AUTHOR OF GUIDE TO ENERGY EFFICIENT HOME DESIGN
Born in Brisbane, Australia in 1952; grew up in the ‘bush’ going on mini walkabouts, soaking in nature.
After 6 years in the Navy, eventually settled in the finance industry in the mid 70’s; in 1984 designed and built his first energy efficient house; in 1994 built a house using a similar system to that of today, which appeared on Channel 7’s Extra.
In 1994/5 developed a program to assist retirees and deposit impaired home buyers; after calling on most major builders to launch his ‘no deposit rent – purchase plan’ and achieving no real interest, build another house – as a display home – in 1997, which featured on Channel 9’s Our House. Slowly, more people made enquiries and the latest energy efficient live-in display home was also built in Eatons Hill.
The transition into the science of energy efficiency was subtly progressive; simultaneously, others too were working on variants of describing embodied energy. When the fossil fuel energy sources were in abundance, the cost of any given material was purely economic, however, as more of the world’s population compete for a diminishing supply of natural resources and ripple effects of usage started appearing as pollution in many levels of flora and fauna, the on-cost to the environment became apparent. The next step was an attempt to evaluate and measure outlay versus benefit, EROEI – energy return on energy invested. The next step is to complete a formula that includes the on-costs of any given project.
Ever mindful of opportunities to make money, many businesses have included terminology implying their product is helpful to the environment; ethanol is but one glaring example of poor EROEI; ethanol production would not survive if governments didn’t misallocate public funds to prop up this industry. Another example of poor EROEI is nuclear power, dusted off and given a make-over to try and fool the people.
Apart from the Guide to Energy Efficient Home Design, Daniel has written a book titled The Meaning of Life and a selection of other works.
Email daniel at energyefficienthomedesign dot com dot au