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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Where is the Focus on Energy and Housing as Permaculture Designers in temperate climates? - Is not NA & UK in a major energy transition away from Gas?

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  • From: Russ Grayson <pacedge@magna.com.au>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Where is the Focus on Energy and Housing as Permaculture Designers in temperate climates? - Is not NA & UK in a major energy transition away from Gas?
  • Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 11:49:22 +1000


On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 02:18 PM, Harold Waldock wrote:


I am concerned that discussion on this list revel too much in trivialities:

The largest percent of English speaking permaculture people (90%?) of all
English speaking people - the audience of this list live in cold & cool and
warm temperate (Mediterranean) climates: NA, Europe, Southern Australia
(where most Australians live)

A fifth of the Australian population (4 million) lives in warm temperate Sydney. Melbourne, cool temperate, is the next largest population centre. Brisbane, subtropical, is the next.

For Temperate climates, Bill Mollison in the Global Gardener Video said,
(paraphrase), "50% of PC (in temperate climates) is about housing." Yet I
hear very little about this on this list.

But not elsewhere in this country:

- local government in NSW can join the Energy Smart Homes Scheme of the Sustainable Energy Development Authority (a quango-quasi-government organisation) that stipulates that all new dwellings and major renovations must have a minimum thermal energy performance standard equating to 3.5 energy stars (the measure used here)

- the federal Australian Greenhouse Office has information about energy efficient building on its website and in print for guidance of designers and distributes this on CD

- there is to be a federal enquiry into making our cities sustainable... "The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage aims to produce a blueprint for sustainable cities and has called for submissions. An issues paper for the Sustainable Cities 2025 inquiry nominated the environmental and social impact of urban sprawl as a key problem for future cities.

The inquiry will investigate if green zones in city planning contribute to urban sprawl and if these zones could be more multipurpose. It will also look at how to encourage private landholders to preserve remnant vegetation. The committee also asked for submissions on how cities could diversify their energy sources, making individual houses more self-sufficient. Better water, waste and transport systems will be examined. Society needed to be less car-dependent, the issues paper said.

The committee highlighted three examples of sustainable practice as models for the future. The 60L building in Carlton - which has cut lighting costs by 80 per cent and will use 90 per cent less mains water - was nominated as a model for green buildings. Christie Walk, a sustainable housing development in inner-city Adelaide, and the transport strategy of Vancouver, Canada - which has an efficient and popular public transport system - were also nominated as examples of best practice sustainability in the issues paper."

They could have added the energy and water-efficient six level apartment building going up near where I live.

The energy and building issues receives coverage in the NSW media. Yes, permaculture people are largely absent from the discussion but permaculture has motivated individuals to take action on this issue.

The main issue in this city is access to housing as prices have escalated and even people eligible for the federal government's first home buyers grant cannot afford to buy accommodation. The consequence? They spill into regional centres, pushing up prices and pushing out locals there. The energy efficiency of dwellings, in these circumstances, is an issue that is sidelined.

In the Permaculture Design Manual Bill writes that the first action and
priority in the design of the land is for energy production for temperate
locations. Yet in terms of discussion I find little directly covering that
on this list.

Maybe Bill was talking about the declining number of people who live in rural areas. And I assume that he was talking about fuelwood production. That's fine in the country but fuelwood in the cities is a pollutant and may be phased out in some Australian states. Launceston, Tasmania, for instance, where wood is a popular heating fuel, suffers very polluted winter air as a temperature inversion frequently settles over the town. Sydney, too, experiences winter temperature inversion, so wood smoke in the air is the last thing the residents of this city need. There's usually an outcry in winter when bushfire brigades control burn the bush to reduce the fuel loads available to summer bushfires, so any additional smoke burden could fast become a political issue.

For Sydney, which receives its electricity from coal-fired stations in the Hunter Valley and hydroelectric energy from the Snowy Mountains scheme, available capacity is reported to being near maximum. There has been no new station built for more than a decade but now there is talk of the need for additional capacity - more power stations. There is a green power scheme linking consumers to renewable sources, but it has been more successful and is virtually fully subscribed. Australia's national, government-funded scientific research organisation, CSIRO, has researched the potential for geothermal energy (the "hot rocks" scheme) and found potential.

Bill Mollison and David Holmgren emphasise that energy design is key to PC
design and that once our energy design is well worked out then other issues
are easier.

A reliable source of energy is critical to people. This I learned while working in aid in the Solomon Islands. As well as food security and community health, the NGO we worked for installed and provided training in maintaining and surveying for micro-hydro systems for village communities. To stem the loss of population to the bigger centres, village communities wanted to set up small industries as a form of livelihood and income generation. For any community wanting to set out on a course of development, even if all it wanted was lighting in houses, a reliable source of energy was the basis.

This transition is not an easy thing to do, creates much dislocation and
unemployment along the way.

And, as a consequence of these, more crime. Society destabilises as social support crumbles, be it jobs or neighbourhood security.

What are we working on in this list to remedy
this? What discussions are we having?

Well, there's been some - and on the permaculture-oceania listserv that serves the Australasia/ South Pacific region. But maybe you are right - there's not enough.

...we must make an analysis and bring relevant
solutions to the culture, place and times. We can't copy Australian PC
exactly.

Regional solutions seem a good strategy.

Members of this list! Wake up! High heating fuel costs and winter is coming
and it will be a cold one

Writing from late-winter in Sydney, where the temperature has fallen to 10 degrees centigrade in the early morning and the cold westerlies have browned the leaf edges of my pawpaw trees, energy is an issue here too, less for heating and more for transport that forms a sizable bulk of Australian energy consumption.

...Russ Grayson





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