After the sober content of the last post, some good news from the latest issue of Resurgence (now Resurgence & Ecologist). In one article, Herbert Girardet describes the steps the Australian city of Adelaide has taken towards becoming a sustainable city. In 2003 he was invited by the city to be a ‘thinker in residence’ focusing on the ‘greening’ of Adelaide. He and colleagues produced a report detailing a number of recommendations. In November 2011 he returned to see what had happened as a result of the proposals made. He says that Adelaide City Council “had taken many truly remarkable initiatives in the previous nine years”. Picking a few plums from the list of achievements:
- Over 26% of electricity is produced by wind turbines and solar PV panels
- Of 600,000 houses, 120,000 have been fitted with PV panels
- Solar hot water systems are manadatory for all new buildings
- 15% reduction in CO2 emissions since 2000
- 3 million trees planted
- 20,000 hectares of land near Adelaide used for vegetable and fruit crops
The full report on his Adelaide visit can be downloaded from here.
While visiting friends in Norfolk recently, I found myself marvelling at the Autumn Agricultural Review, produced as a quarterly supplement by the Eastern Daily Press. This is clearly aimed at the regular farming community, yet within its 24 pages I found:
- 7 adverts relating to farm-generated renewable energy (3 of them full page)
- 2 articles on electricity generation via anaerobic digesters
- 1 article on biomass-fuelled generation
- 1 article on wind generation
- 1 article explaining FITs
- 1 article about the resurgence of the East Anglian native breed of pig (the Large Black)
- 1 article focusing on the success of a farmer breeding Red Poll cattle (another native East Anglian breed)
What’s going on?
Over £20million is reported to be available to fund the installation of Solar PV systems on Community buildings in Cornwall. This funding provides for so-called “free” PV – i.e. the community will benefit if and when it can make use of any electricity being generated by the solar panels. The funders will benefit from the Feed-in-Tariff. However, this is a mechanism to get Community Solar PV systems installed. If anyone responsible for a community building in Constantine wishes to take advantage of this – please make contact with Transition Constantine or with CEP directly. These systems have to be installed by March 2012. Further information here
The recently formed Community Power Cornwall has completed its recent share issue and now has a total of £80,000 to invest in its early projects. The first of these is the installation of two 55kW wind turbines at Tregerrick Farm, Gorran. One of their projects, closer to Constantine, is a turbine proposed for Bishops Forum – currently held up by a planning objection.
The share issue by Community Power Cornwall to raise funds for the installation of community based wind turbines in Cornwall has had its deadline extended to 19th July. You can read about the success to date and get more information at:
http://dmtrk.net/P7C-GS4Z-FC3MBU7K58/cr.aspx
This does not constitute an endorsement by Transition Constantine – it is up to individuals to assess any financial risk/benefit.