I live in Brisbane in an old Queenslander. These are wooden houses traditionally with high ceilings and on stilts to allow for air circulation and beat the heat of the tropics. They tend to be difficult to insulate and my home is particularly cold during our brief winter. When there is no breeze the house can also be hot in summer.
There was some discussion about energy efficient homes at this web-log on 25th November; that was the day the Australian Building Codes Board meet to discuss implementing a 5-star building standard for new homes across the whole of Australia, click here.
In a comment following the post Steve explained:
This standard relates to a home’s thermal design – how much energy is required to keep it cool in summer and warm in winter.
Victoria had already implemented a 5-star requirement for new homes, since July 2004.
In addition to the 5-star requirement, the Victorian policy requires the home builder to also install either a solar hot water system OR a raintank.
The Housing industry media release posted by Jen is about the implmenetation of 5-star across the country.
According to the today’s The Sunday Mail – a local Brisbane paper – the resulting new energy-efficiency laws could spell the end of the iconic Queenslander home:
Changes to the building code to be adopted next year mean wooden houses and timber floors could be a thing of the past, Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane told The Sunday Mail yesterday.
The “five-star” energy-efficiency measures to be introduced from May are also tipped to increase the cost of building an average house by up to $15,000.
Mr Macfarlane called the decision a “terrible mistake” and warned it would be the death of elevated homes built with timber floors on stilts.
“The ordinary house on stumps
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I would hope that lifecycle analysis would be a prerequisite for energy policy formation. Perhapos that is overly optimistic of me.
On an aside, but still on energy, don’t dump on all biofuels just because the Europeans are using palm oil at the expense of tropical rainforests, which seems to be a legitimate criticism.
There are other ways to make liquid transport fuels and some of them are looking imcreasingly viable on the dollars front. See for example http://www.ecn.nl/biomassa/research/poly/index.en.html and scroll down to the “Fischer-Tropsch” link. I have a powerpoint presentation from that site (dated July 2005) that claims they could make diesel from low-grade biomass (not canola or palm oil) for about 0.5 euro per litre, before the cost of distribution, taxes and retailing. There’s also pyrolysis as means of producing a crude oil substitute.
A really interesting biodiesel story by Roger Kalla is here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3896 .
Bit off intial topic but how feasible and economic is it to use pyrolisis to produce methanol from eucalypts or acacias – farmers could put that regrowth to good use and maybe provide some biodiversity or hydrological benefits as well. Just asking? And for Ian Mott – a possible example of a new future agriculture delivering multiple benefits.
All of the substitutes cannot compete with oil’s EROI. Oil started at 100:1 but is now about 20:1. Most of the others have problems reaching 5:1.
Phil
I am led to believe, but being a simple horse I am easily led, that methanol has little prospect due to toxicity problems. Ethanol, though less efficient to produce from woody material, stands a better chance of being accepted by the market. Pyrolysis to bio-oil seems to be technically there and economically close according to some chemical engineers we associate with. Fischer-Tropsch sounds interesting but doesn’t seem to have the same popularity and I’d really like to know why.
Using eucs and acacias is exactly what we are hoping to do, but most likely it will only be the residues from these plants. The better quality wood fractions, as chip, show better prospects for charcoal, activated carbon and other higher value uses. The problem that may arise with regrowth is it’s random distribution around the paddock. To have much prospect of efficient harvesting, the plants have to be in close-planted rows so that something similar in principle to a sugar cane harvester can process a lot of material per hour and reduce the costs per tonne.
Ender
I’ve lost the tranlation of EROI, but if it’s the energy efficiency ratio, our latest estimate is about 40:1, primary energy output over primary energy input, for woody biomass from short cycle tree crops under development in Australia. We allowed for fertiliser in that too. Paper to be presented at the Bioenergy Aus conference Monday/Tuesday next week in Melbourne. 5:1 is about the figure I have heard for the canola to biodiesel strategy.
The famous Queenslander – we digress. What we call a pole frame house is used predominantly on steep slopes and clay soils to reduce the cost and impact of extensive site works. Perhaps a proper analysis could take this into account? I always thought that in hot weather a framed house with plenty of insulation was best because it keeps the heat out and then cools quickly at night. The thermal mass of concrete and brick means that if you get a run of hot days and nights over 20 deg, you have to use the aircon to cool the house down all night. Which is really the most efficient outside the sydney-melbourne-canberra triangle?
Having lived in all houses I can tell you slab wins hands down. Timber floors are great to look at but in winter they are very cold and in summer, when the wind blows hot air around they are misery. On hot days we close everything up and use fans until nighfall when all windows are opened. In winter the floor stays warm with the winter sun on it. We have sited the house E/W with minimal west exposure which is insulated.
This tinkering with building codes by state regulators for questionable political gains is just nonsense – would you ask a builder or architect to be a politician?
And what would any Premier or Public Servant know about building construction?
Let the markets decide the best outcome.
Despite what it said in the article, not all states will take up the ‘nationally consistent’ 5-star rating. I know that NSW has not (it has its own rating scheme), and I’m assuming that QLD won’t/isn’t.
“Let the markets decide the best outcome.”
I would like to introduce Queenslanders to suburbs of McMansions with ducted airconditioning, no parkland, no public transport infrastructure, and no mains gas, and electricity infrastructure problems made acute by the rapidly increasing use of airconditioners. Enjoy!
The alternative to the market is the totalitarian state.
Perhaps the market is actually the totalitarian state. Anything for the shareholders.
“I would like to introduce Queenslanders to suburbs of McMansions with ducted airconditioning, no parkland, no public transport infrastructure, and no mains gas, and electricity infrastructure problems made acute by the rapidly increasing use of airconditioners. Enjoy!”
These sorts of developments may not be to everyones taste, but people aren’t forced to live in them. If no one liked them, they wouldn’t exist.
Even if more building standards were brought in, these suburbs would still exist.
My cynical view is that politicians like these sort of “energy saving” measures because they know they will be opposed by interested groups such as HIA. The pollies then have someone to blame when the inevitable shortages, caused by pandering to the environmental lobby, begin to bite.
The rest of us just have to pick up the dollar tab for their development when it comes time for new power stations, new dams and traffic congestion. The developers capitalise the gains for the project and the taxpayer gets the socialised bill for the consequences.
Phil -Yes, there’s some truth in what you say. Of course, most of the residents of these McMansions (McResidents?) are taxpayers also.
Phil, what is your preferred alternative? If these suburbs are a drain on taxpayer resources, as you say, where are these people to live, and in what?
The alternative to the pure market is the socialist/market hybrid that works fine here in Australia. Either of the 2 alone does not work for the greater good of the population.
Phil – That didn’t really answer the question, which is your prerogative, of course.
Paul – my opinion from observation is that unless somewhat pressured the “market” does not adopt energy or water conservation measures. I think some modest urging is required. And reasonable savings can be achieved.
Of course some would advocate population caps or development caps, or even new taxes. I am not doing that – I’m simply saying that best practice should be “strongly” advocated in new developments. Of course in areas like Noosa and Port Douglas the very thing that gives the place its “value” may be being destroyed by extra development. What rights do existing residents have to protect their lifestyle and investment to date? Sounds totalitarian I know.
I’m asking rhetorically in the interests of the debate. Does the market have carte blanche to do what it likes? When is enough enough ? Never or sometimes.
Ender’s hybrid idea seems OK to me.
Phil – Whoops, I responded to Enders post thinking it was yours. Sorry.
McMansion suburbs were raised by Steve as an example of the market at work.
What is the alternative to these suburbs, what do you think they should look like?
I think this is an important question. People have to live somewhere, and a lot of people choose to live in McMansions.
If you are just advocating some modest urging about energy conservation, don’t we still finish up with essentially the same McSuburb?
Paul – I would like to think that the market could design an aesthetic Australian style house – that would look good, cost effective, and be energy and water efficient. Cannot we borrow from many styles old and new.
And that in new development, we establish aspects of communities and regions that attracted us there in the first place. So not “paradise lost”.
This means some local facilities – a local precinct – sense of community, some cafe society. Parks for kids to play. Local public transport on demand, to a bigger hub at the “bigger shops” that people can use and feel safe at night. And some bushland of size, with walks, bush that is “maintained” free from weeds and appropriately burned every few years.
Too much to ask ?
P.S. I think despite our best efforts on energy conservation in houses – climate trends will drive us all to air-conditioners during heatwaves in years to come. And of course that will feedback .. but that’s another debate.
Phil – No, of course it’s not too much to ask. I agree with your vision. But how do we achieve it, given that people seem to want to live in McSuburbs?
Years ago I was involved with a development, we had parks, playing fields, playgrounds, bush walks, wetlands, you name it.
Had all the greenies, townplanners and other time wasters happy
All playgrounds were burnt down.
A series of vicious and brutal rapes meant no woman felt safe.
Then a man was murdered whilst walking to the train one morning, killed by a piece of wood from a tree guard.
The police said for it to be secure remove all trees and bushes and instal full lighting.
See, there is a reason why things are what they are.
The market can have carte blanche to do what it likes because there are people demanding things and hence all the market is doing is supplying that demand. To curb that demand is tantamount to denying individuals freedom to make their own decisions.
In Australia we have an hampered market – there is no socialist system operating.
And of course there is no physical thing as “The Market” – it is simply a collecive noun to describe individuals buying and selling.
Yea I thought that as I wrote it. Sad indictment on society.
I’m saddened that you think that townplanners and greenies are all time wasters. What’s wrong with a better world – and I bet the crimes weren’t committed by greenies and town planners.
So the market supplies ciggies and booze? No probs. How about dope, heroin and eccies too? There’s a demand for it?
no limits are OK ??
(actually there’s a big socialist thing happening – it’s where corporate losses and excesses quite often end up – back on the taxpayer).
No the greenies and townplanners did not commit the crimes but in their blinkered utopian view of the world they make no allowances for criminal acts or security.
In our little (decrepit) shopping centre routinely shop windows are smashed, the doctor surgery was blown up, the owners cant afford security screens.
In the local town the paved mall is a haven for vandels at night. By day the heritage listed mall can be deserted if its too hot cold windy or wet.
Thats why Westfield are popular, they solve all these problems at no cost to the ratepayer.
As Louis says, the market is simply people buying and selling, or not buying and not selling, as the case may be. The point is the exchanges are voluntary.
I’m still hoping someone will answer my question, if the market produces McMansion suburbs, what is the alternative? (I don’t accept a wish list as a practical alternative.)
It’s all very well to theorise about how bad the market can be, but people need somewhere to live. A lot of them have chosen McMansions. This is a bad result of the market, if I interpreted Steve’s post correctly. Phil seems to agree, at least in part. (He didn’t like the taxpayer subsidisation of infrastructure.)
So please, what can be done? If you don’t like the market solution, what is your alternative?
I should clarify, if you don’t like the market solution, what is your alternative as regards how we achieve a better solution.
Actually they don’t want somewhere to live. They already have a house and either they’re moving up or moving up here.
Either mandate some environmental performance or charge them more for their rates.
Or put the tick and fruit n’ veg gate back on the border. Tax’em back south of the Tweed – you guys are used to it anyway. If you don’t have 3 generations buried here you don’t get in. If you get sick we can’t look after you either.
Good news for us out in hicksville, the NSW Govt has awoken from its slumber and released some land for subdivision.
This will mean more consumers and Woolies and Coles are moving in, they are buying up bombed out vacant and derelict shops for a new Mega Mart, complete with trendy little caffs where those who are inclined to can freely and safely indulge in social intercourse.
Market forces at work.
Will they have right and left wing tables at the caff. Table colours red, blue and green ? Will they have soya no-GM decaff with a twist?
Rog – it doesn’t sound nice down there. Come up and eat some bananas and drink some XXXX – escape.
That’s if you can afford the poll tax Phil wants to slap on you to curb your pollutin’ ways!
OK – we’ll make an exception just for you guys – you can have an air-con (OK – 3 ), two cars, a pool and shoot things too then. They say God is a Queenslander.
What was this thread about again?
Even if a few Victorians are building 5 star houses there is a small problem of all the old inefficient ones. I have been told that the half life of a Sydney house is over 50 years and I would guess that this applies to houses in most citys. Its going to take a while to re-build Australia.
Do the rules also apply to units and not just residential houses. Units have less potential for solar power and tank water and we are building lots of them.
PS air conditioners have more to do with staying married than staying cool!
The market supplies because there is a demand for it. I don’t recall enyone being forced to smoke ciggies Phil? Advertising might be effective but it’s your choice.
Prohibition has never ever worked.
The Exxon affected fishermen and Bhopal residents must have been in the market too I guess.
And in WWII ciggies were pressed on troops as stress relief with many becoming life long addicts. The market was happy to supply, as they are now indirectly to a new generation of addicts in the making. Let’s bring back advertising on TV and at the cricket – it’s only the ever helpful market. And why not have heroin dispensing machines at Westfield. There’s a demand for it and they’re all just businessmen after all.
The market only ever mops up costs it really needs to. The taxpayer can mop up the rest.
The Exxon-Valdez episode was an accident which, as Bjorn Lomborg notes, recovered rather more rapidly than most anticipated, mainly because crude oil is a natural product of the earth, and Bhopal residents are part of a socialist economy called India.
And what as an oil tanker running aground and a chemical plant exploding etc got to do with the operation of a market?
The worst human right’s abuses have occurred in nations which rejected market economies.
The taxpayer mops up the rest because the taxpayer got involved in the first place, you will find. Big Business, Big Unions doing deals with Big Government.
Hmm alternatives to mcsuburbs of mcmansions produced by market forces…..
I’m gonna turn that question on its head a bit: what would a suburb look like in the absense of *all* town planning?
I think that town planning and regulation has probably helped to make Australian cities fairly livable.
But they can always improve, and also town planning and regulation shouldn’t be static – it needs to respond to changing circumstances.
So people want bigger houses that guzzle energy.
That’s fine to a point, but at some level it starts to cost everyone else. That’s when town planning needs to step in.
I don’t think mcmansions should be banned, but how about some kind of way to represent their true cost to everyone else?
And how about some town planning that actually puts public transport infrastructure into new suburbs, instead of just building suburbs of cul-de-sacs miles from the nearest bus stop in a city with traffic problems?
Louis – India is the shining light of the global market economy – hardly socialist.
Steve – If we find a way to prevent the McMansions being subsidised by the rest of the taxpayers, then that’s the free market at work, and people will make their own decision as to whether it’s worth living there.
I’m not so sure, though, that these types of suburbs are disproportionately subsidised, are you sure of this?
However, then you want public transport put in. Isn’t this more subsidisation?
Phil -After first ruling out more taxes for these people, you then come up with extra rates. Very sneaky!
As to free markets, they are simply the voluntary exchange of goods and services. If restrictions are placed on these exchanges, that means someone else is telling you what you can and can’t do. We have always had these types of restrictions, they developed to prevent society being taken over by thugs.
The problem is the degree of restriction, and the tendency to restrict people “for their own good”. The market implies that you put your own values on exchanges, and accept the consequences that arise from them.
To be anti-market is to accept that others have a greater right to make decisions for you than you do yourself, though I suspect most anti-market, pro-regulation people see it the other way, that is, that they have a greater knowledge or understanding that entitles them to make decisions on behalf of others.
Paul, your last two paragraphs – nobody who is reasonable would disagree with this. I certainly don’t.
I don’t consider myself as anti-market. Perhaps we just disagree on what is an appropriate degree of restriction.
I think there is a lot of knee-jerk ‘less regulation more free-market’ sentiment that arises from
1. a suspicion that governmental processes are corrupt
2. a lack of appreciation of the difficulties and compromises involved in trying to plan for the good of most
3. a frustration when that planning hurts you as an individual in its pursuit of the greater good
Perhaps we should be debating corruption in government, or (my personal favourite) whether the longtime australian pasttime of ridiculing public servants as lazy and useless actually hurts the country by discouraging good people from working in useful roles in govt.
We need a modicum of regulation to keep the market honest. Mining industry a case in point – see history of revegetation, cyanide in creeks and asbestos. Despite Louis’s throwaway that they were socialist Indians and somehow deserved it some may find things like this unethical. And of course Valdez affected fishermen still waiting for compensation are they not?
So if the market can get away with low environmental controls it will. If you can pay lawyers to minimise your risks and argue that the sky is actually purple why not do so.
Actually you will find good and bad in free enterprise and government. All bureaucracies can become inefficient, do good or bad.
Strangely an increasing demand for ethical investment.
If people want to have a bloody big house – no problem – just don’t expect me to subsidise their power and water.
Steve – The fundamental objection that I have to regulation that is supposedly for the greater good is that this involves some other body, often unaccountable, making decisions about what I can or cannot do, based on what they perceive is “good” for me.
We do, of course accept a degree of control over our actions, but we need to be very careful not to infringe peoples rights in pursuit of a lofty goal. That way has lead to tyranny in other times and places.
Phil -I believe it is important to frame the regulations so that people are able to prosper from their own efforts, but still maintain a fair environment. Hong Kong under post-war British administration did this very successfully, with the result it became an economic power house. The irony was that in Britain they went down the social welfare road, with disasterous results which were not reversed until Margaret Thatcher became PM.
Paul, its not about what is good for you. Its about what is good for everyone. You keep talking about perceptions of what is good for you. I think that most regulation – including smoking, alcohol, and illicit drugs restrictions – are about what is good for everyone, even if sometimes they seem to be about telling individuals what is good for the individual.
—-
And unaccountable? You think the government (the ones who make regulation) is unaccountable? We vote the govt in, if we don’t like it, we vote them out. Sounds like you have problems with democracy.
PS Hong Kong is also a crowded, polluted place with an odd hodge podge of awful decaying, wobbling apartments and soaring skyscrapers. The one time I was there (1999) the whole city (except the top of the island) smelt like rotten eggs, presumably from vehicle pollution.
I wonder
– whether Hong Kong or London is higher on the most livable city list (including job opportunities etc)?
– what Hong Kong is doing now to make itself more livable, and what regulation that involves.
Steve – It’s all about balancing individual needs with societies needs. The aim should be the minimum restriction required to allow society to function smoothly. Problem is, people differ wildly about what they see as smooth functioning.
I prefer minimum government interference in my life. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable preference. Others seem to think society should be fairer, more sustainable or whatever their particular interest is.
Did you miss the wetlands when you were in Hong Kong? Of course, they may have been smelly too, (but in a good way!).
http://www.hketo.ca/abouthk/explore/Wetland_July-23-2003.html
Thanks for the wetlands link – didn’t see them.
I agree with just about all your sentiments.
I think we can just agree to disagree on the legitimacy of particular regulations. I don’t regard regulation for a fairer society or a more sustainable society as being driven just by the particular interests of individuals.
*just don’t expect me to subsidise their power and water*
Nobody does Phil, user pays.
However you have indicated a preference for an”environmental” levy on “them others”, another name for selective and discriminating extortion by the State.
Actually Rog,
Our power prices are higher because we have to fork out for more infrastructure to accomodate all the new mcmansions and their airconditioners. If only the cost of the infrastructure was included in the cost of an airconditioner. Then i wouldn’t have to swelter, and fork out for others.
You are actually arguing for a more efficient market then, Steve? But didn’t you use McMansions as an example of why the market is bad?
The market isn’t necessarily bad – but if you turn your back they’ll do a swiftie – like not “internalise their externalities” e.g. pollute rivers in the public domain or have a oil carrier shipwreck etc and try to just walk away.
Capitalising gains and socialising losses is another cute one.
I’m not anti-market – it brings choice, price competition, variety and a continual need for efficiency if properly run – a civilised society just needs a few rules. In this example if people want a McMansion that’s fine. It’s just that whole suburbs of them are ratcheting up water and power demand in a non-linear fashion. Forgetting the environmental considerations – just purely as a taxpayer and ratepayer – I don’t want to have to pay for new dams or new power stations before absolutely necessary.
So some modern environmental standards for water and power are not unreasonable to ask for.
Society has lots of reasonable rules – you can’t drive as fast as you like, we insist on seat belts as we’re sick of picking up the hospital bills, you can’t put a sheet metal works in the middle of an urban sub-division etc. You can’t legally build shonky unsafe buildings or direct stormwater where you feel like.
Surely a reasonably civilised society has a few rules for the greater good. And a civilised society also can comment about southern European style homes with no shades. Many new developments have detailed caveats on contracts that specifies what style of home you may build. A bush hut just won’t do.
“”Let the markets decide the best outcome.”
I would like to introduce Queenslanders to suburbs of McMansions with ducted airconditioning, no parkland, no public transport infrastructure, and no mains gas, and electricity infrastructure problems made acute by the rapidly increasing use of airconditioners. Enjoy!”
The above is how the market discussion got started on this thread.
Somehow we got from this to a market based solution, ie put the price of infrastructure into the cost of electricity, air conditioners, etc.
QED, as they say.
We are talking about the difference between a ‘free’ market that fails, and a regulated market to avoid market failure.
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