Unfortunately it is not all rosy, but as usual it’s all in how we look at things. Even though there seem to be many, many challenges ahead of us, James reckons that many good things will come out of the challenges we face, and I indeed concur with James in that. Our world needs to change for humans to survive and peak oil may actually force us to change towards using more sustainable practices in all we do.

The article by James Howard Kunstler is is titled: The Bottom of This Society’s Ability to Process Reality

These massive solar power plants could produce up to 1000 megawatts of electricity. These solar power plants my be either photo voltaic plants or solar thermal power plants.

Finally the K. Rudd government seems to be honouring one of their election promises by supporting clean energy production.

Disappointingly up to $2 billion will be spent on building conventional coal power plants incorporating “Clean Coal” technology that doesn’t yet exist. NeeravBhatt has given a nice analogy for the term “Clean Coal” in one of his updates on Twitter by highlighting that “Clean Coal” is a bit like “Friendly Murder”.

Following are the questions and our answers for the interview.

1.  Tell us a bit about yourselves.

I am in my early fortys working in the web hosting industry and I like long walks on the beach… well, ok the beach bit is not true
I’ve grown up in Switzerland which would explain my insatiable appetite for good chocolate, I was basically raised on chocolate. I have worked in one to the large Swiss banks as a programmer. During that time I went for day trips on my motor bike throughout the Swiss Alpes in summer. I never really enjoyed the snow in winter so I looked for another place to live and decided that sunny Queensland in Australia would be nice and moved to Brisbane in 1995 where I have met my lovely wife, Rosalba.
Rosalba was in IT when we met, but decided to apply her analytical skills to a far more worthy cause - people’s health. She has been a practitioner of Chinese medicine now for over 10 years.

2.  What stirred your interest in organic farming and products?

From my teenage years on I could never understand how the whole world could be running on continual growth. To me that never made sense as all our resources are finite. Also over the last few years Rosalba and I have purchased most of our fruit and vegetable at an Organic produce stall at the local market. Doing so, we have  both experienced the difference in taste of organic produce as opposed to mass market produce. To me buying organic means that we are actually paying much closer to the real cost to produce something, as organically grown fruit and vegetable takes into account the preservation of the soil
and environment. Contrast that with mass produced fruit and vegetable where the producers are sucking the land dry and then use synthetic fertilizer to keep their plants growing.
The other thing I started to understand is that most organic producers are actually people that care not only about the environment but also about their workers, which I believe means fairer working conditions. So by buying organic I feel that I also support the fair trade idea to
a degree.

3.  What are some of the challenges you will face in this venture?

Well, one of the first challenges is that we need to establish our fruit trees which is not made any easier by not actually living on the land yet where we intend to have our organic farm. We have already planted about 12 fruit trees and 12 chestnut trees. our goal is to have about 60 chestnut trees and maybe another 20-30 fruit tress of other varieties. One of the major challenges I see looming within the next 5 years is the arrival of peak oil which may make it a lot more
difficult to get diesel for our tractor to do any of the heavier work that always needs doing on a farm.
Other than that, our main challenge right now is lack of time. We generally manage about one weekend per month on our farm which is not quite enough.

4.  What are growing conditions like in your area?

Growing conditions are quite favourable. Our soil is fairly deficient in minerals and trace elements, which is normal for mostly anywhere in Australia. Luckily where we are we are getting good rain falls most of the time and most days it gets up to 20 degrees C at least (in winter). We do have some frosts in winter which is great for chestnut trees as they need a frost to flower and set fruit. On the other hand we haven’t been able to keep Mango trees alive yet. The two mango trees we have planted have both died due to frost bite.

5.  If you had unlimited funds and acreage, what would you do with it?

Combine a huge wind farm for electricity production with more organic farming. We already have committed half of our property to a local conservation program called “Land for Wildlife” which I would like to further contribute to as well.

I hope you have enjoyed this interview and have learnt a little bit more about us.

The current scheme of RECS is severely flawed as it doesn’t really increase the uptake of solar power in Australia. Currently mostly people that are already interested in solar power generation are installing photo voltaic panels and using the RECS to help with the upfront cost. The problem with this is that the RECS embody all the environmental benefits for the next 15 years and once sold, the owner of the solar system really can not claim any environmental benefits for the system.

Basically by selling the RECS the owner has sold his benefit most likely to a coal or gas powered electricity provider and as such all the electricity produced by the solar system for the next 15 years carries all the green house gases and other environmental nasties (coal sludge anyone?) that the power station is off-setting when it purchased the RECS.

The current plan of the government to offer 5 times the amount of RECS form the middle of the year only makes this situation worse as any solar electricity system is still producing the same amount of clean energy but when selling the RECS the power stations actually get to claim 5 times the offset for  their nasties than is actually being offset.

Looking at it in this way, really the only one benefiting from the new scheme are the big power generators. The public and the environment will suffer as a result of the introduction of these “phantom” RECS.

A gross metered feed in tariff on the other hand measures the actual amount of clean energy being produced and by having a gross metered feed in tariff a whole new sector of clients will be attracted to solar electricity generation. A gross feed in tariff makes it a lot easier to look at solar electricity generation from an investment perspective as it is relatively easy to work out how long the pay back period would be and what return on investment would be possible.

So please, anyone caring about the enviroment and wishing to see a dramatic increasee in power generation from renewable sources should sign the petition at http://www.feedintariff.com.au/ to show the government that we do care and that we want them to fulfill on their election promise to look after the environment.

We bought two sets and in this picture you can see the second set how it was delivered before we have assembled it and installed it. Most parts can easily be handled by a single person except for the uprights which you can see at the bottom of the pack. The uprights are really heavy and are still quite heavy even when carrying with two people. The only tools we needed where a couple of spanners and a tin snip to cut the bands holding the packs together.

In this next picture we have already assembled one set of this “Meccano Set”. Assembling and setting this up took a bit more than 2 hours to do and was actually quite intensive. Setting this up was also made slightly more difficult by the fact that it was raining when we did it and all the parts where wet and a bit slippery. The shelving was easy to set-up, but you definitely want to be at least two people as carrying some of the bits by yourself is backbreaking.

This last picture shows how we have been able to already clear up the shed a bit and how much cleaner it looks than just having it all stacked on the floor.

Unfortunately we ran out of time and out of nuts to assemble the second set. So we have another set to assemble and set-up. We’ll most likely do that in about a fortnight which should also give the supplier of the shelving enough time send the missing nuts to us.

All in all, the shelving was not cheap, but it will defenitley out last us and every single arm on this shelving is rated to cary up to 500 kg, which will mean we can store almost anything on this shelving. The arms alre also adjustable which is great as well and we are really happy with it.

Thank you very much Solar Girl.

These are the rules for “I Love Your Blog” award:

1). Add the logo of the award to your blog.
2). Link back to the person who gave you the award.
3). Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4). Add those links to your blog.
5). Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

And these are the 7 blogs I’m passing this award to:

Snoskred - Life in the Country
soho-life.com
Lightening Online
GrubbyGumboots
Forced Green
Blue Turtle
Good 2 Be Green

Of course the LEDs also use less power than the original CFL did. The CFL was using 9W while LEDs now are only using 2.4W and still giving comparable light output.

Anyone interested on what I used and how I did it, have a look at my Instructable where I detailed all the steps. To read the step by step account go to: http://www.instructables.com/id/Retro_Fit_a_Desk_Lamp_with_LEDs/

On the house front: Our house plans have gone to a certifier and we hope that early in the new year we will get approval to start building our new home.

The means-tested rebate was worth up to $8,000 where as the maximum rebate under the new system will be about $7,500. This small decrease in the available rebate comes with a bit of a sweetener as the new rebate will now also be available to businesses and community groups.

The maximum rebate, for an average-sized 1.5 kilowatt system, will be about $7,500 and a smaller-sized 1.0 kilowatt system will attract a rebate of about $5,000.

Disappointingly, the value of the rebate will fluctuate and it will decline from 2012.

The current system will stay in place until July, when the new system will take over.

Source: The Canberra Times

The venue was the Eumundi Bamboo Forest, a most tranquil and inspiring setting as can be seen by the pictures.

The day especially highlighted what we as individuals can contribute towards building a supportive and resilient community without needing to wait for governments on any level.

We went into this day with a vague feeling what the Transition Town movement is about. By the end of the day we had a good understanding and felt empowered to take action to bring awareness to our local community of the need for change.

Bob Cameron of ROCKCOTE gave a very insightful talk about how his business reflects the permaculture principles. “There is no waste in Nature”, says Bob. So if we are to have true sustainability we must imitate nature. ROCKCOTE has taken this model and built a factory and showroom on the Gold Coast which is able to manufacture paints and renders while being energy positive and using only rain water harvested of the roofs of the company buildings.

What was also very inspiring was the ability to network and meet with like minded people who truely care about our only planet and have commitied their time and efforts towards creating resilient communities.