The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand

What we need is to use it more sensibly, and over the next generation stop using it at all. One day it'll run short and after that it'll run out, so then we'll have to stop using it - may as well get started on that now.

Really we don't need to use as much as we do. I don't need the whole house to be cooled or warmed, just me.

My spouse and I got through last winter without a single megajoule of gas heating or a single kWh of electric heater. We had electric blanket for the night (used about 0.2kWh daily), and hot water bottles (used about 0.1kWhr) for when we were sitting down, and jumpers and warm drinks for when we were moving about.

Now in summer we don't have 2,600W airconditioning, we have a 50W fan. We have cool drinks.

The hot water from the tap does not need to be boiling hot. It only needs to be as hot as you can bear to have on your skin, so that when you turn on the shower you can have just hot water with no cold added. Why does it need to be hotter than that, are you making cups of coffee and cooking pasta straight from the tap?

You don't need appliances to be on when you're not using them. Turn them off at the wall. Those little standby lights and clocks all add up. How many clocks do you need? Is it really that much hassle to turn the tv on as you pass it to sit on the couch and watch it?

And so on and so forth. From these measures, we use 25MJ natural gas (we have gas hot water and cooking) and 5.5kWh electricity a day - both 1/4 to 1/3 the average. It's not really that complicated. The average Aussie can easily halve their household electric and natural gas use. If we can do it, surely agriculture, commerce and industry can do it. One night when you're out have a look and see how many empty offices are brightly lit. I've worked in factries and know they have similar wasteful practices. I know farmers waste a heap of water especially dairy farmers, I'm sure they waste as much electricity. If pushed, they'll find efficiencies, too.

Australia could, by simple efficiencies and at zero cost - in fact, saving money - halve its electrical and natural gas use, and thus its greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of having to add new capacity or replace old fossil fuel burning plants with new ones, we could just replace the old fossil fuel plants with renewable ones. Yes, they're currently more expensive, but even ignoring that coal and gas and oil are cheap due to public subsidy, if we're using less power than we can afford to pay a higher rate for it.

I'm annoyed by the Gas Congestion charge. I didn't use more gas and electricity in the winter. I thought things were supposed to be "user pays", that's what the economic rationalists told us when they sold everything off. I didn't use more and congest the pipes, why do I have to pay for other people's stupidity? If it were a few bucks a household for renewable energy we didn't ask for I wouldn't complain - they'd at least be looking to the future. But it's a few bucks just to pay for more stuff to burn more quickly. "Thinking and planning ahead? What's that?"