Some more articles regarding climate change in Australia.
Meanwhile, back in Qld?
Another article regarding climate change affecting people’s health in Australia.
And the massive costs of the 2018 Californian fires.
United Nations urges world leaders to declare a state of climate emergency.
Meanwhile, back in Australia?
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As usual, it went to voicemail…
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Australia’s Black Summer bushfires acted like a volcanic eruption, slightly cooling the globe
At last the magic bullet, no need to stop burning coal or anything like that just let nature take its course. More bush fires means more upper atmosphere smoke, more smoke means more global cooling: problem solved.
While the following are not items strictly about consumer effects of Climate Change, they do have impact on our lifestyles. In the article from Yale it does go into the way we need to change housing to make them less carbon using, eg making the houses more energy efficient so less needs to be spent on cooling and heating. The other which is referred to in the Yale article is about how much more Fossil Fuel will be produced than what will help keep the World to the 1.5 C increase hoped for under the Paris Agreement, that figure on production is a staggering 120% increase.
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I was reading the same report this morning. To 2030 fossil fuel production is forecast to increase, when we need to halve consumption by 2030 and to continue to reduce consumption there after.
Australia is also forecast to increase annual coal and natural gas production between 2020 and 2030.
The CSIRO produced a report on a sample of energy efficiency housing for Australia 2012/13. It turned up some interesting results.
In SA housing rated at 4.5 stars or higher used approx 10% less electrical energy than lower rated housing.
In Qld, housing with the higher star ratings actually consumed more electrical energy, when they should be energy saving!
A suspicion it’s not economic in certain climates to run large heating and cooling systems unless a property has upgraded insulation? It may just be a special case or bias in the 43 homes selected.
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The article says nothing about how the sample was constructed and which factors that may affect energy use may have been taken into account. You would think if you go to the trouble of building graphs for higher and lower rated there might be some analysis of the outcome displayed, otherwise why bother?
A couple of speculations.
The higher star rated houses could be newer. There has been a trend over time for houses in Oz to get larger (while families get smaller). Larger houses use more energy than smaller all other things being equal.
Perverse outcomes happen where people think they have done good. Having insulated, installed solar etc they then relax their behaviour. If it is cheaper due to solar (for example) you can afford to run the aircon harder.
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Which on the balance of outcomes in today’s terms could be carbon neutral, or an overall benefit. Total solar PV generated and exported needs to be greater than imported demand.
It’s a useful challenge to compare the relative merits of making incremental improvements to reduce GHG emissions at a residential level.
Notes:
For a tool that offers opportunities to look at multiple nations current performance and commitments:
There is a consistent approach in looking at performance excluding LULUCF. In Australia’s example the official published Aussie Government data is used.
The suggestion is we are actually producing more GHG not less, excepting for the electricity sector. IE including more rooftop solar and arguably more energy astute consumers.
LULUCF is an estimate of carbon loss or sequestration through changes in land use. In essence improvement is assuming we have more forest and natural flora this year than last year or ten and twenty years prior. IE the reverse of land clearing. It ignores the impact of natural events such as droughts, cyclones destroying forestry, or CO2 from bushfires. It is on paper (in the National GHG accounting) the greatest single contributor to Australia’s overall decrease in GHG emissions to 2020.
In the interest of not being biased, the following links to the most recent Government update.
https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-08/nggi-quarterly-update-march-2020.pdf
The nations performance without LULUCF is tracked in the tables at the end of the report starting on p34 Data Tables 6, third last column on the right side of table. Very much a flat line Australia has spent the last twenty years marking time.
Last month was the first month since we had our solar system installed in early 2019 that we actually exported less than we imported, and even then, it was only 3kw/h.
Most of the year, we have our 3.7 kw bedroom aircon on 24/7 and the 2 x 7.4 kw aircons in the living areas on from 7:00 AM to bedtime. All normally set to 24 degrees.
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The Guardian offers an update.
Smoke and mirrors, but not from bush fires or the sideshow amusement park?
There is a useful explanation of how land use changes affect Australia’s GHG emissions. The forecast trend line is showing just how far Australia is behind in real change and reducing emissions from every sector of the economy.
Electricity generation has been the only area of genuine improvement. Even so the 2030 reduction target presented depends on continuing to reduce generation from coal, less use of natural gas for generation and a continuing rise in rooftop solar and wind capacity.
The recent flag waving of a gas led recovery appears at odds with one of those goals. Increases in pumped storage generation in the forecasts are much less than increased wind and solar PV generation. Something is missing from the assessment? It’s all taken from existing Govt published data and reports!
The bad news just keeps on coming.
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An article regarding the fantastic research that CSIRO have been doing in developing a seaweed supplement for cattle feed which virtually eliminates cows discharging methane.
Great stuff.
The bad news just keeps on coming.
An interesting article regarding renovating homes to decrease energy costs.
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An interesting article regarding trying to stay cool in hot conditions.
True one can renovate and reduce energy costs at the same time. At what cost to benefit ratio?
Should the CSIRO and this report have gone a little further? There is no discussion of balancing any additional costs with alternatives. Not every home is easy (IE low cost) to upgrade.
The actual example chosen is not supported with the energy star rating of the actual property before and after. Nor is there hard data of the energy consumption before and after.
The CSIRO/report does mention two averages for Aussie homes. 2.2 stars as the average of existing houses and “But after a renovation that often jumped up to 4.9 stars”.
Fir the example project an initial budget of $160k able to 2/3rds of the work. The final spend by the owner of $200k was certainly a big project.
There is no mention of the benefits of solar PV. The big question for those looking to stay cool in summer might be how much extra it costs to gain an extra star in energy efficiency. The added renovation verses how cheap it is to add a solar PV system, or a battery to the existing PV.
Encouraging smart renovation is one way to improve climate outcomes. It’s also easy to overspend on a home, with cheap loans these days. At what point is it better putting those extra dollars into an BEV? While we are still looking for smart ways to improve our home, our carbon footprint due to personal transport is twice that of our home.
P.S.
The CSIRO has a very useful web resource that looks at energy star ratings and house design for those interested in learning more.
Choice also says. (Added note)
Hopefully, we are finally starting to get somewhere.
Meanwhile, back in Australia.
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An article regarding tips to make residences less affected by climate change.
