The Victorian government recently called for Expressions of interest for long term private managers to take on running the Lake Mountain and Mount Baw Baw Alpine Resorts. Tender applications have now closed.
As noted recently on this site, the Victorian Government has previously decided to open up the state’s national parks to further development and private investment. The depth of this agenda is not yet clear.
The government describes Mt Baw Baw as “an all-season alpine resort, open year round for summer and winter adventures. It is Victoria’s affordable, family friendly ‘learn to ski’ destination. Activities include downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross country skiing, tobogganing, terrain parks and other event in the white season, plus walking, hiking, cycling, downhill and mountain biking and a number of events in the green season”.
And Lake Mountain as Lake Mountain is a Crown Land reserve which is open year round for summer and winter experiences. It is Victoria’s affordable family getaway in the great outdoors, and is Australia’s premier cross country skiing and snow play resort. Only a two hour drive from Melbourne, Lake Mountain is Melbourne’s closest alpine resort.
Given the prognosis of expected warmer conditions and less reliable snowfalls as a result of climate change, any private operator considering taking on a new project in these lower elevation resorts will need to be building up the ‘green season’ activity at the resorts.
This begs a fairly obvious question: with the pro development agenda of the current state government and a limited ability to run economically viable resorts based on snow activity at lower elevations, what devil in the detail might emerge once the new operators are announced?
Let’s hope this doesn’t become an opportunity for new operators to radically increase the footprint and impact of activity at these resorts.
I know I should probably stop bagging out our local ski resorts for being useless on climate change, but there are so many inspiring examples from overseas that show what is possible with a little bit of vision.
The following is an announcement about a new collaboration between an alliance of US-based mountain resorts, and Protect Our Winters.
The announcement is vague on the details of exactly what the alliance will do, and highlights ‘cross promotion’ opportunities, but at least it seems intent on putting climate change on the agenda for each of the resorts, and mentions advocacy as one of the activities that will be undertaken.
The Mountain Collective, an alliance of independent mountain resorts, and Protect Our Winters (POW) are proud to announce a new and innovative partnership with the mission of uniting the winter sports community on the important issue of climate change. Both groups have worked independently to promote this environmental cause, and this collaboration will make an even bigger impact.
Protect Our Winters is the environmental center point of the winter sports community’s fight against climate change. The Mountain Collective is comprised of six iconic destinations representing the core of the skiing and snowboarding world including Alta, Aspen/Snowmass, Jackson Hole, Mammoth Mountain, Snowbird, Squaw Valley/Alpine Meadows, and Whistler Blackcomb. Together, POW and these high profile resorts can impact the entire community and industry with incredible effectiveness.
“Through this groundbreaking partnership, The Mountain Collective has re-defined what a pass should be. It not only represents access to six world-class destinations, but the foresight to realize that climate change is a threat to our sport and with that access, comes a responsibility to protect it for the long term,” said POW’s Executive Director Chris Steinkamp.
“Partnering with a leading organization like POW serves to reinforce The Mountain Collective as the most forward-thinking alliance of its kind,” said Christian Knapp, vice president marketing, Aspen Skiing Company. “Together we can leverage the power of our brands to promote meaningful climate advocacy that resonates with mountain resorts and snow sports enthusiasts alike.”
The partnership will include ongoing advocacy and cross-marketing initiatives, education and community outreach to raise awareness and promote environmental sustainability. Additionally, POW members who purchase a Mountain Collective Pass will receive a year’s subscription to Powder magazine, and anyone who purchases a new Mountain Collective Pass will be offered a free one-year membership to POW.
The Impact of Climate Change on Winter Sports
The last decade was the warmest on record [NOAA, 2010]. Fewer ski days would not only reduce enjoyment for skiers, boarders and other winter sports enthusiasts, but also cause significant economic impact to an industry that supports 965,000 people and contributes $66 billion to the U.S. economy alone [OIA 2006, 2012]. Without action to reduce emissions, scientists predict that by 2039 the Northeast ski season will last less than 100 days and the probability of being open by Christmas will decline below 75% [Scott et al. (2008)].
The following figures from Snowsports Industries America are some analysis of the most recent Northern hemisphere winter. The short message is that overall visitation to resorts is down slightly against recent years.
The report notes that “snowfall got a late start this season, really getting underway after the Christmas holiday. The lack of early season snow affected all snow sports except freeski and telemark.” With climate change predicted to increasingly impact on snow quantity, we keep getting glimpses of possible futures under global warming scenarios – of later and more erratic winters.
Here in Australia, we have had a very erratic winter so far, with good snowfalls being followed by heavy rainfall and warm conditions. In the VIC alps we lost almost the entire snowbase in mid July after solid falls early in the month. Just a few degrees in temperature can make all the difference to whether precipitation comes as rain or snow. And as the report Caring for our Australian Alps Catchments found, the Alps face an average temperature rise of between 0.6 and 2.9 degrees by 2050, depending on how much action the international community takes to combat climate change.
There are a range of reasons why people might ski or board, or do something else, and lift prices and overall costs of being in a resort is a big one. But poor snow conditions is another obvious one. Just ask anyone who manages accommodation in the Alps and they will tell you that snow falls correlate with booking trends. With less reliable snow, people are likely to do something else, or go overseas if they can afford to do so. Climate change impacts are a factor we ignore at our peril.
In the US there is a strong movement within the snowsports community which is working to encourage people and governments to act on climate change. Protect our Winters is the best known of these. You do have to wonder why the community here has been so slow to respond, and why we have so few prominent people speaking out? The one industry initiative Keep Winter Cool has dwindled off in recent years as resorts focus their attention on rebranding themselves as year round destinations. In climate change terms, this is called ‘adaptation’. But without ‘mitigation’ – action to reduce emissions, we seem doomed to the type of futures forecast in reports like Caring for our Australian Alps Catchments.
The Baillieu government has redrawn the boundaries of the Alpine National Park to allow the Falls Creek resort to expand.
On Thursday morning Environment Minister Ryan Smith announced the government would excise almost 10 hectares of land from the national park and add it to the adjoining Falls Creek Alpine Resort area.
The boundary change follows numerous requests from the Falls Creek resort to expand its operations. The resort wants to develop non-winter tourism activities and a high-altitude training camp for athletes.
The changes mean the resort will now be allowed to expand down to the shore of the Rock Valley Storage lake.
In exchange, the government will add almost 12 hectares of land on the slopes of Mount McKay to the park, which Mr Smith said contained snow gum woodland.
“Victoria’s alpine resorts make significant contributions to their local economies and to tourism in the state,’’ Mr Smith said.
‘‘This amendment is part of a long-term strategy to increase visitation, including in the non-winter months and ensure all Victorians can access and enjoy their natural environment,’’ he said.
“We want to encourage more altitude training, lake events, road cycling and mountain biking.’’
Mr Smith said the proposed amendments were part of Baillieu government’s plan to enable new ‘‘environmentally appropriate investments’’ on public land, including national parks, forests and alpine resorts.
In August the government decided to open up Victorian national parks to private tourism development following recommendations by the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission.
Guidelines to deem what development will be allowed in parks are still being finalised by Mr Smith, who will have final say over what projects would go ahead.
The decision to redraw the Alpine National Park boundaries to allow an expansion of the Falls Creek resort is separate to the August decision.
The Victorian National Parks Association’s Philip Ingamells said the process to redraw the Alpine National Park boundaries had been secretive.
“The government seems to think that if someone wants a development in a national park, they can simply excise that area from the park without any public consultation,’’ he said.
‘‘Management of our finest natural areas should be transparent, honest and based on the best scientific advice. We need to know what other developments they are planning for our magnificent national parks.”
Comment was being sought from Falls Creek Alpine Resort management.
The Alpine National Park was the site of the Baillieu government’s controversial cattle grazing trial, which was blocked by the Commonwealth under national environment law.
The federal Greens have been successful in getting a Senate Inquiry into extreme weather. This is a significant opportunity for the government to consider the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on local communities, landscapes and economies in the Alpine region.
It would be useful if you or your business or group were be able to make a brief submission to the inquiry about the threat of extreme weather and climate change in your community, and the impacts it has already had or is predicted to have. See below for some ideas on making a submission.
Time is short – we only have until January 18.
You may also want to make a formal request for the committee to visit your area and host a public hearing to take submissions from people who live in or are reliant on good winters to keep the local economy strong.
The snow industry – the canary in the cage when it comes to climate change?
The winter sports industry/community is deeply dependent upon predictable, heavy snowfall, but climate change is expected to contribute to warmer winters, reduced snowfall, and shorter snow seasons.
A recent US study, commissioned by Protect Our Winters (POW) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), shows that the U.S. ski and snowmobile winter sports industry is currently worth an estimated $12.2 billion each year, and has already felt the direct impact of decreased winter snowpack and rising average winter temperatures.
As the authors note in the report, “climate change spells trouble for all businesses dependent on winter weather including snowboarding, snowshoeing and skiing. The shrinking numbers of winter sports tourists also affect restaurants, lodging, gas stations, grocery stores, bars” and other businesses.
Bogong High Plains fires, 2007
Here in Australia, winters are already becoming warmer and more erratic, and this impacts on the quality and quantity of snow.
According to Dr. David Bain, in the high Alps from 1950 to 2007 there has been an increase in winter temperatures approaching 1°C, and over much the same period (1957 to 2011), Australia has seen a slow decrease in snow depth. The mid-winter snow depths have only decreased a small amount, whereas spring snow depth has dropped by almost 40%. The obvious impact here is that the resort season becomes shorter, making it more difficult to make a profit on infrastructure that is located in resorts year round.
While resorts have invested in extra snow making capacity and are seeking to build visitation outside of the winter months, the majority of infrastructure is based around winter sports. Snow making will become more expensive in coming years as energy prices rise, and this will impact on resort profit margins and hence viability. As was highlighted in the 2012 document the Alpine Resorts Strategic Plan, “cost pressures are a major problem for many on-mountain businesses and site holders”.
Science suggests that without determined action to reduce climate change, we can expect to see less and less reliable snow falls in coming years.
According to the government commissioned report ‘Caring for our Australian Alps Catchments’, the Alps face an average temperature rise of between 0.6 and 2.9 degrees centigrade by 2050, depending on how much action the international community takes to combat climate change.
Rain, snow and other precipitation is expected to decrease up to 24% over the next four decades, accompanied by more bushfires, droughts, severe storms and rapid runoff, causing heavy erosion. Additionally, what precipitation we get could become more erratic. For instance, it is likely there will be more storm events in summer, which could be expected to impact on outdoor recreation and especially organised events like bike rides and festivals. The 2003 and 2006/2007 fires in Alpine regions are an indicator of what could come with enhanced global warming. These shut down tourism across sections of eastern Victoria, with dramatic impacts on businesses reliant on summer tourism.
The Caring for our Australian Alps Catchments report says that our ski slopes could be completely bare of natural winter snow by 2050 unless concerted action is taken against global warming.
The erratic weather will also be felt in winter, with corresponding impacts on economies. The US report notes that in that country, the downhill ski resort industry is estimated to have lost $1.07 billion in aggregated revenue between low and high snow fall years over the last decade: if the snow is bad, many people will simply cancel their holiday. So even if there is some snow cover, erratic weather can still have impacts.
All of this will be a disaster for skiers, boarders and all who spend their time in the Alps.
Buffalo Plateau from Big Hill
But it will also be devastating for local economies. In Victoria, the alpine resorts are estimated to have contributed $570 million and 5,800 Full-Time Equivalent jobs to the Victorian economy in winter alone for 2011 (source: Alpine Resorts Strategic Plan 2012, p13). The flow on effects of the industry is felt in towns throughout north east Victoria and around the Snowy Mountains, including the development of niche agriculture economies which is, in part, supported by snow-based tourism. To take one example of local benefits, the ‘gross regional profit’ of Alpine Shire was increased by about $130 million in 2011 because of the presence of the alpine resorts. The negative impacts of the bushfires on Murrindindi Shire in this same period indicate what climate change and extreme weather events could mean in future for all shires across the state.
According to the Economic Significance of the Australian Alpine Resorts report (2011), the combined benefit for the three Australian States with alpine resorts in 2005 is calculated to be $1.3 billion with 17,050 annual equivalent employment opportunities.
As the US report concludes: “all of this translates into less snow and fewer people on the slopes, which results in massive economic hardship for resorts, states, local communities, businesses and their employees.” Please write a submission
In order to protect the alpine environments that we love and the many thousands of people and businesses who depend on a snow-filled season, we must act now to support policies that protect our climate, and in turn, our slopes.
Apart from any direct impacts you are concerned about, you might want to mention that the latest science is showing that the impacts of climate change are happening faster than expected, and that communities will require funding to deal with the worst predicted outcomes. There must be greater community engagement about adaptation to climate change. However, responding to climate change (‘adaptation’) is not enough: we must also respond to the causes of climate change – by reducing emissions (‘mitigation’).
Check here for climate change scenarios for the Alps.
If you would like the Senate Inquiry to visit your town to hear your concerns about climate change and extreme weather, please check here.
Submissions are due on 18 January with the final report due from the Senate Committee on 20th March.
Lake Mountain, Melbourne’s closest and most affordable alpine resort, will soon be given over to developers in a long‐term lease that effectively privatises public land.
“The Baillieu Government should not be acting like a real estate agent for land that belongs to all Victorians. It should be managing our natural heritage responsibly, for future generations,” the Victorian National Parks Association’s Phil Ingamells said today.
“The Baillieu Government’s announcement that it is handing over management of the Lake Mountain Alpine Resort to a private recreation company, in preparation for auctioning the leasehold, may be the first of many such developments. Our alpine resorts, national parks and other public land are all vulnerable to this policy,” he said.
Importantly the Alpine Resorts Act, which governs the management of Victoria’s alpine resorts, makes it clear that resorts are for the use of all sections of the community, not just the big spenders.
A recent State Services Authority inquiry into Victoria’s alpine resort management said the resorts need to provide for a far greater section of the community, not just high‐end tourism.
The inquiry also recommended that resorts such as Lake Mountain, which will be the first to lose their snow cover as global warming increases, should be placed under the management of Parks Victoria.
“But the Baillieu Government seems determined to hand our finest bits of public land over to private control, and make them playgrounds for the wealthy,” said Mr Ingamells.
“Developments in private hands inevitably grow. This is a short‐sighted move, and one that will be very hard to reverse. Victorians of the future will almost certainly look back at this time with great regret.”
The following comes from the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, so should be read essentially as propaganda.
I would be interested in any industry/ community/ environmental perspectives on the new plan.
From the Minister for Environment and Climate Change
Image: Brush Ski Club
The long-term viability of Victoria’s alpine resorts will be strengthened following the tabling in Parliament today of a new strategic plan by Minister for Environment and Climate Change Ryan Smith.
The Alpine Resorts Strategic Plan 2012 will shape the long-term direction of Victoria’s six alpine resorts of Mt Hotham, Falls Creek, Mt Buller, Mt Stirling, Mt Baw Baw and Lake Mountain, ensuring they remain attractive tourist destinations, financially viable and capable of attracting new investment.
Mr Smith said the strategic plan recognised the fact that the winter season was the economic engine of the resorts, however opportunities existed to expand their array of iconic non-winter events and investment opportunities.
Under the strategic plan, each of the resorts will prepare an alpine resort master plan ensuring their environmental values are protected and providing the commercial sector greater certainty about the resorts’ long-term directions.
“The Alpine Resorts Strategic Plan 2012 outlines a vision for the resorts and a plan of actions to ensure they are vibrant, growing and financially sustainable places well into the future and their environmental values are preserved,” Mr Smith said.
“The strategic plan sets out a more co-operative and integrated approach to investment, promotion, management and use across the resorts.
“The plan focuses on paying more attention to the long-term financial viability of the alpine resorts, focusing on the winter economic ‘engine’ and building on the year-round competitive strengths of individual resorts.
“Victoria’s alpine resorts make a significant contribution to the State economy, especially in regional Victoria and the Coalition Government is committed to ensuring they remain viable into the future.”
In 2011 the resorts were visited by more than 1.2 million people, contributed $570 million to Gross State Product and generated around 5,800 full-time equivalent jobs for winter alone.
Mr Smith said the alpine resort master plans would simplify planning and leasing decisions and allow high priority development opportunities to be identified through the Victorian Alpine Resorts Development Program.
“We need to make sure that resort services and infrastructure are delivered efficiently and with appropriate levels of accountability.
Investment opportunities need to be more co-ordinated and non-commercial activities will need to be reviewed,” Mr Smith said.
The strategic plan proposes a new financial management framework for the alpine resorts to sustain their significant economic contribution to the State’s economy and to their surrounding regions.
The strategic plan also outlines actions to build partnerships across sectors and increase access for Victorians of all backgrounds.
“Victorian alpine resorts are on public land and are managed on behalf of all Victorians, so it is important we ensure alpine experiences are accessible to people of differing cultural backgrounds, ability levels and economic circumstances,” Mr Smith said.
“Major initiatives include a focus on growing visitation by enhancing the visitor experience and further development of the resorts. This means maximising benefits from winter visitation, non-winter or “green season” visitation and more integrated marketing,” Mr Smith said.
Activities such as horse riding, bush walking, road and mountain bike riding, fishing, festivals and events and even high-altitude training are set to become a non-winter feature under the new strategic plan.
The Alpine Resorts Strategic Plan 2102 includes opportunities to improve the regulatory environment and initiatives to address impediments to economic opportunities in the resorts, including:
· planning and leasing arrangements;
· native vegetation offsets; and
· bushfire and emergency management.
The Alpine Resorts (Management) Act 1997 requires the Alpine Resorts Coordinating Council to conduct a five-yearly review of its strategic plan.
Extensive public consultation was conducted as part of the development of the Alpine Resorts Strategic Plan. A total of 250 people participated in workshops in Melbourne and at the resorts, and 66 submissions were received which were considered during development of the strategy.
Mountain Journal has previously covered some of the initiatives of US ski resorts attempting to become more sustainable and also respond to the threats of climate change.
This recent summary of the situation there mirrors whats happening in Australia – with resorts struggling with poor natural snow, attempting to provide cover through snow making, and re-braninding themselves as year round resorts.
Helena Williams had a great day of skiing at New Hampshire’s Mount Sunapee shortly after the resort opened at the end of November, but when she came back the next day, the temperatures had warmed and turned patches of the trails from white to brown.
“It’s worrisome for the start of the season,” said Williams, 18, a member of the ski team at nearby Colby-Sawyer College. “The winter is obviously having issues deciding whether it wants to be cold or warm.”
Her angst is well founded. Memories linger of last winter, when meager snowfall and unseasonably warm temperatures kept many skiers off the slopes. It was the fourth-warmest winter on record since 1896, forcing half the nation’s ski areas to open late and almost half to close early.
Whether this particular winter turns out to be warm or cold, scientists say that climate change means the long-term outlook for skiers everywhere is bleak.
The threat of global warming hangs over almost every US resort, from Sugarloaf in Maine to Squaw Valley in California. As temperatures rise, analysts predict that scores of the nation’s ski centers, especially those at lower elevations and latitudes, will eventually vanish.
Under certain warming scenarios, more than half of the 103 ski resorts in the Northeast will not be able to maintain a season length of 100 days by 2039, according to a study to be published next year by Daniel Scott, director of the Interdisciplinary Center on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.
By then, no ski area in Connecticut or Massachusetts is likely to be economically viable, Scott said. Only 7 of 18 resorts in New Hampshire and 8 of 14 in Maine will be. New York’s 36 ski areas, most of them in the western part of the state, will have shrunk to nine.
Rockies
In the Rockies, where early conditions have also been spotty, average winter temperatures are expected to rise as much as 7 degrees by the end of the century. Park City, Utah, could lose all of its snowpack by then. In Aspen, Colo., the snowpack could be confined to the top quarter of the mountain. So far this season, several ski resorts in Colorado have been forced to push back their opening dates.
“We need another six or eight inches to get open,” said Ross Terry, the assistant general manager of Sunlight Mountain, near Aspen, which has pushed back its opening day to Friday from Dec. 7.
The warming trend “spells economic devastation for a winter sports industry deeply dependent upon predictable, heavy snowfall,” said another report, released last week by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Protect Our Winters, an organisation founded to spur action against climate change.
Between 2000 and 2010, the report said, the $10.7 billion ski and snowboarding industry, with centers in 38 states and which employs 187,000 people directly or indirectly, lost $1.07 billion in revenue when comparing each state’s best snowfall years with its worst snowfall years.
Even in the face of such dire long-range predictions, many in the industry remain optimistic. Karl Stone, the marketing director for Ski New Hampshire (a trade group), said good winters tended to come after bad ones — the winter of 2010-11 was one of the snowiest in recent memory — and that a blizzard could erase a warm spell. The basic dynamic he lives with is unpredictability; some areas that were warm last week have snow this week and vice versa.
“Things can change quickly, thanks to one storm, and that’s usually how it works this time of year,” he said, noting the current on-again, off-again snow pattern.
On a warm day last week, when the thermometer reached 51, Bruce McCloy, director of marketing and sales here at Mount Sunapee, was generally upbeat about the coming season, but he could not ignore the brown slopes outside his office window.
“The real problem with a day like this is that you can’t make more snow,” he said. “There are only so many days until Christmas, and we need so many days at certain temperatures to get the whole mountain done.”
Even in the Rockies, it is difficult to find enough water to make snow. After last year’s dry winter and a parched, sweltering summer, reservoirs are depleted, streams are low, and snowpack levels stand at 41 percent of their historical average.
September view
At Sunlight in Colorado, the creek that supplies the pond that, in turn, provides water for snow guns has slowed to a near-trickle.
“It’s a nice day — for September,” said Greg Ralph, the marketing director at Monarch Mountain, which depends exclusively on natural snow. Monarch was scheduled to open the day before Thanksgiving but has pushed back that date to Friday.
Ralph estimated that 250 employees at Monarch have been “on hold” as the resort languished in the unseasonable warmth.
Concerns about global warming are intensifying at a time when the industry has seen little growth. While ski seasons have swung between epic and terrible over the last 30 years, the number of ski visits nationally from 1979, when the industry started keeping records, to 2011 has grown at a compounded annual rate of only 0.6 percent. Counting 2012 would put the growth rate closer to zero.
The chief reasons, according to people in the industry, are the aging of baby boomers, long skiing’s most active enthusiasts, and the fierce competition for time, whether from Caribbean cruises or computers.
Add something called “backyard syndrome,” in which urbanites who live in easy driving range of a ski resort — say, Bostonians, who live 90 minutes from Sunapee — are reluctant to head north unless they see snow at home. Even when live webcams show a resort blanketed in white, McCloy said, it is hard to move urbanites to the mountains “until they’re shoveling snow or they’re stuck in it.”
In response to these problems, ski areas have developed adaptation strategies to lure people to their resorts even if the skiing is marginal. Many have expanded into four-season destinations and offer an array of activities that do not depend on the weather: concerts, yoga, craft fairs, conferences, water parks and spas. Sunapee opened a new adventure park this summer with canopy ziplines, a treetop obstacle course and golf.
Snowmaking
The most basic strategy for coping with a lack of snow is to make it, and as of the 2009-10 season, 88 percent of resorts belonging to the National Ski Areas Association were doing so. Dramatic improvements in snow-making technology have helped resorts compensate for warming trends, and several have invested millions in new energy-efficient tower guns.
“So far, the technology has kept up with climate change,” said McCloy at Sunapee, one of those resorts that Scott in Canada predicted would be put out of business eventually by global warming. “In fact,” McCloy said, “it’s probably improving faster than climate change is happening.”
That may not be the case for long. “With nighttime minimum temperatures warming at a faster rate than daytime maximum temperatures,” the NRDC report said, “it is uncertain as to what extent snow-making will last as an adaptation strategy.”
The Premier’s Sustainability Awards are billed as “Victoria’s most prestigious environmental awards ceremony”.
The awards are intended to “recognise and reward Victorian businesses, institutions, communities and individuals that are forging a sustainable Victoria now and for the future”.
At the awards ceremony on October 2, Alpine Shire Council – Dinner Plain Alpine Village, Falls Creek Resort Management, Mt Hotham Resort Management, Mt Buller Mt Stirling Resort Management, North East Victorian Regional Waste Management Group (NevRwaste) and 4SITE Australia Pty Ltd were recognised through being awarded the State government award.
This was for the ‘Living Bin’, a joint initiative between three alpine resorts which is administered by State Government Boards. This program captures organic waste from Falls Creek, Mount Hotham, Mount Buller and Dinner Plain Alpine village, to convert it into commercial fertiliser. A successful trial of organic collection was conducted in 2010, and in 2011 the program was extended into commercial food outlets, club lodges, and private accommodation.
In 2011 this program had several hundred participants and diverted over 70 tonnes of organic waste from landfill. This program empowers resort residents and guests to make a difference in their daily lives.
As an observation about the awards, it does seem rather strange that Hepburn Wind won the overall award last year (Hepburn is within a ‘no go’ zone created by Ted Baillieu, and would not be allowed under his wind energy rules). And at the 2012 awards, a TAFE college won the Tertiary category. Given the slash and burn cutbacks occurring through the TAFE sector, this is a rather ironic decision.
Following on from a recent post on this site about a number of ski lodges at Mt Hotham installing solar panels to provide power, this is an update about a club at Hotham which has also started to use geothermal power for heating.
“A geothermal heat pump, ground source heat pump (GSHP), or ground heat pump is a central heating and/or cooling system that pumps heat to or from the ground.
It uses the earth as a heat source (in the winter) or a heat sink (in the summer). This design takes advantage of the moderate temperatures in the ground to boost efficiency and reduce the operational costs of heating and cooling systems”.
“Victoria’s Alpine Resorts are facing the challenging hurdles of rapidly escalating energy costs, climate change and the national target to cut greenhouse emissions. We fully endorse Australia’s Keep Winter Cool initiative and are proactively committed to sustainability outcomes.
In an effort to jump these hurdles Mount Hotham’s B’Rush Ski Club has searched for many years to find an energy efficient and environmentally friendly solution to our energy requirements. In a location where winter temperatures dip to below minus 10 degrees keeping a large building at a comfortable room temperature has a high energy demand. In the past, B’Rush Ski Club has employed a combination of electric and gas fired boilers to provide hot water and heating for our guests. With energy prices on the rise and the desire to reduce our carbon footprint the club began a search for an alternate energy source.
After looking to the USA and Europe, where similar alpine environments exist, the Club decided on ‘GeoExchange’ or Ground Sourced Heat Pump (GSHP) technology. GeoExchange technology is commonly used in Europe and North America to provide low cost, low emission heating and cooling of buildings. Ground Source Heat Pumps or GSHPs are recognised as the most efficient and environmentally friendly heating and cooling systems available today, using as little as 25 % of the energy of conventional systems. This translates directly to lower costs and lower emissions.
A GHSP system is much like a reverse cycle air conditioner. The major difference is that instead of using the outside air to provide the energy the GSHPs extract renewable heat from the ground via a system of bores drilled into the earth. These bores carry a refrigerant loop that extracts ground heat, transporting it into the building. This solution will provide both heating for the building, via floor heating and radiator panels, as well as hot water for 40 guests.
The GeoExchange project has been facilitated by the Victorian Government’s ‘Four Seasons Energy Pilot Program’. The Victorian Government has provided 50% funding for the bore drilling as well as expertise and guidance in design and implementation. The assistance of the Government has turned a possibility into a reality.
The installation of this technology, in combination with a substantial upgrade to building insulation and an efficient floor system has cut our energy consumption by 75 % and our fossil fuel usage by more than 80 %. The payback period of 6 years is considered by the club to be completely acceptable given the expected 30 to 50 year life of our building. Since commissioning, forecasted savings have been exceeded with several spin-off benefits. The new system is spectacularly comfortable, has been universally acclaimed by our guests, the resort and wider communities and has been featured in several publications and forums, inc the 2009 Alpine Resorts Sustainability Forum at Thredbo on the 1st May.
This project is currently the highest GSHP installation in Australia and the first (of we hope, many) in an alpine environment”.
Congratulations to Brush Ski Club for their leadership on this. A number of other lodges and businesses in the Hotham – Dinner Plain area are also investigating using this energy source.
The following comes from the ESPN Action Sports website and shows what is possible with a bit of effort and vision.
Panels at McMillan Lodge, Mt Hotham, VIC
As the environmental agenda continues to slip from the concerns of most resort management bodies in Australia, it has been the snow sports community who have stepped into a leadership position, with a large number of lodges and businesses signing up for solar PV panels over the past year, especially at Mt Hotham.
The following is the introduction to the article, please check the website for the full piece.
The author is Jesse Huffman.
U.S. ski resorts tap renewable energy sources to combat climate change
As the volatility of the 2011-12 season made clear, the stake ski resort’s have in resolving climate change is a big one. Over the past three years, resorts like Bolton, Burke, Jiminy Peak and Grouse Mountain have installed wind turbines, while others have pursued efficiency updates, in an effort to responsibly produce, and reduce, the power and heat involved in swinging chairs and heating lodges all winter long. Now, four more areas, from local ski hills in the Northeast to major resorts in the Rockies, have installed or invested in renewable power sources ranging from solar to biomass to coalmine methane.
Smuggler’s Notch closed early this winter after a spring meltdown saw the highest March temperatures in Vermont’s history. The same solar energy that drove skiers and riders batty as it took away their snow is now being put to use by an array of 35 solar trackers, which collectively produce 205,000 kWh per year — around five percent of Smuggler’s total electrical use. The array provides enough juice for most of the resort’s Village Lodge.
Dan Maxon, Smuggler’s Notch Solar Installation Project Manager, toured me through the installation on a recent morning, when the GPS-enabled trackers, manufactured by a Vermont company called ALLEarth Renewables, were tilted east to catch the a.m. sun.
“We believe it is important not only for ski resorts, but for all energy users to take some responsibility for their energy consumption,” Maxon told me. “There was a good confluence of energy and desire that made this project come together — we’d been looking at various renewable projects for six-seven years, but couldn’t pull them off. This one we could.”
Aspen is often seen as being one of the greenest of the global resorts, so I have included the section of the essay that relates to them. Coal bed methane is a fiercely contested issue across many parts of the world, so Aspen’s choice of energy source is interesting:
In Colorado, Aspen Ski Company is taking a leading role in developing an innovative form of clean energy from coalmine methane. The practice of venting methane from coalmines to prevent underground explosions has turned into a climate change bottleneck with 20 times more warming potential than CO2, coalmine methane contributed ten percent of the all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2010, according to the EPA.
Aspen is the capital investor in a new project at Elk Creek Mine that uses waste methane to power a dynamo and generate electricity, downgrading the methane to CO2 and at the same time. The project is a first of its scale in the United States, and helped net the resort a National Ski Area Association Golden Eagle Award for Environmental Excellence this year.
“We’ve been looking for a large scale clean energy project for over a decade and we finally found one,” says Auden Schendler, Aspen Vice President of Sustainability.
Schendler expects the 3 megawatt project to go online around September, and says that in a matter of month it will make approximately the same amount of electricity that Aspen uses annually, around 25 million kilowatt hours. “Because we’re destroying methane in the process,” adds Schendler, “this is equivalent to triple offsetting our carbon footprint each year.”
One of the most visited sections on this site – especially in winter – is the ‘side country’ skiing and boarding guide to Mt Hotham.
Sidecountry is that terrain which is close to, and easily accessible from, a ski resort, as opposed to backcountry which requires more effort to get into.
Quite a lot of people have been asking about a guide for the area around Falls Creek. Thought I would try and get onto it in the next week or so.
If you would like to contribute text and images for a section on Falls Creek sidecountry, please send them through. cam.walker@foe.org.au Thanks!
The Victorian government recently called for Expressions of interest for long term private managers to take on running the Lake Mountain and Mount Baw Baw Alpine Resorts. Tender applications have now closed.
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