Solar switch for one of Australia's biggest companies funded by community

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Mum and dad investors are using their savings to fund a half-a-million-dollar solar energy project at the Wesfarmers-owned Blackwoods distribution depot at Canning Vale in Western Australia. 

Blackwood is the country's largest distributor of industrial and safety supplies and its Canning Vale depot will have 630 solar panels installed on its roof in the New Year.

"Wesfarmers is an enormous company but it is also Australia's largest private employer so there is an enormous connection [with the community] already," said Wesfarmers sustainability lead Patrick Heagney. "We have an internal target to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, so this is something we're very proud of." 

The 200-kilowatt system will supply a quarter of the business's electricity needs.

Mr Heagney said it was the biggest single solar installation in the Wesfarmers group, and the first funded by community investors. 

Investors expecting solid returns ....Click here to read more

Brian Arbogast Talks About Shit!

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THINKING ABOUT AND TALKING KRAP!

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MORE TEDtalks on this subject:

• How can we benefit from human waste? | Mari Winkler | TEDxULB ... This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Nitrogen and Phosphore are essential ressources. At TEDxULB, Mari explains how we can transform human waste in those precious ressources and even generate energy.

• Transformation of wastes to resources in Haiti | Sasha Kramer | TEDxTraverseCity ... This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Dr. Sasha Kramer provides the context for conducting waste transformation in Haiti. She shares the life cycle of this transformation process, from food, to waste, and back to food, while describing the important role of microbes and scientific measurement of the quality of the newly-created EcoSan compost. This model of transformation of waste into resources makes a positive impact on ecological nutrient cycles in a truly sustainable way.

Dr. Sasha Kramer is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) www.oursoil.org, an organization that promotes dignity, health and sustainable livelihoods through the transformation of wastes into resources. Sasha is an ecologist and human rights advocate who has been living and working in Haiti since 2004. She received her Ph.D. in Ecology from Stanford University in 2006 and co-founded SOIL that same year. Sasha is currently an Adjunct Professor of International Studies and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami. She is also a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, Architect of the Future with the Waldzell Institute and a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year for 2014.... HIGHLY RECOMENDED

• Making a merit of human waste: Virginia Gardiner at TEDxSouthwark ... Virginia is the founder and CEO of Loowatt Ltd, a revolutionary waterless toilet system that creates local economies around waste systems. In this TEDx talk she explains how human waste can be used to generate energy, in toilet systems which can help to solve the sanitation crisis.

• The waterless toilet that turns human waste into energy | Virginia Gardiner | TEDxBrixton ... This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Virginia Gardiner asks us to rethink the toilet.‘There is no such thing as sinkers and floaters’, she says talking us through her amazing innovation in sanitation. The benefits to those living in developing regions, without proper sanitation, are obvious. The benefits to those in the West seemed less so, but Virginia assures us that we'll be seeing Loowatt in music festival fields very soon.

Virginia has worked in design, engineering, management, entrepreneurship, fundraising and journalism. After studying literature and engineering at Stanford  University, and covering design for publications including The New York Times and Metropolis, she began to value the social importance of products and systems we live with, and to recognize certain everyday realities, such as the flush toilet, as wasteful. She founded Loowatt Ltd. in 2009 after developing the toilet and system concept during her masters’ degree at the Royal College of Art in 2008.

• Toilet revolution: Shyama V. Ramani at TEDxMaastricht ... 12' 47" ... There is a bit of a metaphor here maybe??

A COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS NETWORK IN TASMANIA

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The Community Exchange Network Tasmania (CENTs) is a project initiative of the North West Environment Centre. We are a volunteer run community exchange network operating throughout Tasmania where people trade their goods, services and skills with one another without money. CENTs also operates in the Gift Economy where people give things away to others or they can also swap, barter, loan, hire and share with others.

Community exchanges create a mutually supportive network of people helping each other. You can help other people or they can help you in lots of different ways – such as gardening, home help, baby sitting, office work, providing transport or by teaching someone a new skill. You can buy goods from others in the community to help you meet your day to day needs. You can access services that you may not be able to afford if you had to pay money for it.

After registering for an account each user receives an account number and a password. This gives them access to their account. The Community Exchange System works like an on-line banking service. Participants can view their current balance and can also keep track of the trading position of others so there is full transparency.

SOME WANTS CLICK HERE 

REIMAGINING PLASTICK

This story on the ABC is encouraging in that it is a demonstration of what can be done and locally. The outcomes are visible locally and not on some ambiguous bureaucratic BALANCEsheet where income from the sale of 'recyclable resources' become hidden in impenetrable accounting systems for the benefit of who? It's often said, "for the benefit of the bureaucratic-salaries-with-benefits-churn and of little or no benefit to the resource owners."

Why should they complain, they dumped and abandoned this stuff? Well yes but what options were they offered? Every now and then we hear about recalcitrant 'hoarders' who bring upon themselves the wrath of their local council. Yes these people are the custodians of a 'community hazard' but is it that simple? Might they be telling us something about our society's wastefulness?

Click here to read the ABC's Denmark(WA) Story

You'll see that we've got a way to go yet

Everything is UPcyclable but effort does have to put into establishing the ways tat it can be in a local context. That is ways that do not compound the problem and that does not unlock the carbon dioxide in the material. Near enough is no longer really good enough just as letting this stuff find its way to the ocean or in LANDfill where it'll have an uncertain future and goodness knows when. 

Is the best we can do without really trying good enough! What are you suggestions for a way forward? Actually this is a DESIGNproblem!!

No One Saw This Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming

VIDEO LINK CLICK HERE

In October in the USA Elon Musk showed us the grand unification of Tesla: Fast cars, big batteries, and a stunning solar rooftop.

On a Friday evening as the sun descended over an old Hollywood set of “Desperate Housewives,” Elon Musk took to a stage and fired up his presentation about climate change. It was a strange scene, with hundreds of people crowded into the middle of a subtly artificial suburban neighborhood.

It wasn’t until about a minute into the speech that Musk casually let the crowd in on Tesla’s big secret. “The interesting thing is that the houses you see around you are all solar houses,” Musk said. “Did you notice?”

The answer, in short, was no. Like everyone else, I knew we were there to see Musk’s new “solar roof,” whatever that was supposed to mean. But try as I could as we walked in, I didn’t see anything that looked like it could carry an electric current. If anything, the slate and Spanish clay roofs looked a bit too nice for a television set. This is the future of solar, Musk proclaimed. “You’ll want to call your neighbors over and say ‘check out the sweet roof.’ It’s not a phrase you hear often.”

The roof tiles are actually made of textured glass. From most viewing angles, they look just like ordinary shingles, but they allow light to pass through from above onto a standard flat solar cell. The plan is for Panasonic to produce the solar cells and for Tesla to put together the glass tiles and everything that goes along with them. That’s all predicated on shareholders approving the $2.2 billion acquisition of SolarCity, the biggest U.S. rooftop installer, on Nov. 17 2016. .... Click here to read more

ON BATTERIES

As a result of the Aliso Canyon natural gas leak earlier this year, and the facility’s subsequent closure, the California Public Utilities Commission mandated (in May) an accelerated procurement for energy storage in order to avoid potential electricity shortfall issues and rolling blackouts.

Utility companies, such as Southern California Edison, were thus told to solicit utility-scale energy storage solutions that could be operational by December 31, 2016.

The competitive process that followed has resulted in Tesla being selected “to provide a 20 MW/80 MWh Powerpack system at the Southern California Edison Mira Loma substation,” Tesla has announced. “Tesla was the only bidder awarded a utility-owned storage project out of the solicitation.” Click here to go to source

Today is the day... However do not let go of this idea!!

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Well this intuitive is one way to go but locally we could all be a lot more creative than congratulating 'corporate monsters' for more and more INBUILTobsolescence. If something we have has TRULY reached the end of its USEFULlife we need to develop local strategies that fit local circumstances. 

Before we CHIUCKit we could look to repairing it or having it repaired if not for ourselves then for someone who needs this thing. After that we might repurpose it or let someone else do that to it and after that, well we could recover the resources invested in it.

All very idealistic we hear you say! Well there is something else you might consider. You could, rather we collectively could, demand that our local governments close "WASTE MANAGEMENT CENTRES" and have them reopened as "RESOURCE RECOVERY CENTRES". 

Once that's done we, collectively, could keep on our representatives' hammers and ensure that they are accountable and assist in facilitating resource recovery – as unfashionable as thatmight be.

To go solar or not that's the question!

There are savings to be had by going solar and that is across the board – domestic, commercial, industrial. Whether or not it is financially worthwhile everyone in their own circumstance will need to do their own sums. Better still it would be a good idea to get some independent advice. However there are some questions that are worth asking. For instance:

• If one is to invest in a personally managed superannuation fund, would making a parallel investment in a domestic solar installation stack up? 
• How long might it take, given your usage and projected usage, to recover your investment?  
• If your property is not ideally located what options are available to you? 
• If your property's design does not lend itself to a solar installation what options are available to you? 

Here are some graphics that might help in the framing of your questions.

CLICK ON AN IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Byron Bay residents push for Australia's first community-owned clean energy generator

"Australia's first community-owned clean energy generator and retailer is taking shape in the counter-culture capital of Australia. Known for its alternative lifestyles, the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales is hoping to establish a not-for-profit energy company - Northern Rivers Energy - to rival the big retailers.

The electricity industry however remains highly sceptical a renewable energy generator and retailer would be able to compete on price. It has been a magnet for so-called hippies, surfers and tree changers so it is no surprise councils and businesses in this eco-friendly region of NSW are turning to solar for a range of industrial practises, while local dairy and sugar farmers are generating their own electricity from methane and cane waste." ... Click here to read more

A PROPOSAL FOR A SUSTAINABILITY COOPERATEIVE

Click here to go to the strategic plan

This proposal has been prepared against the background that increasingly communities are being called upon to devise and promote more sustainable lifestyles and community development strategies. All of this is going on against the backdrop of the threat of climate change, diminishing resources and changing social dynamics within communities brought on by these and other factors. Sustainable community development is now an imperative and community cooperative enterprises appear to offer a productive way forward. It is no longer something that can be put off until later. Later is now!

THE COOPERATIVE'S PURPOSE

 The proposed Community Enterprise Sustainable Living Cooperative will be an independent standalone community not-for-profit enterprise/s that fosters and facilitates discrete community initiatives devised to have sustainable outcomes. Likewise it is proposed that via advocating and promoting sustainable community development focused upon sustainable living projects it will be possible to address emerging social issues.

The aim is to inspire, motivate and influence people across the community, the private corporate sector and in government – Federal, State & Local – to not only become involved in creating sustainable communities but also engage with the sustainability concept in a community context. .... Click here to read more

Solar Gaining Ground As A Viable Energy Source

India just unveiled one of the world’s largest solar power plants at a site in Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu. The nearly four-square-mile facility in southern India has a capacity of 648MW, according to Al Jazeera, topping the also massive Topaz Solar Farm, located in California, by about 100MW. 

It took just eight months and $679 million to build the facility in Kamuthi, which features 25 million solar modules along with a team of solar-powered maintenance robots. Topaz Solar Farm by contrast took almost two years and $2.5 billion to develop. The Indian plant is expected to generate electricity needed to power 150,000 homes. The solar power plant is another aspect of India’s extensive campaign to expand its use of renewable energy. 

Last year, the country opened the first airport in the world that is powered entirely by solar power. With over 46,000 solar panels, the Cochin International Airport solar array in the southern state of Kerala is capable of producing 50,000 units of electricity per day. 

 Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/india-power-plant/#ixzz4RlSdZzGT 

Waste Management or Resource Recovery ... That's the Question

This development holds all the promise of closing down SEWERAGEfarms and giving us the ability to deal with so-called "waste" on site 

It’s actually a resource but lets not go there right now. 

The BIGproblem is that those with “influence” seem to have shut down, or have decided to shut up or have just left the stage via the RIGHTwing chasing the money.

Well the is no excuse or cure for intellectual dysfunctionism and sadly neither is there a penalty ....

HOWEVER these people need to be encouraged to keep on keeping on with luck they’ll help us overcome the twaddle yet!!!!

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The Queensland worm farmer who  invented this worm farm believes she has invented the world's first commercially-produced solar powered compost machine. 

Solar composter makes meal of waste (ABC Rural) "It certainly is, yes, and we are happy to say it has been designed here in Australia and running entirely on solar," said Penny Mitchell, from Palmwoods on the Sunshine Coast. 

Waste material is put into two bins that rotate with the power of the sun, breaking down the matter with time. 

Ms Mitchell said the market for solar powered compost bins was environmentally conscious businesses that wanted to reduce their carbon footprint. 

"We are getting quite a bit of interest, we have had enquiries from [companies in] India and New Zealand and a few other places," she said. 

"A lot of the people are interested in their sustainability but we also sell them to schools and universities who are educating the population about waste." ... Read more here

FIXit do no CHUCKit!

This is hopefully a sign of the future or in a way a return to the ways we once imagined the world. As a jewellery I know first hand that "chuck it" is not an option when we have a CULTURALtreasure in our hand. Then , say for gold, it is the arguably the most recyled or upcycled material on the planet with way less than 4% of all gold ever mined returning to 'the earth'. It was once like that for iron. Look Around us and let's see what can be fixed 

GO2 ... http://www.abc.net.au/…/right-to-repair-movement-pu…/8077744 and have a listen!!!

GO2 ... Sweden is paying people to fix their belongings instead of throwing them away ... https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/sweden-is-tackling-its-throwaway-culture-with-tax-breaks-on-repairs-will-it-work/

The Michael Mobbs Sustainability Program

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Michael Mobbs IS the 'off-grid guy' living independently in inner Sydney and successfully . He has produced a 2min video  house about his Sydney Sustainable House that costs just $300 to run [LINK].    

He's in the business of helping people go-off-grid – or partly off-grid. As he says "we can all live a sustainable life."  

Cut your bills, reduce your pollution and get healthy with local food you grow or buy! Since 1996, the Mobbs have had energy and water bills of less than $300 per year - the house has been disconnected from mains water and sewer since 1996. In March 2015, he disconnected the house from the poles and wires of the main electricity grid, and since then solar panels and batteries have powered the house. 

This is becoming increasingly possible and indeed affordable. But you don't have to go all off-grid - choose what works for you, in our own time, in your own place, will be different from place to place, circumstance to circumstance. 

Mobbs has made his business and essentially he works as as a Sustainability Coach to help people choose options for going off-grid or partly off-grid.

His BLOG is there to provide access to the off-grid and partly off-grid projects he's involved in and with ... CLICK HERE

Wind Power The Innovation Is Ongoing

Click Here to go to the video & read the commentiory ... Click Here for a video on innovative water pump

The basic idea for this has been around for a while and its concept worth exploring. This one looks like it could replace the windmills in Hobart. With a bit of tweaking, and at a DOMESTICscale, it could be a cornerstone for a whole new industry and one with application in Tasmania.

Also, the possibility of excluding birds from the danger zone should be a winner in Tasmania not to mention the noise reduction. 

Now Joe Hockey when he was Treasure said something like he thought that windmills are UGLY AND UTTERLY OFFENSIVE [LINK] and shouldn't be funded. Let's ponder what he might think of this one.

Also see this proposal that's not so very different but a lot bigger  –  New Wind Turbines Could Power Japan for 50 Years After a Single Typhoon CLICK HERE

PLASTIC IS NOT RUBBISH

CLICK HERE TO GO TO NOTrubbish

Design from Eindhoven, Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Dave Hakkens shows us just how his Precious Plastic recycling machines work and explains why he made the blueprints freely available online.

It's time to reimagine 'plastic' and think of it in the way say 'gold' has been imagined for thousands of years. 

Its actually 'precious stuff' and when its thought of as 'rubbish' it becomes dangerous stuff.

Watch the video and begin to reimagine plastic!

CLICK HERE

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