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No Australian city has a long-term vision for living sustainably. We can’t go on like this


Mike Berry, RMIT University and Ian Lowe, Griffith University

This article is part of a series on rebalancing the human–nature interactions that are central to the study and practice of ecological economics, which is the focus of the 2019 ANZSEE Conference in Melbourne later this month.

Australia was already one of the most urbanised nations by the end of the 19th century. Unlike European and North American countries, Australia’s pattern of settlement did not have a neat urban hierarchy. The gap between the large and small towns was huge.

These patterns have intensified in the decades since federation, especially after the second world war. International and internal migration trends have driven rapid growth in the big cities, especially Melbourne and Sydney. This has created major problems with providing adequate housing, infrastructure and services.

The fundamental issue is the reluctance of urban communities and their leaders to discuss what might be sustainable populations.



Read more:
If we want liveable cities in 2060 we’ll have to work together to transform urban systems

The folly of unlimited growth

No Australian city has a long-term vision showing how a future stabilised population might be supported with the essential resources of food, water and energy. No Australian city has faced up to the inevitable social tensions of increasing inequality between a well-served inner-urban elite and an increasingly under-resourced urban fringe.

Leaders in cities that have not grown as rapidly, such as Adelaide, lament their failure to grow like Sydney and Melbourne, despite all the associated problems. All implicitly believe unlimited growth is possible.

In reality, the expanding ecological footprints of the large cities have created unsustainable demands on land to support urban dwellers. And the wastes the cities produce are straining the capacity of the environment to handle these.



Read more:
What is ‘ecological economics’ and why do we need to talk about it?

Given the many unpriced flow-on effects from dense urban growth and market-led development, governments are struggling to deal with the undesirable consequences. Congestion and pollution threaten to overwhelm the many social and economic benefits of urban life.

The growth and concentration of populations are also driving chronic excess demand for appropriate housing. The result is serious affordability problems, which are adding to inequality across society and generations.



Read more:
50 years after The Lucky Country, Australia’s sustainability challenge remains

In 1970, urban historian Hugh Stretton pointed to the role of Australia’s widespread owner occupation in offsetting the inequalities generated in labour markets and by inherited wealth. This is no longer the case.

The dominant neoliberal economic ideology has resulted in a retreat from providing public housing. Abandoning would-be home-owners to the market has produced a situation in which urban land and house ownership is reinforcing class-based inequalities. Home ownership is increasingly the preserve of the affluent and their children.

Housing-related inequality is also seen in the geography of our cities. Poorer households are priced out of locations with better access to good jobs, schools, transport, health care and other services.



Read more:
Our big cities are engines of inequality, so how do we fix that?

Failures of governance

Governments in Australia’s federation are poorly placed to respond adequately. Responsibilities and fiscal resources are divided, creating obstacles to effective planning and infrastructure provision.

The main factor driving urban population growth is an unprecedented rate of inward migration. The national government sets large migration targets as an easy way of creating economic growth. This leaves state governments with the impossible task of meeting the resulting demand for infrastructure.

Jane O’Sullivan has shown each extra urban citizen requires about A$250,000 of investment. The total sum is well beyond the capacity of state and local governments.

Arguments between federal and state governments are heavily politicised, especially when it comes to major transport investments. Even within single jurisdictions, complex demands and unexpected consequences prevent effective action. The waste recycling crisis is a prime example.

State governments must also deal with difficult trade-offs between, for example, allowing further development on the edges of cities or encouraging higher density in built-up areas. This often involves conflicts with local governments and communities, concerned to protect their ways of life.

Australian planners and governments have long tinkered with policies to encourage decentralisation to smaller cities. Despite these attempts, the dominant pattern of urbanisation with its seemingly intractable problems has hardened, a triumph of reality over rhetoric.



Read more:
Our cities fall short on sustainability, but planning innovations offer local solutions

What needs to change?

To get beyond the rhetoric and make our cities more sustainably liveable requires a much more deliberate and interventionist role for government. It also requires residents of our cities and suburbs to be willing to allow their governments to interrupt business as usual.

This, we know from experience, is a big ask. It will step on the toes of the property lobby and ordinary home owners. In some cases, for example, the short-term financial interests of property owners are leading local authorities to ignore scientific warnings about the impacts of climate change on coastal development.



Read more:
Water may soon lap at the door, but still some homeowners don’t want to rock the boat

Major changes are also needed in how urban land is taxed and the proceeds invested. “Simple” reforms like replacing stamp duty on land transfer with a universal land tax, as the Henry Tax Review recommended, will take political courage that has been absent to date.

More complex policies like finding ways of diverting population growth to non-metropolitan regions will take careful thought and experimentation. This might include relocating government agencies to provincial cities. This has been tried sporadically in the past at the federal level and in states such as Victoria and New South Wales. However, such cases tend to be one-offs and do not reflect an overall strategic plan.

Future generations will inevitably be critical of the complete failure of current leaders to plan for sustainable development.The Conversation

Mike Berry, Emeritus Professor, RMIT University and Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor, School of Science, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Keeping the city cool isn’t just about tree cover – it calls for a commons-based climate response



Where’s the shade? Trees are not an immediate or whole answer to keeping cool.
Cameron Tonkinwise, Author provided

Abby Mellick Lopes, Western Sydney University and Cameron Tonkinwise, University of Technology Sydney

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

A recent report by the Greater Sydney Commission singles out urban heat as one of four priority areas given our coming climate. It identifies tree canopy as the top response for reducing city temperatures and delivering amenity. However, the public conversation about urban heat often misses the complex relationship between trees, people and the built environment, which challenges this response.

In soon-to-be-published research supported by the Landcom University Roundtable we found that responding to a more extreme climate requires new social practices and new relationships with the commons. Commons are the spaces, resources and knowledge shared by a community, who are, ideally, involved in the regeneration and care of those commons. Trees are an important social commons, but they also present multiple challenges.



Read more:
Our cities need more trees, but some commonly planted ones won’t survive climate change

Closing our doors to the great outdoors

For one, trees are an outdoor amenity, but we are spending more and more time indoors. For those who can afford it, air conditioning delivers cooling in the privacy of your own home or car – no need for trees.

However, staying in cool bedrooms and car rides mean less time outdoors and with others, which isn’t ideal for human health and well-being.



Read more:
Increasing tree cover may be like a ‘superfood’ for community mental health

Air conditioning also uses more fossil-fuel-based energy, which generates more greenhouse gas emissions. The result is more climate change.

Mixed feelings about trees

As the Greater Sydney Commission report makes clear, tree canopy in Greater Sydney is roughly proportional to household wealth. The “leafy suburbs” are the wealthier ones. This means tree planting is an important investment in less wealthy parts of the city, which experience more extreme heat days.

Number of days over 35°C recorded in various parts of Greater Sydney (July 2018-June 2019).
© State of NSW through the Greater Sydney Commission



Read more:
In a heatwave, the leafy suburbs are even more advantaged

However, research also shows people have mixed feelings about trees. In comparison to the neat shrubbery and easily maintained sunny plazas we’ve become used to in our cities, trees can be “messy” and “unpredictable”. Leaf litter can be slippery and natives like eucalypts, with their pendulous leaves, provide limited shade. People worry about large trees falling over or dropping branches.

Trees are often at the centre of disputes between neighbours. They can also be perceived as a security problem – if trees reduce visibility they might provide cover for wrongdoers.

In addition, insurance companies can charge a premium if a property is deemed at risk of damage by large trees. As we experience more extreme weather, laws on vegetation clearing are becoming more risk-averse.



Read more:
If planners understand it’s cool to green cities, what’s stopping them?

What trees where and when?

Urban development tends to give priority to roads and delivering the maximum number of dwellings on sites. This leaves little space for trees, which need to fit into crowded footpaths with ever-changing infrastructures. For example, will larger trees interfere with 5G?

When juggling priorities in the streetscape, trees often lose out.



Read more:
Trees versus light rail: we need to rethink skewed urban planning values

It’s an obvious point, but trees take time to grow. It can take many years for a planted sapling to become a shade tree. In that time there will be no shelter from the heat.

Also in that growing period, which can sometimes be unpredictable, trees need to be nurtured, especially in times of drought. And, once the tree is mature, fingers crossed that extreme weather events do not undo all those years of waiting.

So, while increasing tree canopy sounds like an obvious solution, trees are in fact a complex social challenge. In our research, we point to ways some of these tree-related tensions can be managed.

Shade in the meantime

A structure to support fast-growing vines has been built on one of Darwin’s hottest streets, but even these will take some time to grow.
Darwin We Love It/Facebook

Shade is an important civic resource. Large, mature trees with spreading canopy provide the best shade, so strategic construction bans and tree preservation orders are an obvious first step.

However, if shady canopy is decades off, we need to think about other, creative ways to provide shade in the meantime to ensure, for example, that people of diverse abilities can walk their city in reasonable comfort. This might include temporary shade structures such as awnings, bus shelters and fast-growing vine-trellised walkways (if there is space to create troughs for soil and the structure doesn’t cause access problems).

And, as the Cancer Council consistently reminds us, we all need to adopt more climate-defensive clothing.



Read more:
Requiem or renewal? This is how a tropical city like Darwin can regain its cool

An important alternative is to follow our regional neighbours and start to populate parks and other public spaces at night. This suggests a need for removable shade, so we can take part in activities like stargazing.

Cultivating an intergenerational commons

Mature trees can die back or die altogether, so other trees should be maturing to take their place. Usually, experts design and maintain landscapes for others to enjoy.

However, users of the cooling services of parks could be invited into the process of planning and realising landscape designs. This would give them a say on the trees of which they have “shared custody”. Planting for succession can create an intergenerational sense of ownership over a shared place.

Current planning practices tend to ignore wind and solar patterns. The result is urban forms that make heat worse by prioritising comfortable private interior spaces over the commons of public space. Designing cool cities means using trees, water and buildings to create cool corridors that work with cooling breezes – or even summon these in still, heat-trapping basins like Western Sydney.



Read more:
How people can best make the transition to cool future cities

These few examples point to new ways of living with trees as social commons, but they also point to new forms of commoning – collaborative forms of care and governance that invite people to adopt new social practices better suited to living well in the coming climate.

It is a positive step that state development agencies like Landcom aim to demonstrate global standards of liveability, resilience, inclusion, affordability and environmental quality. In so doing, they initiate transitions to these more commons-based ways of living.

In addition to the authors of this article, the Cooling the Commons research team includes: Professor Katherine Gibson, Dr Louise Crabtree, Dr Stephen Healy and Dr Emma Power from the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) at Western Sydney University (WSU), and Emeritus Professor Helen Armstrong from Queensland University of Technology (QUT).The Conversation

Abby Mellick Lopes, Senior Lecturer in Design, Western Sydney University and Cameron Tonkinwise, Professor, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Koalas can learn to live the city life if we give them the trees and safe spaces they need


Edward Narayan, Western Sydney University

Australia is one of the world’s most highly urbanised nations – 90% of Australians live in cities and towns, with development concentrated along the coast. This poses a major threat to native wildlife such as the koala, which can easily fall victim to urban development as our cities grow. Huge infrastructure projects are planned for Australian cities in the coming few years.

The need to house more people – the Australian population is projected to increase to as much as 49.2 million by 2066 – is driving ever more urban development, much of it concentrated in our biggest cities on the east coast. This is bad news for the koala population, unless the species’ needs are considered as part of planning approvals and the creation of urban green spaces. The good news is that koalas can learn to live the “green city life” as long as they are provided with enough suitable gum trees in urban green spaces.



Read more:
Long-running battle ends in a win for residents, koalas and local council planning rules

Indeed, our newly published research, which analysed stress levels in wild koalas according to their habitat, reveals that koalas are the most stressed in rural and rural-urban fringe zones. This appears to be due to factors such as large bushfires, heatwave events, dog attacks, vehicle collision and human-led reduction of prime eucalyptus habitats. Koalas living in urban landscapes are less stressed as long as the city includes suitable green habitats.

If there are suitable trees, koalas can learn to live among us – this one is next to a school in South Australia.
Vince Brophy/Shutterstock

In other words, wild animals including the koala can adapt to co-exist with human populations. Their ability to do so depends on us giving them the space, time and freedom to make that adaptation. This means ensuring they can carry out, without undue pressures, the biological and physiological functions on which their survival depends.

Wildlife species that lack access to suitable green habitats in cities are at higher risk of death and local extinction. Having to move between fragmented patches of habitat increases the risks. Land clearing and habitat destruction for infrastructure projects and other urban development are compounding the major threats to koalas, such as being hit by vehicles or attacked by dogs.



Read more:
Koalas are feeling the heat, and we need to make some tough choices to save our furry friends

How does human pressure cause stress in wildlife?

Animals cope with stressful situations in their lives through very basic life-history adjustments and ecological mechanisms. These include changes in physiology and behaviour in response to stresses in their environment.

We can help make the environment more suitable for wildlife species by ensuring their basic needs for food, water and shelter are met. If animals are deprived of any of these necessities, they will show signs of stress.

So by subjecting wildlife to extrinsic stressors such as habitat clearance, climate change and pollution we are making it even more difficult for these animals to manage stress in their daily lives.

Basically any unwanted change to an animal’s environment that prevents it from performing its basic life-history functions, such as foraging and social behaviour, will cause stress.

So what can be done?

The koalas are telling us it’s a major problem when urban design is not green enough. Innovative solutions are needed!

Cities can do much more for wildlife conservation. Creating safe green spaces for wildlife is critical. Not just koalas but other wildlife such as birds, small mammals, reptiles and frogs can benefit immensely from urban green spaces.

Even in suburbs with plenty of green space, problems still arise because urban planning typically designs this space around access for human recreation and not for the wildlife that was living there before the housing development moved in.

Urban planning should always incorporate the planning of green spaces that are safe for wildlife. Providing wildlife crossings is part of the solution. Another important element is educational programs to alert drivers to the need to look out for koalas.



Read more:
Safe passage: we can help save koalas through urban design

Measures like this can minimise impacts on wildlife that faces the many challenges of adjusting to city life.The Conversation

Edward Narayan, Senior Lecturer in Animal Science, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why daily doses of nature in the city matter for people and the planet



File 20181120 161612 jduiq9.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
Brisbane’s South Bank parkland isn’t exactly getting out in the wild, but experiences of urban nature are important for building people’s connection to all living things.
Anne Cleary, Author provided

Anne Cleary, Griffith University

The environmental movement is shifting away from focusing solely on raising awareness about environmental issues. Many environmental agencies and organisations now also aim to connect people with nature, and our new research suggests daily doses of urban nature may be the key to this for the majority who live in cities.

Every year in the United Kingdom the Wildlife Trusts run the 30 Days Wild campaign. This encourages people to carry out a daily “random act of wildness” for the month of June. The International Union for Conservation of Nature recently launched its #NatureForAll program, which aims to inspire a love of nature.

This shift in focus is starting to appear in environmental policy. For example, the UK’s recent 25-year environment plan identifies connecting people with the environment as one of its six key areas. Similarly, in Australia, the state of Victoria’s Biodiversity 2037 plan aims to connect all Victorians to nature as one of two overarching objectives.

The thinking behind such efforts is simple: connecting people to nature will motivate them to act in ways that protect and care for nature. Evidence does suggest that people who have a high nature connection are likely to display pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours.

Looking beyond the park

What is less clear is how to enhance an individual’s nature connection – that is feeling that they are a part of nature. Over half of all people globally, and nine out of ten people in Australia, live in urban environments. This reduces their opportunities to experience and connect with nature.

Our new study may offer some answers. A survey of Brisbane residents showed that people who experienced nature during childhood or had regular contact with nature in their home and suburb were more likely to report feeling connected with nature.

The study used a broad definition of urban nature to include all the plants and animals that live in a city. When looking to connect urban residents with local nature we need to take a broad view and look “beyond the park”. All aspects of nature in the city offer a potential opportunity for people to experience nature and develop their sense of connection to it.

Raffles Place, Singapore – all urban nature should be seen as an opportunity for nature connection.
Anne Cleary, Author provided

The study also looked at the relationship between childhood and adult nature experiences. Results suggest that people who lack childhood experience of nature can still come to have a high sense of nature connection by experiencing nature as an adult.

There have been focused efforts on connecting children to nature, such as the Forest Schools and Nature Play programs. Equal effort should be given to promoting adult nature experiences and nature connection, particularly for people who lack such experiences.

The benefits of nature experience

We still have much to discover about how an individual’s nature connection is shaped. We need a better understanding of how people from diverse cultural and social contexts experience and connect to different types of nature. That said, we are starting to understand the important role that frequent local experiences of nature may play.

In addition to boosting people’s sense of nature connection, daily doses of urban nature deliver the benefits of improved physical, mental and social wellbeing. A growing evidence base is showing that exposure to nature, particularly in urban environments, can lead to healthier and happier city dwellers.

Robert Dunn and colleagues have already advocated for the importance of urban nature experiences as a way to bolster city residents’ support for conservation. They described the “pigeon paradox” whereby experiencing urban nature, which is often of low ecological value – such as interactions with non-native species – may have wider environmental benefits through people behaving in more environmentally conscious ways. They proposed that the future of conservation depended on city residents’ ability to experience urban nature.

As new evidence emerges we need to build on this thinking. It would seem that the future of our very connection to nature, our wellbeing and conservation depend on urban people’s ability to experience urban nature.The Conversation

The pigeon paradox: interactions with urban nature – here in London’s Hyde Park – may help make city dwellers more environmentally conscious.
Anne Cleary, Author provided

Anne Cleary, Research Fellow, School of Medicine, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Technology is making cities ‘smart’, but it’s also costing the environment



File 20180724 194131 1q57kz9.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
A smart city is usually one connected and managed through computing — sensors, data analytics and other information and communications technology.
from shutterstock.com

Mark Sawyer, University of Western Australia

The Australian government has allocated A$50 million for the Smarter Cities and Suburbs Program to encourage projects that “improve the livability, productivity and sustainability of cities and towns across Australia”.

One project funded under the program is installation of temperature, lighting and motion sensors in buildings and bus interchanges in Woden, ACT. This will allow energy systems to be automatically adjusted in response to people’s use of these spaces, with the aim of reducing energy use and improving safety and security.

In similar ways, governments worldwide are partnering with technology firms to make cities “smarter” by retrofitting various city objects with technological features. While this might make our cities safer and potentially more user-friendly, we can’t work off a blind faith in technology which, without proper design, can break down and leave a city full of environmental waste.



Read more:
Can a tech company build a city? Ask Google

How cities are getting smarter

A “smart city” is an often vague term that usually describes one of two things. The first is a city that takes a knowledge-based approach to its economy, transport, people and environment. The second is a city connected and managed through computing — sensors, data analytics and other information and communications technology.

It’s the second definition that aligns with the interests of multinational tech firms. IBM, Serco, Cisco, Microsoft, Philips and Google are among those active in this market. Each is working with local authorities worldwide to provide the hardware, software and technical know-how for complex, urban-scale projects.

In Rio de Janeiro, a partnership between the city government and IBM has created an urban-scale network of sensors, bringing data from thirty agencies into a single centralised hub. Here it is examined by algorithms and human analysts to help model and plan city development, and to respond to unexpected events.

Tech giants provide expertise for a city to become “smart” and then keep its systems running afterwards. In some cases, tech-led smart cities have risen from the ground up. Songdo, in South Korea, and Masdar, UAE, were born smart by integrating advanced technologies at the masterplanning and construction stages.



Read more:
How does a city get to be ‘smart’? This is how Tel Aviv did it

More often, though, existing cities are retrofitted with smart systems. Barcelona, for instance, has gained a reputation as one of the world’s top smart cities, after its existing buildings and infrastructure were fitted with sensors and processors to monitor and maintain infrastructure, as well as for planning future development.

The city is dotted with electric vehicle charging points and smart parking spaces. Sensors and a data-driven irrigation system monitor and manage water use. The public transport system has interactive touch screens at bus stops and USB chargers on buses.

Barcelona has a reputation of being one of the world’s smartest cities.

Suppliers of smart systems claim a number of benefits for smart cities, arguing these will result in more equitable, efficient and environmentally sustainable urban centres. Other advocates claim smart cities are more “happy and resilient”. But there are also hidden costs to smart cities.

The downsides of being smart

Cyber-security and technology ethics are important topics. Smart cities represent a complex new field for governments, citizens, designers and security experts to navigate.

The privatisation of civic space and public services is a hidden cost too. The complexity of smart city systems and their need for ongoing maintenance could lead to long-term reliance on a tech company to deliver public services.



Read more:
Sensors in public spaces can help create cities that are both smart and sociable

Many argue that, by improving data collection and monitoring and allowing for real-time responses, smart systems will lead to better environmental outcomes. For instance, waste bins that alert city managers when they need collecting, or that prompt recycling through tax credits, and street lamps that track movement and adjust lighting levels have the potential to reduce energy use.

But this runs contrary to studies that show more information and communication technology actually leads to higher energy use. At best, smart cities may end up a zero-sum game in terms of sustainability because their “positive and negative impacts tend to cancel each other out”.

And then there’s the less-talked-about issue of e-waste, which is a huge global challenge. Adding computers to objects could create what one writer has termed a new “internet of trash” — products designed to be thrown away as soon as their batteries run down.

Computer technology is often short-lived and needs upgrading often.
from shutterstock.com

As cities become smart they need more and more objects — bollards, street lamps, public furniture, signboards — to integrate sensors, screens, batteries and processors. Objects in our cities are usually built with durable materials, which means they can be used for decades.

Computer processors and software systems, on the other hand, are short-lived and may need upgrading every few years. Adding technology to products that didn’t have this in the past effectively shortens their life-span and makes servicing, warranties and support contracts more complex and unreliable. One outcome could be a landscape of smart junk — public infrastructure that has stopped working, or that needs ongoing patching, maintenance and upgrades.



Read more:
Does not compute: Australia is still miles behind in recycling electronic products

In Barcelona, many of the gadgets that made it one of the world’s smartest cities no longer work properly. The smart streetlights on the Passatge de Mas de Roda, which were put in place in 2011 to improve energy efficiency by detecting human movement, noise and climatic conditions, later fell into disrepair.

If smart objects aren’t designed so they can be disassembled at the end of their useful life, electronic components are likely to be left inside where they hamper recycling efforts. Some digital components contain toxic materials. Disposing of these through burning or in landfill can contaminate environments and threaten human health.

The ConversationThese are not insurmountable challenges. Information and communications technology, data and networks have an important place in our shared urban future. But this future will be determined by our attitudes toward these technologies. We need to make sure that instead of being short-term gimmicks to be thrown away when their novelty wears off, they are thoughtfully designed, and that they put they put the needs of citizens and environments first.

Mark Sawyer, Lecturer in Architecture, University of Western Australia

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Sydney’s closer to being a zero-carbon city than you think


File 20171130 12069 1wyp7t6.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
The potential clean energy sources are all around Sydney, just waiting to be harnessed.
Author provided

Rob Roggema, University of Technology Sydney

You live in one of the sunniest countries in the world. You might want to use that solar advantage and harvest all this free energy. Knowing that solar panels are rapidly becoming cheaper and have become feasible even in less sunny places like the UK, this should be a no-brainer.

Despite this, the Australian government has taken a step backwards at a time when we should be thinking 30 years ahead.

Further reading: Will the national energy guarantee hit pause on renewables?

Can we do it differently? Yes, we can! My ongoing research on sustainable urbanism makes it clear that if we use the available renewable resources in the Sydney region we do not need any fossil resource any more. We can become zero-carbon. (With Louisa King and Andy Van den Dobbelsteen, I have prepared a forthcoming paper, Towards Zero-Carbon Metropolitan Regions: The Example of
Sydney, in the journal SASBE.)

Enough solar power for every household

Abundant solar energy is available in the Sydney metropolitan area. If 25% of the houses each installed 35 square metres of solar panels, this could deliver all the energy for the city’s households.

We conservatively estimate a total yield of 195kWh/m2 of PV panel placed on roofs or other horizontal surfaces. The potential area of all Sydney council precincts suited for PV is estimated at around 385km2 – a quarter of the entire roof surface.

We calculate the potential total solar yield at 75.1TWh, which is more than current domestic household energy use (65.3TWh, according to the Jemena energy company).

Further reading: What’s the net cost of using renewables to hit Australia’s climate target?

Wind turbines to drive a whole city

If we install small wind turbines on land and larger turbines offshore we can harvest enough energy to fuel our electric vehicle fleet. Onshore wind turbines of 1-5MW generating capacity can be positioned to capture the prevailing southwest and northeast winds.

The turbines are placed on top of ridges, making use of the funnel effect to increase their output. We estimate around 840km of ridge lines in the Sydney metropolitan area can be used for wind turbines, enabling a total of 1,400 turbines. The total potential generation from onshore wind turbines is 6.13TWh.

Offshore turbines could in principle be placed everywhere, as the wind strength is enough to create an efficient yield. The turbines are larger than the ones on shore, capturing 5-7.5MW each, and can be placed up to 30km offshore. With these boundary conditions, an offshore wind park 45km long and 6km wide is possible. The total offshore potential then is 5.18TWh.

Altogether, then, we estimate the Sydney wind energy potential at 11.3TWh.

Around 840km of ridge lines (marked in yellow and red) in the Sydney metropolitan area can be used for wind turbines.
Author provided

Further reading: FactCheck Q&A: is coal still cheaper than renewables as an energy source?

Turning waste into biofuels

We can turn our household waste and green waste from forests, parks and public green spaces into biogas. We can then use the existing gas network to provide heating and cooling for the majority of offices.

Biomass from domestic and green waste will be processed through anaerobic fermentation in old power plants to generate biogas. Gas reserves are created, stored and delivered through the existing power plants and gas grid.

Further reading: Biogas: smells like a solution to our energy and waste problems

Algae has enormous potential for generating bio-energy. Algae can purify wastewater and at the same be harvested and processed to generate biofuels (biodiesel and biokerosene).

Specific locations to grow algae are Botany Bay and Badgerys Creek. It’s noteworthy that both are close to airports, as algae could be important in providing a sustainable fuel resource for planes.

Using algae arrays to treat the waste water of new precincts, roughly a million new households as currently planned in Western Sydney, enables the production of great quantities of biofuel. Experimental test fields show yields can be high. A minimum of 20,000 litres of biodiesel per hectare of algae ponds is possible if organic wastewater is added. This quantity is realisable in Botany Bay and in western Sydney.

Biomass fermentation of household and green waste and wastewater treatment using algae arrays can generate biogas, biodiesel and biokerosene.
Author provided

Further reading: Biofuel breakthroughs bring ‘negative emissions’ a step closer

Extracting heat from beneath the city

Shallow geothermal heat can be tapped through heat pumps and establishing closed loops in the soil. This can occur in large expanses of urban developments within the metropolitan area, which rests predominantly on deposits of Wianamatta shale in the west underlying Parramatta, Liverpool and Penrith.

Where large water surfaces are available, such as in Botany Bay or the Prospect Reservoir, heat can also be harvested from the water body.

The layers of the underlying Hawkesbury sandstone, the bedrock for much of the region, can yield deep geothermal heat. This is done by pumping water into these layers and harvesting the steam as heat, hot water or converted electricity.

Sydney’s geology offers sources of both shallow and deep theothermal heat.
Author provided

Further reading: Explainer: what is geothermal energy?

Hydropower from multiple sources

The potential sources of energy from hydro generation are diverse. Tidal energy can be harvested at the entrances of Sydney Harbour Bay and Botany Bay, where tidal differences are expected to be highest.

Port Jackson, the Sydney Harbour bay and all of its estuaries have a total area of 55km2. With a tidal difference of two metres, the total maximum energy potential of a tidal plant would be 446TWh. If Sydney could harvest 20% of this, that would be more than twice the yield of solar panels on residential roofs.

If we use the tide to generate electricity, we can also create a surge barrier connecting Middle and South Head. Given the climatic changes occurring and still ahead of us, we need to plan how to protect the city from the threats of future cyclones, storm surges and flooding.

I have written here about the potential benefits of artificially creating a Sydney Barrier Reef. The reef, 30km at most out at sea, would provide Sydney with protection from storms.

At openings along the reef, wave power generators can be placed. Like tidal power, wave power can be calculated: mass displacement times gravity. If around 10km of the Sydney shoreline had wave power vessels, the maximum energy potential would be 3.2TWh.

In the mouths of the estuaries of Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay, freshwater meets saltwater. These places have a large potential to generate “blue energy” through reverse osmosis membrane technology.

To combine protective structures with tidal generating power, an open closure barrier is proposed for the mouth of Sydney Harbour. The large central gates need to be able to accommodate the entrance of large cruise ships and to close in times of a storm surge. At the same time, a tidal plant system operates at the sides of the barrier.

An artist’s impression of the Sydney Harbour surge barrier and tidal plant.
Drawing: Andy van den Dobbelsteen, Author provided

Further reading: Catching the waves: it’s time for Australia to embrace ocean renewable energy

Master plan for a zero-carbon city

All these potential energy sources are integrated into our Master Plan for a Zero-Carbon Sydney. Each has led to design propositions that together can create a zero-carbon city.

The Zero-Carbon Sydney Master Plan maps out how the city can be fossil-free.
Author provided

The ConversationThe research shows there is enough, more than enough, potential reliable renewable energy to supply every household and industry in the region. What is needed is an awareness that Australia could be a global frontrunner in innovative energy policy, instead of a laggard.

Rob Roggema, Professor of Sustainable Urban Environments, University of Technology Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Why the ecocity needs to be a just city



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Why is it easier to imagine a green ecocity than a just city where everyone belongs?
the yes man/flickr, CC BY

Stephen Healy, Western Sydney University

This is one of a series of articles to coincide with the 2017 Ecocity World Summit in Melbourne.

Why is it easier to imagine an ecocity – full of lush green spaces and buildings, footpaths and bike lanes, outdoor goat yoga and dog parks – than a just city where everyone belongs? Why is it difficult to imagine a city where there are no great disparities of income or of access to convivial life because these have been equitably distributed?

The prospects for rebuilding the city along ecological lines is enchanting. But ecocities, like smart cities, frequently devolve into a techno-fetishist fantasy, (un)wittingly abetting gentrification – from the sell-off of public housing in cities like Sydney to violent informal housing eradication in places like Jakarta.

Part of what’s required here is to connect the currents of imagination shaping the ecological future of cities with other conversations that are more focused on the future of employment and industry and the possibilities for greater equity. Thinking these disparate ideas together will take some work. Fortunately, it’s well under way in cities around Australia and the world.

The Centre For Future Work and the Australia Institute organised a summit last month at Parliament House to consider the future of manufacturing in Australia. Much of the day was spent exploring how targeted government procurement practices can help rebuild a sector that could play a vital role in building ecocities alongside new employment opportunities.

Co-operative ways to build community wealth

Non-profit institutions and the private sector can play a similar role. The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative in Cleveland, closing in on its tenth year, used the demand for services from hospitals and universities to start worker co-operatives.

These meet the need for green laundry services, food and energy while creating ownership opportunities for low-income residents. Guaranteed downstream markets increase business viability. This ensures easier access to start-up capital.

Dozens of US cities have developed similar initiatives in the past decade. Among these are union-supported initiatives in Cincinnati, Ohio, municipal initiatives in Richmond, California, and multi-stakeholder co-operatives in Springfield, Massachusetts.

In each instance the guiding principle is that worker co-operatives are tied to place by the people who work in and own them. They distribute profits in ways that benefit worker-owners, other local businesses and the broader community.

In Australia, Earthworker Coo-perative has tirelessly pursued a similar initiative. It aims to connect Australian manufacturing capacity, eco-friendly technologies, unions and the environmental movement as a basis for starting worker co-operatives ready to meet the demand for green technology.

Organisations like the Mercury Co-Operative and the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals are working to support and spread co-operative ownership in Australia.

In September, a second New Economy Conference, open to the public, will consider what sort of legal and social changes are needed to support efforts like Earthworker.

More ambitiously, even the emergent disruptive technologies that are enabling the “gig economy” can be repurposed for co-operation and community wealth creation.

While new platform technologies concentrate wealth in companies like Uber and Airbnb, these could just as easily function on a co-operative basis, sustaining communities in the process. Such ideas are being actively considered in Melbourne and in Sydney at last year’s Vivid festival.

These efforts to encourage social procurement, build co-operatives and develop new forms of sharing work readily combine with the ecocity agenda. In themselves they are not sufficient to ensure that ecocities are also equitable cities. As Labor senator Kim Carr pointed out in last month’s summit, what ideas like this do is fully open the question of what an economy is for.

In Australia, this question is an eminently urban one. Continuing to ask this question, and keeping the answer open, is one way of ensuring that ecocities are not merely oases for the wealthy.

The ConversationYou can read other articles in the series here. The Ecocity World Summit is being hosted by the University of Melbourne, Western Sydney University, the Victorian government and the City of Melbourne in Melbourne from July 12-14.

Stephen Healy, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Birds: Decline in Numbers Due to Noise Pollution


The link below is to an article that reports on the decline of city birds, due to noise pollution.

For more visit:
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/14/scientists-link-urban-noise-to-decline-in-city-songbirds/

Australia: New South Wales – Sydney


The link below is to a media release from Origin Energy concerning an agreement with the City of Sydney to develop low-carbon electricity generation for the city.

For more, visit:
http://www.originenergy.com.au/news/article/asxmedia-releases/1380