ENERGY AND EQUITY - Preparing Households for Climate Change: Energy, Equity and Immediacy

Energy and Equity, a report produced by Australia’s leading environmental, consumer and welfare organisations, says energy efficiency is potentially the quickest and cheapest way to cut greenhouse pollution. Energy savings of 30% are possible using immediately available effective technologies. The report recommends that efficiency improvements be complemented by appropriate utility tariffs and safety net measures.

The report, a joint project between the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS), the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and CHOICE, says five percent of existing homes should be retrofitted each year with energy and water saving technologies such as insulation, solar hot water and rainwater tanks to offset inevitable increases in utility prices resulting from emissions trading and other factors.

http://www.acoss.org.au/upload/publications/papers/4204__EnergyEquity%20low%20res.pdf

Tips for Energy Smart Offices

A 250 Watt desktop computer, used eight hours a day, generates over nearly half a tonne of greenhouse gases each year. Check your computer, photocopier, printer and fax machine have the Energy Star® power management feature enabled. By enabling Energy Star, the computer goes into a "sleep" mode when not in use, reportedly reducing emissions up to 75% (must be an underused computer!) which would save $76.00 per computer each year.

Energy inefficient appliances add heat to the office and increase cooling costs.

Monitor screen savers do not save energy. Turning off the monitor does.

The life of monitors and disk drives is extended by turning them off when not needed

Portable computers use less energy than desktop models and generally ink jet printers use far less energy per page than laser models.

Use desk lamps or standard lamps where most light is needed, so less lighting is required for the entire room.

Don't over cool: 1°C difference in temperature between indoors and outdoors adds 10% to your bill and increases greenhouse gas emissions by the same amount.

For more tips see : http://www.energysmart.com.au/wes/DisplayPage.asp?PageID=34

This inforamtion came from the Desert Knoweldge Australia COOLMob newletter Stay COOL, published on line each month. It is a great resource! To find out more about DKA COOLMob, to join or for a home energy or water audit, contact Kat on 8952 0299

Sustainability Wiz Online Program

Based on best-practice international research and Gould Group's practical experience with thousands of schools, Sustainability Wiz guides schools through the steps essential to incorporate sustainability in meaningful ways into curricula, operations and culture - and from there into homes.

Using a range of fun online tools and resources, engaging and empowering activities, and through a community of support, Sustainability Wiz provides a one-stop shop for schools and their wider communities.

Importantly Sustainability Wiz allows students from around the world to engage in addressing climate change through actions in their school and the community and tackle issues such as carbon footprint, and water and energy usage to create schools for the future.

Some positive changes for energy in schools

DEET have recently apponted a School Sustainability Energy Smart Officer who will initially be employed for 6 months starting 2008. They will be primarily getting info out to principals and registrars re the DEET energy smart policy, working with schools who have had audits done to prioritise recommendations and will put processes in place for funding of these, hopefully through DEET minor works program.

DEET are also investigating a model so schools can keep their savings in the area of resource management - eg waste, energy

We are also looking at implementing a fantastic online monitoring program - SETS for all NT schools which graphs energy usage and is very student friendly - , it also has nice visuals equating the amount of energy used/saved with no of cars on the road, trees etc.

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Educational Resources

The USA Department of Energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy section have just released an updated energy education website with over 350 lesson plans covering all ages. http://www.eere.energy.gov/education/lessonplans/

Re-Thinking Waste in Schools

This project, which includes support from Keep Australia Beautiful, Alice Springs Desert Park, Arid Lands Environment Centre, Gardens for Wildlife, DKACoolMOB and WaterWise Schools will be launched early next term. Look out for an information pack arriving in your school in week 1.

What is the Re-thinking Waste-in Schools Challenge?

The Keep Australia Beautiful (KAB)NT Rethinking Waste – in Schools Challenge invites all NT schools to encompass a broad range of long term sustainableinitiatives for reducing all types of waste. The challenge is based on actions your school takes in the areas of litter reduction, recycling, energy and waste reduction. A list of sustainability action projects and resources that participating schools can select from will be made available on the Keep Australia BeautifulNT website www.kab.org.au/nt

An application form will be available very soon on the KAB website. Please contact KAB ph 89815535 now if you would like a hard copy of the information pack and application form sent to your school.

The energy saving search engine Blackle

When your screen is white - an empty word page, or the Google page, your computer consumes 74 watts, and when its black it consumes only 59 watts. Mark Ontkush wrote an article about the energy saving that would be achieved if Google had a black screen, taking in account the huge number of page views, according to his calculations, 750 mega watts/hour per year would be saved.

In a response to this article Google created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle, with the exact same functions as the white version, but with a lower energy consumption, check it out http://www.blackle.com/

Use this site as your search engine and do your bit for the planet.

Energising Sustainable Communities

An International Schools Competition to design a sustainable city is being held in conjunction with the 2008 International Solar Cities Congress - Energising Sustainable Communities - options for our future. Students need to produce a design for an existing city or neighbourhood and the submission may take a range of forms including a poster, written report, drawing, poem. song, interview or essay (or any combination of these) in hard copy or electronic form. This competition provides an excellent opportunity for our students, particularly after the recent announcement that Alice Springs is to be the Fourth Solar City in Australia