Ocean Reef Marina - A New Lifestyle Project for West Australians

 

The concept plan for the Ocean Reef Marina complex has been released to the residents of neighbouring suburbs for comment. The concept plan shows how the marina will extend from Hodges Drive along the foreshore, parallel with Ocean Reef Road up to Resolute Way.

The Ocean Reef Marina complex will incorporate first class boating facilities and infrastructure, quality marine recreational facilities and best practice environmental conservation and preservation.

The buildings set on the site will be predominately low-rise buildings of between one & three storeys with three landmark buildings of a sail shape design, being nine, six & five storeys.

The environmental and feasibility studies have confirmed that the Ocean Reef site just to the north of Perth has the necessary development potential.

Some of the facilities of the Ocean Reef project will include an ocean pool, open spaces, underground parking, a beach, a Bush Conservation Walk, helipad, sea sports club, boat pens, boardwalk, amphitheatre, memorial park, sea sports club, fauna underpass, central pier, marine museum, lookout, water park & playground, landmark, island groyne, floating jetty, boat ramp, boat trailer parking, super yacht berths and artificial reef.


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Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

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Solar plant yields water and crops from the desert - Perfect for Western Australia

The WA forest project will use seawater and solar power to grow food in greenhouses across the desert.

Vast greenhouses that use sea water for crop cultivation could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers.

The Sahara Forest Project, which is already running demonstration plants in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, envisages huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), a technology that uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays, creating steam to drive turbines to generate electricity.

The installations would turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation, according to its designers, and do away with the need to dig wells for fresh water, an activity that has depleted aquifers across the world.

Charlie Paton, a member of the team, and the inventor of the Seawater Greenhouse, said the scheme was a proven way to transform arid environments. "Plants need light for growth but they don't like heat beyond a certain point," he said.

Above certain temperatures the amount of water lost through leaves' stomata rises so much plants stop their photosynthesis and do not grow. The solar farm planned by the project runs seawater evaporators, pumping damp, cool air through the greenhouses. This reduces the warmth inside by about 15C, compared with the temperature outside.

At the other end of the greenhouse from the evaporators, water vapour is condensed. Some of this fresh water is used to water the crops, some for cleaning the solar mirrors.

"So we've got conditions in the greenhouse of high humidity and lower temperature," said Paton. "The crops sitting in this slightly steamy, humid condition can grow fantastically well."

The designers said that virtually any vegetables could be grown in the greenhouses. The demonstration plants already produce lettuces, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes. The nutrients to grow the plants could come from local seaweed or be extracted from the seawater.

Michael Pawlyn, of Exploration Architecture, based in London, worked on the Eden Project for seven years and is now part of the Sahara Forest team. He said that the Seawater Greenhouse and CSP provided substantial synergies for each other. "Both technologies work extremely well in hot, dry, desert locations. CSP produces a lot of waste heat and we'd be able to use that to evaporate more seawater from the greenhouse. And CSP needs a supply of clean, de-mineralised water in order for the [electricity generating] turbines to function and to keep the mirrors at peak output. It just so happens the Seawater Greenhouse produces large quantities of this."

Paton said the greenhouse produced more than five times the fresh water needed to water the plants inside, so some of the water could be released to the outside, creating a microclimate for hardier plants such as jatropha, a crop that can be turned into biofuel.

The cost of the Sahara Forest Project could be relatively low as both CSP and Seawater Greenhouses are proven technologies. The designers estimate that building 20 hectares (nearly 50 acres) of greenhouses combined with a 10MW CSP scheme would cost about €80m (£65m).

Paton said groups in countries across the Middle East, including in UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, have expressed interest in possibly funding demonstration projects.

He said use of Seawater Greenhouses could reverse the environmental damage done by the glasshouses already built in places such as the desert region of Almeria, southern Spain, where, constructed over the past 20 years to grow salad crops, they now covered more than 40,000 hectares.

Paton said: "They take water out of the ground something like five times faster than it comes in, so the water table drops and becomes more saline. The whole of Spain is being sucked dry. If one were to convert them all to the Seawater Greenhouse concept it would turn an unsustainable solution into a more sustainable one."

Pawlyn said: "In places like Oman they've effectively sterilised large areas of land by using groundwater that's become increasingly saline. The beauty of the Sahara Forest scheme is that you can reverse that process and turn barren land into biologically productive land." Read more about a solar project perfect for the desert in Western Australia


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No to daylight savings in Western Australia will define us as a distinct global region

Western Australians' gave a unanimous no vote on day light saving, effectively burying the issue for good.

This is a defining moment for Western Australia, one that will ultimately help to set us apart as a regional economic superpower with closer links to parts of Asia than to the rest of Australia.


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Western Australian State Budget 2009

2009-10 Budget

Your State Budget 2009-10

  

Protecting Jobs and Supporting the Economy

  • $100 million rebate of 2009‑10 payroll tax for 6,700 small to medium businesses
  • Rebate of workers’ compensation premiums in 2009‑10 and 2010‑11 to support the retention of over 15,000 first year apprentices and trainees each year $5.7 million boost to tourism marketing in 2009‑10
  • $2 million business resilience program
  • Record $8.3 billion infrastructure investment in 2009‑10, in areas like social housing, schools, roads, hospitals and regional development

Securing the State’s Economic Future

  • $300 million Pilbara Revitilisation Plan and $220 million to double the size of the Ord irrigation area
  • Significant investment in electricity and water infrastructure, including two new high efficiency gas turbines at a total cost of $263 million
  • Extension of Northern Suburbs Railway to Brighton ($147 million over the next four years)
  • Significant progress on Oakajee Port and Rail project and James Price Point LNG Precinct

Supporting Families and Our Community

Law and Order

  • $209 million for 500 additional police personnel and 200 expert civilian staff over five years
  • $655 million over five years for increased prison capacity
  • $49 million over four years to expand the Perth Metropolitan Radio Network

Health

  • Up $282 million (5.9%) in 2009‑10
  • Additional $420 million over five years for increased activity and costs Implementation of ‘four hour rule’ for hospital emergency departments
  • Bringing forward construction of a new Children’s Hospital with work commencing on a $117 million forward works program

Education and Training

  • Up $419 million (11.4%)
  • Improved wages and conditions for teachers
  • $46 million over four years for behaviour management specialists and support for schools
  • Additional $300 million over six years to build or upgrade 14 schools

Child Protection

  • Up $30 million (8.7%) to meet increasing demand
  • $78 million over four years for reform and expansion of residential care for children

Seniors

  • Cost of Living Rebate ($106 million over four years)
  • Security rebates ($10 million over three years)
  • Free off‑peak public transport
  • Country Age Pension Fuel Card ($80 million over five years)

Protecting the State’s Finances

Budget Surpluses

  • $647 million surplus in 2008‑09
  • $409 million surplus in 2009‑10

Corrective Measures

  • 97% of 3% efficiency dividend achieved = $1.3 billion over four years
  • Deferral or cancellation of low priority capital works = $3.0 billion
  • Economic Audit measures = $1.1 billion
  • Total savings of $7.6 billion over five years, with savings redirected to record expenditure on capital works, health, education, and law and order

Controlling Spending

  • Ceiling on public service staffing levels
  • New public sector wages policy in line with inflation


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Western Australia to benefit from $4.5b Budget boost

The Federal Government has committed $4.5 billion to clean energy in the 2009-10 Budget, which it says will reduce emissions and boost employment.

Under the plan, which includes $1 billion in existing funds, the Government aims to have 20 per cent of Australia's electricity coming from renewable sources by 2020.

The funding will include $2.4 billion in low-emissions coal technologies as well as $1.6 billion to position Australia as a world leader in solar energy technology.

The clean energy initiative will also provide $465 million to establish the Renewables Australia body, to support research into renewable energies.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says the funding will stimulate local economies.

"The Australian Government Climate Change Strategy provides the long-term framework and confidence required to create the new jobs and business of a low-pollution future," she said.

"The Government is also making a substantial investment in developing low-carbon energy technologies, giving investors the confidence required to back low-emissions technologies and industries to assist Australia's transition to a low-pollution future."

An additional $300 million will be added to the Climate Change Action Fund under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, however this funding will not be handed out until 2013-14 and will be rolled out over two years. Read on about the Australian clean energy budget


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New life for Perth's heart

Perth's stalled Northbridge project has a new lease of life after tonight's federal budget invested $236 million to kickstart the long-stalled city heart project.

Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese, who visited the site two weeks ago, said the project would "end the divide" in Perth's heart.

Western Australia also received a second vote of confidence from the Rudd Government when it also decided to invest $339 million in the new deepwater port and rail project at Oakajee, 20 kilometres north of Geraldton.

Infrastructure projects totalling $22 billion in 2009-10 are the Federal Government's direct response to job losses, which Treasurer Wayne Swan predicted would rise to 8.5 per cent by June 2011.

Mr Albanese said the Northbridge rail link would revitalise Perth's central city.

"The project will lower the rail line and will mean that the city of Perth can end the divide that is there because of the current rail line," Mr Albanese said.

"You have the two sides of the rail line not being linked. This will lead to a massive improvement in Perth as a city."

The Northbridge project will mean the lower the central city reach of the Perth to Fremantle rail line and build a new rail platform, freeing 50,000 square metres of land for urban development.

The West Australian Government has already committed matching funds to the project, Mr Albanese said.

"I visited the site with the Prime Minister just two weeks ago and this is a great project for Perth." Read on about the new Perth Northbridge redevelopment


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Renewable Energy for Western Australian

There are many options for using clean renewable energy sources in the home. Systems based on solar and wind are becoming increasingly accessible. This fact sheet outlines key considerations.

Electricity accounts for about 53 per cent of the energy used in Australian households, but creates around 87 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions because most electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. Coal, oil and gas are non-renewable energy sources.

Renewable power systems use renewable energy sources to produce electricity with
very low greenhouse gas emissions. read on about Renewable Energy


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Australian Governments Energy Efficient Homes Package

What it means for you

The Australian Government's Energy Efficient Homes Package is a $3.9 billion package to improve the energy rating of Australian homes - cutting their energy waste, making them more comfortable and helping households save up to 40 per cent on their electricity bills.

Under this program the Australian Government is offering:

  • ceiling insulation worth up to $1,600 to all Australian home owner-occupiers with limited or no ceiling insulation
  • or a $1,600 rebate on the costs of installing a solar hot water system
  • help for renters, with a rebate for landlords and tenants on the costs of insulating rental properties.

Read more about energy efficient homes program.


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Nature's success (despite us) inspires green-building mimics

If you think plants and animals have a lot to teach us, consider their next field: real estate development.

A small but growing number of architects, building engineers and scientists who design building products are looking to animals and plants for inspiration to address the challenge of being kind to the Earth while retooling the manmade environment.

Wild creatures have been adapting to their natural worlds longer than us and may have answers to the riddle of building shelter while conserving resources. And avoiding pollution. And slowing down the burning of coal and oil for electricity and so many modern comforts.

An Oregon State University chemist studied mussels clinging to rocks at a Newport-area beach and found a naturally occurring chemical model for a new adhesive to replace the formaldehyde that commonly emits toxic fumes in kitchen cabinets.

Farther afield, in Zimbabwe, where searing summers boost sky-high air-conditioning costs, architects looked to termites. They found that the tall dirt termite mounds we see only on the Discovery channel may well be situated in 100-plus-degree environments but have interior tunnels, top to bottom, averaging 87 degrees Fahrenheit.

That would be called passive air conditioning, in which hot air is naturally expelled, trapping cool air within. Buildings can do that, the architects figured, so they designed and built a shopping mall/office center that cools itself, mimicking the mound. Read on


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