Why not; Own power generation. Own sewerage disposal. Own water collection for toilet flush. All new houses and other buildings to be self sufficent as much as posable. The govt; is being very generous at the moment, giving enormous rebates for house-holders to get along the path to self sufficent power generation, and water-saving measures like collecting your own toilet flush water.

Jason, it all sounds very nice for each and every one of us or each family or each little group to be entirely self-sufficient. But there are real economies of scale to be had for larger groups, like whole towns or even cities....or even nations, to be self-sufficient.

I don't think we need to do it on a personal basis. In fact the key to our future wellbeing is to be able to do it on a national basis, with reliable and affordable public utilities like water and power provision and central business districts or larger shopping centres where we can get all our bacis needs.

In fact, I'm inclined to think that the idea of finding a nice block of land with good soil and a high rainfall, a few chooks, solar panels, water tanks and the rest, is not going to work and is in fact quite the wrong way to think about developing a sustainable future.

One of the big problems with it is that it can only really work for a small portion of the population... and if things get desperate, the areas where it is working will be overrrun with desperate people wanting to set up the same sort of thing....or raiding established crops and other resources.

Let's think about national sustainability, not our own personal sustainable....or at least; as well as our own personal sustainability.

And let's for goodness sake, everyone of us that is in any way concerned about sustainability, very loudly denounce Rudd's policy of absurdly high immigration and the concomitant ever greater disparity between the demand on our resource base and the ability for this largely dry and infertile continent to provide the necessary resources in an ongoing manner.

I'd love to debate this with you further Jason, but I'm on the road for several weeks longer, through the Kimberley and Pilbara. So there may be several days between responses.

Cheers

I agree. The secret is household responsibility for energy and water creation and consumption. It's possible to be totally self-sufficient and in my way of thinking that is the way to do it.

Even where there is an abundance of water households should be responsible for their own. Leave the infrastructure for industry alone.

Every new house built from now should be made to do it. Phase out the rest over time. Put the rates to real use.

Yes Jason; all very practical from a stand alone residence.
There are a number of problems that have been mentioned in a number
of places.

Power generation; Can be done, has been done and is being done.
The catch 22 is;
Will we be able to obtain enough raw materials to make
the number of solar panels required ?
Will we be able to obtain enough raw materials for the batteries required?
Will there be enough technical people available to install and maintain all this gear ?
To do the job in 10years it would require 1094 teams of two men two
days each to do Sydney assuming 2 million homes and no days off.
Not impossible but a big project.

Water:
Has been done, is being done.
Our roofs are big enough to collect enough water if we use it like country people did in the past.
Sewage:
More of a problem when you consider the separation between properties. Less these days.

So all loverly and green but due to the scale of the project probably
not very practical.

Nice thought but, seriously, the government would never allow it.

They make too much for themselves and their power and utility company cronies to ever let such a cash-cow go.

Also, if we were self-sufficient, they couldn't grab us by the balls and tell us what to do. And what politician could live without power over the people?

In principle I agree and have been arguing for some time, that
small town, rural living, is long term far more sustainable then
high density living, as the chardonay set tried to force on people.

But you need to start small and somewhere. I've had solar hot water
for 25 years now, easily installed, subsidised now, makes a huge
difference for most of the year. Yet I gather that most homes still
use electric power for hot water, as they would rather spend the money
on a plasma screen or whatever.

Do I trust Govts to provide me with services? Not really, thats
one reason why I prefer to live in the country. Our whole present
way of life and 6.7 billion people rising, is based on cheap fossil
fuels. Who knows what will happen, when that is no longer the case.

Bazz country people still live like that.
I live just 40 klm from the coast, half of Sydney seems to come to that coast yet my village is still deeply country.
Recycled septic never leaves the block [standard quarter acre].
Tank water only 20,000 liters.
Hedge of bottle bush picked to grow tightly together and 6 meters tall for shade.
Fruit trees grown only on recycled water.
Grow my own vegys but not enough.
No way its going to feed me unless I become a fruit bat.
But its a start.
love to truly go bush again with chooks and ducks, a few sheep and cattle I just might make it.

Imagine that..The Good Life as science fiction...not only comedy at all

Jason, although I live only 60Km, as the crow flies, from our capital city GPO, for the last 15 years, the only "town" service I have, is electricity. For 10 years before that, I generated the electricity myself, too.

Home power generation is bull s##t, but you can keep the rest, thanks, I'll do my own. But, show me anyone who has lived with home power for ten years, & I'll show you someone who hates it.

Of course, in the name of some green bunkum, people like me now have to have some chemical micky mouse sewerage treatment plant in a bottle, rather than the simple old septic system, in new houses. Not much use for fertilising the veggie patch.

Incidentally, when you get back to school, tell that lady geography teacher of yours, to stop putting all these silly ideas into your head.

When I saw “Self sustained living” I thought it was going to be something to chew on

Jason’s idea “Own power generation. Own sewerage disposal. Own water collection for toilet flush. All new houses and other buildings to be self sufficient as much as possible.”

Begs the questions

What benefit is there in denying the economies of scale which make water and power generation effective ?

What happens if we turn the clock back around 160 years ?

No power networks
No sewerage collection
No tap water.

A few side effects

Higher child and adult mortality rates due to dealing with untreated sewerage and non-potable water.

Cholera and dysentery spring to mind.

So how does this plan stand up if we consider the big boogey man “carbon emissions”

In constructing a house, the biggest contributors of carbon emission are the bricks and the concrete used to build it.

We would be better off building all wood houses (need something to kill the termites and stop the rot), with modern plumbing and centralized water processing than brick houses on concrete slabs with individual power generation and water processing.

Long term comparative price performance of self generation and water recycling remains largely, an unknown.

Something’s sound nice but the theory needs real research, otherwise we end up with government grants for environmental tossers to indulge their hobby horses with and the standard of living of the rest of us gets flushed down the recycling water closet.

I had a septic tank here for many years before the sewer arrived.
Mosquitoes disappeared when the sewer came but generally it was successful.

One of the major costs of generating your own electricity is the cost
of batteries. They do need replacing from time to time depending on
how keen you are on maintenance work.
Last time I looked at this the break even time was about 20 years.
Now that the government will give some of us a subsidy that time will
be reduced. The problem is the people who will install the system
are mostly those that are refused a subsidy, hmmm clever.
What percentage of the population would be interested/capable of
maintaining such an electrical system ?

I have a swimming pool and contrary to what most people believe you
don't put water into a pool you take it out. So the rainfall while it
has been lower than normal would be sufficient I believe, provided you
have big enough tanks. Again the maintenance becomes very important
to ensure the health of the system.

In large population centres, including larger towns, maintenance is
not something people are conscientious about. Just look at their cars.

I agree jason. There are many things we can do as individuals to be more self-sustaining. Some level of self sustained living is certainly achievable as regards water tanks, solar panels, grey water recycling and even a compost toilet.

I would worry that too many people with compost toilets might not understand the methodology and you may end up with some problems such as Col outlines. I quite like large scale sewage treatment and the output from these works if managed well can be clean.

The problems lie in increasing populations and economic rationalism and the effects this has on water, sewerage and other infrastructure and can lead to accidents like untreated sewage being deposited into the oceans.

Even if we cannot be fully self-sufficent some level of individual self-sufficiency would reduce the pressure on our already stretched infrastructure.

*No way its going to feed me unless I become a fruit bat.*

Ok Belly, you grow some extra fruit and veggies and I'll swop
you for some lamb chops and roasts, fresh yabbies, wheat flour,
oats for your porridge and some canola oil. We'll then be
back to normal country barter and both do ok :)

Col, the carbon footprint of house construction can be dramatically reduced by using more traditional methods of building. Rammed earth is one that springs to mind. If done entirely the old-fashioned way there is no carbon impact at all. Mind you there are now a few new techniques using machinery, which make it a lot quicker and easier, so that would need to be evaluated. I grew up in a rammed earth house built in 1898 - the house and shearing shed constructed the same way are still in excellent repair and being used to this day. It also provides fantastic insulation.

Pelican

“The problems lie in increasing populations and economic rationalism and the effects this has on water, sewerage and other infrastructure and can lead to accidents like untreated sewage being deposited into the oceans.”

The costs of extending the infrastructure are initially funded by the property developer and included in the land price to the occupant. The constructed asset is then “gifted” to the water authority for free.

The problem, the government is not doing what they are supposed to do with the rates they then charge the occupant.

As you wrote

“Even if we cannot be fully self-sufficent some level of individual self-sufficiency would reduce the pressure on our already stretched infrastructure.”

Since 1996, more than one billion dollars, which the payers of water rates were charged in Metropolitan Melbourne, has been expropriated by the State government as “special dividend” and used to subsidise something else, instead of being used to fund the infrastructure you speak of.

The problem is not the electorate / home occupiers using more than their fair 3% of the total water catchment, it is the corruption, fraud and incompetence of the government, supposedly elected to act in the best interests of the electorate.

So as far as “Even if we cannot be fully self-sufficent some level of individual self-sufficiency would reduce the pressure on our already stretched infrastructure.”

You are probably being double charged already and we now face being raped some more.

Transport costs would kill us yabby.
And so would the people who get free plumbs oranges mandarins, apples, pears ,nectarines, and pommy granits lemons too I do not eat them but grow plenty.
oh yes and pumpkins in season.
I manage to eat the rest myself.
us bushys even use the well as a fridge, I have no well, crimson council thinks they are dangerous.
Best we can do is cut some food costs and it truly takes more time to pick the fruit than to look after the trees if you learn to do it right.

COL ROUGE
Have you read "Buddha to Bono" while it has its obvious weakness' it does make some interesting points. It’s a text in some environmental economics courses on sustainability at some Universities.

JASON60 AND EVERYONE
There has been some comment from Qld infrastructure guru on sewerage.....be nice....recently pointed out that if a significant amount of city grey water was diverted it would cause problems in keeping the sewerage pipes flushed. Simply toilet flushing isn't enough.

Apparently if it gets too bad they could be compelled to flush pipes with other water! Our city systems are designed for mass usage and therefore individual instant fixes may not be that helpfull in the long run.

You might be right Col, I am not aware of how the utilities infrastructure works.

But, if revenue received from the provision of a particular service was utilised to maintain, manage, provide best practice in terms of modern technology, R&D etc of that service, we might go some way to getting what we paid for.

Examinator “Have you read "Buddha to Bono"”

Never heard of it.

“It’s a text in some environmental economics courses on sustainability at some Universities.”

I would hope the required reading of any university course would seek to embrace the pertinent texts which range across the entire spectrum of opinions concerning that course.

That way we might get graduates who can think beyond a mono-political / social dimension, thereby contributing quality instead of dogma in their chosen field.

Pelican “You might be right Col, I am not aware of how the utilities infrastructure works.”

In the matter, the processes of asset gifting, I speak from a first hand knowledge and the billion dollars+ is on the public record, as part of the disclosed annual accounts for the State of Victoria.

“But, if revenue received from the provision of a particular service was utilised to maintain, manage, provide best practice in terms of modern technology, R&D etc of that service, we might go some way to getting what we paid for.”

Agree and that is my point, the revenue was subverted into general revenue, the ‘swill pot’, which receives all the speeding fines, gaming royalties etc. (and squandered on the grandiose plans of politicans, nothing to do with water supply)