VCE Environmental Science

Unit 4 of VCE Environmental Science is about Ecologically Sustainable Development, including the Environmental Management Systems of government and businesses. Every reputable organisation in Australia should be considering the impacts of climate change on their business – even if they are skeptical of the anthropogenic causes of global warming, changing climate will affect resource managment, agriculture, manufacturing, transport and consumer spending. An Emissions Trading Scheme (or Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) will result in rising energy costs and hopefully provide opportunities for increased recycling, improved renewable energy technologies and greater uptake of low-emission vehicles. Companies that plan for climate change, using Environmental Risk Assessment principles, will be most prepared to act to reduce the threats to their economic, social and environmental sustainability.

At Hawkesdale P12 College we aim to reduce our energy use from from the grid and reduce solid waste going to landfill by recycling. In September our 5.5 KWh photovoltaic solar system was installed. This was made possible through a federal government grant from the National Solar in Schools program ($50,000) and a state government grant of $15,000. You can see our current energy production and total since installation at the Sunny WebBox site. By using renewable energy we hope to reduce our carbon footprint and educate students and the community about the benefits of solar power.

The 350 network, supported by World Vision Australia, is a group of over 200 organisations around the world who support a target of 350ppm of carbon dioxide so that our atmosphere is “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted”. The 24th of October is International Day of Climate Action – you can join a local action or register your own here.  Calculate how much carbon dioxide you produce each year using this Energy Requirements Survey.

This post is part of a global project “Blog Action Day 2009” about climate change. From the previous post: More information about Co-generation Plants from the Energy Globe Portal. More on heat-pump technologies, cogeneration and refrigeration research from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy.

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We were pleased to welcome Matt Boyce, Environment and Sustainability Manager at Midfield Meats, into our class today. Matt spoke generally about the company and his role and more specifically about the EMS at Midfield and the new co-generation plant. As a food processing industry, large amounts of water and energy are used and consequently, high greenhouse gas emissions are released. The EMS, produced in 2005,  also addresses noise, dust, odour, solid waste and waste water. As power and water are two of the most costly inputs into the company, Midfield planned to implement projects that would address cost savings in these areas.

An Adelaide company, SBA Engineering, have installed the Combined Heat and Power generator, which is leased by Midfield. By installing the plant, Midfield aim to reduce their energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40%.  For example, since the plant was installed in April, electricity use from the grid has been reduced from around 1,150MWh to 600 MWh per month, a decrease of 48%.  Use of natural gas, a ‘cleaner’ fuel that produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions, has increased by about 33%. The cogeneration plant runs in conjunction with a geothermal bore, which also reduces energy costs by supplying water at a higher temperature than the town supply (40C compared to 15-18C). The geothermal water is treated, using reverse osmosis, heated by the cogeneration plant and the water used for cleaning within the plant.

The company are also in the planning stages of a biodiesel plant, turning animal fat (tallow) into fuel. The plant will have the potential to produce 12 million litres of biodiesel each year, reducing vehicle emissions by almost 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide gas equivalent  each year. This biodeisel, a renewable fuel without the issues of ethanol (turning food into fuel) will be used by the freight division of the company and excess fuel sold on the wholeslae market.

There have been some articles in the media recently about an impending phosphoros crisis - Scientific American included the Phosphoros Famine in it’s most recent edition. Phosphoros is an element that cannot be produced or synthesized in laboratories, and some researchers believe that global supplies of rock phosphate will peak in 2033 and run out by the end of the century (”Soil Quality in Crisis” page 25 Weekly Times, 16 September, 2009). Without phosphates plants cannot grow, leading to fears that farmers will have trouble feeding a world population of about 11 billion by 2050. Australia is especially vunerable as it’s ancient soils are already depleted of phosphoros – native plants have evolved to survive in low phosphoros soils, but food crops cannot.

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Life Cycle Analysis is a technique for assessing the potential and real environmental damage during all the stages of a product’s life – from ‘cradle’ to ‘grave’. It includes:

• material extraction and processing
• manufacturing
• distribution and packaging
• product use
• end of product life

A famous example was when the Coca Cola Company was trying to decide the most suitable packaging – glass or plastic. Sometimes the consumer may not be using the product in the way that the manufacture intended! Read how farmers in India use coca-cola as a pesticide. Annie Leonard describes the manufacturing process in “The Story of Stuff”.

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The Midfield Group includes five businesses in the chain from paddock to consumer -

1. Pastoral company

2. Livestock freight and refridgerated transport vehicles

3. Abatoir

4. Meat packaging, export and retail sales

5. Midfield co-products (such as blood and bone, tallow and meat meal)

The company aim to be Australia’s most efficient, quality producer of red meat. They state “ We also have our commitment to reducing our environmental footprint and creating a secure a healthy future for you and your children in writing; we adhere to our own Environmental Management System, which encompasses the minimisation of greenhouse gas emissions, recycling waste materials and the efficient use of energy.” Specifically they are developing an alternative fuel for their transport vehicles from waste tallow – converting animal fat into biodiesel. They are also planning to reduce their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by using geothermal water and a gas co-generation plant to heat water for cleaning purposes. They recycle water used in the abatoir and stomach contents of slaughtered animals are returned to their pastoral properties as a mulch/fertilizer.

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Ecotourism has been defined as  “ecologically sustainable tourism with a primary focus on experiencing natural areas that fosters environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and conservation”.  Another way of explaining ecotourism is “nature-based tourism that has an educational component and follows sustainability principals with regard to energy and water use, waste reduction and maintaining biodiversity.”

Your task is to plan a holiday to an ecotourist resort, or a trip that includes an ecotourist activity, and identify why it is considered to be ecotourism. Then rate your holiday/activity according to how sustainable it is. You will need to ask questions such as:

• What is their source of energy? Is it renewable?
• Do they emit greenhouse gases or other toxic chemicals?
• Where do they obtain water and is it recycled?
• How do they maintain  or improve biodiversity?
• How do people travel to get there? Is there a carbon-credit system to offset travel?
• How do they manage their wastes – including food packaging and human waste.

Heron Island Resort  (Queensland) , Aquila Eco-lodges  (Victoria) and  the winner of the 2008 Ecotourisn awards, Wayoutback Desert Safaris (Northern Territory), are examples of ecotourist destinations within Australia.

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While I am away at Professional Development on Monday and Tuesday you have plenty of work to do! Firstly you need to finish the short answer section of the 2005 exam we started this week – the questions about Environmental Management Systems and Ecotourism. Secondly, you need to take notes about Great Western Vineyards as a case study of EMS. Remember, careful evaluation requires qualitative and quantitative data to support your asessment. What are they doing well? How could they improve? What are the economic, social and environmental issues?

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This is a reverse osmosis water treatment plant in Korea, similar to the desalination plant proposed for a site near Wonthaggi, Victoria. The state government has recently released an Environmental Effects Statement that included detailed studies of the effects on local flora and fauna, significant indigenous and fossil sites, land values, coastal views and the community. The EES concluded that there would be no serious, irreversible damage caused by the desalination plant, although over 1 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions will be produced each year of operation. Read the article here.

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While I’m away for the first few days of this week you have plenty of work to do! Firstly, finish reading the last couple of chapters in the text book. Make sure you understand what all the acronyms that relate to Ecologically Sustainable Development mean: ERA, EIA, LCA, EES. Review the Environmental Improvement Plan at Portland Aluminium – write short notes under the headings Water, Waste, Energy and Biodiversity. Look at at some past exam papers and answer the multiple choice questions that relate to Area of Study 1: Pollutants.

If you finish that, you might like to try ‘virtual’ environmental management of a water catchment. Go to Catchment Detox, an on-line game where you play the role of a Catcment Management Authority – remove environmental hazards that reduce water quality and increase salinity and revegetate. Choose sound agricultural and tourist options that will improve catchment health, provide employment and boost the economy.

When you’ve had a couple of games and registered your score, write a review of the game on our VCE Environmental Science Ning – What did you have to do to be successful at the game? How many games did it take for you to work out how to play successfully? What was the most difficult parts?