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Publications
Our environmental, social and economic performance
Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2004
ISBN 0 642 55046 8
The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) is responsible for leading the Australian Antarctic programme (AAP) and advancing Australia's Antarctic interests. Based at Kingston in Tasmania, it represents the Australian Government within the Antarctic Treaty System, and administers the Australian Antarctic Territory and the Territory of Heard Island and the McDonald Islands.
Australian Antarctic Division headquarters – Kingston, Tasmania.
The AAD provides strategic, policy, operational and scientific resources to maintain and enhance Australia's influence in the Antarctic Treaty System. Its resources are also used to conduct, coordinate and support its own and other agencies' scientific research in Antarctica, the sub-Antarctic and the Southern Ocean. The AAD maintains a permanent Australian research and monitoring presence at its three stations on the Antarctic continent and its station on Macquarie Island. Activities are also undertaken at AAD facilities at Kingston and Macquarie Wharf, as well as at the University of Tasmania in Hobart (see Figure 10).
The AAD actively pursues protection of the Antarctic environment. This objective is underpinned by research activities, promoting Antarctic research and the AAP in universities and elsewhere, environmental impact assessment, regulation and providing public information on the Antarctic. The research carried out as part of the AAP improves our understanding of the Antarctic region, including its role in the global climate system. Public dissemination of information helps to ensure that Antarctica is valued and understood by the wider community.
All research and operational activities carried out as part of the AAP are assessed for their potential impact on the environment in the Australian Antarctic Territory and the Territory of Heard Island and the McDonald Islands. The AAD's activities are considered under, and comply with, the requirements of relevant Australian legislation and international treaties. These include: the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Act; the HIMI Environment Protection and Management Ordinance; and the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
As part of its ongoing commitment to protecting the environment, the AAD has implemented an Environmental Management System (EMS) certified to the international standard ISO14001. The EMS covers AAD's activities at its headquarters in Kingston and its Antarctic stations. It provides a framework for assessing and reducing the environmental impacts of the AAD's activities.
Figure 10: Map of Australian Antarctic Division permanent operational sites
For the AAD to meet its responsibilities it needs to attract suitable personnel for its Tasmanian and Antarctic based operations. It also needs to ensure that its work and the Antarctic environment are understood and valued by the wider community. The Tasmanian Antarctic Midwinter Festival provides a valuable opportunity to address these needs and, at the same time, contribute to an event that provides economic, cultural and social benefits for the wider Tasmanian community. Coordinated by Antarctic Tasmania, an office of Tasmania's Department of Economic Development, the Festival aims "to educate, inform, inspire and celebrate the Tasmanian community's involvement with Antarctica and Australia's leading role in Antarctic science and policy" (Antarctic Tasmania, 2004). Starting as a one-day event in 2001, it is now a nine-day festival featuring 119 events at 19 locations across Tasmania. In 2003, over 35 000 Tasmanians, interstate and overseas visitors participated in the festival.
The AAD has been a sponsor and active participant in the festival since 2001. Its participation complements other public activities, such as a major annual exhibition at Parliament House in Canberra, the Antarctic magazine, the display area at its Kingston headquarters and its web site.
Children get close to Australia’s Antarctic history.
Antarctic knowledge passing to a new generation
The festival allows people to meet AAD staff and ask them about the work they undertake and possible employment opportunities with the AAD in Antarctica or Australia. The displays and activities show the public, especially children, the importance of the work carried out as part of the Australian Antarctic programme. In 2003 these displays attracted large numbers of children, with over 1800 school students visiting in organised school groups. Establishing an Antarctic field camp in the middle of Hobart is a particularly popular activity for children to witness. Participation in activities such as 'Science in the Pub' also allows AAD scientists to showcase their work.
AAD will continue to sponsor and participate in activities such as the Antarctic Mid-winter Festival.
Meeting Mawson station's energy needs typically required around 700 000 litres of diesel fuel each year, producing approximately 2000 tonnes of CO2. If an alternative energy source was feasible, environmental impacts from burning fossil fuels and the station's operating costs could be substantially reduced.
The AAD began researching the feasibility of wind turbines in 1993, when a joint Australian-French project was established to investigate alternative energy options for Antarctic stations. Encouraging results were obtained from the field trial of a 10kW wind turbine at Casey station.
Installing the blades.
With mean wind speeds at Mawson of 39 km/h and gusts exceeding 180 km/h during blizzards, wind generated electricity was a serious option. In 2001, the AAD formed a consortium with PowerCorp Pty Ltd (a Darwin-based contractor) and a German company, Enercon GmbH, to develop and install Antarctica's first wind farm at Mawson. The partnership enables risks to be shared and ensures a state-of-the-art facility. An environmental impact assessment was prepared, to ensure that the project is consistent with Australia's obligations under the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty and Australian law.
PowerCorp developed and installed a system to optimise operation of the wind turbines and the remaining diesel generators against the station's heating and electrical load. They also developed an electric boiler-based energy storage system to stabilise the frequency and voltage on the station grid and provide the station's heating needs. Enercon modified the wind turbines to suit Antarctic conditions. AAD teams erected the turbines, poured the concrete foundations and installed the infrastructure and cabling.
Installation of two (of three) 300kW wind turbine generators began in the summer of 2001-02. Commissioned in 2003, the wind farm reduced diesel consumption by 27% in its first year of operation. Installation of additional electric boiler capacity in the 2003-04 summer and ongoing fine tuning of the control system could result in up to a 50% reduction in diesel fuel used compared to a 2002 baseline. Westpac Bank has entered into a pre-purchase agreement with AAD for the Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) associated with the wind turbines.
Wind turbine in action.
Blade housing.
A grant from the Australian Greenhouse Office is allowing the AAD to investigate the feasibility of generating hydrogen on site with excess energy from the wind turbines. The hydrogen would be stored in fuel cells and used to power Mawson during low wind periods. If this technology is successful, implementing a full-scale system and the erection of a third wind turbine would allow Mawson to meet all of its non-transport energy needs from a renewable source.
Up to the mid-1980s, waste was usually dumped in gullies and bays in the immediate vicinity of stations. In the mid-1990s the AAD decided to clean up the abandoned waste disposal site at Thala Valley near Casey station, thus reducing the environmental impact of the waste stored there. This project was also part of a wider aim - to develop more effective techniques for cleaning up contaminated sites in the Antarctic.
Site assessments were conducted over a number of summers to identify issues and establish environmental monitoring baselines. In 2000, suitable on-site and post-removal hazardous waste remediation technologies were identified. Diversion channels to direct summer melt water away from the site, and a specially designed water treatment plant to separate particulate and dissolved contaminants from site run-off, were among methods used to control the spread of contaminants from the waste site.
In the summer of 2003-04, the AAD removed an estimated 1000m3 of waste from the site and loaded it into purpose-built containers donated by Vivendi (now Veolia). Samples from each container were analysed to determine whether heavy metal stabilisation treatment would be needed. The material was shipped to Tasmania, treated if necessary, and deep buried in an appropriately certified landfill near Hobart. This complex project was completed in accordance with Australian quarantine and environmental protection requirements, and those of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.
As a result of the project, AAD developed novel techniques for monitoring the environmental impacts of contaminated sites and new procedures for remediation of contaminated ground in cold regions. A scientific basis to underpin environmental guidelines for cold regions was also established. AAD has shared its experience at international forums and 24 scientific papers related to the clean-up project were published in peer-reviewed journals in 2003. Lessons learnt are particularly valuable for other nations involved in cleaning up or remediating contaminated sites in the Antarctic or similar regions.
AAD is using the Thala Valley project findings in its development of a long-term plan to clean up contaminated sites across Australia's Antarctic territory and sub-Antarctic islands. The findings will also help to develop practical, scientifically sound and cost-effective ways of meeting Australia's environmental obligations under the Madrid Protocol for protection of the Antarctic environment.
Thala Valley remediation site.