Empowered, Castlemaine takes bold step into unknown

Age
Saturday 16/2/2008 Page: 9

With CSIRO help, an entire town is turning green to ensure its future.

Castlemaine has a problem. A quarter of its population of 8300 is employed by some of the town's biggest polluters. With climate change snapping at their heels, the townsfolk are on an urgent quest to work out how to stop wrecking the environment without hurting the companies that employ them. It is a prickly conundrum but not one faced by Castlemaine alone. Towns and cities around Australia, if not the world, are in the same bind.

Castlemaine is uncomfortably close to crunch point. Like many others, the town and its industries rely on coal-fired electricity from the Latrobe Valley - itself home to one of the biggest polluting power stations in Australia. Energy bills are rising and the system that delivers the power is overstretched.

To top it all, 11% of electricity is simply lost in transmission before it even gets to Castlemaine - a cost the locals have to bear. They cannot go on like that. And they will not. The community, including its schools, industries, local hospital, the Mount Alexander Shire Council and others have agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on 2000 levels by 30% by 2010. It is part of an eight-month CSIRO project, officially launched yesterday, to cut energy use and explore new technologies to provide power. If they achieve their aim, Castlemaine could be a model for the nation.

But it is all very well making commitments - what are they actually doing? Behavioural change to cut energy use is already under way. At Castlemaine North Primary School, electricity bills have been slashed by 33% in the past three years. Lights, computers, printers, heaters, the hot water urn and water cooler are all turned off when they are not needed. Simple measures over three years that have amounted to eight fewer tonnes of coal being burnt. And that is just the school.

Buoyed by enthusiasm to go green, a mind-set change is taking place. Householders are vigilant about electricity use. Castlemaine Secondary College and Newstead Kindergarten, using government grants, have installed solar panels. The football club in nearby Maldon is doing the same. In two years, half the club's power needs are expected to be met by solar power. Targets achievable through little effort are, as green experts call it,"low-hanging fruit." But deeper energy efficiencies require greater effort and complex technological solutions.

That is where industries come in. Smallgoods manufacturer KR Castlemaine is the town's biggest employer. Its plant is almost entirely refrigerated, using 22 million kilowatts/ hour of electricity each year to cook and cool 50,000 tonnes of frankfurts, bacon, salami and sausages. Its yearly greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent to those produced by about 8000 cars in a year.

Cutting emissions and securing future energy supply while maintaining productivity, jobs and the bottom line is no small task. Research and development manager Bill Voul says the "smart cookies" at CSIRO are helping the company explore areas where it might get the best bang for its buck." Beyond the gains made by efficient energy use through behavioural change, solar panels, local wind farms and cogeneration might provide answers. CSIRO's Sean Rooney explains cogeneration involves capturing heat generated as a byproduct of a process and reusing it by converting it back into energy for other purposes.

So, using cogeneration technology, it might be possible to capture heat produced as a byproduct of KR Castlemaine's processes, convert it to energy and transfer it to, say, the local hospital for laundering linen, he says. Not so much an innovation in technology, he says, more an innovation in organisations, businesses and the community working together. The challenge is how do you go about working together to do this stuff? How do you implement cogeneration technology? Who funds that? Is it an asset owned by companies or does the council own it? Who operates it? It's the devil in the detail," he says.

The collaborative approach to turn Castlemaine green is one of 12 CSIRO projects under way around the country. So far, Castlemaine has laid out its target, got all the players in the same room and embarked on energy audits. CSIRO social scientist Peta Ashworth estimates possible solutions for Castlemaine's energy problems could be on the table by August. Castlemaine's future depends on the health of its businesses. Mount Alexander Shire Council chief executive Adrian Robb says energy security is critical for the livelihood of the shire. "This community's success and enthusiasm comes about from embracing a whole-of-community approach to sustainability," he says.

Lessons to be learnt from the Castlemaine experiment are yet to be revealed. But it is already apparent any town or city that hopes to have a sustainable future will almost certainly need to adopt a collaborative approach among its businesses, households, governments and local councils. On that front, Castlemaine is one step ahead.