Regrow Qld 13 January 2021 Issue 2 Vol 2
Renewable energy, regenerative farming, and revitalising our communities. Unashamedly parochial. Unashamedly political. Let's Regrow Queensland.
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Editorial
Anna Hitchcock
My friends,
my good resolutions about my social media use this year lie in tatters on my bedroom floor, as I am afraid the doomscrolling got a bit out of control last week. But what a bounteous harvest of doom it was. From the rednecks overrunning the Capitol building in the USA, to the new UK variant of Coronavirus causing a short sharp shut down of Brisbane, anyone would be forgiven for thinking that the sky was falling.
I don’t want to de-emphasise the importance of democracy, but is arguing with Greg from Facebook or some twerp on Twitter really the best use of your time? Set yourself some goals to achieve each day, before the doomscrolling takes over.
It’s at times like these that I spend a lot of time in my garden, because at least there things are sensible, reliable and predictable, mostly.
Some outside time is good for the soul, the body and your garden won’t know what hit it.
{Anna}
Regenerative Ag
Ever heard of Community Supported Agriculture? Here’s an ABC article that showcases two families in WA who are having some success.
The CSA model asks consumers to invest in shares in a grower's projected harvest for a set period, and then when it yields, they receive regular deliveries.
It requires a leap of faith by consumers, but the benefit is supporting local growers, and receiving truly local, seasonal produce in both meat and vegetables.
NEWS
Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay
Green hydrogen
An ambitious new project has been funded by the European Union: a combined wind turbine and green hydrogen unit. “The electrolyzer system will be integrated with a single offshore wind turbine and will be able to follow the turbine’s production profile. It will also integrate desalination and water treatment processes, making it possible to use seawater as a feedstock for the electrolysis process.” https://ieefa.org/eu-funds-orsted-pilot-project-to-produce-green-hydrogen-with-offshore-wind/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eu-funds-orsted-pilot-project-to-produce-green-hydrogen-with-offshore-wind
Japan
Japan has set themselves some ambitious low carbon goals, which includes banning petrol only cars by 2030, diluting fossil fuels at thermal power plants with 20% ammonia (sourced from green hydrogen we assume) and reducing agricultural emissions to zero.
Mount Isa
The Mica Creek power station in Mount Isa will be mothballed after 60 years. Historically a coal fired power station, it has been running on gas in recent years. Mount Isa isn’t connected to the national grid and the more modern Diamantina Power Station will take over the remaining contracts. This must be good news for emissions, as older power stations typically have higher emissions.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-31/mica-creek-power-station-shuts-down-after-60-years/13020844
Forward thinking -
Peter van Beek
Charging Stations in Queensland.
Did you know about the Queensland Electric Super Highway? Queensland was the first Australian state to release an electric vehicle strategy, and building an Electric Super Highway is an important part of it. It has been described as the world’s longest electric super highway in a single state and stretches from Coolangatta to Cairns to Toowoomba.
Image from: https://thedriven.io/2020/09/10/queensland-to-add-13-charging-stations-to-electric-vehicle-super-highway/
The Queensland government has partnered with the RACQ and state-owned energy company Yurika to build new EV charging points at Springwood, Ipswich, North Lakes, Forest Glen, Gympie, Gunalda (Curra), Gin Gin, Mt Larcom, Proserpine, Ayr, Cardwell, Innisfail, and Port Douglas. All 13 were due for completion by the end of 2020 which will bring the total number of charge points to 31. They are powered entirely by renewable energy – either through direct green energy credits or offsets.
Their close proximity will help overcome ‘range anxiety’ and give motorists confidence to switch to low emission vehicles, and of course encourage drivers to have a holiday in Queensland.
Charging an EV in the network costs only 20 cents per kilowatt hour, making it the most affordable charging network in Australia.
So, look out for charging points looking like this:
Image from: https://thedriven.io/2020/09/10/queensland-to-add-13-charging-stations-to-electric-vehicle-super-highway/
You can find QHES locations at: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1ifJBEZbG4kSWGks1ImFeS2nQE9U&ll=-22.150752887566956%2C151.42864659218753&z=5
A map of all charging stations in Australia can be found here:
https://electricvehiclecouncil.com.au/about-ev/charger-map/
What we’re watching:
This is superb. We don’t know what genre to put it in, but it’s quite exceptional. If you liked Deep Forest, you’ll love this.
Upskilling:
One of the places we go to for fossil fuel and renewable news is IEEFA. How do you pronounce that? We usually go with ‘eye-eee-fah’ but however you wrap your lips around it, it remains one of the most reliable sources of news and analysis of energy markets around. You can subscribe for free to either a daily or a weekly newsletter, which is super handy. The articles are all text based with links to original sources.
https://ieefa.org/email-subscription/
Opinion:
The Ox Lobby
Image by Valdas Miskinis from Pixabay
Some people don’t like change, especially if it means their livelihood is about to disappear.
But like my cousin who used to sell and service typewriters they have to adapt or move on. I’m not sure what he does now, but I can safely assume he’s no longer coming home from work covered in ribbon ink anymore.
Like it or not, change is in the wind, especially wind farms and solar powered electricity generation. Those of us who like it are the people who have been taking it up the shorts every three months from the coal burning electricity generation companies when they send us our bills, or the poor sods living downwind of the power station stacks dumping noxious gases and particles all over them.
The few who aren’t happy are the fossil fuel lobbyists and the politicians they lean on to protect their industry and their jobs. And it’s pretty obvious they’re getting ‘bang for their buck’ in the current Federal Parliament.
Cue the photo of #ScottyfromMarketing waving a lump of coal around in chamber. (BTW: that’s the only time I’ve actually ever seen evidence of the mythical beast called ‘Clean Coal’. I’ve spent years coming home from work covered with dust of normal coal which looked clean until you disturbed it… or so much as looked at it).
Anyway, I don’t think this is the first time lobbyists have faced wind powered machinery; and lost.
I imagine quite a lot of folk in Holland were unhappy to see windmills springing up all over the countryside. Windmills, designed to grind grain into flour, a job traditionally done by women who would spend hours turning the heavy stone wheel each day.
The bigger grinding concerns had larger grindstones turned by horses, oxen, prisoners or slaves.
Note: in the early days of the Brisbane colony, the grindstones were rigged up to a very large hamster wheel turned by convicts (I hesitated to mention this because I’m sure some members of parliament would be quite thrilled to see a return to those methods of production.)
Anyway, the ‘newfangled’ windmills (much like the old sandstone one still standing in the middle of Brisbane) replaced the horse, oxen, convict, slave and women powered grindstones. Flour production went through the roof, people (especially women) suddenly had more time to engage in other back breaking labour, like kneading dough.
I suspect the oxen and horse lobbyists exerted all the influence they could to ban the windmills, but the die was cast. The future had arrived and the big sails turning slowly in the breeze eventually became the symbol of a nation.
The lobbyists adapted and moved on and a new surname entered the lexicon, e.g.: Miller, Muller and Mueller.
So, the moral of this tale is there really is nothing new under the sun, or wind…