The world is changing but I’m biased, I watch the Fully Charged show on youtube, I listen to their podcasts and those of BNEF founder Michael Liebreich on green energy and finance. I follow Renew Economy an Australian green energy website. So as it is with Twitter I assume everybody is on board with, IMHO, common sense. Why wouldn’t you want to make the world cleaner, recycle raw material to be used again, provide limitless energy to everybody so that they can improve their quality of life?
But despite the pace of technology, it’s still early adopters for a lot of it. EV’s are expensive and in Australia range anxiety hasn’t been overcome for most people. I still get people looking at me in wonder when I drive off in silence in my PHEV. Solar panels cost (although it’s getting cheaper and cheaper). House batteries don’t pay back in 10 years, their expected life span – so that’s an altruistic move.
Roof top solar is a success here though – the uptake of roof top solar in Australia, with little incentive from the government, has – forgive the pun – gone through the roof. I believe there is more roof top solar in Aus than anywhere else in the world. So much that it has caused issues with grid integration.
It is interesting to read on twitter that some of the overtly green minded seem to be all the way down the rabbit hole. There is apparently no transition for the common person. They must go directly to all green, all EV/power wall/solar etc right now. But money talks and not everybody has it. Green tech is expensive. Fitting water recovery to a house costs – especially if a retro fit.
It is quite beyond me why in a country with as much renewable resource as Australia that new build houses aren’t mandated to have solar. Let alone double glazing. Or a well sealed home. They have a way to go…
And I know that the five oldest industries/companies in Australia (80 + years) are all coal or banks that fund coal but surely if you can run a railway line from a coal mine you can run a cable from a windmill or solar farm. The biggest solar farm going into the Northern Territory is going to run a cable to Singapore for goodness sake!
Even the resource companies can see the writing on the wall – they’re powering their mining operations with solar. Why? Because it’s the cheapest form of energy.
There will be some wrangling about base load no doubt. But not an insurmountable problem. With vast swathes of empty space with industries that know how to dig holes I would presume that geothermal would be an option? Otherwise gas will run for a while until maybe some pumped hydro can get somewhere. Nuclear is an emotive issue – some are putting their faith in Small Modular Reactors – but the resistance will be significant and by the time (I think they’re looking at 10 years) they’re built cheaper, better alternatives will have come to the fore.
Greening of the Health sector is going to start to take off – our hospital struggles with staff but has at least seen the long term benefit of solar – what with the massive roof and everything.
Shipping and transport of goods will presumably get fixed by a combination of batteries and green hydrogen in the long run.
Air transport is an issue but doesn’t represent a huge chunk of the global CO2 budget. They’re betting on biofuels or synthetics. Assuming we have any airline industries left after the pandemic. For me this is my guilty secret – I live in Australia but my family and many friends are in the UK. I’m not going to deny my kids the opportunity to visit their grandparents. Or for me to see my parents and brother for that matter …
So there’s plenty of hope, money talks, green energy is getting cheaper and the sun shouldn’t blow up for a while yet.
I wrote this just before Boris Johnson’s announcement – for all his faults I think he’s right. It seems very short sighted that the Australian government can’t get on board with a “green recovery “ Oh well…