Green research

Scientists and engineers throughout New Zealand are working towards a more sustainable future. Words by Bette Flagler. Photographs: Graeme mitchelt anyon/photo new zealand; g prentice/istockphoto

Planning contest

The Sustainable Habitat Challenge (SHAC), an initiative of Otago Polytechnic, is bringing representatives from just about all our tertiary institutions together. This collaborative project was launched in late 2008 and challenges teams to design and build sustainable housing in their local communities. Ten teams took up the dare to develop low-energy and low-resource-consuming housing. The winner will be announced at the SHAC symposium in Dunedin on 19 to 21 November. www.shac.org.nz

Better wine through waste

Shells from mussel farms and glass from kerbside recycling are being tried as reflective mulches in vineyards through projects at Lincoln University’s Centre for Viticulture and Oenology. The mulches are intended to create a vineyard microclimate by increasing the amount of light that penetrates the grape canopy. The mussel-shell project is being run in collaboration with Neudorf Vineyards in Nelson and has been under way for four vintages. Although grape maturity, Brix, acidity and skin colour have not shown consistent differences compared to the control vines, perceived qualities such as mouth feel, complexity and smoothness have. Using crushed glass as mulch was a TerraNova initiative and is being run at Sandihurst Vineyard in Canterbury. The results there include better quality, yield and water retention, improved weed suppression and an increased temperature at bud height – and that can make a real difference when unexpected spring frosts come.

Putting it back where it came from

Places such as aluminium smelters, steel mills and coal-fired power stations emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Approximately
10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are emitted annually by New Zealand’s top four stationary sources of industrial carbon dioxide (as a comparison, your car might emit two or three tonnes). GNS Science is testing a process that captures the carbon dioxide at the source, turns it into a liquid, then safely stores the liquid deep underground in geological structures such as depleted gas reservoirs or empty coal mines. Other countries including the United States, Canada and Norway are also researching storing carbon dioxide in this way.

Beachgoers take note

It might seem as though shingle beaches are just a bunch of little stones but they are some of New Zealand’s significant and unique ecosystems. However, they are under constant threat from coastal development and also are susceptible to damage by things such as 4WD vehicles and agricultural activities. Occurring where rivers bring shingle to the coast or where coastal cliffs are eroded, shingle beaches can be found throughout New Zealand but are most common on the east and south coasts. Their biodiversity has never been surveyed and Landcare Research is now leading a study aimed at describing the flora and fauna of shingle beaches, determining major threats to the beaches and then developing a framework for effective conservation management. Shingle beaches, by the way, are made up of a mixture of sand, water-smoothed gravel and cobbles; they are not just a bunch of little stones.

The next greatest thing?

When biomass (such as forestry by-products, municipal, agricultural or other organic waste) is burned under oxygen-limited conditions, the result is a very finely grained, very porous charcoal called biochar. When biochar is applied to certain kinds of soils improvements are made, including increases in water-holding capacity and crop production and improvements in fertilizer-use efficiency; also, biochar application can lead to improved soil conditions for earthworm populations. (These changes are pretty much what happens naturally following forest fires – that’s why things grow so well when a forest recovers from a fire.) What makes biochar even more appealing is that the materials that are burned in its creation contain carbon and locking that carbon into the biochar results in a net decrease of carbon in the atmosphere. And, because biochar is so chemically stable, its high carbon content can reside in the soil for hundreds or even thousands of years, making biochar applications a potential long-term carbon sink. Research organizations around the world are trying to understand how the qualities of biochar can best be used; in
this country the majority of work is led
by Associate Professor Marta Camps who heads the New Zealand Biochar Research Centre at Massey University.

A cold wind

Think Antarctica and pristine landscapes come to mind. But powering research stations there has historically depended on burning diesel in generators. Now Antarctica New Zealand, which operates our research station at Scott Base on Ross Island, and Meridian Energy have partnered to build the southernmost wind farm in the world. New Zealand and the United States run a joint logistics pool on Ross Island and this project will be part of Antarctica New Zealand’s contribution to that. While the three

turbines won’t provide all the power needed by the two countries’ bases, Antarctica New Zealand says the project will cut fuel consumption by approximately 11 percent per year and will result in a reduction of greenhouse gas production by 1242 tonnes of CO2 annually. The project has been under investigation since 2005 and the first stage is expected to be fully operational by the end of February 2010. Further developments with the potential to reduce power plant fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50 percent are under investigation.
 

Cleaner, greener paint.

in an effort to break the reliance on gas and oil for high-performance paints, Crown research institute IRL has partnered with Resene Paints to develop waterborne paints based on resins made from up to 80 percent sustainable ingredients.

The soft side of cities

Developing sustainable hard infrastructure – such as greener roads, cleaner energy and better paint – is a step in the right direction but in order to sustainably meet the social, economic, cultural and environmental needs of New Zealanders there also needs to be a shift in people’s behaviour. A new research project at the Nelson-based Cawthron Institute is focusing on just that, says Sustainable Business Group Manager Jim Sinner. The project, which is being led by Dr Marg O’Brien, a social ecologist who specializes in work that is at the interface of communities and the environment, is aimed at shifting the conversation from “what needs to happen” to “how to make it happen”. The work, which began in October, will continue until 2012 and will, among other things, develop new ways of measuring behavioural change and the capacity for people – and communities – to change. Four communities at the top of the South Island, Nelson, Takaka, Picton and Kaikoura, have been selected for the project because they all depend on natural resources and are vulnerable to climate change but are diverse in size, location and progress towards sustainable development.

New options for solar panels

Producing a recyclable, cheap and more efficient option for currently available photovoltaic solar panels is the goal of research being carried out by an international team of scientists led by Massey University’s Associate Professor Ashton Partridge. Solar panels that we use now are made of silicon, an expensive and fragile product to both make and install. Professor Partridge and his group are developing an alternative plastic tile that will be 100 percent recyclable and will use coloured dyes that convert the sun’s energy into electricity. The tiles could be used to cover an entire house roof, generating enough electricity for the house and two electric vehicles. The group has a working proof-of-concept now but it will be another five or so years before you can put the tiles on your house. Solenza, a spin-out of the University of Waikato, has also developed a new method to generate electricity on the roof. This company’s technology integrates long-run roofing iron with a solar energy transfer system that uses the roof’s surface area to convert solar energy directly into electricity for commercial, industrial or household use. Water is heated as part of the process, a significant benefit as heating water accounts for up to 40 percent of a household’s electricity bill.
 

Measuring energy

In 2005 BRANZ completed the Household Energy End-use Project (HEEP), a 10-year study which measured and analyzed the way energy is used in New Zealand households. Four hundred houses throughout the country were monitored for 11 months. The goal was to understand current national household energy requirements and use that data to model future demand, evaluate the implications of building and appliance performance changes and plan for future trends. In August of this year BRANZ launched a follow-up to that survey which will examine water and energy consumption in commercial buildings. The commercial building sector is responsible for four percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions and spends nearly a billion dollars each year on energy. The Building Energy End-use Study (BEES) will take four years and will examine more than 500 non-residential buildings of varying sizes throughout the country. BRANZ expects the results of the research to provide opportunities to improve energy and water-use efficiency, provide greater comfort and productivity and result in cost savings to business.