Residents in the South Australian outback town of Innamincka, will soon be the recipients of emission free electricity - and they’re going to get it for free.  Residents, who currently get their power supply from expensive diesel generators, will be able to switch them off when they receive the trial gift of geothermal technology, according to this ABC article.

Geodynamics is the company that will provide the towns 12 lucky residents with the power at no cost, while they prove that geothermal power will indeed work.  They have started the drilling in the middle of the desert, and it is anticipated that a one-megawatt power plant will be up and running by the end of the year.

The goal is to have around 90 geothermal wells operating to produce enough electricity to power around half of South Australia’s capital city, Adelaide by the year 2016.

Although the company has yet to prove the technology’s sustainability and overcome the huge costs associated with it, I think it’s a great step forward in the search for some alternative sources of energy.  I hope this proves worthy to pursue, because the generation of emission free energy will go a long way in soothing the nerves of Mother Nature and global warming.

A study has been conducted by climate change researchers, which examines the anticipated effect that global warming will have on the U.S. energy supply.   The study concludes that weather changes caused as a result of global warming could seriously disrupt the extraction, refining and transportation of oil in the U.S.

A summary of the report is outlined in this NaturalNews article.  Basically, with the earth’s temperature rising, snowcaps are melting and sea levels are rising, which could destroy the oil and gas infrastructure along our coastlines – possibly leading to equipment damage, flooding or erosion.  Also noted in the report is the effect that storms driven by global warming will damage the oil industry’s infrastructure.

“Increases in storm intensity could threaten further energy supply disruptions of the sorts experienced in 2005,” says the report (e.g. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita). 

Personally, I would be content to go back to the horse and cart days and stay warm by campfire, but I would never admit that publicly from fear of ridicule.  However, if the report holds accurate, it seems we are chasing our tails in a sort of catch-22 scenario. Because of course, if the above scenarios eventuate, we will consume more energy to fix the damage attributed to consuming all the energy in the first place.  A bag of feed and a saddle sounds much more simple no?  As my luxury item I nominate firelighters though – no point going to extremes.

Started in Sydney Australia in 2007, Earth Hour is now an international annual event that calls for homes and businesses across the globe to switch off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour.

Last Saturday, March 29th at 8:00pm, millions of homes and businesses across the globe switched off their lights to support the Earth Hour campaign; aiming to raise more awareness of global warming and demonstrate that together we can make a difference.

Cities participating in the event included Aalborg, Aarhus, Adelaide, Atlanta, Bangkok, Bogota, Brisbane, Canberra, Chicago, Christchurch, Copenhagen, Darwin, Dublin, Hobart, Manila, Melbourne, Montreal, Odense, Ottawa, Perth, Phoenix, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Suva and Lautoka, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto and Vancouver – cities from all over the globe.

In this article from the Chicago Tribune, it is estimated that Chicago was saved from 840,000 pounds of carbon dioxide – which would take 104 acres of trees to offset for the hour. While in this AFP article, it is said that the power consumption in Christchurch New Zealand was reduced by almost 13%, and an estimated 8.4% less energy was consumed in Sydney Australia.

Already the countdown to Earth Hour 2009 has begun… Visit www.earthhour.org to register for next year and see the difference that can be achieved on a global level.