Beyond Zero Emissions

[biffvernon]

Beyond Zero Emissions - isn't this what we should be talking about on PowerSwitch?

BZE are developing a detailed, costed blueprint for the transition to a completely decarbonised Australian economy within a decade.

http://bze.org.au/

[Little John]

Beyond Zero Emissions - isn't this what we should be talking about on PowerSwitch?

BZE are developing a detailed, costed blueprint for the transition to a completely decarbonised Australian economy within a decade.

http://bze.org.au/

Look B. I will be willing to bet my life savings that the people who are putting forward any kind of "plan" for Australia to be completely decabonised in a decade are either deluded because it's simply not possible, even with a population as low as Australia's (or, at least not unless every Australian can be persuaded to go back several centuries within a decade) or these are not plans at all, but merely unrealistic aspirations the proponents of which know full well can't be met, but who are pushing it to try to get their society to move at least some distance. In which case, this kind of disingenuity only gives the movement for the necessary changes we need to make a bad name.

Edit to add:

I've just had a cursory read of the site and i need to add another possibility:

They have a solar PV agenda to push. All very well of course. But, what this means is that the "decarbonised within a decade" plan is just a publicity stunt by them.

[Tarrel]

Actually, reading the synopsis of the Stationary Energy plan, much of the renewable electricity is planned to come from solar thermal and wind.

I'd be interested to see the (to be published) plans for transport, industrial processes and land-use. I imagine these areas would be much more of a challenge when moving towards a zero-carbon economy, especially given Australia's reliance on mining and other resource extraction, and industrial-scale farming.

[ceti331]

detailed, costed blueprint

cost to me ususally means how much carbon it takes to implement

if it was viable, it would power itself. one solar device would provide the energy to make the next one... like plants

[BritDownUnder]

I joined this organisation (BZE) when I attended a renewable energy conference last year. I have not been to any meetings as yet because they are located in Sydney and I am several hundred kilometres away. They asked me to attend a training session at three days notice so I could not attend but I understand there will be one in May. I was going to write a post about that on this forum but someone has preempted me.

From the look of their website I think their idea is feasible in terms of technology but hopelessly optimistic in terms of timescale. I understand there is already one of these molten salt storage solar power plants in operation in Spain.

One thing that makes me somewhat wary about their strategy is that they are very anti-coal which is very important for the Australian economy in general and this is something the politicians are loathe to touch. Coal along with Iron Ore accounts for something like half Australian exports and I can see this causing problems. Also most of Australia's power is also coal fired but with Natural and Coal Seam Gas making inroads fast.

Still, I am optimistic that a demonstration scale plant could get built within the timescale they envisage to replace the two old South Australian brown-coal plants. South Australia's state government is probably the most forward thinking of all state governments all having been an early adopter of wind power.

Can't say if they are all for rooftop PV or not but the economics are heading in the right direction. Certainly rooftop PV is growing fast in Australia and it is the right country for it being sunny and most of the population living in large roofed single storey detached dwellings. I have it myself, a 5 kW system that regularly delivers 25kWh plus per day even with some of my panels facing west due to a small North-facing rooftop area on my house. Other things like batteries for household-scale storage batteries are also being talked about.

One thing I think they should do is advertise more. I think if they put a few adverts on TV it would raise the profile among the population. I was surprised to hear an electrician who did some work on my house talking about this molten salt storage so the message is getting across slowly.

All in all a good idea but Australia is in a difficult position being an election year now with a Labor (and this is spelt correctly) federal government in its last few months in office most likely to be replaced by strongly right-wing government, Liberal-National, in deficit cutting mood. An ineffective Green movement that has been too close to Labor in recent years and rightly been taken for granted I think will bury this good idea for at least five years.

[biffvernon]

Great to have some local input from a Brit Down Under. Thanks.

Yes, it's a hopelessly optimistic timescale. But then thinking that we can halt climate change before we destroy the planet's capacity to support human civilisation is also hopelessly optimistic. Somehow we have to continue even without hope.

And you are right to say that "they are very anti-coal which is very important for the Australian economy", but it is much more important that it ceases. The planet's capacity to support human civilisation is more important than the Australian economy.

[BritDownUnder]

I took the opportunity to attend a presentation given by this organisation on Thursday evening in Newcastle, New South Wales. It was on the release of a new report into zero carbon buildings in Australia.

You can download a 28MB pdf version of the report here http://bze.org.au/download-zero-carbon- ... lding-plan.

Quite a few new ideas, for me anyway, and some interesting stats such as only 1.5% of Australian homes have double glazing and rooftop PV installations are causing a 2% decline in electricity use per annum (I expect higher prices have something to do with it as well).

As expected most of the emphasis was on cooling buildings more efficiently and not heating. Two ideas worth noting were use of pipes buried 2-3m under the ground where the temperature was supposedly a constant 20C all year and another where on clear nights water was sprayed on metal roof which was cold due to radiative heat loss to the clear sky cooling the water to less than 10C which was then used to chill the building the following day. Other things mentioned were painting dark coloured roofs white and of course many forms of insulation and reflective or shading for windows.

I felt they placed too much emphasis on reverse cycle heat pumps both for space cooling/heating and also for water heating (yes you can get such water heaters here and they do work). COP values of 4 were quoted as part of their calculations but I understand that COP values are measured at 18C air temperature at the heat exchanger and if the heat exchanger air temperature is substantially different to this then the COP will fall, i.e. colder when trying to heat and much warmer when trying to cool. Anyone care to comment on this? The reason given for not supporting solar water heating was that it would give rise to seasonal and shorter fluctuations in electricity requirement for backup heating.

They were also in favour of abandoning gas as any energy source for buildings, something I am wholeheartedly in agreement with. The main source of energy was to put a PV roof on every accessible place amounting to 35,000MW of installed capacity.

I forgot to mention induction cook tops. Anyone have experience with these? Other than having to buy induction-able cookware, i.e. steel or iron are they substantially more efficient?

[woodburner]

My understanding is induction hobs are more efficient at getting the heat into a pot. I understand this only part of the equation, since they continuously consume around 70W, but if you try to save money by turning off the power when not in use, they fail after a short time and need an expensive repair.

[biffvernon]

My daughter uses induction hobs in her deli business - they are used on and off all day long and have lasted a few years so far. They chose pretty expensive ones so maybe they are more robust than cheaper ones.

[Little John]

My daughter uses induction hobs in her deli business - they are used on and off all day long and have lasted a few years so far. They chose pretty expensive ones so maybe they are more robust than cheaper ones.

That's interesting. I have just taken a read on wiki about induction heating and this is the same as I once did with my welder as an experiment. I connected a steel pan up to my arc welder on very low voltage and very high amperage. I got a pan of water to boil in short order. It occurred to me at the time that this must be a very efficient way to use electricity to heat food since all of the heat goes to directly heating the food as opposed to escaping as wasted heat into the air.

However, given that this is a super basic technological way to heat metal, being based on little more than a big transformer plus some kind of current limiter to adjust the heat setting, I don't understand why they should be any more expensive than conventional cookers and could see why they should be actually cheaper, if anything.

......Actually, reading a bit more I think what I was doing was resistance heating, which is very similar I think, but slightly different. I'm not sure yet.

[biffvernon]

There are quite a few single plate induction hobs for under £50.
(I bought a brand new one in the box at a car boot for a tenner.)

I guess the price you pay for a big multi-plate hob only slightly reflects the cost of the technology inside.

[Little John]

There are quite a few single plate induction hobs for under £50.
(I bought a brand new one in the box at a car boot for a tenner.)

I guess the price you pay for a big multi-plate hob only slightly reflects the cost of the technology inside.

I bet you could easily hack one of those single plate ones to act as a resistance soldering iron or even to do very delicate brazing of jewellery.