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PUBLISHER’S LETTER
www.siliconchip.com.au
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD
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2 Silicon Chip
Kyoto protocols
could be met
In the campaign for the Federal election to be
held on November 10th, Opposition Leader Kim
Beazley has committed a future Australian Labor
Government to ratifying the Kyoto protocols. If
this occurred, Australia would be committed
to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 8
percent above the levels existing in 1990.
Now whether you believe in the greenhouse
effect and consequent global warming or not,
Australia should be making a big effort to reduce
its greenhouse gas emissions. Apart from any
concern about greenhouse gases, Australia really is quite wasteful in its
overall use of energy.
Nor do we have to be particularly clever in finding ways to reduce our
energy use. In fact, while the USA is commonly thought of as a wasteful
nation, in many ways they are much further down the track than Australia
in reducing energy use. This is particularly the case with housing design
to minimise heat loss and therefore, energy use. If you want instances of
this, look at their widespread use of double-glazed and triple-glazed windows, low-E glass, super insulation of walls, roof and floors, air-to-air heat
exchangers for central heating and so on.
American householders have been forced down this path mainly because
of their bitterly cold winters, far colder than anything most Australians
could imagine. Even so, it is likely that many new American homes now
use less energy over their winters than most Australian homes do in our
comparatively mild winters.
Nor is our energy wastage confined to the domestic scene. In transport
and industry we are also very wasteful and there is lots of room for major
improvements.
Should we care about energy waste when overall we are doing quite well
on the economic front? Well, that’s a stupid question really because energy
waste costs each and everyone of us quite a lot of money every year.
Overall, I am not sure whether Australia should ratify the Kyoto protocols
or not but I am sure that we could get major economic benefits by improving our energy usage. It would not be hard for an incoming government to
come up with cost-effective incentives for the housing, manufacturing and
transport industries to reduce energy usage.
While we are at it, the Government should act to stop any more coal-burning
power stations from being built. If any more thermal power stations need to
be built, they should run on natural gas – such power stations have much
higher thermal efficiency than coal-fired stations and they produce far less
emissions. Gas-fired stations also can be brought on line very quickly and
do not have to be left running to provide so-called “spinning reserve”. Apart
from that, extraction of natural gas is far less environmentally damaging
than any form of coal mining.
And finally, it really is about time that the Government made a major
push to develop large-scale solar power generation in this country. We have
the sun and we have the know-how. Let’s push it hard because the future
payoffs will be great.
Leo Simpson
www.siliconchip.com.au
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