Seeking sustainable solutions to climate change

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Seeking Sustainable Solutions to Climate Change

Joel Catchlove, Friends of the Earth Adelaide, April 2006

The Gathering Storm

The human species is at a critical point. Emissions produced from the consumption of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) that have made the industrialised world’s affluence possible have also eroded the natural patterns of the earth’s climate. Already during the 20^th Century Australia’s climate warmed by 0.7°C with global sea levels rising by 15cm (Whetton 2001, p.1) and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a global temperature rise of 1.4°C to 5.8°C within the next century (Friends of the Earth 2005).

For South Australia, temperatures are expected to increase by up to 4.4°C, also significantly increasing the number of days above 35°C. Rainfall is predicted to decrease over most of the state, and with increased evaporation, the flow of the already seriously ailing Murray-Darling Basin may decrease by a further 45 percent by 2070 (Australian Greenhouse Office & Conservation Council of SA n.d). This decrease is over four times what South Australia currently uses from the Murray. Rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms will threaten low-lying coastal areas – including Port Adelaide – while growing temperatures and more frequent and severe bushfires, floods, heatwaves and droughts will impact communities (Greenpeace & Conservation Council of SA 2005).

Communities across the world are increasingly threatened by rising sea levels, particularly throughout the Pacific Islands. Despite contributing the least greenhouse emissions, seven million Pacific Islanders face displacement as their agricultural land and water supplies becomes saline due to rising sea-levels and decreasing rainfall (Friends of the Earth 2005). Predictions suggest that the nation of Tuvalu may be completely submerged within 50 years (Friends of the Earth 2005). Globally, by 2050 there may be up to 150 million climate refugees, many displaced by rising sea levels and other consequences of climate change (Friends of the Earth 2005).

Underscoring the threat of climate change is a growing awareness that the same fossil fuels upon which our culture’s affluence is built are rapidly diminishing. Estimates for oil peak (when world oil supplies reach maximum production before rapidly declining) vary, the US Geological Survey predicts world peak by 2040 at the latest (Appenzeller 2004, p. 90), while others suggest it has already passed (Lowe 2005, p. 22). Predictions also show world gas supplies are declining (Nielsen 2005, p. 128; Fleay 1995, p. 129) and coal is no longer acceptable because of its massive environmental consequences, including its huge carbon emissions.

In contrast to the limited resource deposits and environmental destructiveness of fossil fuel and nuclear power generation, renewable energy creates usable power from the unlimited “income of natural systems” – the sun, wind, tidal movements, ocean currents and biomass (organic matter) (Lowe 2005, p. 26). Communities across the world are recognising and responding to the threat of irreversible climate change and declining fossil fuel resources, leaving Australia, despite its vast potential, far behind. In March 2006, the Sustainable Development Commission, the British Government’s environmental advisory board, emphasised that “there is more than enough renewable resource in the UK to provide a diverse, low-carbon energy supply”, making it “possible to meet our energy needs in a carbon-constrained economy without nuclear power” (Sustainable Development Commission 2006, p. 2). In 2005, the German government resolved to begin its transition to 100 percent renewable energy generation, including phasing out nuclear power (Aitken 2005). Iceland and Sweden have pledged to become oil-free, Sweden planning on replacing all fossil fuel technologies with renewables within the next 15 years also without nuclear power (Vidal 2006).

Sustainable Solutions

For US energy scientist and policy expert Dan Kammen, the shift to renewables is a fundamental shift in the way we plan and manage energy; a shift from what he calls the “hunter-gatherer” pursuit of limited deposits of fossil fuels to the “farming” and harvesting of the inexhaustible flows of renewable energy (Parfit 2005, p. 12).

Decentralised renewable energy generation is increasingly recognised as “the way forward” to cut carbon emissions (McCarthy 2006). With up to 21 percent of energy being lost in transmission from power plant to user (Nielsen 2005, p. 123), distributed renewable power generation allows homes, business and communities to efficiently generate their own clean energy on or near its site of consumption.

Drawing from models in Denmark and the Netherlands, where 50 percent of energy generation is decentralised, London Mayor Ken Livingstone has expressed a vision of the city as a web of “local energy networks” where buildings generate their own renewable energy (Hopkins 2005). A recent study showed that Britain’s current model of centralised power generation wastes some two-thirds of the power it generates – the energy wasted at the power station and in transmission is “equal to the entire water and space heating demands of all buildings in the UK” (Hopkins 2005).

This level of inefficiency has been avoided in many European cities through the use of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) stations. Small enough to be located in or near cities, CHP stations generate electricity while simultaneously capturing the heat generated from combustion for distribution through local heating systems. Small-scale CHP systems are installed in commercial and public buildings, hospitals and schools across Europe providing for all of their energy and heating needs. CHP systems can be fuelled by both fossil fuels or renewable sources including waste, woodchips or even geothermal energy (Girardet 2004, p. 181).

Livingstone’s vision of buildings powered by their own energy was recently echoed in the British Government’s allocation of £50 million to support community-based ‘microgeneration’ initiatives in its March 2006 budget. Such initiatives are intended to aid businesses, schools and homes in adopting community-based renewable technologies “from wind turbines to solar heating”. The initiative emerged after Woking, a town of 100,000 people in Surrey, reduced its carbon emissions by 78 percent and installed 10 percent of Britain’s solar energy through microgeneration (McCarthy 2006). The Government’s £50 million dedicated to microgeneration will also increase demand for renewable technologies, helping to lower prices and increase accessibility to the technology (Lean 2006).

Decentralised, community-based renewable energy production is also being described as a strategy to ensure the majority, ‘developing’ world grows sustainably. If China developed decentralised, renewable energy generation to meet its growing energy demands, it could reduce carbon emissions by 56 percent compared to conventional energy generation, and reduce its costs by 40 percent (Hopkins 2005).

Wind

Wind is a resource accessible in most parts of the world. Wind turbines convert wind into electricity, and can be installed both on land and at sea. While single, large-scale turbines can power several thousand households (Australian Greenhouse Office 2003a) with one currently in development to power 5,000 homes (Parfit 2005, p. 11), smaller turbines are also readily available to supply individual household energy demands.

Throughout the early 2000s, wind energy has been the fastest growing energy sector at 22 percent per year (Girardet 2004, p. 188). In the US, increasing natural gas prices have pushed the costs of conventional electricity above wind power, leading to a demand that outstrips supply – wind turbine manufacturers are sold out until at least 2008 (Earth Policy Institute 2006). Denmark has rapidly become a world leader, generating 3,600 megawatts by 2002 – the equivalent of five nuclear power stations (Girardet 2004, p. 188) – with supply to rise to at least 25 percent of Denmark’s total energy consumption by 2009 (Danish Wind Industry Association 2004, p. 6). Across Europe, by 2005 wind was cleanly generating the equivalent of 35 coal-fire power plants and growing (Parfit 2005, p. 22).

Solar

An average of 300 watts of solar energy hits every square metre of the earth every day (Nielsen 2005, p. 145). Put another way, the amount of solar energy that hits Australia in one day is about half the world’s total annual energy use (Lowe 2005, p. 84). Solar technologies harness this energy, either as heat or for conversion into electricity. Solar hot water services are an example of the use of solar thermal energy already common in Australia. They are mandatory in Israel and on all homes, offices, restaurants and public buildings in Barcelona, and widespread even across northern Europe (Girardet 2004, p. 183).

Solar photovoltaic (PV) cells or panels convert solar energy into electricity. From their original use on satellites and space vehicles, photovoltaic cells are now increasingly efficient, inexpensive and accessible for use in smaller household or community-based energy generation (Greenhouse 2006). Supported by government subsidies, solar technologies have been widely adopted in Japan and Germany – in 2001, Japan had 50,000 homes powered by solar electricity, selling the excess electricity generated back into the grid (Girardet 2004, p. 184). In order to slice their carbon emissions, Spain announced in 2004 that all new and renovated homes must have solar panels. Advances in efficiency and its ability to be structurally incorporated into architecture mean that solar has a bright future – even at current levels of efficiency, solar energy could provide all of the US’s energy needs while occupying less than a quarter of its urban space (Parfit 2005, p. 18).

Biomass

Biomass describes the conversion of organic matter or waste into electricity or heat energy. Biofuels, fuels manufactured from plant or animal matter, are increasingly used across the world, with Australia’s largest biodiesel plant opening in Adelaide in March 2006. The plant aims to ultimately produce 45 million litres of renewable fuel a year from oil seed (ABC News Online, 2006). Ethanol, often produced from sugar cane or corn waste, already fuels 50 percent of cars in Brazil (Parfit 2005, p. 22), with a view to have the nation’s transport 80 percent ethanol-fuelled in the next five years (Vidal 2006).

Seeking to entirely break its dependency on fossil fuels by 2020, biofuels are one of many renewable technologies at the centre of Sweden’s new energy economy. The Swedish Government is working with car manufacturers SAAB and Volvo to develop vehicles designed for biofuel use, while the Swedish timber industry produces its own energy from barkchips and sawdust.

While biofuels are versatile and able to be easily usable in many existing technologies, to be fully renewable, the process of transforming the raw matter into fuel must be powered by renewable energy. There are also continuing concerns about the water consumption and carbon emissions produced by some plants during the conversion process (Diskin 2006).

The oceans and the earth

In addition to solar, wind and biomass, there remain numerous other natural forces which are only beginning to be explored as renewable energy sources. Marine energy technologies draw energy from waves, tides, sea currents and even variations in water salinity (Nielsen 2005, p. 148). One of the largest marine projects in development is a wave farm tethered off the coast of West Wales. When complete, it will generate enough energy to power 60,000 homes, with projections for similar projects to ultimately supply 20% of Britain’s energy demands (Romanowicz 2006).

There is also growing interest in geothermal energy, created by pumping water down through ‘hot dry rock’ (HDR) 3 to 5 kilometres beneath the surface of the earth. The rocks, warmed by the earth’s molten interior, convert the water into high pressure steam which then powers turbines. There is already exploration for geothermal potential throughout central and eastern Australia (Australian Greenhouse Office 2003b).

What the future looks like

As is highlighted by the growing movement towards decentralised, distributed renewable energy generation, “new low-carbon technologies dictate a different infrastructure” from the “old” and “phenomenally expensive” centralised network of cables (Hopkins 2005). Developments like Christie Walk, a community-developed ‘eco-city’ project in Adelaide’s south west or Britain’s BedZed (Beddington Zero (Fossil Fuel) Energy Development) are practical demonstrations of the possibilities and potential of renewable, low-carbon urban environments.

Both Christie Walk and BedZed redeveloped existing urban or industrial land with homes and commercial space built for maximum energy and water efficiency and, in the case of BedZed, to be ‘carbon neutral’. Both developments acquired building materials from recycled or renewable sources, with BedZed sourcing as much material as possible from within a 35 mile (56 kilometre) radius in order to reduce transport costs (Low et al., 2005 p. 54). Likewise, Christie Walk and BedZed utilise passive solar design to allow the buildings to self-regulate temperature with minimal energy input. As Christie Walk project architect Paul Downton comments, compared with a conventional development of the same size,

Christie Walk provides more housing (27 units rather than 24), more productive landscape (one third of the site, plus roof garden rather than just 10%), more resource conservation, higher energy efficiencies (25% of normal SA summer running costs according to initial research results), more community space and social interaction (none provided at all in the conventional scheme), capture of stormwater (all water captured on-site rather than none), capture and treatment of effluent (75% rather than none), and renewable energy capture and use (enough to heat water and power the entire site – compared with no renewable use at all). (Downton 2004)

BedZed generates all its power and heating needs with an on-site CHP station, connected to the grid to allow the development to sell excess energy. The station is powered by tree waste, pruned from the site and public parks in the surrounding district and which would normally be sent to landfill (BedZed 2006, Low et al. 2006, p. 55). To meet its energy demands, Christie Walk plans installation of solar panels and because of its efficient design, it’s expected that power will be exported to the grid for much of the year (Downton 2001).

The developments share a determination to cut fossil fuel consumption through transport. BedZed plans to reduce its car use by 50 percent in 10 years (Low et al 2005, p. 55), supported by a strong emphasis on localism. Commercial properties located onsite, along with childcare and shopping facilities, encourage residents to work locally, reducing car commuting journeys. The development also has solar powered charging points for electric vehicles and plans to develop a community car pooling system. It is linked with bikeways and, like Christie Walk, is located close to public transport. In addition to minimal carparking space and an emphasis on pedestrian walkways, Christie Walk also highlights the importance of food production in energy efficiency. By providing space for a community food garden onsite, the energy demands of food transport are also reduced.

There’s all kinds of things you can do to help reduce your impact on the environment, but here’s a start:

Conduct an energy audit on your home, either get someone in or enquire at your local council or library about loan home auditing kits to determine how you can save energy, money and carbon emissions. You might start by turning off appliances when you don’t need them, replacing your light bulbs with compact fluorescent globes and making sure you get energy-efficient appliances.

Source your energy from renewable wind or solar. If you’re not ready to generate your own solar or wind energy onsite, many energy suppliers now allow you to select where you want your energy to be sourced from – make sure it’s certified Green Power at www.greenpower.com.au. And if you’re hot water service is coming up for replacement, think about switching to solar and research what subsidies might be available.

Buy local and grow your own. You can reduce your carbon impact by reducing the distance your food has to travel. Buy food that’s grown locally or find some space to grow your own herbs or vegetables. Look around for a local food co-op, community garden or permaculture group to get you started. You can also get composting systems or worm farms to suit even small homes, classrooms and offices.

Consider how your organisation, school, church, business or university can reduce its carbon impact. Supported by the Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN), environment collectives at universities across Australia are working to improve their universities’ energy efficiency and to source energy from renewable sources. Find out how to get started at www.asen.org.au.

Ride a bike, catch public transport or car pool. You might even like to get involved in Critical Mass, a regular group bicycle ride in your city. In Adelaide, Critical Mass meets on the last Friday of the month, 5.45pm at Victoria Square before taking to the streets.

Get involved with Friends of the Earth or your local environment group. Even if you can’t come along to campaign, there are always lots of other ways you can help out – and environment groups are always appreciative of donations! In Adelaide, Friends of the Earth’s Clean Futures Collective meets every Tuesday 5.30pm at the Conservation Centre, 120 Wakefield Street. The Clean Futures Collective is committed to promoting intelligent, sustainable solutions to the nuclear and fossil fuel industries, come along to find out more or contact the group on (08) 8227 1399, or email [email protected].