Category: power

Categories
dunedin energy local government power

Neville Auton

Neville Auton - Energy Management [ 54:32 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Neville Auton is Energy Manager at the Dunedin City Council.  Neville works an ‘internal consultant’ within the Council, helping managers of the various business units to identify energy savings.  He talks about the huge reduction in impacts already being realised and the potential for more savings without affecting services to the city’s citizens.

Shane’s number of the week: 13.6.  The British honeybee population declined by 13.6% over the past winter, rising to a more severe 17.1% in the north-east of the country.  This is despite weather conditions that should have favoured the bees.  The cause appears to be a class of pesticides – the neonicotinoids.

Sam’s joined up thinking: Sam argues that the chaotic card game Fluxx is a great introduction to sustainability (more>>).

Categories
behaviour change energy power

Dr Paul Thorsnes and…

Standard Podcast [ 59:09 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Energy Cultures – do they exist, how would we find out what they are and how can we change them?

We talk with Paul Thorsnes, Maria Ioannou and Daniel Gnoth about this new area of research.

The three-year Energy Cultures research project has recently begun. Based at CSAFE (Centre for the Study of Agriculture, Food and Environment) the study aims for a better understanding of household energy consumption behaviours and encouraging behaviour change to more energy efficient technologies.

Headed by OERC members Prof. Rob Lawson, Prof. Gerry Carrington, Dr. Janet Stephenson, and Dr. Paul Thorsnes, the project combines a variety of research specialisations for a multi-disciplinary, multi-method research approach.

Shane’s number of the week: 80% – for just the cost of 1% of GDP the entire world could move to meet 80% of its energy needs from renewable energy resources.

 

Categories
electricity generation health power

Lindsay Smith

Lindsay Smith [ 57:28 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lindsay Smith is Business Manager for Ashburn Clinic in Dunedin, which recently won the Otago Business Excellence Award for Sustainability (sponsored by Otago Polytechnic).   This award recognised the Therapeutic Community philosophy which underpins the entire operation, playing a major role in achieving sustainable practices in every aspect of the Clinic.    Ashburn Clinic has been working with all stakeholders, including quite different relationships with suppliers:  Ashburn doesn’t buy wood – it buys heat.  We explore how we might expand the successful model demonstrated by Ashburn. Lindsay has a background in the electricity industry, his observations on that industry are quite shocking.

Shane’s number of the week: 70% is the decline of specialist farmland birds since 1975 in the UK (DEFRA).

Sam’s joined-up-thinking: In 1879, Henry George, a critic of Malthusian economics, argued that “it is a well provisioned ship this which we sail through space” :

If the bread and beef above the decks seem to grow scarce, we but open a hatch and there is a new supply, of which before we never dreamed. And very great command over the services of others comes to those who the as the hatches are opened are prepared to say. “This is mine!” (p179 in 2005 reprint).

The journey metaphor was given a challenging twist by Buckminster Fuller in the 1950’s and 1960’s earth in his conception of the earth as a spaceship with a limited set of resources that cannot be resupplied, save for energy from the Mothership Sun. A key element of his ‘operating manual’, is that the ship only consists of crew – there are no passengers (1965 in Vallero 2005. 367). Hence, different thinking is required if the problems facing the earth and its systems are to be addressed because “…we have been mis-using, abusing, and polluting this extraordinary chemical energy-interchanging system for successfully regenerating all life aboard our planetary spaceship.”