The international conference on Renewable Energy for Sustainable Developments in Asia Pacific Region

The ETC has had another productive year thanks to the marvellous efforts of all its staff, students and volunteers. It included the completion of various research and consulting projects, formation of new industry partnerships and the organisation of international conferences. Three international conferences were organised or partly organised by the ETC in 2007. The international conference on Renewable Energy for Sustainable Developments in Asia Pacific Region, sponsored by the World Renewable Energy Network (WREN) took place in Fremantle in February. The conference was opened by the Premier Alan Carpenter who also launched the State Government’s Climate Action Plan.

Professor Ali Sayigh, Editor in Chief of the International Journal Renewable Energy and Director General of WREN expressed his delight in the success of the conference with 2 keynote addresses, 14 plenary papers, 87 papers and 130 delegates from 26 countries. He praised Dr Kuruvilla Mathew and the ETC in hosting the conference.

The Asia Pacific Regional Conference of the International Water Association (IWA) took place in October 2007 and Dr Kuruvilla Mathew and staff at the ETC were active in bringing this conference to Perth. Professor Goen Ho was Co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Region of IWA together with Dr Jim Gill (CEO of Water Corporation). There were 190 oral presentations, 150 poster presentations and 30 exhibitions. The ETC gave five presentations at the conference.

L to R - Professor Ali Sayigh, Premier Alan Carpenter, Professor Nick Costa (Chair of ETC Board), Professor Goen Ho and Dr Kuruvilla Mathew.

Conferences and international projects

Dr Stewart Dallas and Dr Martin Anda were part of the conference organising committee for the Society for Sustainability and Environmental Engineering’s (SSEE), first international conference held in Perth during November. The ETC gave five presentations at the conference.

Our commitment to assisting developing countries continued in 2007 with Professor Goen Ho and Dr Jeff Sturman conducting workshops on ‘Sustainable Sanitation’ and ‘Water Auditing and Water Conservation’ respectively at the Academy for Graduate Studies in Tripoli, Libya. The five day workshops were conducted in November and were based on books written by the two authors.

Dr Stewart Dallas and Davina Boyd (PhD candidate) travelled back again to Merdeka University Malang, East Java in June this year to hold a four day workshop on sustainable sanitation and wetland technology which followed up the outcomes from the workshop ETC staff held there last year. It was a great success helping to develop the skills and abilities of the participants to raise awareness in the areas of water and sanitation and included a team-building exercise with all participants getting hands-on to build a reedbed for wastewater treatment at a local seminary.

There was great media attention with several local television stations and newspapers carrying stories of the workshop. Both Davina and Stewart are continuing the strong relationship established with Gunawan (ex-PhD student of Goen Ho) and his team at the Institute for Environmental Management and Technology (IEMT) to develop further collaborative projects in the near future.

Dr Stewart Dallas and Davina Boyd at the Sustainable sanitation and wetland technology workshop Malang, East Java.

Austcare project

Dr Martin Anda and Dr Jaya Nair flew to Banda Aceh in June this year as a part of an Austcare project to identify resource recovery livelihood projects from the Tsunami and post tsunami waste generated in the Island.

Drs Anda and Nair will return to Aceh in February 2008 to provide targeted training to local NGOs funded by Austcare to set up specific resource recovery projects.

L to R – Martin Anda with Austcare translator Kurnia, Nias Island waste recycler and UNDP earthquake environmental engineer during his trip to Aceh for the Tsunami Waste Management Liveihoods Recovery Project.

Sustainable urban villages

During 2007 the ETC has continued to work closely with Bridgewater Lifestyle Village (BWLV), a community of 390 homes near Mandurah, Western Australia. The BWLV has been developed by National Lifestyle Villages (NLV), with the team from the ETC currently conducting research to achieve water, waste and energy conservation and sustainability.

ETC PhD researchers sponsored by NLV and the Premier’s Water Foundation include John Hunt who continued his monitoring of the water cycle at BWLV and Beth Strang who commenced her community workshops with residents on management of greywater recycling. ETC Honours researcher Shaun Jamieson was awarded First

Class for his thesis and subsequently took up a full time post at NLV while still maintaining contact with ETC for specific areas of research into wastewater management. ETC graduate research assistant Kirsi Kauhaunen successfully completed her NLV-funded study into mosquito monitoring of the constructed wetlands (ETTs) for greywater treatment at BWLV and was able to verify that these systems had been designed to prevent mosquito breeding.

Dr Jaya Nair successfully completed her Strategic Waste Initiatives Scheme (SWIS) funded project on waste management at BWLV. Dr Nair had supervised a number of ETC researchers to conduct waste audits, design recycling depots and composting plants, and prepare training materials for residents. The innovative, first for Australia, resource recovery systems are now under construction at BWLV with some parts, including the Asset Recovery Centres (ARCs) already operational.

We are very pleased to be associated with NLV, as they were the overall winner for the 2007 National Banksia Awards for the Built Environment category. The ETC staff and research students have been instrumental in working with NLV to receive this outstanding nationally recognised award. NLV were also finalists for the HIA GreenSmart Award for Development of the Year and overall winner of the Water Efficiency Award, in April 2007, for the BWLV.