A personal journey - a green home

May 19, 2008 at 4:01 pm (1, Green Home)

After having finished my MBA and living in Australia for 3 years now, we have gained our permanent residency through the Skilled migration program of the Australian government.

This has prompted us to make some decisions. One such decision is about the city where we would live. We have been living in Adelaide for the past 3 years. Adelaide is a relatively smaller city with a population of just over a million people. In terms of job opportunities, it is relatively less compared to say Sydney and Melbourne or the booming cities of Brisbane and Perth.

Even in this environment we both (my wife and myself) have had a decent life and some good career opportunities. Considering the cost of living, the size of the city, our connections and friends made here; we have decided to stay on in Adelaide for the time being. Unless some fantastic opportunity comes along for us, we would not think of moving.

In some ways, Adelaide can provide us with more opportunities. For example: green drinks. Green Drinks is a worldwide networking event happening in various cities across the country. I wanted to attend one in Adelaide and guess what, it was not here. This prompted me to explore the opportunity of setting up one here. I am in the course of doing this with another enthusiastic friend of mine. More details will be coming soon. The point is that Adelaide will provide some opportunities which the other cities may not. Just need to keep your eyes and mind open.

The next decision for us has been to move into the real estate industry. Looking from only a financial perspective, at one time I did not believe in the idea of buying my own house however, that has changed for now. If you add in the emotional and other aspects of living in your own house, it surely trumps for me now.

The Australian real estate market has been doing very well for the past 7+ years. Adelaide is continuing to do well (20% growth in the last year) and with the big mining boom expected in the near future; it will continue to do well.

In all consideration, we have decided to build our own home. With the limitations in our budget and meeting our needs we are going ahead for now. One consideration is the design and building of a green home.

Since this is a big decision for me and the biggest financial outlay till date; I will be planning this real well. Considering the possible green aspects of the house, I will be blogging about this under the Green Home category of this blog. I hope this will be of interest to some of the readers.

Suggestions, advise, experiences and anything else will be appreciated. Read on!

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Energy and the Auastralian Federal Budget - Where did it go wrong?

May 19, 2008 at 3:26 pm (1, Climate Change, Green Energy, Green Technology, Greening Australia)

John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute, writes in Crikey of the negative consequences of the budget for the energy and environmental industry.

The most important in our view was the failure to allocate any funding to the Renewable Energy Fund in the coming financial year, particularly as a number of drilling projects important to the development of the geothermal clean energy option were relying on funding this year. This has sent share prices tumbling and the Government scrambling to assure this industry they’ll be supported through the other “green energy fund”, the Energy Innovation Fund, or assurances for the following financial year. The only explanation for this blooper is that the efforts to hoover up as big a surplus as possible led to this hoovering of credibility.

That the main public heat has surrounded the means testing for the solar rebate demonstrates both the public backing for solar initiatives, and the precarious nature of rebates (and subsidies) as policy solutions. The visiting German Environment Minister observed that if you want to encourage solar PV rollout, a better policy instrument for unlocking longer term opportunities is guaranteed feed-in tariffs for electricity generation post installation. It’s clear that the rebate system has fed a boom. It is also clear that restricting the rebate to $100,000 pa households is causing something of a bust, especially for those businesses relying solely on the rebate program for their income. There are separate and relatively substantial pots of money for solar cities and solar schools initiatives that may allow a softer landing for the existing industry but the real spotlight should be on developing a consistent national feed-in tariff strategy for solar and other low emission sources that will not be captured by the Renewable Energy Target to make sure Australia has a diverse portfolio of clean energy options in 2020.

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