Short Break

Last week, I took off to the Mornington Peninsula for a couple of days break with a friend. For those who haven't visited the Peninsula (as its known) it's a long curving piece of land in Melbourne's south east. The Port Philip bay side has almost endless, calm, sparkling clean beaches while the Bass Strait areas abound in sparkling surf beaches.
My friend has a new house, situated just one street back from a popular beach. As such their new house has double-glazing, solar hot-water and now a 3kW solar PV system. An ideal location, retired and active lifestyle (sailing, cycling, beach walks ) new and efficient house and wonderful views nearby. Just heaven.

Of course there must be a fly in the ointment. One can't have it all and indeed on a sunny Melbourne summer day, hordes descend upon said beaches in their tens of thousands. But the Peninsula's many beaches and other activity centers can absorb all those people. Strawberry Farms, Markets, dozens of Wineries, Olive Farms and loads of Restaurants, upmarket and takeaway, service this hungry population.

Lets hope today's reported increase in carbon pollution and possible sea-level rise doesn't make these beaches wild enough to swamp all those wonderful beach-side houses and facilities. Do you think the Durban talk fest will deliver any international agreement or will individuals, some state governments and other organisations do the hard yards while the politicians argue?

The ABC weather reports the temperatures and rainfall at the end of each month care of the Bureau of Meterology. This November had 110mm (approx) of rain, higher than average daytime temperatures and several degrees higher than average night-time temperatures. A temperature trend that continues month by month. If you want real figures try the RealClimate.org website.

Solar Panels

The weekend (19-20 Nov 11) Financial Review echoed Bloomberg with an article titled "Bumpy Ride on the Solar Coaster" by Marcus Priest. As the article was buried on page 56, I wonder how many people read it. One thrust of the article was that solar power costs "were rapidly approaching parity with conventional retail power.... as the cost of ... silica has dropped from $450 kg in 2008 to $20-$25, and more efficient technology is making the cost of photovoltaic units potentially cheaper than when they were backed by large government subsidies".
So in effect the large government subsidies helped kick-start the retail solar industry in Australia while the explosion in production of clean energy technology in China has led to drastically reduced costs to the whole world . This has led to the titled "Bumpy Ride of the Solar Coaster". Hopefully sufficient Australian retail companies can retain their trained staff and increase their sales, as well as allowing the solar energy industry to expand into larger units capable of powering industries and towns.
I for one will monitor the situation closely. I can fit another 3-4 kW of PV units on my roof and would have to purchase a Dual Multipoint Inverter (according to advice from those who know) to cope with the differing panels & generation. My close friends have 3kW of generation capacity and with a family of 5, don't expect to have to pay any electricity bills until April-May next year.
This sure beats investing your money in sinking stocks or listening to those nay-sayers who said Solar Power would never become economical.
Roll on the "prosperous post carbon economy" as advertised by the University of Melbourne's free public lecture on Thursday night by Roy Neel, chief of staff of Al Gore.