Saving energy through energy audits is a first-line strategy, before you even start thinking about getting solar panels, solar heating or wind power connected to your home.

A typical home energy audit identifies around 30% of energy savings. That could be 30% off your power and heating bills for a start. And you can include savings on water use too.

Furthermore, various cities and states offer free energy audits to the householder – where the auditor gets paid by them. Of course there is a follow-up cost for you in acting on the energy auditor’s recommendations. But that’s way cheaper than going for the renewable technology options first.

Even so, various places have free energy efficient light bulb replacement schemes. Caulking your windows and taping gaps under your doors is not going to break the bank. And there’s help out there… Energy efficient mortgage loans and tax deductions for energy efficient homes and businesses are available. So are energy efficiency personal tax credits and many states and localities offer subsidies and other support with weather stripping and caulking.

You’d be mad not to take advantage of these schemes while they are here.

It’s no wonder that energy audit training is filling a growing gap in qualified people entering this career or as an energy-saving business.

Energy audits are not necessarily complex. Got your R20 roof insulation? Energy efficient windows? Blocked all drafts? But there is more. Do you know which appliances take most power? Time to replace those guzzlers with energy star rated ones? Which times you run your washing machine or dishwasher at the cheapest rates?
By all means, after you took care of all that look into renewable energy too and save money and greenhouse emissions.

Bioenergy is a very important source of energy in the mix of alternative energies to abate effects of global warming.

Early Bird registration for the Bioenergy Australia 2009 conference is open until the end of October.  You can register online at www.bioenergyaustralia.org.
 
Australia’s premier bioenergy conference, Bioenergy Australia 2009 will be held at the Radisson Resort Gold Coast, Queensland from 9 – 10 December 2009 with a Technical Tour on 8 December 2009.

This year’s program will have over 85 presentations covering policies and programs, bioenergy projects and project development case studies and emerging opportunities.  It will also consider many facets of bioenergy, including:
·         Biomass sources and supply aspects
·         Algae and other future feedstocks
·         Heat and power
·         Energy-from-waste
·         Anaerobic digestion and livestock wastes
·         Gasification
·         Pyrolysis bio-oil and sequestration via bio-char
·         First and second generation liquid biofuels
·         Overarching aspects of bioenergy, such as life cycle emissions and sustainability.
 
Maybe you can attend?
 
Contact:
Dr Stephen Schuck
Bioenergy Australia Manager
c/o Stephen Schuck and Associates Pty Ltd
7 Grassmere Road
Killara  NSW  2071
Tel/Fax: (02) 9416 9246
www.bioenergyaustralia.org
 

There have been some noises from some quarters that green jobs are nothing but blue collar jobs, as if they are not part of a very influential trend in a sustainable future.

As Greenpeace says in its report Working For he Climate – Green Energy Job Creation: As we head towards the Copenhagen Climate Summit, world leaders have the opportunity to stimulate economic recovery while cutting carbon emissions through investing in green jobs in the renewable energy sector.

The jobs that have an environmental benefit can of course be seen as extensions of existing trades like plumbers, electrician and mechanics but when they become applied to low-CO2 generating purssuits and saving energy they are justifiably green jobs. Nothing at all wrong with that.

We must make the change to clean energy if we are to survive on a sustainable planet. Greenpeace’s report Energy (R)evolution says that “the world can achieve a nine-fold increase in its production of renewable energy to avoid catastrophic climate change.” Under this scenario, by 2030, there would be over 8 million jobs in renewable power and energy efficiency. This is over three times the number than would be the case under a business-as-usual approach.

Furthermore this report showed that if we do nothing to change to clean energy we will half a million energy supply jobs disappearing over the time period.

Energy Auditing – A Growing Green Job Sector

Working For The Climate Report here

Germany opened a huge global lead in the development of its renewable energy sector ten years ago. Why – the Germans even have it all over the sun-burnt Australians with their solar power plants. And wind too.

But Germany has been badly affected by the current economic downturn. Now green investing in renewables has taken on a new impetus as renewable energy is seen as the shining knight in armor to bail us out of climate change and the globally sick economy.

Deputy environment minister Astrid Klug said there were now 250,000 jobs in Germany’s renewable energies sector and an overall total of 1.8 million in environmental protection. The number of jobs in renewables will triple by 2020 and hit 900,000 by 2030.

Green jobs. The hope is for a sustainable future

A German government report on the job prospects of climate protection also said the government would spend 5.5 billion euros ($7.05 billion) on environmental protection this year. It has also earmarked parts of its 50-billion euro stimulus package to improve energy efficiency and entice owners of old cars to scrap them.

The German government aims to reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. The renewable energy sector aims to triple its share of power generation to 47 percent by 2020. Its share stood at 15.1 percent in 2008.

Green investing and green jobs creation go hand in hand everywhere. Lets all barrack for it as a winning combination.

Sources

Planet Ark, Germany Says Green Jobs Will Shorten Recession.