Daily Archives: May 20, 2008

Location, location, location

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A very big real estate cliche is “location, location, location”. This is right for many reasons.

For us, the decision for locating our home came from many features and constraints that we have placed. Firstly, our budget. The best we can afford is $350,000 for both the land and house. May be a bit more, but we need to see how it goes. Second, we wanted a house on a decent sized block of land. No units, apartments and small house with no open places. Third, we were ready to travel upto 1 hr one way to work. Fourth, decent surroundings and facilities.

Before I go further, it is important to explain how Adelaide is structured. As you can see from the map on the left, Adelaide has some constraints. On the west, Adelaide is bounded by the ocean and on the right by the hills. The major growth areas are the North and South.

Considering our constraints and features, as explained above, the only possible areas are located in North 2, South 3 and Hills 2 as suggested in the map.

Australia is going through two types of lifestyle living. Beach side is called – Sea change and Hills, country side is called Tree change.

North has not fascinated us for a variety of reasons. It is still a good growth area due to industrial activity, a new express way to Adelaide and all the mining is happening North of Adelaide. Much further, but all north based. South provides a great beach side living. And the Hills have a great environment attraction and a cool climate.

After comparing the alternatives of living in the south and the beach or the Hills and trees, the decision was tilted in favour of a tree change. This has happened mainly due to the location of the excellent Waldorf School in Mt. Barker. In the future, when we have kids, we would like them to experience the great education provided in a Waldorf school. I know, its a bit far in the future when we still do not have kids; but we believe in planning for the future.

In the end, we have decided to build a house in the beautiful hill town of Mt. Barker. It is about 35 km from Adelaide CBD and has the South Eastern freeway connecting the town to the city. A good bus service from Adelaide Metro and all the facilities required for modern living are available. Peak time journey is about 1 hour. With a population over 12,000 people and the main town for the entire Adelaide Hills it a nice and cosy town.

Mt. Barker has been growing a lot in the past years and this has created demand for new housing. A new estate called the Bluestone estate is coming up near the Waldorf School in Mt. Barker. This is a 95 hectare development with 835 blocks of land. This is the first stage and the entire project can take anywhere between 5-10 yrs. The developer is promising some good stuff.

The 835 lot development, named Bluestone, has a major focus on the environment and quality lifestyle, with extensive parklands and landscaping in keeping with the Adelaide Hills.

Walker Corporation’s project development manager Humfrey Whitaker said about 16 hectares of the 95 hectare development will be devoted to parkland and green space, and there will be four kilometres of walking trails.

“We’ve been working with Mount Barker District Council and its officers to ensure that Bluestone is of the highest quality and delivers significant benefit to the local community,” Mr Whitaker said.

“In planning this development we’ve looked at sustainability, parkland and open space, extensive landscaping, the very latest communications technology for internet connectivity and design guidelines for all housing to ensure a high standard of construction and complementary building styles.

“We’re offering a taste of hills living but with all the benefits of a modern cosmopolitan lifestyle.”

That is where we are now. I will discuss about Mt. Barker’s capital growth opportunities and the financing options available to us. Then we will come to the green design options and our exploration.

Khosla ventures invests in Eco motors

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EcoMotors plans to build high-tech engine center – Crain’s Detroit Business
The EcoMotors engine is called an “opposed piston opposed cylinder” engine, or OPOC. The OPOC engine features two horizontally opposed cylinders powering a crankshaft in the center. The unique design eliminates traditional valves and cylinder heads, simplifying the engine.

EcoMotors will work to develop the engine to be used in passenger cars and trucks.

“It’s clean, it’s green,” Coletti said. “We’re talking about potentially upwards of 50 percent improved efficiency versus current turbo diesels.”

He said a 2.5 liter engine of this design delivers 350 horsepower, and it could be more affordable than conventional turbo diesels because it has half the moving parts.

Feed in Tariff in Victoria

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The Australian states are working hard to compete against each other to come up with more restrictive solar options.

The South Australia government came up with a “net metering feed-in-tariff” which does not provide much incentive compared to a gross metering system.

Now, it is the turn of the Victorian government. Peter Campbell writes about the reasons why this legislation does not make sense. And below, a rally against the tariff.

After visiting the Bali convention on climate change and using their generous travel allowances to see how a good feed in tariff can promote emission reductions and jobs from solar power in countries like Germany, our Victorian Government has delivered a feed in tariff that is crippled and worthless.

My concerns are:

1. The Feed in Tariff is only paid on net metering.

The total electricity generated by panels should be subject to the tariff, as all the clean electricity generated has zero emissions which directly substitutes for coal-fired power and therefore reduces emissions accordingly.

In Germany and other locations where they pay the tariff on gross metering, there has been a dramatic rise in installation of solar power. Germany now has 400 times the solar output of Australia despite having about half our sunshine.

2. The Feed in Tariff has a maximum ceiling of 2kW

This is nonsense. The more solar zero emissions power we generate as a nation the better. This is a critical measure for reducing our emissions to combat climate change. The 2kW array size limit for getting the Feed in Tariff is simply crippling the financial motivation for people to install solar panels, and crippling their payback if they choose to install a bigger array.

3. No certainty for investment is provided

The complexities and restrictions of your feed in tariff resulting from net metering combined with the 2kW ceiling provide no certainty or guarantee for investment in a solar array, unlike gross metering with no ceiling which does. This is evident in countries like Germany where there has been significant investment in solar power – now the equivalent of two coal fired power stations, but with zero emissions.

The Victoria government has stipulated the price at 60c per KwH higher than South Australia’s 44c per KwH.

Peter provides an alternative solution.

I strongly urge the government to modify the tariff to a proven effective and equitable model , which is:

* 60 cents per kWh
* paid for at least 15 years
* paid on the entire output of a system via gross production metering
* no caps on array size and/or outputs.

Water Trading anyone?

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Green business: Carbon works, why not water? | Citywire
Under a cap and trade system, water polluters could have the option to reduce pollution in their own operations or buy water pollution-control or water quality credits from another source at a lower cost than if they undertook the pollution control themselves.

In theory a cap and trade system would achieve the same overall water-quality improvement at a lower overall cost. It would also allow water treatment technology transfer if integrated into a larger global market system.

And such programmes don’t have to be limited to water-quality problems, either. Industries, farmers or cities could also conceivably buy and sell credits for water use, driving down the cost of water conservation and efficiency programmes.
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The holistic effect is to add to the sustainability of the commodity. The general trend in the price of water rights to abstract also has seen some incremental growth. A record was recently achieved in the US of close to $30,000 for an acre foot per year (325,851 US gallons or 1,233.5 kl (or m³) per year) – not bad considering similar rights were trading at $500 five years ago.

Rann suggests green cars as the future

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Fuel-efficient vehicles the future: Rann

The future of South Australia’s car manufacturing industry lies in the development of new low-carbon, fuel-efficient vehicles, Premier Mike Rann says.The SA (Edit:South Australia) submission called for the federal government’s $500 million Green Car Innovation Fund to be used for researching and developing new low-carbon technology for wider application across the industry.

“Clearly, car buyers in markets across the world, including Australia, are now looking to purchase more fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles,” Mr Rann said.

Holden Commodore VE SS V

With Holden, the largest Australian car manufacturer and the subsidiary of GM, suggesting that they make a hybrid-electric of the popular Commodore model (nice looking car I should say) by 2010; Australian car companies and politicians are coming on to the new trend in the market. About time too, since Toyota just sold its 1 millionth Prius.

Update: A good article from Business Week on the greening of GM.