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Our two guests in The Sustainable Hour no. 529 are energy expert Pat Simons and Olympian athlete Rhydian Cowley who talk about the importance of using renewable energy sources to generate our electricity.
Through our guests Pat and Rhydian we get insight into how the climate crisis will impact on all aspects of our lives – and how elite Australian athletes are concerned about the future of their sports in a climate constrained world – as well as what they are doing about it.
We also listen to a couple of short and sharp statements by Australian billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest about the fossil fuel ‘oligarchs’, and Smart Energy Council CEO John Grimes about why nuclear energy does not provide a sensible way forward for Australia.
And we learn about a number of upcoming events in and around Geelong.
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Pat Simons for many years has devoted his life to empowering communities, especially the Latrobe Valley, to move away from fossil fuels – the major contributor to that crisis and towards renewable energy sources.
Pat is Friends of the Earth’s Yes2Renewables Coordinator, a campaign for 100% renewable energy, good jobs and community power. Pat has played a leading role on a number of successful campaigns including the Victorian Renewable Energy Target and the campaign for national offshore wind legislation, and is passionate about organising alongside workers and regional communities to win ambitious climate action. He also explains why he is not in favour of nuclear.
→ To find out more about Pat’s work go to www.yes2renewables.org
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Rhydian Cowley, while he shares Pat’s concerns, comes at it from a different angle. He has lived experience of competing in air so polluted that it has restricted the performance of elite athletes as well as contributed to the deaths of countless people and other living things. He has devoted his life to using the platform of being an elite athlete to encourage his sport to do all that they can do to reduce their emissions. In reality this is all about self preservation, because if climate breakdown occurs, the resultant extreme weather events will impact badly on sport in all its forms.
Rhydian is an ambassador for Sports Environment Alliance, EcoAthletes, High Impact Athletes, Athletes for Hope Australia. He is employed by Bush Heritage Australia, a leading not-for-profit conservation organisation that protects ecosystems and wildlife, and collaborates with Green Planet Sport, Athletes of the World, Frontrunners, and Champions for Earth.
“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite.”
~ Nelson Mandela
→ Here’s an article about the BBC green sports award Rhydian received recently. And here’s the Rings of Fire report about the Olympics and climate change.
→ Read also the Olympians open letter regarding IOC and Toyota sponsorship.
→ More about Rhydian’s Athletes for Good grant in 2023.
→ Find out more about Rhydian Cowley, honoured in the latest edition of the P&G Athletes for Good programme, on Athletes for Good.
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We round off the Hour with Michael Franti’s song ‘Brighter Day’
. . .
So ends episode 529 of The Sustainable Hour podcast.
We’ll be back again next week, truth-telling and chatting with more action-igniting solution-seekers.
Until then, be …………… (What would you say? What word would you put in the gap?)
And take care!
The Sustainable Hour team
“Energy, how we generate it, how we use it, that’s a really important part of everyone’s life and the way that the economy functions. But I suppose from my lens, as an Olympic athlete, it’s really important thinking about when we’re generating electricity. There’s things like, at the moment, you’ve been talking about how Delhi had that huge smog wave, and how in the past it happened to other Western cities. Even just on the level of how it impacts people’s lives in terms of how clean the air is really important.”
~ Rhydian Crowley, winner of the BBC International Green Sports Award World Athlete of the Year
→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via Apple Podcasts
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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to pay our respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which we
are broadcasting, the Wathaurong People, and pay our respect to their elders, past, present and future.
The traditional owners lived in harmony with the land. They nurtured it and thrived in often harsh conditions for millennia before they were invaded. Their land was then stolen from them – it wasn’t ceded. It is becoming more and more obvious that, if we are to survive the climate emergency we are facing, we have much to learn from their land management practices.
Our battle for climate justice won’t be won until our First Nations brothers and sisters have their true justice. When we talk about the future, it means extending our respect to those children not yet born, the generations of the future – remembering the old saying that, “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.”
The decisions currently being made around Australia to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t be around by the time the worst effects hit home. How disrespectful and unfair is that?
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THE ENERGY SHIFT
“Solar power is cheaper. (and those who oppose it know so, and are conspiring to make sure you keep paying them for energy when the sun provides it for free)
It’s more reliable. (and you can plug your EV to your house after a hurricane and run everything for a week).
It’s the ultimate liberty to have your own powerplant on your roof.
It’s far better to have a wind farm in your county than to rely on Saudi Arabia (or Chris Wright).
An electric car goes zero to sixty far faster than your antiquated gas model and it costs half as much to run. (Rich guys in their Teslas are laughing at you)
Because it has fewer moving parts, you don’t have to visit your mechanic nearly as often. You can drive right by the gas station.
Oil companies are a scam, pushing antiquated technology to keep you hooked. They don’t care if you breathe dirty air as long as it makes them money.
Their shareholders are getting rich while you pay for repairing roads and bridges everytime there’s a new climate disaster.”
~ Bill McKibben, American author
Energy milestones
Thursday last week marked a major milestone for the Australian rooftop solar industry, which has reached 4 million installations – representing around one third of Australian homes.
Chris Bowen, Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy, was there when the installation of the 4 millionth solar system took place at a home in Sydney.
This is a huge achievement for the industry of solar installers, the manufacturers, and retailers and most importantly for the millions of solar households who’ve helped reach this 4-million milestone.
In Western Australia, rooftop solar delivered 80 per cent share of electricity generation in a landmark moment recently. Over the weekend, Western Australia, home to the biggest isolated power grid in the world, hit a new penetration record for wind and solar power: a new peak of 85.7 per cent.
And as we talk about in The Sustainable Hour today: though it took 68 years to reach 1 terrawatt of installed solar PV capacity, it took only two more years to reach 2 terrawatt, according to the Global Solar Council:
→ RenewEconomy – 11 November 2024:
It took 68 years for the world to reach 1 terawatt of solar PV capacity. It took just two years to double it
“Global installed solar PV capacity has reportedly hit 2 terawatts (TW), according to estimates calculated by the Global Solar Council and SolarPower Europe.”
Victoria`s Labor govt to build a massive wholly state-owned solar farm and battery in Horsham. Premier Jacinta Allan announced today the solar farm will power more than 50,000 homes in major renewables investment #auspol www.araratadvertiser.com.au/story/882417…
— henrykklemens.bsky.social (@henrykklemens.bsky.social) November 20, 2024 at 4:21 PM
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Western Australia, home to the biggest isolated power grid in the world, hit a new penetration record for wind and solar power over the weekend, a new peak of 85.7%. reneweconomy.com.au/milestone-wo…
— Nick Hedley (@nickhedley.bsky.social) November 19, 2024 at 6:26 PM
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→ The Guardian 15 November 2024:
Move towards renewable energy is unstoppable, says Ed Miliband
“UK energy secretary says at Cop29 that people see the economic advantages of making the transition”
→ Anthropocene – 17 November 2024:
Does the road to clean energy run through dirty mines?
“You can’t scale green power without scaling gray industry.”
→ Australian Alliance for Energy Productivity – 25 July 2023:
More beer, less energy: Melbourne brewery leads the way in sustainable brewing with a heat pump & PV
“As other businesses feel the pressure of skyrocketing energy costs, Melbourne’s oldest independent brewer, 3 Ravens, is bucking the trend and setting the standard for efficient, electrified processes.”
→ Slate – 7 November 2024:
The Renewable Energy Revolution Is Unstoppable
“Yes, even under Donald Trump.”
Climate momentum
Climate Council writes:
By supercharging solar, wind and energy storage, Australia can reach 94% clean energy in our grid by the end of the decade.
The number of Australian households powered by a battery alongside their rooftop solar has already increased by 23% this year alone.
A record number of electric vehicles are hitting our roads. Australia now has more than 160,000 registered electric vehicles, with sales expected to climb as the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard starts in 2025.
It’s a virtuous circle: the more people that know about this momentum, the more action we’ll take, and the more momentum we’ll generate.
Australia’s clean energy revolution is happening all around us. With more solar on rooftops, electric cars on roads and wind turbines on the horizon than ever before, we’re making progress towards a cleaner, safer future for our kids.
But, are we moving fast enough?
Let’s take a close look at the “make or break” parts of our economy that need to slash climate pollution this decade to find out.
→ Climate Council – 20 November 2024:
A Nation on the move: New tool tracks Australia’s climate progress
“Millions of Australian homes and businesses are driving a surge in clean energy adoption, embracing rooftop solar, batteries, and cleaner transport choices. Australia has established a good foundation and our energy, transport, and manufacturing industries can build on this to cut climate pollution further. Today the Council Council unveils a new tool, Momentum Monitor to track progress in each sector.”
→ Climate Council:
Growing a bigger, cleaner grid – how renewables are powering Australia
“Australia’s shift to renewable energy is well underway. This is making electricity cleaner and more affordable for millions of Australian families. But to secure a better future for our kids we need to cut climate pollution further and faster this decade.”
→ Climate Council – 27 March 2024:
Our plan to keep cutting climate pollution this decade: How we’ll power ourselves
“The Climate Council has a plan that spells out how we can electrify the nation and cut climate pollution by 75% this decade.”
China changing the world
Last year, in 2023, China commissioned as much solar PV as the entire world did the year before, in 2022.
China has just approved its largest solar farm yet, enough to power two million households, in the Ordos area of the Gobi desert. China also just inaugurated the largest open-ocean floating solar farm in the world. Once completed, this offshore solar farm is expected to generate 1.78 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually – enough to power around 2.67 million urban homes. It could also help save about 503,800 tons of standard coal and cut down carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 1.34 million tons annually.
“Those looking for alternatives point to China as the real winner of the US election because its model is proving more stable, more intelligent and more effective in transitioning away from fossil fuels. It has built up a world-leading renewables industry, achieved its 2030 climate goals six years early and is on course for emissions to peak as early as next year. And of course, nobody should forget that almost half of US voters rejected Trump, Europe is pushing ahead with emissions reductions, South America has more progressive leaders promising changes, and many cities and companies have bold plans. Somewhere in this may be the basis for a new era of clean, cheap, peaceful energy, smart leadership and healthier relations with nature. Maybe.”
~ Jonathan Watts, The Guardian
Open source poster
→ You can download this poster-template, which is created in PowerPoint, and then replace the weblink at the bottom with your own website-address. Here it is as a PDF for up to A1-size print.
The poster was produced by the Climate Rescue Accord working group.
Who uses that ‘green transition’-phrase anyway?
Recently, quite a few! – including the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Union, the Guardian, Newsweek and Nature Geoscience:
→ World Bank – 12 November 2024:
Unlocking Financing for the Green Transition in Emerging and Developing Economies | COP29
→ The Guardian – 11 November 2024:
Developing world needs private finance for green transition, says Cop president
→ The Guardian – 13 November 2024:
The Guardian view on Cop29: 1.5C has been passed – so speed up the green transition
Editorial
→ EU – 6 November 2024:
Green Transition
→ Newsweek – November 2024:
Pillars of the Green Transition – COP29
→ Nature Geoscience – 7 November 2024:
Minerals power the green transition
“Transition and action is inevitable – the climate isn’t waiting for the United States to sort itself out. There is no need for Australia to wait either.”
~ Amy Remeikis, Communications Specialist at the Australia Institute, in a newsletter on 13 November 2024
Related podcast episode
→ The West Australian / AAP – 14 November 2024:
Climate change fuelling insurance cost-of-living crunch
“A survey by Parents for Climate and the Climate Council, released on Thursday, found 71 per cent of parents were concerned about higher insurance costs. The wide-ranging report catalogued the impact of climate-fuelled price rises on the economy and Australian families.”
→ The Nightly – 14 November 2024:
Australian insurance policies forced to lapse as ‘extreme’ climate change hikes fees in cost-of-living crisis
“The latest estimates from the Actuaries Institute found the median insurance premium had lifted nine per cent in the year to August, and 30 per cent for those in areas at risk of floods or cyclones. Ms Systa said her home and contents insurance jumped from just over $1,000 a year to well above $2,000 in 12 months.”
…AND THE BULL SHIFT
Vested interests in the fossil fuel industry and the bullies in the media who receives fossil funding are trying to falsely link the roll-out of renewables with the rising cost of living to delay climate action.
“A changing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere with reference to climate” may “ultimately prove of considerable significance to civilization.”
~ Caltech memo, November 1954
This memo from the head of an industry-created group known as the Air Pollution Foundation represents the earliest known cautionary message to the oil industry about the greenhouse effect.
The foundation had been founded in 1953 by oil interests – primarily funded by the lobbying organisation Western States Petroleum Association – in response to public outcry over smog that was blanketing Los Angeles county.
The Air Pollution Foundation publicly claimed to want to help solve the smog crisis, but was set up in large part to counter efforts at regulation, memos unearthed by Climate Investigations Center indicate.
“The Air Pollution Foundation appears to be one of the earliest and most brazen efforts by the oil industry to prop up a … front group to exaggerate scientific uncertainty to defend business as usual. It helped lay the strategic and organizational groundwork for big oil’s decades of climate denial and delay.”
The memo is evidence that major oil companies, including Shell and precursors to energy giants Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP, were alerted about the planet-warming effects of fossil fuels as early as 1954.
→ The Guardian – 13 November 2024:
Big oil firms knew of dire effects of fossil fuels as early as 1950s, memos show
“Newly unearthed documents contain warning from head of Air Pollution Foundation, founded in 1953 by oil interests.”
Charles Koch co-founded the Cato Institute in 1977. Aware that the first major international climate meeting was approaching in 1992 (Rio Earth Summit), Cato convened a conference of climate science contrarians in June, 1991. As @geoffdembicki.bsky.social reported: www.vice.com/en/article/h…
— Connor Gibson (@grassrootbeer.bsky.social) November 19, 2024 at 6:26 AM
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The question about nuclear energy
This 40-minute ABC Four Corners documentary on the topic is worth watching, if you’d like to understand the complexities of the topic: what is the future of nuclear power in Australia?
Many say the answer lies overseas – in countries that have already embraced nuclear as a part of their energy puzzle.
In Nuclear Gamble, reporter Eric Campbell travels to the largest producer of nuclear energy in the world and the place where atomic energy all began – the United States of America – to find out if we should go all in on this controversial energy solution.”
A clear and present threat to renewable jobs, projects innovation and your business.”
Europe’s latest an biggest nuclear power station
— Mark Ogge (@MarkOgge) November 19, 2024
🫢10 years late
😫4x over budget
😤bailed out by the French government
🤯still breaking down
😱being backed up by EVs
Can’t imaging that happening in Australia with the team that brought you Snowy 2.0!https://t.co/mkiWQedBrN pic.twitter.com/csaPS1OHGy
The Coalition’s nuclear folly
“The Coalition’s promotion of nuclear generation seems to have gained traction, but it’s outrageously incompetent or deceptive,” writes operations researcher Andrew Gunner.
“The Coalition claim that nuclear power in Ontario provides electricity at a cost four times cheaper than in Australia. This comparison is fundamentally flawed; for example, it overlooks Ontario Hydro, the entity that built the nuclear generators, going bankrupt and leaving Ontario residents to pay a “debt retirement charge” on their electricity bills from 2002 to 2016.
Worse, their argument relies on an unrealistically high figure of 56 cents per kilowatt-hour for Australian electricity costs (*). If the Coalition cannot accurately represent Australian electricity prices, how can they be trusted to make sound decisions on the complex and costly issue of nuclear power? It is stunning how they have got away with this.
The Coalition’s scheme would:
- need a massive nuclear building project,
- be more than twice the size of the Hinkley Point C project in the UK with its enormous delays and cost blowouts,
- only supply 13% of the demand in 2050, making it a minor part of any energy policy,
- start nuclear generation too late to cover necessary coal plant retirements, and
- require a massive expansion of gas generation.
The nuclear scheme could only be a minor part of the needed electricity generation, 13 per cent in 2050, and does not address how we would meet 87 per cent of the 2050 demand. Unfortunately, this partial scheme could frighten energy investors and undermine AEMO’s comprehensive plans to supply demand.
This nuclear scheme will increase the cost of living and make Australian industry less competitive because it:
- relies on the two most expensive forms of generation, nuclear and gas,
- needs massive subsidies to keep unreliable coal plants running, and
- cuts back on the cheapest electricity, renewables.
*What is the electricity price in Australia?
This Renew Economy article gives the following prices for eastern capitals:
- Sydney 12.1 cents: 56 is an overestimation by a factor of 56/12.1 = 4.6
- Brisbane 13.8 cents: overestimation factor = 56/13.8 = 4.1
- Adelaide 14.2 cents: overestimation factor = 3.9
- Melbourne 11.6 cents: overestimation factor = 4.8
They did not give country area prices.
An average of these prices = 12.9 cents/kWh
This suggests a more realistic value would be 12.6 cents/kWh and the overestimation would in that case be = 56/12.9 = 4.3
The possible origin of the Coalition’s 56 cents price
The article says it may have found one SA electricity plan that offers (1) 56 cents at peak hours, (2) far lower costs at other times, and (3) pays well for electricity exported to the grid. This could suit a person with batteries and solar panels. It seems that the Coalition has cherry-picked an extremely high value and that this plan, despite the 56-cent price, could give low electricity costs to some households.
Looking at my bill
I looked at my bill with Powershop. It is 26.48 cents/kWh. This becomes 24.1 cents before GST. This suggests an overestimation factor of 2.3.
(I have not searched for the lowest price for my electricity.)
Tango offered a good plan for me: 12.24 cents (11.1 before GST) for the first 15 kWh/day then 24.76 cents (22.5 before GST). The 11.1 is close to the article price for Melbourne.
In summary: The Coalition’s 56 cents is two or even four times higher than a reasonable estimate.
I am amazed that Dutton has got away with this. I do not understand why Albanese has not asked Dutton to either publicly withdraw this 56-cent claim or resign from Parliament. Dutton should be able to understand Australian electricity bills.
~ Andrew Gunner
Andrew Gunner is an Australian professional with a diverse background in applied mathematics.
Anti-greenwashing starter pack on Bluesky
Hate greenwashing? These are the people who are leading to the fight to call out greenwashing and climate misinformation/disinformation, and educate the public about its prevalence.
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Of course, not a single word in the article about what climate breakdown and people’s burning of fossil fuels have to do with all of this.
How we are doing and where we are at:
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Transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 529
Dr Melissa Lem:
There’s no better adventure out there than working together to save the planet.
Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Anthony Gleeson:
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour. We’d to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung people. We pay tribute to the elders past, present and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re broadcasting on stolen land – land that was never ceded. We also acknowledge the incredible depth of ancient wisdom that they have accumulated by nurturing their land and their community for millennia before their land was stolen.
Mik:
It’s the same thing every year in November, isn’t it? It’s this particular, I think for anyone who’s concerned about the climate, it is a very particular month because what happens is first all these reports come out and the reason they come out telling us about what’s going on with the climate is that there’s this annual United Nations climate summit happening in November as it is in Azerbaijan right now, COP29, where discussions about how we tackle the climate crisis are going on. it’s a little bit, many people, I think, feel that it’s a little bit depressing because there isn’t that much progress and the scientists are not very happy about the way the graphs are going, the way the temperatures keep rising, and even our emissions are still, well, if not rising, they’re still much too high. And as an individual, how do we make sense of all of this? We are connected to what’s going on in Azerbaijan, but we can’t do much about it.
So there’s something new in Geelong which is about how we make sense of all of this and something that could maybe bring people who are very concerned about climate closer together. And that’s something called the Geelong Climate Café. It’s going to be happening on the fourth Friday of every month in a place called The House, which is at the Center Point Arcade in Little Malop Street. So the first time this will happen is on the 29th of November. It’s Friday in and one and half weeks. And that’s an invitation for anyone who’s got some ideas or got some energy or maybe some anxiety or some dreams about what we could be doing locally and as individuals, how we make sense of the world as it is today.
We’ll be talking more about events and what’s coming up because it’s a busy time of the year. But first, let’s hear more in detail about what’s been going on in the world in the week that has passed. Colin Mockett OAM, you always have an eye on this and you have a bulletin for us today, do you?
COLIN MOCKETT’S GLOBAL OUTLOOK:
I certainly do, and I think there’s less emphasis now on COP29 than there has been on previous COP’s. And that basically comes down to the fact that we all know now that the conferences are pretty much under the control of the oil industry. The truth of the matter is it’s all about money this time and they’re wrangling over who gives money to the poorer nations who are really suffering from climate change. And the rich nations, us included in Australia, aren’t really interested in putting money into a pot for people who are about to be inundated.
So that’s why I don’t lead this global bulletin with the COP talks in Azerbaijan. All the bushfires, all the floods that are occurring throughout the world. I’ve chosen to begin this week at the world’s most populous country, India.
India’s capital, New Delhi, last week ordered all primary schools to cease in-person classes until further notice due to the worsening smog in the sprawling megacity. New Delhi and its surrounding area is home to more than 30 million people. It consistently tops world rankings for air pollution in winter, and the Indian winter officially starts in December. So the current smog is unseasonably early.
New Delhi’s smog is blamed for thousands of premature deaths each year with various piecemeal government initiatives failing to address its problems over the years. And the current emergency is not temporary because Chief Minister Atishi published on X last week: ‘Due to rising pollution levels, all primary schools in Delhi will be shifting to online classes until further directions.’
Levels of the PM2.5 pollutions which are cancer-causing micro-plastics that enter the bloodstream through the lungs, were recorded more than 50 times above the WHO’s recommended daily maximum in New Delhi. That was last Wednesday.
A 2019 study in Britain’s medical journal, The Lancet, attributed 1.67 million premature deaths to air pollution in India, which is now, as you know, the world’s most populous country. So that’s why that’s leading in my book above what’s happening at COP.
And my quote of the week comes from Bill McKibben, who’s been sounding the alarm over climate change since his 1989 book, ‘The End of Nature’. He’s the New Yorker’s climate columnist and he’s well known for a sensible voice on climate change.
Last week he wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review that despite the fine teams of climate reporters now installed at all major US newspapers, the stories that the most important thing that ever happened in the world is happening right now are being not even noticed, not even being reported. He was referring to the fact that the Earth in 2024 is the hottest that it’s been in 125,000 years. We are living on a hotter planet than any civilised human.
He noted that while story after story after story track the changes in inflation and the fluctuations of the Dow index, the story of our climate emergency just does not break through in mainstream media. What also doesn’t break through, he said, and this may be just as important, is the positive news. That is that we are not helpless before this crisis. That this problem is within our capacity to solve, he said. This year we passed a point where globally, every day, one gigawatt of solar panels is installed. That’s the same output as a new nuclear plant – if you happen to be a Dutton supporter.
Also this year, California used a quarter less natural gas because the state’s solar panels and batteries have now made up that difference. A quarter less natural gas in a year in the world’s fifth largest economy, McKibben wrote, is the biggest single bite yet taken out of the eventual temperature of the Earth. And yet it’s passing almost unnoticed in the media.
Now it’s worth taking this on board amid all of the doom and gloom over the oil industry running the present CoP talks on Donald Trump and his ‘drill baby drill’ daft quotes because the world’s transition to green energy is gaining pace.
A new report by the World’s Energy Watchdog, the International Energy Agency, found that over the next six years, renewable energy projects are on track to roll out at three times the pace of the previous six years. This would put the world on course to beat the 2030 goals set by governments to create a total global renewable energy capacity roughly equal to the existing power systems of China, EU, India and the US combined. What we’ve got is an unstoppable momentum now.
In Europe, the boom in solar power caused market prices to turn negative for a record number of hours during their past summer. Also, wind developers in Europe are preparing to launch a new generation of floating offshore wind turbines to better capture the more powerful wind speeds further from the shore. The green energy surge, the IEA report said, will be led by the clean energy programs of China and India, which would help to displace the fossil fuel consumption of two of the three most polluting countries in the world. The third, of course, is the US. China will have more than half of the world’s renewables by the end of this current decade, according to the IEA, which makes the world a very different place than the last time Trump was in power, and it’s certain to colour his thinking and his business during his next presidency which starts in January.
And now, good news about the world’s only carbon neutral vegan sporting club, the Forest Green Rovers. If you remember last week, the Rovers were in second place in the ladder behind York City in England’s fifth league, the English Division One. At the weekend they played York City in their home stadium within York. The result was York 0, Forest Green 2, leaving the Rovers top of the ladder with six games to go for the season. And that piece of good news ends our round up for the week.
Mik:
Thank you very much, Colin. Excellent news from the Rovers.
Colin:
Yeah. I think that the big thing to take from it is that the momentum in the world is certainly, it’s huge. It’s something that can’t be ignored by the craziest of leaders in America.
Mik:
Exactly. You know, the story there about what’s happening in New Delhi about the smog reminds me of an incredible story that’s just come out from an organisation called the Climate Investigation Center who are looking into the history of how we ended up in this mess that we’re in. And it turns out there was a smog blanketing Los Angeles in the US in 1953. So this lobby organisation called the Western States Petroleum Association then created something called the Air Pollution Foundation, claiming that they were going to look into how to solve this problem with the smog. As it turns out, this Air Pollution Foundation had a different agenda and internally, there’s an interesting quote from one of these memos that says, “a changing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere with reference to climate may ultimately prove of considerable significance to civilisation.”
This was written in 1954 among the fossil fuel industry people. And it was shared between companies like Shell and the precursors of energy giants like Chevron and ExxonMobil and BP. So in short, they knew everything about the chaos and the threat to civilisation that these fossil fuels represent already in 1954.
Colin:
I was in Los Angeles during the late 1970s and early 1980s and one of the remarkable things was every morning on the radio or the television news they would tell you the burn through time when the sun would burn through and the temperature would rise it would burn through the smog and usually it was somewhere around about 10.30 in the morning that’s the burn through time when the temperature would suddenly rise and it was dangerous because of the UV levels. But you had a burn through time regularly on the news every day. And that was as I say, back in the late 1970s.
Mik:
But hey, Colin, know, listeners shouldn’t just take it from from you and me, right? Let’s have it here from Australia’s second richest man, Twiggy, as he spoke recently in a podcast called the Equity Mates.
Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest:
I’m switching all my focus onto using Fortescue and my profile to push the industrial world where the problem is to go fully green and to just stop all the bullshit around fossil fuel being our reliable friend. That is such rubbish. mean, there’s clever players in there. They’re dictators, fascist oligarchs who send out bots all over the world – AI driven bots to lace up messages saying, you’ve got to stay with oil and gas because you know, your energy costs are going to go up and your standard living is going to go down and my God, save yourself, stick with fossil fuel. It’s just rubbish. The cheapest form of energy on earth is renewable. And I’m saying, who put the word net into net zero? Who put that confusing little, what the hell does that mean word into zero?
I know did it mate, it was the fossil fuel sector jammed it in, right? Otherwise they weren’t going to sign up to anything just because they’re cooking the planet, then they had to have a conscience, right? So they jammed this word net in and now you’ve got all, not to get techy right, but the planetary boundaries which like the oceans, the rivers, the trees, which absorb carbon dioxide, basically about 50 per cent of what we emit gets absorbed by nature, that’s breaking down, Nature said, well, we can only absorb so much. Funny that, right? You can only drink so much alcohol before it knocks you out.
So at the same time, this net zero 2050 crap is driving carbon emissions every year to record levels at an accelerating rate. So we just look at that and say, well, that’s failing. That’s not working. What’s great for energy prices? What’s great for energy reliability? What’s great for our economy? What’s great for our standard of living? What’s going to drive up our standard of living by driving down our cost of living? Well, that’s renewable energy. And let’s just get after it. Let’s just stop pulling excuses and get after it and stop the fossil fuel fear mongering and replace it. So we call real zero, not net zero. Real zero is simply stopping burning fossil fuels because there’s a beautiful replacement out there. It’s called renewable energy, green electricity and green hydrogen. It’s a beautiful replacement. Fortescue is doing it now. And we move on from fossil fuel. We move on from that oligarch fascist in the world driven uncertainty.
Colin:
Who have we got on this week, Mik?
Mik:
So we’ll stay in this room of renewables because our guest today is Pat Simons and Rhydian Crowley. You’ve talked, Colin, about what’s happening globally and the big picture, but let’s hear about right here where we live, what’s happening. Maybe Pat, if you would give us an overview of… – you’ve been on The Sustainable Hour years ago and at the time you were so enthusiastic about the development, how does everything look today?
Pat:
Yeah, thanks, Mik. Yeah, it’s really good to be back on the show and good on you guys for everything you do. It’s really interesting because in some ways we have made a massive amount of progress in Australia. And because of that progress, we’re kind of becoming a victim of our own success in some ways. So right now we’re at the point where renewable energy, if you look at the amount of generation over the course of a year, contributes about 40 per cent of Australia’s electricity generation. So we’re getting up to some pretty big numbers. And I think a lot of people don’t quite realise how much of a contribution that wind and solar and hydro power are making to the grid right now. If you ask someone on the street, I’m not sure if they could tell you that we’re almost at about 40 per cent renewables in Australia, which is amazing.
And that’s really been led by places like South Australia where, you know, they’re close to 100 per cent renewables as a grid. They’ve still got issues to get through because of like a bit of a reliance on gas at peak moments. But, you know, they’re at the point now where they can actually like island themselves from the rest of the national electricity market. And yeah, so that’s just a great sign of the progress that’s been made. But I think as well, we’ve also kind of gotten there by taking the low hanging fruit, you know. So rooftop solar has been this amazing explosion of installations around the country. Australia has the – I think – the highest per capita installations of rooftop solar in the world. So whilst we are laggards in many ways on climate action, there are some things where we are our leaders.
Colin:
That’s a great example. And I remember, Pat, it’s not just it’s only a few years ago we talked about there’s two million roofs with solar on and then before long it was three million roofs – and that sounded amazing. And I just heard recently we’re now up to four million roofs.
Pat:
Yeah, it’s incredible. And yeah, so that’s a real success story, and that’s generating economic activity. If you think about all the flow on benefits of that, the trades people that are installing those panels, maintenance, the supply chain, like that’s as well as bringing down people’s bills. Like it’s obviously action on climate change and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. But we’re also like generating all these other benefits for people, which is amazing. And then we go to the large scale sector where we’ve had some really significant projects. A lot of those built along existing transmission lines. And we’re kind of getting to the point now where we’re starting to face some challenges because we’re building out as much as we can with the existing transmission infrastructure.
And so now new transmission lines are having to be built so that we can build the solar and wind in the places where the resource is strongest. And, you know, transmission lines, they’re just kind of this, this type of technology that’s, it’s just not particularly popular. You know, people just don’t really like the look of them. They’re not, they’re not attractive to people. And so like the social essence around building transmission has been really challenging. And I think will continue to be challenging. And once we go through that, that’s, I think, we’re going to be able to access a lot more renewable energy. And that’s going to be the next stage of the transition is getting over this hump. It’s a challenge whilst we’re in it, but we will get there. It’s just, it’s going to cause a little bit of challenge in the short term.
Colin:
Yeah. Hey Pat, in the long term, can you see a time in the future where our energy transmission is completely different to the way it is now? Because right now, All of the pylons and all of the power cables lead to dips land and burning coal. Could you see a time in the future where there will be multiple hubs which are centred close to either wind farms or solar farms and they will just go underground to the nearest centre of needs, either factories or communities.
Pat:
Yeah, I mean, it’s certainly possible. And you look at something like offshore wind as a technology, which is quite different to the onshore technologies in Australia, where it could be built close to coastlines. So it still requires building infrastructure like some transmission and offshore transmission, but it can be located close to load centres. And so we’re seeing this in New South Wales, for example, where you’ve got coastal cities like Newcastle and Wollongong, you know, these industrial coastal cities that are centres of manufacturing. And rather than, you know, building a large scale projects, you know, hundreds of kilometres away, building the transmission line, you can feasibly build offshore wind close to those existing centres of demand to directly power some of those really large industrial sites. But you’re right, like we’re going from centralised generation to distributed generation.
And that means multiple sources of energy coming from multiple places, large scale, small scale solar. So yeah, I think it will look quite different to how we do things at the moment. And we’re still figuring out how to manage all of that. Yeah. Well, I was thinking we could, it would also be possible to put it, because of the shorter distances, to put the power lines underground and then solve a problem with bushfires. That was just a thought.
Colin:
Rhydian, you have a comment to make too.
Rhydian:
Yeah, I suppose I’ve been reading recently that Australia is set to sort of allow vehicle grid charging to start happening I think at the end of this year or maybe early next year and I guess, you know, when you’re thinking about transmission and then also the huge uptake of rooftop solar, how would you see vehicle-to-grid with the increased uptake of electric vehicles in Australia around plants, partying, I suppose the electricity generation and storage and use system?
Pat:
There’s just all of this innovation that’s constantly coming, wherever it’s like changes in battery technologies, know, vehicles are great. Like, having turning your car into a battery and then kind of re uploading that to the grid to provide storage, you know, like that is, that’s such a change to how we are currently doing energy and providing power. So there’s, there’s just a lot that will change. And I think that we don’t fully, it’s very difficult to kind of plan out in a really centralised way, how to make this, this transition when there are these, these destructive technologies, but we do need governments to have a level of some level of control over the transition, particularly when it comes to large scale generation.
And a big part of that as well is how do you engage with regional communities? How do you bring regional communities along that are the host to a lot of these new technologies? And that’s something that we’re really passionate about at Yes2Renewables.
Mik:
I can give you a report from an EV Expo that we had on the Bellarine Peninsula just this weekend. I attended it as a volunteer because I have an EV. It’s an EV van and a lot of people were interested in, they didn’t even know they exist.
And the big buzzword, what everyone was talking about there was, as you say, the new ability that EVs have to provide energy ‘the other way’: you’re recharging your battery in the car, but then if there’s a blackout or if you need extra energy, then you can take the energy out of the car, the other way. And for instance, there was someone there doing a barbecue. So we had some sausages that were on a barbecue where the electricity came from the car. And that’s a whole new thing, you know, for people who are doing camping, that’s an amazing thing that you can do something like that.
But it’s also great in your house because you save, you know, instead of going out and buying an expensive Tesla battery for your house, suddenly you have that battery in your car. We’re talking, you know, $10,000 saved in that way. So it’s really a game changer.
Colin:
And I think also you have to take on board that you can charge that car battery using your panels on the roof. So you’re not drawing from the grid at all.
Mik:
There’s something very interesting going on there, exactly. I would like to play for you, just to get a little bit back to the big picture, just a little, a four minute explanation about something that’s happened in the solar industry, which is interesting to note now that we talk about renewable energy.
Orpheus: (at 26:45)
Since the beginning of time, we humans have relied on fire to warm ourselves and to cook our food. First, we used wood. Then, in the last 150 years, we discovered we could burn coal, oil and gas. Not only did we use these to cook and heat our homes, but we also used them for transport at much faster speeds than horses. And eventually, we started using them to produce electricity.
One day in 1954, inventors at an American laboratory discovered a way to capture sunlight and turn it into electricity. They found how to convert sunlight directly into electricity using silicon. This breakthrough meant homes could be lit up without smoke or firewood. In the beginning, solar power wasn’t very powerful to say the least. It could power a light bulb, but it wasn’t strong enough to heat the cooking stove in the kitchen.
Fast forward 68 years of development and innovation in the solar field, and two years ago, humanity reached a major milestone. Enough solar capacity to power 300 million homes. About the same number of homes as in the United States. This required an amount of energy production capacity called 1 terawatt.
We hit this incredible milestone in 2022. And wow, that was something to celebrate. But then something even more amazing happened. In just the next two years, only two years, we doubled that capacity. By improving how we make and deploy solar panels known as photovoltaic or PV cells.
We installed enough solar power to light up, warm up, cool and cook in 600 million homes. That’s more than twice the number of homes in the United States. This is a giant step toward a brighter, cleaner and happier future. It took 68 years to reach one terawatt of installed solar capacity, but only two years to double it.
Globally, if you add together all the countries, we are now running the world on a capacity of about 3.4 terawatts. With solar capacity reaching 2 terawatts, solar installations already meet a significant portion of global electricity demand. So when will we add the next terawatt of capacity? Experts expect this to happen in less than two years, likely by the end of 2025.
With the pace of solar expansion accelerating, the world is setting new records for clean energy faster than ever before. And renewables like solar and wind are no longer just the clean option. They’re becoming the cheapest and most reliable sources of energy. Those who believe that removing restrictions on fossil fuels will somehow revive the economy are missing the bigger picture. The reality is that renewables are not just catching up. They’re racing ahead.
As more countries and businesses choose clean energy for its economic and environmental benefits, fossil fuels are on a countdown to irrelevance. Analysts predict that the tipping point for fossil fuels, when their market share begins to collapse, could come as early as 2027. By then, it’s likely that renewable energy will dominate new power generation, leaving fossil fuel industries scrambling to survive, in a world that no longer wants their dirty climate-wrecking products.
The smart money is on clean energy now, and those who live in the fantasy, as American President-elect Trump does in the US, and both Albanese and Dutton do here in Australia, that fossil fuels have a future in the energy mix, are ignoring the clear economic realities. Those leaders who fail to adapt will find themselves on the wrong side of history, as well as the economy.
Clinging to outdated and destructive energy sources will not only hurt their credibility, but also risk leaving our nation behind in the global race towards sustainable prosperity, the green transition.
Colin: (at 31:10)
Well, that just about now is what we’ve been saying, doesn’t it?
Mik:
And in the light of a coming election, this is what will probably come up as an agenda point, talking about energy and how we get the cheapest energy. As we have heard, Dutton seems to think that nuclear is the new promised land. Pat and Rhydian, what are your views on this discussion that’s coming up now? I certainly have heard some of my neighbors talk about… you know, when we talk about renewables and so on, it’s like, ‘Well, renewables aren’t reliable. And what about nuclear? Shouldn’t we just build some big nuclear stations and then we have baseload power?’
Pat:
Yeah, it’s a very old school way of thinking, isn’t it? But yeah, I think what we need to think about first is what’s the issue that we’re grappling with right now? Obviously, there’s the climate crisis, which is extremely urgent.
And then just in our actual energy systems, what are we dealing with right now? In Victoria, all of our brown coal power stations, they’re all set to close in the next 10 years. So there is actually a very short period of time where we have to make quite a rapid transition to a whole new form of generation. So the debate, like, coal is ending. That is the reality of the situation. It’s ending soon. We need to be able to provide new forms of electricity to keep the lights on and act on climate change. The debate now is about how we do that and how we do that in a way that’s going to create good things in our society. And the reality is that renewable energy is the cheapest option. It’s the fastest option. It’s here right now. We can do this right now. And we have to start now and with speed and urgency, if we’re going to keep those lights on in the next decade and continue to act on climate change. So this idea that Australia is going to have some whole new nuclear industry, it’s a fantasy and it’s a mirage. And it’s really being used as a bit of a, just an excuse to try and delay the transition to renewable energy. And so I really hope that people can see through that, that this is not actually a workable policy. And yeah, we can’t actually just take this, this really, like, casual approach to it. There’s a period of urgency and renewables are definitely the way for us to do it.
Colin:
Yep. I think the renewable debate in the liberal party owes much more to keeping the donations from the fossil fuel industry to the party going. It’s all about keeping the fossil fuel industry happy, and therefore keeping the flow of money into the parties.
Mik:
Rhydian?
Rhydian:
Yeah, I think we also need to consider that the cost of generating energy is important. Yeah, although for people that are perhaps not really across the whole economics of Australia’s energy generation system, nuclear might sound good, but the reality is renewables are really cheap. They’re cheaper than coal. They’re keeping our old aging power stations online or replacing them with new coal power stations. They’re especially cheaper than nuclear energy. Yeah, I think there’s just so many ways that the nuclear argument falls down and it just kind of relies on people not really being across things well enough and thinking that it sounds okay fully to have the cheapest to deal with the cost of living crisis and keep our energy as cheap as possible. And it’s also about resilience to shocks with regards to like keeping on importing oil as well. Just going to renewable energy generation just makes so much sense on so many fronts.
Mik:
It’s called energy security. The fact that we don’t depend on something that’s imported from anywhere else, but we have it in a much more decentralised way. It’s amazing, I think, that people don’t seem to make the connection between the fossil fuels that we’re burning and the terrible views that we have on the news every night now. Certainly the news that came in from Spain just recently, and it’s happening again in Spain now, the floodings and the storms that they’re experiencing in Queensland and when will we see them in Geelong? Why isn’t that connection there?
Jingle:
Scott Morrison, former Prime Minister:
This is coal. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared.
American Senator Sheldon Whitehouse:
At the heart of this conflict is a battle between truth and science and power and lies.
John Grimes, Smart Energy Council:
Nuclear – it’s a smoke screen. This is really about attacking renewables and boosting fossil fuels. Friends, unfortunately the war continues but we’re up for it. This debate, if we’re serious about the energy transition, should be about how do we get low cost energy storage into our system as quickly as humanly possible because that unlocks the renewable energy resource. It’s about flexible dispatchable power because that meets demand at lowest cost. That is where the debate should be.
In fact, it’s outrageous that I’m spending my time here talking about nuclear energy when we’ve got a really hard mission in front of us today to roll up our sleeves and deliver for the Australian people. That’s what our industry is doing. One renewables backer likening the nuclear plan to Scott Morrison’s coal stunt as treasurer.
Scott Morrison:
This is coal. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared.
John Grimes:
The Coalition’s energy policy is a bit like a dog circling around and around, finally coming back to eat its own vomit. Only this time, it’s nuclear flavoured. This nuclear debate is that anti-renewables push in a new form. This is about, on two hands, one providing very little detail, a two-page media release and a 1,200-word document outlining what is going to be the solution to Australia’s energy problems, but at the same time concurrently attacking renewable energy.
So you’ll hear the coalition talking about the massive cost of renewables. You’ll hear them talking about, you know, that renewable energy isn’t up to the task. It’s not baseload power. So you question, yes, actually we see jobs and investment under threat today. We see the offshore wind industry scared by what the opposition is proposing. And that does cause damage to an industry.
Mik: (at 38:19)
John Grimes there, from the Smart Energy Council, in a post he put on social media just after he had been in Canberra where there was a hearing about nuclear power.
So Rhydian, we talked now about renewable energy in this hour, but you also have another aspect which is really important when we talk about getting the community together about this energy shift and the mental shift, which is that you are in the field of sports. Tell us a little bit about that side of you, what you’re doing and what’s happening and how that connects with your mindset around climate.
Rhydian:
Yeah, so… I guess this year I competed in my third Olympic Games and I won a bronze medal there. And also I found out just after the Olympic Games as well that I’ve been nominated and awarded as the BBC Green Sports Award World Athlete of the Year this year. So the years I’ve put in of, I suppose, just trying to speak up about climate change and climate action and energy shifts in the sport front has been recognised in that sense. It’s good to have that reward of feeling that you put in effort and things are starting to pay off, although you look at the carbon concentrations in the atmosphere and the global temperatures and you think there’s still a fair bit of work left to do.
Colin:
Can you use your high profile from sport to actually talk up the climate change efforts?
Rhydian:
I do my best. I think sometimes it can be a little bit hard on an individual level but fortunately the sport that I’m in, world athletics, is the federation, the governing body for that and they’ve been one of the leading sports federations on taking action on climate change and they’ve actually got a group of athletes called Champions for a Better World that they’ve got together to sort of help sort of all combine their voices together for that. And there’s also a couple of organisations that I work with, Eco-Athletes, Sports and Environmental Alliance, and Frontrunners, off the top of my head, that again, might help athletes work together to amplify their voices to talk about this. Because actually, what they’ve found is lots of people listen to athletes and listen to what sports people have to say.
And because we’re really influential, that can be a way for us to broach that conversation with people that might find climate change is bit daunting or just want to be bit turned off by it. And yeah, you need to be able to connect with as many people as possible and let them know why we’re doing things, what we’re doing that’s good and how it can benefit them. I’d say it’s good to get individual recognition, but it’s definitely been a lot of teamwork to get that to happen.
Mik:
And also about keeping it positive, isn’t it?
Rhydian:
Yeah, absolutely. So I think I talked a little bit before about clean air and one of world ethics is programmed as being literally about clean air. The name of the escape. So the of the program is Every Breath Counts and in different cities where there’s competitions that are hosted by world athletics or run by world athletics have air quality monitoring and yeah, they really can tell the difference between places that have got a lot of fossil fuels being burned in the nearby area, whether that’s cars or what have you compared to places that have got a lot more green spaces or maybe don’t have a lot of fossil fuels being burned around them. It does make a real difference for the experience of athletes and spectators. Yeah, they’ve also this year launched the… I guess basically for anyone that’s hosting a world athletics event, maybe like a world championships or something like that, a set of criteria that they’ve got to follow to be able to host those things, which includes sustainability actions and reducing the event footprint. So yeah, for me, it’s great to be able to support that from my own sport perspective then yet it kind of gives me something to point to as an athlete and be like, even though I have to, for example, fly overseas to compete at the Olympic Games and there is fossil fuel emissions resulting from that, although I can’t avoid that, I can do other things that do take action on climate change and it just means that even though, I guess, the way that our energy system forces everyone to be a hypocrite makes me a hypocrite, I’m still doing something.
I think if we let fear of being a hypocrite stop us from doing anything, then nothing would happen. So we kind have to get over that and still do something. even though we might not be perfect, just keep trying and keep trying to do better.
Mik:
I do believe that we change our future with the language that we use and it’s very important which kind of narrative we have in society, which way we talk about things. And I came back from Denmark with this enthusiasm around an expression that the Danes are using all the time where they talk about ‘the green transition’. You cannot open a radio station, you cannot talk with anyone even on the street without them mentioning every second sentence almost they talk about the green transition.
Sometimes they talk about it as it’s also a bit annoying, but sometimes they talk about it as something positive. The green transition is certainly a reality in Denmark. And my thinking was, why don’t we have just one word like the Danes that we use when we talk about what’s happening, what’s going on in the world? And instead of talking about the climate catastrophe, what if we all talked about the green transition all the time and we use the same word, all of us? So I’m testing it on you, Pat and Rhydian right now, what do you think about that idea? You know, being more conscious about the language that we use and all agreeing on, we find one expression. And I don’t care if it’s ‘the green transition’ or something better that you would come up with, but something that we all use in the media, the politicians, people on the street. We talk about the same thing.
Rhydian:
I think, yeah, that’s great. It kind of ties into that idea of how you frame things, and climate change, climate catastrophe, climate breakdown, those are all really sort of negative framings that can make a lot of people that are just tired and busy just trying to keep their head above the water with life, can make them feel really frightened. So I think, yeah, trying to find a positive way to frame what we’re doing to respond to those real issues, I think, is an important way to keep connected with those people that are concerned about climate change, but also are concerned about getting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads as well.
Mik:
We talked about COP29, which is happening in Baku Azerbaijan right now. And what I have noticed is simply from seeing the videos that are coming up on YouTube, you know, with the different presentations that are there and the headlines, and I have noticed that the green transition is now an expression that has come up internationally as the way that places like the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Union, the newspaper The Guardian, Newsweek, and so on. And scientists, they all talk about ‘the green transition’. I can show you all the headlines from these different events that are happening at the COP, where they have green transition in the headline. So that to me is a new development. And I’m just wondering if it was picked up from Denmark or if it’s just spreading, you know, like sometimes viruses spread, and maybe this ‘green transition’ is a virus that’s beginning to spread. And eventually, if we don’t use the same language as the rest of the world, well, Australia will again be left behind.
Pat:
It’s interesting. I think it depends where you are and who you’re talking to. If you go to somewhere like the Latrobe Valley, where all the coal-fired power stations are in Victoria, transition is definitely a word that people use and it’s very much real to people. But I think part of the challenge is that the word is not always positive to people. you know, that’s a community where because of the things that we need to do, like closing coal fired power stations, like that’s a big challenge for that community. So it can actually sometimes be a bit of a scary word. And so I think that part of the work that we have to do is we have to make sure that these words carry positive connotations for people, that when people hear them, they’re actually, you know, associating it with something good.
Another phrase that I’ve heard recently that I quite like is ‘energy shift’. I think that part of that is that sometimes the word transition has been sort of scary for some people, whereas something just like making a shift, it’s a little bit simpler. It doesn’t carry as much heavy connotations, particularly in those communities that are kind of facing some of the bigger challenges.
Mik:
That’s a good one. Earlier in my process of thinking about how we translate ‘den grønne omstilling’, which is the Danish expression – which actually doesn’t mean the green transition but that’s a longer story – I was thinking, could we call it ‘the sustainable shift’? But you’re suggesting: ‘the energy shift’. And that’s very hands on, isn’t it? It might work.
Colin:
And look, you have to, there’s another side to the equation that we rarely actually bring it in. And that is we’re not only shifting the source of energy, but at the same time, with changing how we use the energy. When you think about the fact that we’re using, for example, LED lighting. So whereas before we might have had a 150 watt light bulb in the lounge room, nowadays 150 watts will light up the whole house in LEDs. So our demands are changing, and they’re reducing at the same time as what’s coming in is likely to be self-generated from the roof, or even if you’ve got a property you might even have a wind turbine as well, because they’re all getting cheaper all the time, and at the same time we’re reducing it, so ‘shift’ is a correct way of saying: there it is, it’s now a fluid thing whereas before it was settled.
Mik:
This discussion, brainstorm on the language, I think is important and it’s one we will continue here in the sustainable. Thanks for your contribution, Pat and Rhydian, on that one. And you are, of course, also very much welcome to come back to us if you get another idea. But for now, let’s try and run with ‘the energy shift’. This is, as we talked about earlier in the show today, a very busy time of year, also in the energy field and in the field of sustainability and nature. If you listen to what’s happening, we’ve put together a little calendar. Actually, every week you can find the calendar that we have in our podcast show notes. But let’s hear a little bit about what’s coming up in the next weeks in our local region, around Geelong.
Charlotte: (at 50:12)
Welcome to the Sustainable Hour’s Events Calendar, where we bring you the latest on what’s happening in and around our community.
On Sunday from 10am to 2pm, you can take part in a plant-based picnic and creek clean-up. Start your Sunday with a meaningful activity. From 10am to noon, join a clean-up effort at Cowies Creek, followed by a free plant-based wholefood festive picnic from 12.30 to 2.00 This event takes place in Norlane. For more details, check out the event links on Facebook and Humanitix.
On Tuesday next week, the 26th of November at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, as part of Design Week 2024, at the New City Hall in Geelong, internationally renowned speaker Ashley Morris will be talking about circularity and the future of Geelong. Tickets are free, but you need to register through the Council’s website.
Also, on that same Tuesday at 5 in the afternoon, the National War Museum in Moorabool Street will be hosting an event titled “Design for Nature, Rewild Public Urban Spaces”. This is a free event, but you have to sign up from Geelong Council’s website. Presentations will include designing cities for everyday nature, designing for urban biodiversity, and nature strips guidelines.
Friday next week on the 29th of November, from 3pm to 5pm, there’s a new initiative in Geelong called “Climate Cafe”, offering a space for conversation, collaboration, and community action on climate issues. The event will be held at the House in Centre Point Arcade in Little Malop Street. For more info, visit climatesafety.info/climatecafe.
That same Friday at 5.30pm, it is time for Critical Mass South. Grab your bike, e-bike, scooter or skates and join a fun family-friendly Critical Mass ride to advocate for safer cycling infrastructure. The ride starts at the State Library in Melbourne CBD. For details, visit criticalmass.melbourne.
The following day, Saturday 30th November at 11am, you can join other residents of Geelong in taking a stand against the proposed gas import terminal, enjoy a protest picnic with guest speakers, live music, and updates on the Geelong Renewables, not gas campaign. The event, titled Protest Picnic Against Viva’s Gas Hub, takes place at Morpanul Park at North Shore. Bring your own picnic and a reusable cup and register first at geelongsustainability.org.au
That’s all for today’s community event updates. There’s a lot going on, and if we’ve missed something, we’ll put it in the calendar, which you can always find at the bottom of our show notes page on climatesafety.info. Mark your calendars and get involved.
Mik: (at 53:53)
That’s all we could fit in one energy-Sustainable Hour. Clean energy is the topic for Pat Simons and Rhydian Cowley. What would be your ending remark to our listeners? And what are the activities that you are most fascinated about at this point?
Pat:
The shift to renewable energy – it’s a huge benefit to this country. This is a job-creating industry. It’s delivering cheaper power, and it’s creating new forms of income in regional communities. It’s essential that we make that shift to act on climate change, but also we need to do it because our energy system is already changing. We’re already in the middle of this transition. And we’ve got a short amount of time, only 10 years to replace the coal-fired power station. So we need to get on board with this now. I think the big priority is to support the communities that are hosting this new infrastructure so that they’re getting something out of it, that they’re being brought along the journey. And if we don’t get that right, it’s going to be much more difficult.
Mik:
Rhydian?
Rhydian:
Yeah, I suppose energy – how we generate it, how we use it – that’s a really important part of everyone’s life and the way that the economy functions broadly. I suppose from my lens, like, as an Olympic athlete, it’s really important thinking about when we’re generating electricity, there’s things… like, at the moment, you’re talking about how Delhi had that huge smog wave, and how in the past it happened to other Western cities – even just on the level of how it impacts people’s lives in terms of how clean the air is, is really important. I think we didn’t really touch on that before, but I’ll just sort of leave that as a finishing thing. If you’re playing sport and you’re playing sport outside, if you can have cleaner air because you’re not burning fossil fuels to generate energy, you’re not burning fossil fuels driving around in your car. That makes such difference to people wherever you are, whether in the city or in the country, being able to enjoy the outdoors, think that’s another real strong reason why we need to be continuing this energy shift.
Mik:
Better health and a good conscience.
Colin:
I’d like to point out too, there are two main things, or two things about 2024. Number 1, our planet is the hottest of its ever been. Number 2 is that the country that started the whole industrial revolution and the burning of coal, which is the UK, came off of coal completely. The UK no longer burns coal. And when you think of their climate and their position – if they can do it, why can’t we? Because we’ve got all of the advantages of so much wind, so much solar, and a great big empty nation. If Britain can do it, then I’m sure that Australia should be moving much faster.
Mik:
And remember, if you live nearby Geelong, there’s a new space for conversation and collaboration and for the community to sort of come together in this discussion about the energy shift and climate action. Connect and learn and take meaningful steps towards a sustainable future at the Geelong Climate Café happening first time on the 29th of November in The House, Centreport Arcade in Little Malop Street. All for now, be the shift!
SONG:
Michael Franti: ‘Brighter Day’
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Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour
Events in Victoria
The following is a collation of Victorian climate change events, activities, seminars, exhibitions, meetings and protests. Most are free, many ask for RSVP (which lets the organising group know how many to expect), some ask for donations to cover expenses, and a few require registration and fees. This calendar is provided as a free service by volunteers of the Victorian Climate Action Network. Information is as accurate as possible, but changes may occur.
Petitions
→ List of running petitions where we encourage you to add your name
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→ Listen: climatesafety.info/wp-content/u… → Notes: climatesafety.info/thesustainab… #TheSustainableHour no. 529: #Energyshift ignites #thegreentransition Our two guests in The Sustainable Hour no. 529 are energy expert Pat Simons and Olympian athlete Rhydian Cowley #joyful #climateaction
— The Sustainable Hour (@thesustainablehour.bsky.social) November 20, 2024 at 12:25 PM
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