with PV cell (which is really cool) from my lovely mother-in-law Pam. Megan bought me a cook book titled "200 veggie feast" by Louise Pickford and two blocks of organic dark chocolate. I love dark chocolate, especially when it is organic. Adam will shower me with presents when he returns home from work (here is to hoping anyway). Thanks to all my family for sending cards and text messages. They were brilliant and heart felt, and you will be happy to know, that I will be recycling them all into the compost bins in a few weeks time. The garden also appreciates them.

Kim is whipping up a gourmet dinner, with tuna stuffed cucumbers for entrée; silverbeet, mushroom and cream cheese puffs with stuffed potatoes with sour cream; cauliflower, broccoli & carrot bake for mains; and for dessert Lemon Meringue pie. All vegetarian except for the tuna of course. I bought a couple of bottles of local Pinot Noir wine on the way home so we will wash it all down with a nice drop. Kim is a great cook.

Kim told me yesterday that she wanted to learn more about Peak Oil, so tonight we are watching a documentary called "A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash". She wants to learn what I have been going on about now that the price of petrol is at an all time high. I suppose it takes a bit of a reality check for people to grasp the real meaning of events. After that movie, I hope to show a happier documentary called "Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" which is a great way to understand how to solve most of the problems faced when the era of cheap oil is behind us (which it is). Should be a great evening of understanding.

Yes, it is a weird way to spend ones birthday, watching documentary movies, but if I can help just one person understand the problems that will be facing us all in the very near future, and assist them in getting over the shock, anger and denial stage faster, then I don't care what day of the year it is. Then we can to get into the action part like we have for sustainable living and reducing our carbon footprint, . Everyday should be one in which you learn something new!

To cap it all off I received a fantastic comment from an anonymous reader today attached to my 1000th visitor post. Here it is.

"Congratulations, Gavin. I'm at the very beginning of my greening journey (I had my 'a ha' moment only a couple of weeks ago), so I really appreciate your willingness to dig deeply into the current issues and share with us what you know. People are reading, and you are making a real difference. So thanks!"

Have a great day readers. I am.

Baking Day

Kim was a very busy lady in the kitchen yesterday. She made some lovely chocolate chip cookies, and some of her wonderful pizza scrolls. She wanted me to share the cookie recipe, so here it is;

Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Made 3 dozen, preparation 20mins, cooking 12 mins per tray

3/4 cup (165g) firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
1 1/2 cups (225g) Self Raising flour
1/2 cup (75g) plain flour
185g butter, melted
1 egg, beaten lightly
2 tspns vanilla essence
3/4 cup (140g) dark or milk chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 160'c / 140'c fan forced. grease and line trays with baking paper
2. Combine sugars and flours in a large bowl
3. Add the combined butter, egg and essence; mix to a soft dough. stir in the chocolate 4. Place level tablespoons of dough about 6cm apart on prepared trays, flatten slightly. bake for about 12-15 minutes or until browned lightly. cool on trays.

She tells me that these are the easiest biscuits she has ever made, and I believe they are some of the best I have tasted. They certainly don't last long, as the kids hoe into them with gusto.

Here is a picture of the pizza scrolls. They are great for kids lunches, and she wraps them up in foil when they cool and puts them in the freezer. They are gone in about a week! I suggested a variation for the next batch, and that is to use Vegemite and cheese instead of tomato paste and devon. She liked the sound of that, so she will try it next time.

About half way through the baking, we received a visitor of the feathered variety. We think that she is an Eastern Rosella, and her mate was nearby, but Kim couldn't get a picture of them together. They just wouldn't play the game! It is quite rare to see them so close, but they are nearby often feeding in the big gum trees across the road. We use my binoculars to get a better look at them when the flock flies in.

We are so lucky to have such wonderful wildlife in our area, and when the gum trees are in flower, they are usually covered in these birds. Kim thinks that it is like living in a zoo with all of these native birds. Before she immigrated from the UK, after we got married in 1997, she had only ever seen these types of parrots in cages back home. She still finds it hard to believe that they are wild animals, that like to live on our doorstep. I think that they are just part of living in a semi-country rural city that is Melton! You only have to travel about 10 Km to see Kangaroos grazing in the early morning. Very quaint, and very Australian.

Slug Slayer

Last night, after the most ordinary of days (Kim, Ben, Butch & I, were all sick for most of the day), I went out into the garden. I took my wind-up dynamo torch and headed off to the Bok Choy patch. I have been procrastinating for a while about how to deal with slugs and only thought there would be a few of the perpetrators on the property!

To my surprise, or perhaps very unexpectedly, the garden bed was crawling with slugs that were at least 8-9 cm long, have a good old munch on the Bok Choy plants. It was the first time that I had really had a good look at night, and I was amazed at the variety of insects (wood lice, centipedes, earwigs, slugs) that were all over the place. I duly picked off every single slug and threw them over the large brick wall that is our boundary with the road (we live on a corner block), and hopefully because they didn't like their first experience of flying, so I think they may not be back in a hurry. I then had a look at the bed with the broccoli, and they were crawling all over the mulch and on some of the broccoli heads as well. I had been wondering what was nibbling at the tops, as I never seamed to find any white cabbage moth caterpillars on top. Those slugs were presented with free flying lessons as well.

Then over to the capsicums, radishes and beetroot. Not a single slug to be found in this bed. They mustn't like these vegetables, which makes me think that they would make good companion plants for the bok choy. I inspected the bed containing the onions, garlic and spinach, and there were some very tiny (5mm) slugs on some of the spinach plants, but nothing near the onions or the garlic. All in all, I must have pick off at least 40 big fat slugs and 10 baby slugs. I didn't see a single snail either, which surprised me.

I will make up some slug deterrent (coffee & water) tonight and drizzle it in between the rows to see if it makes a difference. If they have returned, they shall receive a second free flying lesson, and had better evolve wings mighty quick. If the coffee doesn't work I will have to resort to a beer trap, but don't really want to waste my home brew on slugs.

No-one messes with my organic garden, especially the slimy ones!

Sustainable Living Update

It has been a while since I have written about the sustainable stuff we have been doing around the home, so I thought I would give everyone an update.

Only 14 days after I drained the rainwater tank, and having rained all day yesterday, it is again full to the brim. 2300 litres of clean, fresh rainwater. Not that the garden needs it at the moment, as everything has had a very big drink. It feels good to have a full tank again.

All of the vegetables are growing well, and I swear that the broad beans have grown another 20 cm in a week. Once they establish their root systems, they grow like crazy. The slugs are still having a feast on the bok choy. I watched an episode of Gardening Australia, and they mentioned that you can get rid of slugs and snails by using one part espresso coffee to five parts water and spray it where you think the slippery suckers are and they should be dead by morning. You must re-apply after rain and heavy watering. I will give it a go tomorrow, when it dries out a bit more.

I tied string in layers around all of the pea pyramids so that they would have something to grab onto. They all look like little Eiffel Towers now! The plants were starting to droop over the edge of the bed onto the path, so I hope it works. I picked the last two eggplants of the summer season, but there are flowers all over the bush again, so I will see what happens. Most of the chillies are now red, so I will pick and pickle some of them next weekend, and try and dry the rest in the oven to make chilli flakes. I have been using capsicums during the week when they get big enough to eat. They have slowed down due to the colder weather, and I have yet to see one go red yet!

The compost is going well and I should have at least five wheelbarrow loads ready for summer. Two of the compost bins are being turned each week, with the large Aerobin being added to from the kitchen and garden waste. The worms have really slowed down in their food consumption. They must not get as hungry in the winter?

No start on the Chook house yet, because of the rain, but will get stuck into it next weekend. I can't wait, but at least I have most of the materials except the chicken wire and a few posts. Adam and Kim have promised me that, weather being kind, we will start building in a weeks time.

As it has been very cloudy over the last month, so we have not been producing much solar electricity. Our total usage per day over the last month has been 13.7 kWh, of which 58.6% has been made by the sun and 41.4% drawn from the grid. On sunny days we make about 10-12 kWh and on cloudy days, when your body does not cast a sharp shadow, we make about 2-4 kWh per day. It is pretty hard to make excess electricity in winter, unless you have a bigger solar array, because of the reduced daylight hours, and weather. Still it is better than using coal fired power! Our last power bill from Jan-Mar was $160.02. Compared that cost to the same billing period last year which was $726.35. Quite a difference with energy efficiency measures and solar PV!

Our natural gas usage has climbed due to heating. We have built in space heaters in two rooms of the house, but we only use the one closest to the kids bedrooms. We try and keep the house temperature between 16-19 degrees. We only have the heater on for about an hour in the evening to heat the house up when it it has been cloudy. This is because we try and use passive solar when the sun is available. It works most of the time, and because I have draft proofed the doors and the windows have good seals, the temperature is constant most of the time. Over the last month we have been using an average of 48Mj of gas per day. As there is less sunshine the solar hot water is not as efficient, so we use more gas to heat water. We also have been cooking more hot meals, and as mentioned before, heating the house when it gets really cold. On comparison, we only have a daily average of 20Mj in the summer months. Our last gas bill was $43 with most of it being the quarterly connection fee.

Our water usage is about constant at about 490 litres a day. As I may have mentioned before, we have six people living in our house, so that is 81.6 litres per person per day. It seams excessive to me, seeing that we have dual flush toilets, low flow shower heads, and only use rainwater for the garden. I think that the washing machine uses a lot per wash as we have a top loader, but we use eco mode where we can, which skips a rinse cycle, and use the grey water on the non-vegetable garden beds. When the washing machine gives up the ghost, we will be buying an efficient front loading washing machine with the maximum star rating. We have been saving for another tank so that we can plumb it to the washing machine and main toilet, and I think that it will have to be at least 5000 litres for it to last for a while. The dishwasher only gets put on once a day when full.

Kim and I went food shopping today, and committed our first eco sin in a long while. When we got to the shops we discovered that we had left all of our reusable shopping bags at home. We had to revert to plastic, which felt really bad. At least they will get a second use with the dog being active as he is! We only bought one meat product, which was some lean pork, and some fish, that we will have for dinner one evening, with the rest being made up of vegetarian meals. We have really come to enjoy this sort of food, with its so many varieties. I don't know why we didn't do this earlier. Because we have cut back on meat, not only has our grocery bill gone down by about $40 a week, but our ecological foot print has been reduced.

Not much else going on besides trying to keep sane in an otherwise crazy world, and doing our best to use as little resources as we can. To finish off today, I found this oh so true quote whilst looking through some blog comments yesterday. It struck a chord with me.

"Only after the last tree has been cut down.
Only after the last river has been poisoned.
Only after the last fish has been caught.
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
- Cree Indian Prophecy.

Keep keen, and keep on being green!

Op-Shopping

After a long and hectic morning of medical appointments for a Workcover review, acupuncture, a visit to the pharmacy, and a fluvax shot (coz I missed the one at work), Kim and I decided to spend 30 minutes of our lunch hour looking around the Salvo's and St Vinnies charity shops.

To my surprise, the Salvo's was packed with people. It was great having a look through the clothes and bric-a-brac. Kim was looking for a costume for Ben. He is having a dress-up day at school, and has to go as anything Australian. He decided that Ned Kelly was pretty cool, so Ned it was. Kim was looking for a long black coat (but didn't find one), and will make the rest of the costume from black cardboard. It will even have painted bullet holes in the cardboard armour!

I found a preserving jar, the type with the swing lid and wire arm. The rubber ring was in good condition and it cost me $3.75. A bargain, seeing I saw one exactly like it in Kmart for $15 the other day. I will now be able to pickle the rest of my jalapeno chillies.

Speaking of Kmart, as we went to line up for the checkout, an elderly gentleman remarked that it was just like the queues at Kmart, which are notoriously long at our store in Melton. Then an elderly lady piped up, and said "Rubbish, this place is far better than Kmart!". Well love, I agree wholeheartedly. Not only were everyone in the store buying cheap, second-hand goods, that will get a loving home, they were unknowingly helping to save the planet, by reusing stuff that would normally be thrown into landfill. Now that really floats my boat!

Remember the 3R's, Reduce, Reuse & Recycle. If anything gets us out of this pickle, it will be those three things. I love charity shops!

Peak Moment for the Jenga Effect

I have been watching, over the last year, a TV show that hails out of the US, called Peak Moment. It is very topical, with environmental, climate change, and peak oil/resources articles just about every week. I watch it to cheer myself up when I believe I am suffering from the "Jenga Effect".

Let me explain. For those of you who haven't seen the game Jenga, you build up a tower of blocks, and each person takes turns to remove a lower block and place it on the top of the tower. Eventually the blocks on the bottom have been eroded so much and the top is so heavy it topples over. Have a read of this Wikipedia article to get a better understanding.

This self named "Jenga Effect" is how I sometimes view our current civilisation. We are removing the worlds resources quicker than they can recover (pulling from the bottom of the pile), putting stuff into the air and trashing the planet's eco-systems (the top of the pile) and eventually it will all fall over. An interesting analogy that I believe I made up myself? I found one reference to the term on Google with regards to real estate, so I will claim it as my own for the purpose of climate change and peak everything!

In the spirit of sustainable living, I have found an Peak Moment episode that I would like to share with you. It reports about suburban permiculture, with a visit to the house of peak oil expert Richard Heinberg and his partner Janet Barocco, who both live in Santa Rosa, California. They have converted their quarter acre house block into a food producing paradise, which makes me think that I need to get busy in the garden to catch up a bit. Time to convert the front yard to food production as well, I think!

Anyway, I have posted this 100th episode of the show, and hope you all enjoy it.

Just to finish off today with a quote. It describes very well how I feel when overcome by the Jenga Effect.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

Gavin's 2008 Budget Review - Climate Change

The Treasurer of Australia, the Hon. Wayne Swan, just handed down the Federal budget, which included A$2.3 billion over four years towards climate change. It is a start mostly in the right direction, and from what I can tell from reading the press and having just watched the live TV coverage of the budget, here is the breakdown of the climate change part;

• $1.7 billion to support scientists, researchers and industry to develop clean energy options, with over $500 million to be spent on researching "Clean Coal", and $500 million on renewable research,
  
• $37 million to develop an emissions trading scheme (it should have been implemented by now!)
  
• $300 million for Green Loans, which are low interest loans available for installation of solar, water and energy efficient production in Australian homes (I can't tell if this is means tested)
  

The categories are a bit of a mixed bag, and I think the majority will be effective, but I am angry that the Government are giving the coal industry more money to develop a clean coal technology that they should have already developed (if it actually could be achieved on a large scale) from all of the profits from selling coal to China. Why give them a bonus for a bogus technology? Regular readers will already know my opinion regarding the so called clean coal.

Furthermore, to make the recent announcement of Victoria's ineffective feed-in tariff an even bitter pill to swallow, the Federal Government have announced that from midnight tonight, the Photovoltaic Rebate Programme will now be means tested. That means that the $8000 PV rebate will only be available to households with an annual taxable income of $100,000. That is bloody ludicrous! It is the higher earning families with more disposable income that would be more likely to install Solar PV on their houses. I wouldn't expect struggling families to fork out the large amounts of cash to install this technology, when they have other priorities, especially with rising commodity prices. I may be wrong, and happy to be proven otherwise.

Why are these Federal and State governments further lining the already massive pockets of big coal companies? This change may kill the residential PV industry in Australia, at a time when we should be investing much more in preventing climate change by spending up big on current renewable technologies, and not spending it on pie in the sky technologies which try and dampen the effects of the inevitable outcomes of our own polluting, and climate changing stupidity.

All I can say, is thank goodness that I got my system in late last year, and I am sorry for those of my fellow Australians who are no longer eligible for the rebate.

Another important item that I believe was missing from the budget, was the lack of talk about Peak Oil, and policies to help cure our addiction to the black stuff. I did hear mention of an Infrastructure Fund for Roads, Rail, Ports and Broadband, but nothing of the details. We can only hope that maybe there is something to expand the public transport systems, so desperately required in a post Peak Oil world. I believe that the horse industry will boom again, and we will have great roads to drive our horse and buggy's on! Once again, I may be wrong, and happy to be proven otherwise.

I can only hope, that the money spent on implementing the emissions trading scheme is well spent, and actually reduces emissions quickly. We are not looking good at reaching our 60% cuts in emissions by 2050 with these policies, when a larger cut (90%) is probably warranted to avoid a permanent change in our weather pattens. Some days (like today) I feel like everyone has rolled over, and given up, and simply accepted the inevitability of climate change. Not I though, because as long as there is breath in my lungs, I will continue to lead by example, spread the word about sustainable living, and attempt, in my own humble way to make a better future for the children of the world.

Home Energy Efficiency

I was reading this article in The Age today about the introduction of stricter building regulations for new homes to improve energy efficiency. This is to combat the overwhelming desire by Victorians for McMansions and the energy inefficient design and large footprint of this type of home. Also, I noticed that the Sustainability expert Alan Pears gets a mention in the article, who I have had the pleasure of meeting. Read here for an account of his visit to my home.

Whilst I agree with the need for stricter building regulations, until the desire for these types of homes abates, then builders will keep on building them, and developers will keep on churning up perfectly good farm land close to the city (something we are going to need very soon), and building huge estates of these homes. The desire is being spurred on by an epidemic of Affluenza (interesting article), and blatant uncontrollable consumerism in the form of must have high energy appliances and cheap inefficient split system air conditioners. As people continue to buy more stuff in the form of electronic goods, then of course their energy consumption will rise as well. The bigger the house, the more costly it is to heat and cool as well.

To prove my point, Ben and I went for a walk about a month ago, for about 1 km where there is a new housing development being built. This new estate seemed to go on for miles, but we had a good time and found lots of junk left behind from builders and utility installers. Telstra leaves so much PVC piping laying around after laying their phone cables, I could have put all the pipes together and formed a length about a kilometre long! Anyway back to the subject at hand.

All the housing blocks were small in size with the biggest being about 590 sqm in size. Not much of a back yard to grow vegetables in, especially if they build another McMansion on the site. On the way back we stopped off at the two display homes and had a look around. I was gob smacked by the amount of halogen down lights in every room! At 50 watts a piece and 10 watts for the transformer that is 60 watts per light. In the kitchen/living area I counted 22 down lights that were on one circuit alone. So at the flick of a switch there was 1320 watts worth of lighting to cook your dinner. I couldn't believe it. There were no energy efficient lighting in these houses whatsoever, and they were hot as well. The outside temperature was about 20C on this day, and the inside thermostat was set on 25 degrees. Ludicrous. The heat from all of those lights would have been enough without having the central heating turned on! What really gets to me, is that people still want to buy these types of homes, even as energy and fuel prices rise.

In the bathrooms, there were about 10 down lights, plus two heat lamps and a 100 watt light. The heat lamps are usually rated between 250 and 300 watts each. So if you had all the lights on in the bathroom for just 30 minutes a day you would use about 650 watt hours. Multiply that over a year and there is 237 kWh each year just in bathroom lighting! By changing the halogens to LED equivalents that are rated at 3 watts and just as bright, and resist the temptation to use the heat lamps, you could save 226.1 kWh per year which at the price of $0.15 per kWh is a cost avoidance of $33.92. Multiply this by changing out all the house lighting to energy efficiency and the yearly savings would be quite substantial. All this from lighting alone. If you fit a skylight in the darker rooms, you also negate the need for artificial lighting even on the cloudiest days. Just think of the other savings available, if these houses were smaller and fitted out with other energy efficient appliances. For more tips on energy efficiency have a read of this previous blog and the second part about the subject written back in February this year.

Whilst on the subject of energy efficiency, other things that I notice that were missing on these display homes were simple things like wide eves to block the sun in summer from entering the windows, no external awnings to shade the north facing windows, too much single glazing and large areas of south facing glass looking out onto the non-existent garden. There would have been no way you could have used passive heating to warm this place up in winter because all of the northern windows were small. I also noticed that the installed dishwasher had a two star efficiency rating, and was a very cheap model. The only real effort to create some sort of efficiency was the solar hot water system and ceiling insulation, but I believe that those things are part of the existing building regulations for 5 star homes already. There will certainly be a savings in natural gas for hot water and heating, but with the inside temperature set at 25 degrees it would negate any of the savings from these systems. For every two degrees you raise the temperature of the heating system increases your green house gas emissions by 890 kg and increases your heating bill by up to $139. See more tips for staying warm, but still reducing your energy consumption visit resourceSmart.

Aim for an internal temperature between 18-20 degrees for a comfortable home. We do, and it is very comfortable in our house. It is currently 11 degrees outside, but a toasty 19 degrees inside, and we haven't had the heating on at all today. If it gets a bit cooler, we tell the kids to put their dressing gowns and slippers on! A little bit of passive heating from the northern window, and good draft proofing and roof insulation has reduced our heating bill so far this year.

The simple solution would be to buy an established house and retrofit it with good insulation, a bit of draft proofing and energy efficient appliances, instead building these huge monstrosities. Less resources get used all around, and far better for the planet! Furthermore, it would be good to have a decent renewable energy feed in tariff in this state, to promote the widespread installation of renewables, therefore negating the requirement to build more dirty coal fired power plants in the future. I had to have a final dig!

Frugal Debutante

Instilling the value of saving money, and being frugal into your children is a long and arduous journey, but over the last few months we have had a bit of a breakthrough with our youngest daughter Megan.

Megan is at a stage in her life that she wants to fit in with her friends. She is in her mid teens, and the peer group pressures she receives from her circle of friends must be constant, and she (and all other teens) is bombarded with information from the media relentlessly. The images that modern advertising portrays to entice these young teenagers to have this season's "look" is never ending. You only have to look at any of the popular teen or womens magazines to understand what I am talking about. Brad & Angelina/Jen/Vince, Becks & Posh, Brittany, Lindsay, JLo, Paris, Nichole, new make-up, latest fashion, latest diet fad, ad nauseam..... WHO CARES? Not I. But, unfortunately, young women, and probably young men are influenced by these magazines, and are therefore driven to excessive consumerism to keep up appearances. This is a vicious circle that must be broken in our children's young minds.

So, back to the Debutante ball that Megan desperately wanted to go to. We said she could go on the proviso that she saved as much money as she could, and that she asked her mother, Anne, for some of the cash for her ticket (we are divorced). Kim would help her find the outfit within her budget range.

Kim found this wonderful recycled clothing shop in Ballarat called C.K's Bridal Recycle, that had second hand wedding, and debutante dresses for sale. The great thing about this shop was that we could buy the dress and gloves cheaper than we could rent a dress for. Kim then found the perfect shoes on Ebay, and won the auction. Megan borrowed some diamante hair clips from Kim, and Adam's girlfriend Stacey, had a friend Rachel, who does hair and make-up, did her hairdo for free. The cost breakdown was as follows:

• Dress & Gloves - $220
• Shoes - $16
• Hair & Makeup - Free

To rent it would have cost about $400+ for the entire ensemble. Megan had to save up for her ticket for the ball which cost $220 ($170 paid by her mother), which included the dancing lessons, her meal, DVD of the event, a photograph, and a wrist corsage. Pretty good value, when you think that a three course meal for one person would probably cost about $60 at these sort of venues, and that a DVD would be about $20 to produce. She had about 8 hours of dance lessons which normally cost about $150 at a dance studio. The corsage ranges from $11 to $25. So that is $255 of value. Not a bad package from the school, me thinks. Megan also paid $70 to catch a limo to the event with friends.



Megan now has an outfit to get married in if she so desires (hope she waits a few more years yet) or to resell on Ebay and recoup some of the money she paid. She looked absolutely beautiful on the day as you can see from the photographs. And I believe she learned a valuable lesson, and that was that you don't have to pay a million dollars for these types of events, and you enjoy it more if you save and pay for it yourself. I feel sorry for the parents who had to fork out full price for their sons and daughters and from what Megan was telling me, over $1000 for some poor suckers!


Now, the sad ending to this story is that I couldn't attend this event, because of my back injury! I was sore as hell and would not have lasted the entire evening. I felt so sad that I couldn't go and share this with Megan, so as a consolation prize, her mother and partner attended the evening event. Adam, Stacey, and Amy also went along, and Adam danced with Megan to fill in for the Fathers Dance. From all reports, everyone enjoyed it. Tear.......

Vegetable Patch Progress

After a little work yesterday in the vege-patch, it is coming along quite well for this time of year. I did a bit of weeding, and there is still some grass seeds sprouting from the horse manure I used to condition the beds this winter, and a few oxalis poking through, but they are all very easy to remove when the soil is damp. This post will be a bit of a photo-fest, so enjoy the show.

So, on the East side of the house, we still have some Tommy Toe tomatoes climbing the trellis, surviving and bearing about five fruit each week. This is will be where the Chook house will be built next weekend using part of the existing structure.

Behind the trellis are the snow peas, purple podded peas, jalepeno chilli and eggplant, all still doing well. For regular readers, I had to rebuild the pea supports because of the windy day a month ago. These plants get morning sun until about 1pm, and get warmth from the fence in the afternoon.

A close-up of the jalepeno chilli

Now, around to the south side of the house to the rainwater tank. Here is the excellent work I did with the new valve when I stupidly drained the entire 2300 litre tank into the swimming pool!

Walking to the West side of the house, where the main vegetable garden is. Firstly we have the salad garden bed, with rows of leaf lettuce and mizuna.


Moving along the path to the north, the next bed contains nasturtiums, sweetpea (close to the trellis), bok choy and wom bok. To the left in the plastic pot are some loqut trees (Evergreen tree native to China and Japan, also known as the Japan medlar. The golden pear-shaped fruit has a delicate sweet-sour taste). I have grown them from seeds that I scrumped from a tree hanging of the fence at Ben's primary school. Yum, but they will take a few years before they bare fruit.

The next bed has all of my broccoli, which the bugs were feasting on until recently. You can see the liberal dusting of derris dust I have given them a few days ago. I can say that the majority of the white cabbage moth caterpillars have now met their maker. Tonight we are having roast chicken, and will have lots of steamed broccoli as well.

The next bed along has beetroot, daikon radish, parsnips, french & round radish and 3 capsicum and a birdseye chilli bush.

Some close ups of the birdseye chilli bush,

and an artistic shot by Kim of the capsicum bushes! There are still about 15 capsicums on the 3 bushes.

Next bed is entirely planted out with Broad Beans. I didn't plant enough last year and this year I sowed two packets of seed in early March. They are coming along great, with no insect damage so far.

The last bed has leeks, brown onions, spinach, and spring onions. All are doing well and all are from seed sown directly in the bed. All of the onions will take ages, but not to worry, because the pickled onions at the end of summer are well worth it.


Well that is about it for the garden tour. The simple thing I have learnt so far this season is that I now believe that slugs are multilingual, because not only do they eat European vegetables, but they have a go at the Asian vegies as well! Nothing like a bit of slug gourmet dinning. Slippery little buggers!

Angry Words I'd Like to Say, but Don't

In light of my recent few angry posts about government green washing about the Solar PV feed-in tariff, I thought it was time to have a light hearted view at climate change sceptics, and lighten up a bit.

I stumbled across a guy who calls himself the Angry Aussie, and he has put quite a few videos up on YouTube, with over 500 available. I have two favourites that I would like to share with you about Climate Change sceptics. But, beware, he does swear one hell of a lot, so for those kiddies that may be reading, it may be best to skip this post. He says all the things that I want to, but am too dam nice too. His blog is available to read at Angry 365 Days a Year and is a riot to read if you are so inclined.

Firstly there is the video called "A REAL inconvenient truth: Global warming deniers are LIARS!" He makes no beef that the sceptics and deniers are causing the rest of the world to act upon catastrophic climate change very, very slowly, and most are backed by big oil and big coal in the US.



Then there is my all time favourite that I want to show people who are extremely persistent in their views that climate change is not really happening and that the science is not really in. Here is to all you deniers! Enjoy the video titled "Global Warming Deniers: STFU!"




Disclaimer: The views portrayed in these two videos are entirely those of Angry Aussie. If you have an issue with the content, please take it up with him. He loves a good comment on his site, and will reply to each and every one, with a deserving reply. You were warned!

Feed-in Tariff is a Travesty

Definition: Travesty (trăv'ĭ-stē)

n., pl -ties.

1. An exaggerated or grotesque imitation, such as a parody of a literary work.
2. A debased or grotesque likeness: a travesty of justice.

Now that we all know the correct dictionary definition, I will continue.

If you read the post yesterday about my elation about the recently announced Victorian feed-in tariffs, I did not have all the facts. Today, as more details have come to light, I got angrier and angrier. To cap it all off the Energy & Resources Minister sent me an email, gloating about this achievement;

From: Peter Batchelor

Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 5:40 PM

Subject: Solar Feed-in Tariff

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the design of a solar feed-in tariff for implementation in Victoria.

The Brumby Government is committed to maintaining a secure, efficient, affordable and sustainable supply of energy. We have developed a comprehensive climate change policy package, which supports renewable energy, energy efficiency, low emissions technologies and a national emissions trading scheme.

To make Victoria’s power generation cleaner, the Brumby Government has already committed over $180 million to facilitate research, development, demonstration and commercialisation of new energy and greenhouse technologies. The Energy Technology Innovation Strategy (ETIS) has seen several large pre-commercial demonstration projects funded, including a large scale photovoltaic power plant in northern Victoria.

Support for renewable energy is central to the Brumby Government’s climate change policy. In the 2008/09 budget the Brumby Government committed a further $182 million to ETIS, including $72 million to breathe new life into large-scale renewable energy projects across the state, such as solar energy, wave power, geothermal and biomass conversion.

In addition to this, the Brumby Government’s Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET) will increase Victoria’s electricity consumption from renewable sources to 10% by 2016. Since VRET was announced, over $2 billion in investment in renewable energy projects in Victoria has been confirmed, which will lead to the creation of at least 2200 jobs, mostly in regional Victoria. Victoria is the only state in the country operating a renewable energy target that provides a subsidy for renewable energy.

The Brumby Government has also legislated to introduce the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (VEET), starting in 2009. VEET will help families cut their power bills and reduce emissions through measures such as adopting energy efficient appliances, lighting and insulation.

On top of VRET, ETIS and VEET, during the 2006 election the Brumby Government committed to ensuring households are paid a fair price for any power that is fed into the electricity grid.

On 6 May 2008 the Brumby Government announced the introduction of a premium solar feed-in tariff to take effect from 2009. Households will be paid 60 cents for every kilowatt hour of power fed back into the state electricity grid, which is almost four times the current retail price for electricity and the highest feed-in tariff offered in Australia.

This premium solar feed-in tariff means that the average Victorian household taking up the Federal Government’s solar panel rebate can pay off the cost of installation in under 10 years. The scheme will apply to all household solar systems of up to two kilowatts capacity.

Further details about our climate change initiatives are available at www.greenhouse.vic.gov.au and for more information on the VRET scheme and other initiatives designed to accelerate the uptake of renewable energy visit www.dpi.vic.gov.au/energy. See the attached releases for further information on the Brumby Governments $294 million climate change package (part of the 2008/09 Victorian State Budget) and the solar premium feed-in tariff.

I thank you for your interest in the matter and hope that this information has been of some assistance to you. Please feel free to pass this good news onto others.

Regards

Peter Batchelor MP
Minister for Energy & Resources

Good news? What a crock of shite! The scheme has panned out as nothing more than government greenwash, and will not help the Solar PV industry or the average Victorian one little bit. It will certainly not help me, as my system is not even eligible for the tariff, as it exceeds the maximum 2 kilowatt cap! I will explain what I mean by posting this email that I have just sent to the Energy & Resource Minister and the Premier of Victoria in disgust:

Dear Peter Batchelor MP,

Thank you for informing me about this greenwash of a scheme! I believe that the Coal Industry will be rubbing their hands all the way to the bank. The rate of 60 cents per kWh is the only good part of your plan.

Your so called "premium feed-in tariff" will not promote the rapid uptake and installation of Solar PV in this state, because with a cap of 2 kW, Victorian families will never generate enough excess power to actually receive any funds with this scheme.

Here is my reasoning. The average Australian home uses 16 kWh of power a day, and with only an average of 4.1 hours of peak sunlight in most parts of Victoria, a Solar PV system up to the maximum 2 kW cap would produce 8.2 kWh per day, which is only half of an average house's daily energy requirements. Given that with your scheme you only get paid for the excess power produced, very few people will ever see a cent unless they are a single occupier of a home. Working Victorian families will not be conned by this rubbish.

I hope that you and your fellow ministers have the courage to throw the coal lobbyists a strong message and change your scheme to a gross metering system, without any maximum kW cap. Australia is the only country in the world that is even contemplating a net metering system, and we must be the laughing stock of the world. I am ashamed to call myself a Victorian if this is the way that our elected officials propose to combat climate change.

Yours sincerely

Gavin

Enough said for this post!

Renewable Energy May Save Us Yet!

A few things happened today that are news worthy. Firstly, the Victorian Government announced its renewable energy feed-in tariff scheme. It is to be net metering with a payment of 60 cents per kilowatt hour, which is a higher rate than SA and Qld. It is not the gross metering scheme that many people and organisations were hoping for, but they may yet change their minds if a national scheme is proposed.

Kim and I were talking about it this afternoon, and from what the media is saying it will be implemented next year. Next year? I hope they are thinking of next financial year and not January 2009! I have not been able to find any information on the state government websites, but I assume something will be posted soon to clarify the finer details.

We should be able to maximise our payments by changing a few things around the house. We figure that the fridge will take up about 1 kWh during the day, and that will be the only base load item we have running besides our laptops for work purposes. We can change the swimming pool timer to come on at night which will maximise our daily export to the grid. The dishwasher will go on after sunset, and the washing machine can be programmed to start at about 5am and finish before sunrise, ready to be hung up on the clothes line early in the morning or on the airier if raining. I know that there is a slight uncertainty with net metering, however, I believe that these simple changes will maximise export to the grid whilst our Solar PV is producing power. All I have to do now to maximise export in summer time is to get rid of the 3000 watt air conditioner in the lounge room and swap it out with an energy efficient model. We should be right to sort that issue out in spring time all things going well. So, we figure that there is a silver lining to this scheme if you look at it in the right way. I still think that it will promote an uptake of renewable energy in residential homes throughout the state, if people are made aware of the simple ways to maximise export of energy to the grid during daylight hours.


Secondly, I signed a Greenpeace petition a while ago urging the Federal Government to increase funding of renewable energy programs within this country. It was delivered to the Federal Treasurer today, and contained 30,000 signatures requesting that renewable energy be given more funding and that coal, natural gas and oil energy sources be not subsidised by the government. Here is the letter I received from Greenpeace which I thought was a nice touch;

May 6th, 2008

Dear Gavin,

Yesterday in Canberra, a team of Greenpeace supporters delivered a giant perspex wind turbine encasing thousands of petitions to Treasurer Wayne Swan. This is the petition that 30,000 of you signed sending a very clear message to Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan: if they are serious about tackling climate change they will redirect massive government handouts to fossil fuels into support for renewable energy in next week’s budget.

The story made radio and TV news so even though the Treasurer didn’t come out to accept your petition, the message will no doubt have reached his office that Australians are waiting to see if he’ll end the practice of topping up fossil fuel industry profits with our taxes.

Click here for a photo of the petition delivery

Our petition is even more timely, with the government set to announce even more money for the coal industry to support their ‘carbon capture and storage’ (CCS) fantasy.

Greenpeace International have just published a report entitled “False Hope”, highlighting the many reasons why carbon capture cannot save the climate. Even if CCS ever becomes a mature technology, it will, as the United Nations says, arrive on the battlefield far too late to help the world avoid dangerous climate change. You can view this very important report on our website.

We’ve been overwhelmed by your enthusiasm for this campaign - be it signing the petition, organising your local community group’s support, donating to our national radio advertising campaign or speaking up in the media or to politicians. Next week we’ll know whether the new government is listening to us or if it’s more Howard-style “pollution as usual” under Rudd. We know that you’ll be keen to know the outcome and will give you a wrap-up, after the Budget has been announced.

Regardless, we’ve done our best to hold them to account.

Many thanks,

Julien Vincent
Climate campaigner
Greenpeace

With all these campaigns, and climate change action becoming mainstream, it would be amiss of governments at any level in Australia not to pull their fingers out and get active. Here is hoping the Federal Government deliver a few pleasant surprises in their upcoming budget regarding climate change initiatives.

Solar Power Pitfall 2

Thanks to the timely advice from one of my readers (thanks Kate), I have made some progress regarding my Solar Power Pitfall. Today, I contacted the Energy & Water Ombudsman (Victoria) to help me with my grievance regarding Powercor, and their instance that I pay a Special Project Fee of $299.20 to feed my renewable solar energy into the local power grid for little or no work on their behalf.

I stated my case, and the Ombudsman will be mediating between Powercor and myself regarding the matter. My case officer will be asking Powercor to waver the fees on the pretence that I was never initially told by them that there was a fee involved in obtaining a Network Connection Agreement. To make my blood boil further, today I received a copy of the agreement, which was signed by my solar PV installer on my behalf, but without my knowledge, and an invoice from Powercor for the $299.20. I would recommend to anyone thinking of installing grid-connected renewable energy in whatever form, to ensure that you find out what all the fees will be, and not just those of the installers. May you all benefit from my error by learning the pitfalls of this process. Powercor now have 10 days to respond to the Ombudsman, so now I wait for the outcome. Hopefully there will be no round 2!

Also on the renewable energy front, I believe that the Victorian Government will announce their long awaited renewable energy feed-in tariff tomorrow. I am not sure what the rumours are, but some say that they may follow SA and Qld's lead of net metering, whereby the generator (that's me) gets paid for the power they export to the grid, and not the total gross energy consumption of the generating system. Now that sounds like a bit of a cop-out, until I read an argument posted a few weeks ago by a fellow blogger in Qld. TB argues in his blog "2050 Vision: Sustainable Civilisation", that gross metering will lead to energy wastage, and net metering will lead to energy conservation. Have a read, it is a good post.

I tend to agree with him, because I have seen exactly those behaviours in our own household regarding energy usage. We currently do not have a feed-in tariff, so any electricity we save is simply subtracted from the kilowatt hours we consume i.e. the electricity meter spins backwards when we are generating more than we use. So it is in our best interest to conserve energy. That will also be the case with a net metering feed-in tariff. Conservation of resources, in this case electricity, will still line our pockets. However, with a gross metering system, there is no such conservation, because it doesn't matter how much energy the household consumes because they will get paid for whatever their system generates. There are no checks and balances to ensure conservation, with more money for the generator, but no conservation.

Whatever tariff system the state government decides upon tomorrow, it will be a step in the right direction for combating climate change, as long as they have the forethought of being able to modifying it as necessary to continue to expand the uptake of renewable energy over burning brown coal!