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PUBLISHER'S LETTER Saving greenhouse gases Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD Production Manager Greg Swain, B.Sc.(Hons.) Technical Staff John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.) Robert Flynn Rick Walters Reader Services Ann Jenkinson Advertising Manager Brendon Sheridan Phone (03) 9720 9198 Mobile 0416 009 217 Regular Contributors Brendan Akhurst Rodney Champness Garry Cratt, VK2YBX Julian Edgar, Dip.T.(Sec.), B.Ed Mike Sheriff, B.Sc, VK2YFK Ross Tester Philip Watson, MIREE, VK2ZPW Bob Young SILICON CHIP is published 12 times a year by Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd. A.C.N. 003 205 490. All material copyright ©. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Printing: Macquarie Print, Dubbo, NSW. Distribution: Network Distribution Company. Subscription rates: $59 per year in Australia. For overseas rates, see the subscription page in this issue. Editorial & advertising offices: Unit 8, 101 Darley St, Mona Vale, NSW 2103. Postal address: PO Box 139, Collaroy Beach, NSW 2097. Phone (02) 9979 5644. Fax (02) 9979 6503. ISSN 1030-2662 and maximum * Recommended price only. 2  Silicon Chip While it passed with little media comment, Senator Robert Hill recently signed the Kyoto accord which commits Australia to reducing greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2015. Senator Hill has stated that it will be difficult for Australia to meet these targets and no doubt he is right, given much of the negative or downright non-thinking which appears to come from Government and industry circles. Well, I have little doubt that we can reduce our greenhouse gases to meet or exceed the targets but we will have to be far more innovative than we have been up until now. I would go fur­ther and state that we can save a lot of money in the process. As I have indicated in the past, Australia is very wasteful in its use of energy and raw materials and merely reducing just some of this waste will reap big dividends. One big problem that faces Australia right now is the huge amount of waste paper and plastic produced by each and everyone of us. While local councils do their best to encourage recycling it seems that the problem will get a whole lot worse before it gets better, if it ever does. Let’s face it, we will continue to waste paper and plastic and there’s little that can be done about it. Greenies may wring their hands but that’s the way that modern economies operate. The problem with waste paper and plastic is that it is generally more expensive to recycle it into new product than to dump it in landfills. Hence there are huge amounts of waste paper that can’t be used now and probably never will be in the future and the same goes for most of the plastic bottles which are now being collected for recycling. It will eventually all rot down and contribute to greenhouse gases. As I see it, the only practical solution is to burn it all and use the energy released to generate electricity. There must be literally millions of tons of waste paper and plastic going into landfills every year. Doesn’t it make sense to burn this rather than going to the trouble of extracting valuable coal to generate electricity? After all, our coal reserves will eventual­ly run out. Of course, there would need to be a lot of investment in pollution control devices to stop noxious gases being released into the atmosphere but we should being doing this now rather than building any more conventional coal-fired power stations. Every city and sizable town should have its own high tem­perature furnace and generators to dispose of waste. It does not make sense to truck it long distances to power stations way out in the middle of nowhere. The sooner the greenies and the popula­tion in general come to that realisation and see to it that waste-fired power stations are the way to go, the better. Leo Simpson