Good Green Things by Marcia Hewitt February 2008
Perth, Australia
Let’s concentrate on some of the good green advances instead of concentrating only on doom and gloom. After all, it is much healthier to have an optimistic attitude.
One of the things going well here in Australia is that John Howard got voted out. There is a collective sigh of relief, that the country is no longer in the grips of the Liberal Party. That means fewer house raids, softer police powers, and a Prime Minister that can say to Mr. Bush, “we are going to take the troops out of Iraq.” So far so good with Lu Kewin.
And now in Western Australia, Alan Carpenter, our Premier, has continued to maintain his stance against nuclear energy and uranium mining. This is a very brave position, especially with the nuclear industry eager to get their corporate hands on all the uranium in this state.
In addition to a nuclear free Western Australia there are a number of VERY GREEN technology improvements. 1) The wind farms of Albany, where there are 12 turbines in Albany and 54 at the Greenough farm. the
2) The CETO machine, invented by Alan Burn, a local Perth businessman. This machine sits on the seabed and uses the movement of the waves to force seawater ashore at high pressure through a small pipe. Once ashore, the water drives a turbine generator to produce electricity. Full commercialization of this technology is expected by 2010.
The ‘wave farm’ is on one hectare and will be able to produce 18 megawatts of electricity with no green house gas emissions. That would be enough to power 10, 000 households, or 45 billion litres of fresh drinking water each year.
There are plans for another wave farm in Cowaramup Bay, near Margaret River (south of Perth).
Ref: Francis Logan, West Australian Energy Minister
Marcia Hewitt
Environmental Anthropologist
UWA
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