Cob Oven Base Part 2

Yippee, I finished the base!  Oh, do my back muscles ache.  Kim had to apply deep heat all over it so I can move.  Nice way to finish off the weekend.

Anyway, enough complaining, here is what I managed to achieve;

 At 9am, I started on the 3rd row of bricks.  It was a struggle to get back into it, but once started the muscles started to limber up.

The 4th row was started at about 10.10 am, but I came unstuck because I ran out of half bricks.  After an hour of searching around the town for two measly brick and finding none, I had to improvise.  I had kept some house bricks, so bought a bolster chisel and cut them to size.  If you click on the above image you will see my improv at the first and middle row towards the ends.

Once the last brick was laid, we waited for about 90 minutes for the mortar to dry before putting on the 60 x 60 cm slabs on top.  All level every way which!  Next weekend I will lay out the brick base and front arch for the oven.  The gap that you probably noticed is the front, and I am going to put an ash slot and length of red gum (hard wood) across to make it look pretty. 

Now that the top was in place, it was time to kick back and relax!  It looks a bit like a sacrificial alter, but with no virgins in sight, I had to jump up there myself.  ;-)  Strike the pose. 

I am so glad that I got it finished.

Cob Oven Base Part 1

A little while ago I hinted that I was embarking on a project that would go a long way to achieving one of my goals for this year.  As the title suggests, today I started to make the Cob Oven.  I have located it under my back veranda, on top of the existing concrete slab.  My good friend David gave me a hand mixing the mortar, and Kim offered her womanly advice at the start, but left to paint the the gazebo and grape arbor in the pool area.

Well, a bricky I will never make, however I am proud of my work so far.  Not bad for a novice and first timer.  As I am so knackered, there will be just pictures at this stage, and you will have to wait for the video to get the good oil on my thought process another day.

In the beginning there was a concrete slab where the wicking bed once had laid.  Holly helping of me course, and Teddy was helping Kim paint!

The materials.  Breeze blocks, 40cm x 15cm and about 14 half bricks

These are the 60cm x 60cm pavers that will make the top of the base that I will lay the oven brick on.

This is the basic structure before adding the mortar.  It is 120cm wide and 135cm long, with a side preparation table top.  The mortar is made up of two parts of premixed cement and six parts sand and all mixed up in the wheel barrow with enough water to make it a thick consistency.

This the first row bedded in.  Square and level.

Note my sloppy joints.  The base will be rendered when complete, so it doesn't really matter much.  It is level and spaced correctly apart.

Another view.

The second row of bricks go on.

Not yet finished the entire 2nd course.  I had to mix up some more mortar.

The second course of bricks completed and level.

Another angle.  I will be bricking these tunnels up at about half way, mainly because Kim is scared of spiders that may lurk in the deep dark depths!  There still should be enough storage for wood.

My trusty trowel.  I have the hang of it now.

I ran out of mortar at about 5pm so called it quits for the day and cleaned up the surrounding area so that there would not be cement stains everywhere.

All my muscles hurt, my brain is numb but I feel a great sense of accomplishment.  I start again tomorrow morning.  It will be 4 rows high before I put on the large pavers.  So far I have used two 20kg of sand, and about 10kg of premix cement.

What do you think?  Not very climate friendly using all of this cement, however the oven itself will be made of natural and recycled materials from around the yard, so it is not all that bad.

Gav signing off and stuck into a glass of organic wine! xox
   

Education for The Peak

During the research for solutions to the Peak, I was over at the Transition Culture website yesterday and spyed this gem of a video which shows a guy called Tom Harper teaching some young students in the United Kingdom.  This is a great piece of education about what oil does for us in our culture and society.



The Oil Game from Tom Harper on Vimeo.

If my research is correct, and the last two posts about Peak Oil are even half way on the money, then we need an education program like the oil game for our schools and communities.  Only by truly understanding the many uses of oil and its impact as it becomes a scarce resource, will we able to prepare for the coming energy decent with our eyes wide open and without the bickering that affects our action on climate change.  Well done to Tom and the Transition Town movement for leading the way.

P.S.  The solutions post is still being research, so sorry for the delay.

Myths For The Peak

As a follow on from yesterday's post about 'The Peak', I thought I would try and bust some myths about current technological solutions.  Tomorrow I will cover what we may, and indeed some folk are already doing about preparing for the coming energy decent.

So on to the mythbusting (I feel like Adam and Jamie)

Myth 1: We will never run out of oil, we will just have to pay more for it.
Well, yes this is technically true.  However the myth is that this is used for an argument to brush aside the issue and provides and excuse not to act now.  The reason we will not run out is because the economy will not be able to sustain the price of oil scarcity and will either collapse (aka 2008), or adapt without it before we use the very last drop.  I don't like the fact that 'paying more' means that 'more' will be up to10 times the current price.  Not only will petrol (gasoline) go up, everything else will as well.

Myth 2: We will just drive electric cars or drive less.
If we started converting all the current cars and trucks in the world it would take us over ten years, with the right amount of government focus and unlimited credit.





I don't see much of either lately and I think that the video is a pipe dream.  If you haven't read the news lately, the U.S. is having a bit of trouble raising the cash to pay government debt as is the Eurozone, and look at all the wonderful global political action on climate change we have not seen lately!  Anyway, what are we going to make tyres, plastic and bitumen from.  Yes folks you need oil.  We won't be driving much if we can't maintain the roads either which takes copious amounts of the black sticky stuff.

Myth 3: We will switch to ethanol based fuels.
I don't think so.  Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) comes into play here.  To grow the plants i.e. sugar cane, corn, soy, to make the ethanol, it actually takes about a barrel of oil to make a barrel of ethanol.  It is a no win situation.  In fact some say that it takes more than a barrel of oil to make the equivalent in ethanol.  Besides that the amount of arable land required is enormous.  I only have figures for the United States, but to fuel all the vehicles in the US with 100% ethanol it would take about 97% of the US land area needed to grow the corn!  Do you really want to make humanity go hungry just so that you can drive your car?

Myth 4: The world will stop dead because of Peak Oil.
I believe this to be untrue.  Peak oil is the period in time when the most oil is produced.  Like I said previously, the peak happened between 2004 and 2008, but we still have a few years, or even a couple of decades to act upon the issue.  The world won't stop, but we will go from recession to depression with spurts of growth in between as alternatives are developed and not last very long.  How long the energy decent lasts is a question of how long before we switch and adapt to post-oil economy.

Myth 5: We will switch to Natural Gas and Coal
These two alternatives to oil are also fossil fuels or ancient sunlight as I like to call them.  With global coal reserves most probably overestimated, and China's ravenous demand for the stuff, we are going to peak some time soon within the next few decades.  Demand will outstrip supply, just like it has oil.  Just one question?  What is going to fuel all of that mining equipment?  Last time I looked the trucks, excavators and the trains used to ship it to port all ran on diesel, which is made from oil, and don't start me on bio-diesel!
As for natural gas, Australia's supply is sold overseas to whoever is willing to pay for it.  Transporting gas cost 6-10 times the equivalent for oil, with LNG being the most expensive.  Compressing gas requires a lot of energy.  Production decline one is starts tends to be steeper for gas than for oil and production has already begun in the UK and Europe, and North America.  Russia is the only country propping up the rest of Europe with it gas reserves, which are expected to decline in the next decade.

Myth 6: Australia has Natural Gas for over 100 years. 
Not quite so.  I found this paper titled 'NATURAL GAS - “MAGIC PUDDING” OR DEPLETING RESOURCE.  A dissertation on the state of Australian natural gas' by B.J. Fleay B.Eng., M.Eng.Sc., M.I.E.Aust., M.A.W.A. August 2007.  It is an eye opening paper.

It states that for Eastern Australian Gas;

• Production in the Cooper/Eromanga Basins that have supplied gas to Brisbane,
  Sydney and Adelaide since 1980 is in rapid decline. Pipelines from the Gippsland/Otway
  basins to Adelaide and Sydney have been built to augment gas supply.
• The Gippsland Basin should reach 80 per cent depletion of commercial reserves by
  2015, if sub-commercial reserves are included, about 2020. Scope for additional
  discovery in the Gippsland Basin appears to be limited. So far performance in the Otway
  Basin has been disappointing.
• Rapid development of CSM is underway in Queensland. Less so in NSW and Victoria.
  The potential resource base in Queensland and NSW is large, but not yet fully
  understood. The cost is higher than existing supply but rather less than gas piped from
  Papua New Guinea and major western natural gas fields.
• Methane can be extracted from coal seams by drilling wells and extracting water to
  release the gas. More wells are needed than for conventional gas. These are shallower
  and can have a higher production rate, but often have a shorter life.
• A major problem is both the impact of this water extraction on aquifers and the
  subsequent environmental problems of its disposal. These are major issues in southern
  Australia’s drying climate.
• CSG in Central and Southern Queensland is being used to fuel gas turbines for
  electric power and for domestic gas consumption.
• The Sydney coal basin in NSW is regarded as a major potential source near its major
  market, but so far development is limited. A major problem will be water management
  for gas extraction in a major urban environment.

And for Western Australia;

• The North West Shelf Joint Ventures existing gas fields will reach 80 percent depletion between 2020 and 2025. Without incorporating major new discoveries its LNG and domestic gas supply will decline rapidly. The 5th LNG train is being built anticipating new discoveries. The NWSJV is searching for new gas fields. It has gas fields in its sights held by the Gorgon JV.

So not much hope for sustaining the older conventional gas fields in Australia, with heavy reliance on Coal Seam Gas, the offshore NW shelf and Gorgon fields and fracking.  Not a good outcome I fear because EROEI comes into play here as well.  As oil depletes and prices rise, it will cost more to extract the natural gas.  The price of extraction may outweigh the price they can effectively sell it for.  Once again China's appetite for LNG will force extraction to double or triple, therefore depleting quickly. 

Anyway, that is enough mythbusting for one post.  You can now see the scale of our dilemma which I hope paints a picture, but not too bleak.  Like I said yesterday, there is hope if we begin to prepare.

Tomorrow, I will write about energy decent and some solutions for a post peak world.

---

Credit goes to the following sites which have been a wealth of information for this post and who's concepts I have tried to explain in my own words:

• ASPO Australia
• Post Carbon Institute
• Peak Oil Tasmania
• Dry Dipstick

The Peak

Oil that is.  Yesterday I wrote about fuel density and greenhouse gas emissions.  One big thing that I failed to mention is that one should not get too reliant on the stuff anyway as we are past the peak of conventional crude oil extraction.  There is a consensus that peak oil has already been reached, at some point between 2004 and 2008.

Don't believe me?  Well why are we racing head long into projects like the Canadian tar sands, deep offshore oil drilling, and hydraulic fracturing which all have huge environmental issues?  Why would we take such risks?  I figure that it is because all of the easy to get oil is now harder to extract, and that it probably takes the energy of one barrel of oil to extract a barrel we take more risks and therefore invite environmental disasters.  In fact burning the stuff is the main cause of the climate chaos that we are now seeing the beginning of.

But unlike climate change, governments seem unwilling to encourage public debate about the ramifications of peak oil. This could be because politicians are concerned that doom-laden messages, like the prediction that ordinary families may only be able to use their cars for emergencies within 10 years because of spiralling fuel prices – will cause panic and civil disobedience on the streets.   Fancy that?  I don't and I expect that neither do you.  Why is there not more in the media about the subject?  If the average punter is worried about a carbon tax, imagine if they knew about peak oil and all the chaos that will bring.  Not that you or I would know it though, with the piddly amount of media coverage on the issue.

Declining oil stocks mean price increases across the board.  As I mentioned in the post "Why oil prices are going up", demand is outstripping supply and due to our oil addiction we cannot or will not think of alternatives.  As for alternatives, we may have left that too little, too late.  Some have said that we should have begun preparing for the end of cheap oil in the 1970's, but we did not.  Some have, but most have not.  I too am addicted to oil, and I know I am not alone.  The entire human race is addicted to oil in some form or another.

We are sleepwalking into a train wreck and we need to educate our young people on what peak oil is really all about. As the Arabic saying goes 'my father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son flies an airplane, his son will ride a camel'.  Never a truer statement has been written.  That is about the state of it.

Tomorrow I will write about some solutions that are being worked on right now without government assistance and may be models for the future.  There is hope!

Study the DoCM

Yes friends, I have been head down, bum up and studying for an assignment that had a deadline of Friday midnight.  I made the deadline with a few hours to spare and it took much longer than anticipated.  The course is a Diploma of Carbon Management (DoCM), which I may have mentioned before.  It runs from February to November.  You can read more about the course at this link to the Swinburne University of Technology.

The last assignment was a cost benefit analysis for carbon emissions abatement.  In English, the cost of cutting emissions.  I had to prepare analysis on four potential abatement projects for my case study company.  Two projects were about fuel switching from Unleaded (ULP) to Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) and from Unleaded to E10 (90% ULP + 10% Ethanol) fuel.  I discovered a few things that may bust some myths out there regarding fuel emissions. 

I learnt that litre on litre, unleaded petrol is more energy dense than either E10 and LPG.  To get the true value for either of these replacement fuels, there is quite a bit of maths involved.  Firstly you have to convert unleaded fuel to GigaJoules (GJ) to get the energy value.  Then you have to calculate the equivalent energy value for the other two fuels.  Yes my brain hurt at this stage as well.  Let me demonstrate with 10,000 litres of petrol which will take my hybrid car > 175,000 km.

10,000 litres of ULP = 342 GJ of energy.  Now to get the equivalent energy to make your car go the same distance, you would need 13053.4 litres of LPG which is less energy dense (and a fuel conversion of course), or 10332.3 litres of E10 which is also less energy dense that ULP.  

Now that may seem inefficient, however there are less carbon emissions given off when LPG and E10 are burnt in your engine.   As I said, even though the volumes of fuel differ, it will still drive you the same distance due to equivalent energy content.  Here are the comparisons for all three fuels and their emissions in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (t CO₂-e);

10,000 litres of ULP = 22.8 t CO₂-e

13053.4 litres of LPG =  20.5 t CO₂-e

10332.3 litres of E10 =  20.6 t CO₂-e

So as you can see, by using these alternate fuels to normal ULP you do reduce your emissions by about 10% from the tail pipe. What about the cost I here you say?

Well based on today's average prices for the same energy content (it is all about the energy) here are the results;

10,000 litres of ULP @ A$1.45 = $14,500

13,053.4 litres of LPG @ A$0.55 = $7,179.30 (almost half the cost of ULP energy wise)

10332.3 litres of E10 @ A$1.42 = $14,671.86

So what does that mean? Well, it means that even though E10 may look cheaper at the pump, it cost in this example, $171.86 more to drive the same distance, even though you are lowering your emissions by 10%. On the other hand, LPG still cuts emissions by 10%, but cost $7,320.70 less to drive the same distance. LPG wins hands down, even if you throw in the one off cost of between $2500-$4000 to convert your vehicle to this fuel. This investment would pay itself off within a couple of years.

So if you think you are helping to reduce your personal carbon footprint by using LPG and E10, you can rest assured that you are, however E10 does not make sense financially for just a 10% reduction unless of course you are willing to pay the premium for this reduction as I do. It would be better to catch public transport and make an even bigger difference for far less cost as I also do. I drive the 7km to the train station and catch the train the rest of the 37km to work each day. You and I could even buy a nice bike for the difference it costs us. Then we would save a fortune in emissions and fuel costs!

I hope this post has made sense (kinda anyway), and that you have learn a little something today about energy content of transportation fuels. Just remember, its all about the Joules!

Agents of Change at the Co-op

 Today's post is over at the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op where I wax lyrical about how I share tips about being an agent of change.  Now you may not agree with me, but pop on over anyway.

Also, while you are over there please leave a comment.  It is looking a bit sparse at the moment!

Gav x

Gauging Interest In a DVD

I had a brainwave the other day, and was wondering what readers thought of this?

Would you buy a cheese making DVD from this man?  Kim says I look too much like Wallace, all excited like, but I just think it shows enthusiasm.

Would love your thoughts via comment.

Cluckingham Palace

I have been hard at work this weekend around the yard, building more green projects. 

I really enjoy DIY building work, especially if it helps put food on the table and keeps our little feathered girls happy!  So over the last 4 weekends, Kim, Ben and I have been building what we are calling "Cluckingham Palace" for the big chooks.  If you remember a while ago, one of the little bantams got picked on so much by the bigger hens that she got sick and passed away.  I had to separate them, so the little hens got the under-cover run with new house made from shipping pallets, and the large hen were put into the big house but had no undercover area to shelter from the rain and to dust bath in.

Well after saving a few hundred dollars for materials, and collecting a few scrounged items like corrugated colourbond, and a flyscreen door, we are well on the way to finishing the extension.  Here are a few hundred photos we took during construction and basic explanations of how we built it.

Before the construction began.

We had constructed a small lean to with a platform so that the chooks kept dry during the recent rains.  Even though it worked okay and kept them dry, however with seven hens huddled under there with the breeze whipping through, there had to be a better way.  So, we came up with a design, and on the 26th June we got motivated and got stuck into it.

Holly and Teddy decided to practice for their circus act on our newly purchased wood.  Here is Holly on the balancing beam!

Once I took away the lean-to, we moved the pallet and their original dust bath box.

I started measuring where the holes for the upright posts were going to go before I dug them out with the auger.

We moved the chooks out of the yard for the day, and they got to roam around behind the shed to help clean up the weeds for me.

The second hole.  Note the bucket.

The bucket and 7 others like them are now full of clay for a special project that we are starting next week!

Teddy is still trying to perfect his circus act!

All the holes are now dug down to a depth of about 50cm.  They will be filled shortly.

Teddy is playing foreman, and making sure that I measure everything twice before cutting!

Four new poles of H4 structural pine all in a row.  They are even straight and level.

I had to use quick set concrete to fix them in the ground.  I bolted on the bottom support/kick board onto each pole after the cement had dried.

Ben was Mr nut, washer and bolt boy for the day.  He even had a ring spanner so that he could tighten up all the nuts for me.  He did a great joy as the assistant and had fun helping me out.

We managed to get the next beam up on the side.  Everything is level so far and here I am measuring up the next section.

Another view.  Measure twice and cut once.  This way, you usually don't come up short with your wood.

Ben's head is hurting, not because I dropped something on it, but because I keep asking him to remember lots of measurements!

So this is where we left it for the weekend after a full days work.  I had just finished putting up the roof beams and put back the lean-to when it started to bucket down with rain.  We finished just in time.

 So on the 2nd of July, we started on the roof.  Our builder friend Ray (who is helping construct a gazebo and arbor for grape vines in the pool area, had some 1 metre offcuts of corrugated colour bond roof sheeting left over from another job.  He gave me 11 sheets of metal and 2 sheets of polycarbonate.  So we put them to good use.

Like my tool belt?  Here I am just testing how it is all going to go together.  I find during construction, that if I do a dry run with a few pieces, I get a better idea of how it is all going to go together.  I checked to make sure that the overlap was right and that when I drilled through a roofing screw that both pieces would be fastened correctly.

One final check, and it was up on the ladder.

I used galvanised roofing screws with a rubber washers that is designed for this sort of thing.  Everything went quite smoothly with Kim passing me the sheets of colourbond.  We ended up with one sheet spare. 

While I was up there Teddy decided to sit on some of my garlic plants.  Kim quickly shooed him off and we had to put in some little bamboo stakes to deter this sort of behaviour.  It seems to have worked as the garlic is growing back strong.

So after about an hour or two, the roof was on and waterproof.  We tested it with a watering can, and the 5 degree drop that I built into the frame worked a charm.  The top beam will have a gutter attached next week, and then I will hook up the water barrel and pipe in the chicken nipples.

I started to put some chicken wire up on the back wall, and the front.

Here is a length that I put on the side near their nesting box.

The chickens are quite content and happy with what I achieved on that weekend.  

I had to stop before completing all the wire, as I just got too tired.  I must have been coming down with something.  In fact, the very next day I had gastro and took the day off from work.  What a pain. 

After the rest of the week back at work, I started coming down with a sore throat, which turned into a head cold, which turned into a chest infection.  I spend an entire weekend and Monday through to Wednesday in bed dosing up on anti-biotics to get well again.  All better now, and full of beans!

Anyway, today, among other things, I built this little garden bed, which is serving as a new dust bath.  It is made from Ammoniacal Copper Quaternary (ACQ) treated pine which does not contain Arsenic.  It is safe for the chooks and for garden beds in general.  I was gifted this bed after giving a free workshop at Bunnings Warehouse the week before my operation.  It was easy to construct, and I filled it with all of the dirt and sand that formally resided in the undercover wicking bed (for reasons that will become clear next weekend!).  I also added a bucket of wood ash from my neighbours combustion heater.  This will help deter mites as the chooks dust bath.

 You may have notice from earlier pictures that one of the gaps between the posts is bigger than the others.  This was on purpose as I sized it for a standard door. 

When I was putting on the roof, I couldn't help notice that our other neighbours had a screen door that looked like they were going to throw away.  I asked if I could have it (if you don't ask, you don't get), and picked it up this afternoon.  I had to dig down a little because one think I didn't account for was the height of the door!  You should have seen me trying to dig down with all the chooks at my feet picking at the worms.  I nearly took a few heads and chook feet off with the spade, but was oh so careful.

Here is a better photo of the door, and dust bath.  All of this took about two hours to complete the door, and the new dust bath completely filled.  

So at the end of the day, I still haven't finished, but am hoping to get it all completed next weekend as well as starting my next big project!  All in all, a good few weekends worth of construction, with one more day or so to finish it all off. 

Then I can feel rest assured that they have cover and a water supply, as well as a healthy day spa to dust bath in all day long!  Do you think they are happy with our efforts?