Off the grid info evening at Sydney’s Sustainable House

    Power your place with the sun Power Australia with the sun Buy in bulk – be one of over 30 off the grid solar energy buyers Cut your purchase price by a HUGE amount  by buying in bulk Stop burning coal for your place       Please join me and about 30 others at my place for an information evening about using solar energy to power your home or business.   Date: Monday 25 May 15 Time: 630 for light supper, information and discussion concludes... Read More

A sustainable granny flat in Sydney

For those looking to build a sustainable granny flat here’s an email exchange which may assist: Good afternoon Michael, The tour of your house, and of your knowledge, last Saturday was quite enlightening – thanks.  I am in the situation of having a granny flat built on the property I share with my son & family, at Burraneer (near Cronulla).  We’ve given the job to a company called Granny Flat Approvals, link below.  At this stage the proposal has not yet... Read More

Of fridges, solar power and getting the most out of them

Yesterday’s tour of Sydney’s Sustainable House was packed both with people and the interesting stories and questions they asked.  One email has come in from one of people on the tour, Peter, and here it is as it’s got useful information about using solar panels efficiently and meeting the energy demands of that gas guzzler, the fridge: Hi Michael It’s Peter, and together with son Simon and two friends, was in your clutches for the tour yesterday Saturday... Read More

Magic puddin’ pump pumps water 24/7 without electricity

  It’s magic.   It pumps water up to 200 metres above itself without electricity. Video Glockemann pump It uses the energy of flowing water to pump the water. I’ve stood in a very slow flowing creek at the bottom of a valley and seen it pump water up 65 metres to a rain tank at the top of the hill. It doesn’t pump fast but continuously. Wonderful design, wonderful ‘eyes’ in the designer for the gifts Earth has for us if we will look for... Read More

Seminar on sustainable public infrastructure

Meet industry, council and community leaders who are designing and building sustainable neighbourhoods. With the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia and others I’ll be presenting a seminar on how to build and operate sustainable public infrastructure.  The first one is in Sydney on Wednesday and Thursday 26 and 27 March. Country seminars will follow later in the year. The seminar is called, Sustainable Public Infrastructure and you may register there. IPWEA... Read More

Commercial project taking carbon out of air to make plastics – and hope

This is what we and Earth need – projects to take existing pollution out of Earth’s air. A new commercial project extracts carbon from Earth’s air to make plastic products. The ‘biocatalyst” commercial machine takes carbon from landfills and other polluting sources and mixes it with air in a reactor and makes it into a liquid which pulls carbon out of air and makes it into plastic. The two people behind the US business are Mark Herrema and Kenton... Read More

Join a small class and talk with leaders building cool roads and neighbourhoods

I’m blogging to invite you to join us and work with leaders in their fields in the new short course at Sydney’s UTS - How to build a sustainable neighbourhood.   Leading speakers who will present costs, design, politics and industry experience about small and large projects include: a Council Mayor, a NSW government Parliamentary Secretary, a Chief of Staff in the NSW government, a Council Manager of Sustainability, a Council General Manager, experts from the Australian... Read More

New short uni course on sustaining neighbourhoods

Do join me in the new uni short course I’m running at UTS, Sydney, called, Building Sustainable Neighbourhoods. There will be three blocks of uni, each of a day and a half. I’ve described it like this on the enrolment site: Meet industry, council and community leaders who are designing and building sustainable neighbourhoods. Learn how to make your neighbourhoods sustainable. Whether it’s water, wastewater (sewage), designing and building cool roads to cool... Read More

Sustainable house using bamboo in Bali

Here’s some good news about a sustainable house in Bali that’s used bamboo in several ways.  Here’s how I heard about it from the owner, Michael Huffman: Hello Michael I met you while hiking in the Blue Mountains in 1991 or 1992. I read Sustainable House and was hooked on building something some day based on your principles. I eventually decided to build in Bali because of fewer zoning requirements and cheaper labor than where i live in Seattle. I completed... Read More

Narara ecovillage raises funds without banks

Yesterday I had a coffee with Lyndall Parris, one of the Directors involved with the new Narara Ecovillage. Lyndall would be pleased to hear from anyone interested in finding out more about this residential development near Gosford, just north of Sydney.Her contact details are: lyndall@nararaecovillage.com and 0419 279 711. nararaecovillage.com…Here are some points I made from our conversation:- The Narara Ecovillage Co-op is set up to build a world class ecovillage... Read More