The Age reports that water rates will double by 2011 due to increases is charges by Melbourne Water to water retailers. New water infrastructure programs such as a desalination plant and the north south pipline will significanty bump up water rates.

The Age also reports that this week water storage levels in the state fell to their lowest level since the Thomson Dam was built in 1984.

Read the Full Article in The Age.

Dr Peter Fisher writes about desalination plant alternatives for Melbourne's water woes in The Age today. The article title "Big solutions for our water needs will use more energy" explains the energy hungry nature of desalination plants and puts forward some innovative alternatives to water production.

Read the full article at The Age.

The NSW Government has extended rebates for solar hot water systems rain water and  tanks until 2011. You can now claim up to $2,800 solar hot water systems and $2,000 for rainwater tanks, through a combination of state and federal rebates.

Check out the NSW Dep't Environment & Climate Change website .

Apple had just released what their claiming to be the most energy efficient desktop PC in the world. The new green Mac Mini uses 45% less energy at idle than it's predecessor using just 13 Watts per hour. Apple are also touting the following green PC stats:

• FR-free
• PVC-free (internal cables)
• Highly recyclable aluminium and polycarbonate enclosure
• Meets ENERGY STAR Version 5.0 requirements
• Rated EPEAT Gold

All these eco friendly improvements have not had an adverse effect on performance. Your new mean green Mac Mini can come with up to 320Gb hard disk, 4Gb RAM and comes with a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor giving 5 faster graphics performance.

Given that I'm a recent Mac convert, I'm drouling! For more info, check out the new Green Mac Mini pages at Apple.