News
Campaigners Power Renewable Energy Debate
Sustainable energy campaigners say now is the time to start switching Australia over to renewable power plants.
Perth Solar City Project
Perth is one of Australia's sunniest cities and is finally moving towards some solar PV installations. Although initially a little more expensive, these projects provide a great benefit to the enrironment and reduce peak electricity use.
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Sustainability
Clean Energy Council
The Clean Energy Council is the peak body representing Australia's clean energy sector
Beyond Zero Emissions
Beyond Zero Emissions facilitates the implementation of social changes and technologies needed to reduce the impacts of climate change and give our society and global ecosystems a chance of surviving into the future.
Sustainable Energy WA
Sustainable Energy Development Office of WA (SEDO) is the government contingent in WA looking at and funding sustainable energy initiatives.
Sustainable Energy VIC
The government contingent looking at sustainable energy in Victoria
Sustainable and Renewable Energy in Australia
Electricity is the lifeblood of our modern society. Whether we like it or not, we have become dependant on energy to power our homes, cars and industry. With major energy shortages combined with the need to take a hard line on climate change, there has never been a better time to embrace clean and sustainable technology. With our government failing to act on smart energy options for our future, as consumers we are left with little choice but to instil a bottom up approach to change. This involves everything from deciding on energy sensitive items from the supermarket to installing solar panels on homes. It is also important to understand that there is a vastly untapped free energy out there which we do have the technology to access cheaply, safely and efficiently for many decades to come. With energy shortages and the brink of irreversible climate change just over the horizon, it is in our national and global interest to understand, harness and embrace sustainable energy alternatives.
A Great Introduction
Here is a 7 part video series produced by www.beyondzeroemissions.org which shows that Australia is entirely capable of deploying a 100% renewable zero emission stationary energy system by 2020 for a predicted expenditure of not more than 3%GDP over 10 years. This will bring our emissions back in line to a sustainable level.
The videos also dispel many of the myths and false arguments used to make the case that global warming, or human induced climate change is a hoax. Finally it tackles safe carbon concentration levels in the atmosphere and offers suggestions about where politics stands on this issue. It is certainly the best video coverage on sustainability I have seen to date offering a real action plan that is properly costed, affordable and practical.
See all 7 videos in this series here
The 3 Ways to Move Forward with Sustainable Energy
In order to successfully move into an era of sustainable and renewable energy, we must tackle the problem in 3 stages.
- We must first and foremost cut down on our energy demand and manage that demand on high energy use days.
- Secondly we must switch over to a wealth of free energy obtained from the sun, the wind, waves, hot rocks and natural biomass matter and we must balance these energy sources in order to displace quickly depleting fossil fuels.
- Thirdly we must manage our demand better by converting vehicles to electric power, running our air conditioners at sensible times and becoming smart with our power usage.
Climate Change
One of the reasons so many Australian's are eager to push for sustainable energy appart from the improved quality of life through preserving our drinking water supplies, our air quality and our national security is the reduction in carbon emissions sustainable energy offers.
Although Australia accounts for only a few percent of world emissions, many of our operations contribute to large scale projects which in turn contribute to large scale emissions. If we focus on Australian emissions per capita we see that there is a lot of room for improvement.
3D Google Chart - This shows the greenhouse gas emissions per person in each country. Clearly Australians are some of the most wasteful energy users on the planet.
If you would like to learn more about climate change and how what we do really impacts our emissions have a look at the video page or the Emission Trading Scheme page. One thing for sure is that climate change is a very complicated subject with many factors, and we are still learning about many aspects of the subject such as how people react to it.