Regrow Qld 18 January 2023 Issue 2 Vol 4
Wasps, wind turbine photos, Good News, rubbish capture in LA, and Greg gives some good advice.
Editorial
Anna Hitchcock
Friends,
it’s an unfortunate fact of life that no good deed goes unpunished, and as I was trimming the long grass out of one of my native bushes, I got stung on the elbow by one of these aggressive little sods. I immediately regretted planting habitat but after an ice pack and some medicinal alcohol I decided that perhaps this was a good sign that my garden ecology is doing ok.
Paper wasps are considered beneficial insects because they feed on other insects, including caterpillars and aphids, which can damage plants - but they will attack if you get too close to the nest.
Happily, they don’t usually cause too much damage to humans.
They have distinctive, umbrella-shaped nests which they build out of a papery material made from chewed up wood fibers. There’s not much point knocking a nest down as they will just rebuild it in the exact same spot RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR FRONT DOOR. I’m going to need to use an insecticide on that nest in the evening, but I mostly leave the nests alone if possible.
The Queensland Museum also says that Paper wasps have a social hierarchy within their colonies, with a dominant female queen who is responsible for reproduction and a group of female workers who take care of the nest and forage for food.
If that social structure sounds familiar, you are correct.
Wasps and bees, together with ants, belong to a group of insects called the Order Hymenoptera. This is one of the largest insect groups. There may be as many as 44 thousand Australian species of Hymenoptera, most of them wasps and bees.
That’s a lot of pointy bois.
Happy gardening,
Anna
Project Update - help needed
We have restarted our zoom meetings which are held weekly every Thursday at 6pm. We’re currently working on figures regarding how much saline waste the proposed green hydrogen industry will create, and whether that will have a major impact on Gladstone Harbour. It does us no good to remove one polluting industry only to add another one in its place. We will let you know the results of our number crunching, but meanwhile, does anyone know the total volume of the seawater in Gladstone Harbour?
Photo of the week
Speaking of the harbour, check out some more pictures of the wind turbines being unloaded in Gladstone Harbour recently.
Got a great local photo to share? It doesn’t need to be professional - just e-mail it in to gladconscouncil@gmail.com with some information.
Good News
This week’s Good News comes courtesy of IEFFA, and Future Crunch.
Big Battery on track
Queensland’s north is on track to get its first grid forming big battery (next to a solar farm), after plans to build a 200MW/400MWh energy storage system received final approval for development. The Yabulu BESS project is being developed by ACE Energy on land in Black River near the town of Yabulu, roughly 25km north-west of Townsville.
ACE Energy says the BESS will charge and discharge from its own independent connection to Powerlink’s 132kV Yabulu South Substation and there will be “no interaction with the solar farm, physically or electrically.”
Rather, the Yabulu big battery will operate in “grid forming mode,” meaning it will be used to provide system strength to the network in the Townsville region.
With construction slated to begin in 2023/24, the battery will make a welcome addition to the grid in Queensland, where the Labor Palaszczuk government has announced ambitious new renewable energy targets, including 70% by 2032 and 80% by 2035.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-gets-green-light-for-construction-in-north-queensland/
Damn Dams
The removal of dams across Europe is making significant progress, according to a new report from the Dam Removal Europe network. The report, which analyzed data from 21 countries, found that in 2021, a total of 48 dams were removed, the highest number ever recorded in a single year.
One of the major reasons for the increase in dam removal is the growing awareness of the negative impacts of dams on the environment and local communities. Dams can disrupt fish migration, alter water flow, and increase the risk of flooding. Additionally, many old dams no longer serve a useful purpose and are considered a liability.
The report also highlighted several successful dam removal projects, including the removal of the largest dam in the Czech Republic and the restoration of a 6.5 km stretch of river in Spain. The Dam Removal Europe network hopes that the success of these projects will encourage more countries to consider dam removal as a viable solution to the problems caused by outdated and unnecessary dams.
Read the full 12 page report here: Report: Dam removal progress
Pacific Island’s water 100% protected
The Pacific island nation of Niue has declared all of its waters as protected, making it the first country to do so. The decision, which was announced on May 30, 2022, covers an area of more than 230,000 square miles and includes the waters surrounding the island, as well as its exclusive economic zone.
The move is seen as a major step in the fight to protect the world's oceans from overfishing, pollution, and climate change. It will also provide a safe haven for marine life, allowing for the recovery of depleted fish stocks and the protection of endangered species such as sharks and turtles.
Niue's move has been welcomed by conservation groups, with many praising the country for its leadership and commitment to ocean protection. The country's Prime Minister, Talagi, said that "the ocean is everything" and that "protecting it is not only the right thing to do, it's also in our own self-interest." He also added that "Niue's decision sends a powerful message to other countries to follow suit in protecting our oceans for future generations."
What we’re watching:
This video is about rubbish capture in one of Los Angeles’ larger creeks. I understand that the first Ted talk on this concept was from 2014-15 so it’s great to see a fully developed concept that can cope with large volumes of pollutants. There’s an unsortable mix of floating rubbish and organics, so my thoughts would be to use this waste stream for a methane capture process if it needs to go to landfill.
Blast from the past from 2014 - Some clips of Gladstone in this one.
Opinion
Greg Bray
Shady Advice
Folks, I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’d like to, but the judge said I have to keep my opinions to myself.
So, I’m ‘advising’ you, ok?
And my advice to you is, for the New Year, is to buy, plant and grow more trees.
I realise State Governments around Oz are cutting them down faster than we can replant them, but we mustn’t give up the fight! The koalas are kind of depending on us to at least slow their extinction…
Oddly, there’s only one other country in the world with less trees on it than Australia, and that’s Antarctica. Think about that for a moment, then reflect on this: the number two woodchip exporter in the world is, wait for it… Australia.
History, my friends, will not be kind to this generation of Aussies. So, what I’m trying to do, apart from making myself look at least a little bit noble to future readers, is to try and staunch the flow a bit.
And the best place to start is at home. Because that’s where all heroes usually come from.
To give you a graphic example of the impact a tree can make to your home, lawn and the environment, I want you to check out the following photo:
Note how green the grass is under the tree? See how barren the treeless yard is under the mower?
(Yes, I do know I am using a four-stroke, petrol powered, mower when I vowed I’d never touch another starter cord again, but I think the classy thing to do is to ignore that for the moment and casually move on.)
The grass under the tree has been mown (without a catcher) isn’t watered (apart from the regular showers Odin’s been sending lately) and has never been fertilised.
The barren lawn is usually heavily watered, fertilised and mown with a catcher.
Both have been ignored for a couple of weeks over the Christmas holidays and see how’s that working out?
If you’d like to find out for yourself? Lie in the full sun for a day and see what you look like compared to how you’d look after a day lying in a hammock under a tree.
If you’d prefer not to get instant skin cancer, another experiment you could try is to put two bowls of water out, one under the tree, the other in full sun and see how long they take to evaporate.
I tried to do it, but some roaming mutt drank the water out of one of the bowls… let the record show it was the bowl in the shade that hadn’t been UV-rayed to nearly 40 degrees.
Anyway, enough science for now.
Mowing without a catcher means never having to use fertiliser, and also your shoes and shins will be a nice green colour for the rest of the day. Except the bits that are bleeding from small rock and twig strikes. (ED: have you thought about wearing long pants and boots?)
The grass is happy and healthy which means far less weeds. The only weeds I find are sown by the postie’s motorcycle tyres from the neighbouring lawn.
So, plant more trees.
Note: native trees! Not the the tree in the photo, which is a Poinciana, and about as native, and environmentally friendly, as troops of ravenous monkeys.
And the great news is, our group has a native tree that will be right up your alley, street, cul-de-sac or garden path that will not only offer shade, but provide food for native birds and colour for your yard (and not drop hard, long, bean pods which smash mower blades and cut shins (ED: long pants, boots, just sayin’.)
Plus, if you can, buy a battery powered mower (even better, one that’s recharged by solar panels on your roof).
It’s quieter, they usually have a mulch function which means finer grass particles which break down quicker for instant fertiliser and no bleeding shins! (ED: seriously, buy the damn pants and boots!)
And with the money you save on water, petrol, oil, fertiliser, poison and band-aids you can purchase more trees!
It’s a win/win/win/ad nauseum/win situation! So why not buy a few for your neighbours too?
Do it for the environment, the future, our country!
Anyway, that’s my opin… advice.