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The Sustainable Hour no. 569 | Transcript | Podcast notes
In episode 569 of The Sustainable Hour, we explore how Australia’s green energy transformation is already unfolding in people’s garages, homes and communities.
Our guest, Dr Philippa England, a retired academic and now clean-energy trailblazer from Queensland, tells the inspiring story of how she and her husband turned their EV and home solar system into a vehicle-to-grid powerhouse. What began as a family road trip with a modest rooftop solar setup became a fully integrated, self-sufficient system that now feeds clean energy back into the grid.
Philippa explains how the rapid uptake of household batteries – 90,000 sold in just three months – is creating a bottom-up revolution in Queensland’s energy landscape. She describes how “solar soaker” daytime tariffs and smarter battery use can lower bills for everyone and pave the way for 24-hour solar living. The conversation touches on EV affordability, community innovation, policy gaps and the urgent need for convenient charging infrastructure, especially in rural areas and apartment complexes.
Dr Philippa England is an Adjunct Academic at Griffith University, Brisbane where she taught planning and environmental law for 30 years. She officially retired in 2020 and since then has become passionate about renewable household energy – rooftop solar, batteries, electric vehicles and now also vehicle-to-grid technology.
Here is a link to her article in The Driven about vehicle-to-grid:
…and here is a more recent update.
Here is a link to a recent article Philippa wrote for The Fifth Estate about rooftop solar:
…and here is a link to Philippa’s Linkedin page.
Philippa wrote the book ‘Planning in Queensland: Law, Policy and Practice‘ in 2019. This is Philippa’s ORCID reference no.
Philippa also works with local community groups on urban planning and development issues – at the moment they are developing a campaign to express their concerns about the Brisbane 2032 Olympics. You can access the newsletters Philippa edits for the Southeast Queensland Community Alliance (SEQCA) at:
seqalliance.org/newsletters
. . .
- Mik Aidt opens the Hour with a reflection on the Serenity Prayer and a re-interpretation for climate activists: calm in action, courage in crisis, and with the wisdom to know when to rest.
- Colin Mockett OAM delivers his Global Outlook, reporting on record CO₂ levels, coral reef collapse, Amazon tipping points, and the surprising renewable boom in Trump’s America.
- Original songs in this episode: “EV Smile”, “The Green Transition”, and “Be Econnected” – celebrating the joy of driving on sunshine and being part of a life-affirming green revolution.
You can find the songs on www.climatesafety.info/music
The Hour closes with a reminder from Philippa: “Be optimistic.”
Mik adds: “Be courageous.” Colin concludes: “Be connected.”
“Suddenly, just overnight, once we turned on the V2G [Vehicle to Grid] – boom! It was all going into my car, and it was all being fed back at night, which is exactly what they want because that will bring down prices for everyone. So it was just kind of a ‘this fixes everything!’ sort of a moment for us.”
~ Philippa England, Queensland ElectricVehicle-to-Grid interchange enthusiast
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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org
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“We’re not stalled out on climate because scientists didn’t model hard enough or campaigners didn’t come up with the perfect message, but because the world’s most powerful spent gazillions to sabotage action.”
Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo brings her data-driven precision to the climate crisis — and the numbers are damning. While world leaders haggle over finances at endless summits, rising temperatures will kill millions in the poorest countries by the end of this century. She calculates the staggering cost of wealthy nations pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, proving that getting billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes is the best way to cover these damages.
Global warming is very, very expensive: extreme weather, rising sea levels, crop failures, health issues, and industry disruptions all cost money. So, what’s the best way forward? Is the estimated trillion-dollar price tag that comes with transitioning the world to clean energy worth the cost of investment? George Zaidan explores what it would take to become a green economy.
Almost one million Canadians have serious climate anxiety, study suggests Feeling anxious about the impacts of climate change is normal, scientists say. But how common is anxiety so bad that it makes it hard to function? A new study puts a big numbe… #cbc #cbc-top-stories #Canada
— CBC Bot posting select CBC RSS Feeds (@scrubfire84.bsky.social) October 22, 2025 at 11:41 AM
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→ The Guardian – 13 October 2025:
Planet’s first catastrophic climate tipping point reached, report says, with coral reefs facing ‘widespread dieback’
“Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C ‘as fast as possible’, warm water coral reefs will not remain ‘at any meaningful scale’, a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns.”
→ The Conversation – 13 October 2025:
What are climate tipping points? They sound scary, especially for ice sheets and oceans, but there’s still room for optimism
“Tipping points highlight the stakes, but they also underscore the climate choices humanity can still make to stop the damage.”
→ SBS – 14 October 2025:
Climate tipping points being crossed, scientists warn (6 min audio)
“The world’s coral reefs now in an almost irreversible die-off. It marks what scientists are describing as the first tipping point in climate-driven ecosystem collapse.”
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Transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 569
Antonio Guterres, UN Chief:
We are in the dawn of a new energy era. We must seize this moment of opportunity.
Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson:
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour, episode number 569. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung people. We pay tribute to their elders – past, present, and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re broadcasting from stolen land, land that was never ceded, always was and always will be First Nations land. While the Wadawurrung people nurtured both their land and their communities for millennia before their whole world was disrupted by the colonisers, they acquired a great amount of wisdom, the same ancient wisdom that we’re going to need to survive the climate crisis.
Mik Aidt:
‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’
That’s the Serenity Prayer, it’s called. Supposedly written by Reinhold Niebuhr almost a hundred years ago. So it’s been around for a while – whispered for people in hard times, quoted in meetings, even printed on fridge magnets.
But there’s something about that first line, ‘accept the things I cannot change’, where I’m thinking – as a climate activist, certainly – I’m not sure I agree with that! Because there’s so many of the things that we are told that we ‘cannot change’. Well, we actually can. We just can’t do it one person alone.
So I’m beginning to hear that prayer a little bit differently.
I actually don’t want ‘serenity’ if that’s going to lead to resignation and just accepting things as they are. I want serenity that keeps me calm in the storm – in this age of collapse that we are possibly approaching, precisely so that I can keep doing the work, the necessary work without fear and anxiety consuming me.
Because yes, we can all have sleepless nights and times when everything just feels too big. But change will never happen through worry. We know that. It will happen through connection. Through persistence. And, maybe as the Serenity Prayer says, through courage.
So my version of this prayer, the Serenity Prayer, would maybe sound something like this:
‘May I have serenity to stay grounded amidst the chaos and collapse, courage to keep pushing where change is still possible, and wisdom to rest when I know I’ve done what I can.’
Caring for our Earth, caring for life on this planet, shouldn’t feel like a burden, something that we are scared of. It shouldn’t be stealing our sleep. It should feel like love in action – in service to life on Earth. And I think we need some sort of a prayer, a reminder that we can change things, but: we need to be together.
Let’s hear what’s been happening around the world. We have Colin Mockett OAM scanning the news from around the planet. So, Colin, is it good or is it bad today?
COLIN MOCKETT’S GLOBAL OUTLOOK:
It’s the usual mix, Mik, there’s some good stuff in amongst it. But before I begin, I have a correction to make.
On last week’s broadcast, which was number 568, as you correctly said, our guests, Lauren Dillon and Jodie Hall, were vocal in calling for more women to occupy powerful positions in industry – on the premise that they were more sustainably focused than the present mostly male incumbents. At the close of our discussions, I attempted to add a little humorous balance by bringing the names of Gina Rinehart and Meg O’Neill as warnings that not all powerful women were sustainably minded. My wording made it sound like both were involved in the fossil fuel industries. Meg O’Neill certainly is, he’s CEO of Woodside Industries, but Gina Rinehart is of course the executive chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting, and as such, she’s one of the richest women in the world. Hancock Prospecting is among the world’s leading iron ore extractors, and as such, it is not a fossil fuel industry.
Now this week, we heard from Mrs Rinehart’s office asking us to correct the records and for me to state that Hancock Prospecting is not a fossil fuel business, which I’m happy to do here. Hancock is in the business of digging up and exporting iron ore to China, which in itself is not a sustainable industry, and it does use a substantial amount of fossil fuels in its operations.
Now having said that, our roundup this week begins in the United Kingdom at the University of Exeter, where a new report brings together 160 researchers from 23 countries, and it concluded that the Earth has reached its first catastrophic tipping point linked to greenhouse gas emissions with coral reefs now in an almost irreversible die-off. Titled the ‘Global Tipping Points Report’, the paper says: unless we return to global mean surface temperatures of 1.2 degrees Celsius, we will not retain warm water reefs on our planet at any meaningful scale.
The report says that coral reefs hit a tipping point when warming reached between 1 and 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 19th century temperatures. Global heating is right now at around 1.4 degrees. So we’re there.
The report added that the temperature required to trigger the widespread dieback of the Amazon rainforest is lower than was previously thought – with the lower end of the estimated range now 1.5 degrees Celsius. And this comes just weeks ahead of this year’s COP 30 climate assignment, which is being held in Brazil. And that will start, of course, on November the 10th. And that’s the reason that so many reports are coming out right now. People are getting in ahead of the COP.
There’s also a new paper from the World Meteorological Organization that stated carbon dioxide levels in the world’s atmosphere hit a record high in 2024. The WMO’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin released last week revealed that the average level of CO2 is 423.9 parts per million, and that’s up 3.5 parts per million from 2023.
It is the largest recorded annual increase since modern measurements began in 1957. The WMO says the likely reason for this record surge was the extensive emissions from wildfires in Europe during the summer, while record warm temperatures hampered the ability of forests and the ocean to capture and store carbon. About half of the total carbon dioxide emitted each year remains in the atmosphere, and the rest is absorbed by Earth’s land, ecosystems and oceans.
Now another new study published in the journal Nature this week showed Australia’s tropical rainforests are no longer drawing carbon from the atmosphere, but instead they’re emitting carbon because more trees are dying due to the extreme heat. Between 1971 and 2000 these forests acted as a sink absorbing an average of 0.62 tonnes of carbon a hectare annually. That’s what the study says. This has dramatically reversed, with the forest now releasing an estimated 0.93 tonnes of carbon a hectare annually. So instead of drawing it out, it’s pushing it out. Between 2010 and 2019, those figures are for.
Now this decline is at a rate of 0.041 tonnes of carbon a hectare a year, and that’s a rate greater than observed in the Amazon and African tropics. And my final item comes surprisingly from America, where President Trump is about to preside over a renewable energy boom. Yes, really. That’s because despite his efforts to cut renewables, companies are racing to install solar panels, wind turbines and batteries before his federal tax credits expire or become harder to claim.
Analysts widely expect the United States to add a record – or near record – amount of renewable energy and batteries for this year and through to the end of 2027. BloombergNEF, which is a research firm, recently raised its forecast for how much wind, solar and batteries the country would add next year by more than 10 per cent. That so much renewable energy is poised to be built despite the top level opposition reflects just how much momentum the sector has, not just because of subsidies but because there is tremendous demand for new sources of energy.
Solar and batteries can be installed in America much faster than natural gas and nuclear power plants. Solar and batteries have also become cheaper, while the cost of building gas power plants has soared. This year, renewable energy and batteries in the US will make up 93 per cent of the capacity added to the grids, according to the Federal Energy Information Administration. “We have never seen this kind of demand, ever,” said Sandhya Ganapathy, Chief Executive of EDP Renewables.
And the reason you’re not hearing today about the world’s greenest sports team is because they lost 4-2 to Carlisle, they slipped down the table to fifth. But Forest Green Rovers’ women’s team beat Bishops Lydeard Ladies at home 3-1. So that is the one that ends my round up for the week.
. . .
Jingle:
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
Tony: (12:04)
Our guest today is Philippa England. Philippa is an adjunct senior lecturer at Griffith University and since her retirement has been very active in the community energy space and electric vehicles as well. So, Philippa, thanks for coming on. Okay. Tell us about your… I understand when you were at university you were looking at planning issues, is that it?
Philippa:
You’re welcome. Yes, I used to be involved in teaching planning law and some environmental law as well. And of course, one thing that always interested me was the sustainability of buildings, for example. So I’ve been following that for a number of years. It was always about efficiency and, you know, using less power. But then when I retired, effectively, my husband came home with an EV and we decided to go on a small road trip. So we went away for three or four weeks. Oh, was it five weeks? I can’t remember. Now it’s a few years ago. And we found with the EV, just an Atto III, we traveled 5,000–6,000 kilometres across Queensland and spent a grand total of $200 on charging. And we were very impressed with that, as was everybody that we met, you know, driving their big, pulling their big loads and things in diesel vehicles.
So when we got back, we were really enamored of all this talk about electrifying everything, consumer energy resources. And we decided, yes, we do have a small amount of solar, rooftop solar on the roof, 1.5 kilowatts that we’ve had for many years. But it really was time to get with the program and upgrade to 10 kilowatts, you know, nothing too exceptional, nicely north facing here in Brisbane. So very, very productive for me.
We get between 40 and 60 kilowatts most days and going into summer it’s more likely to be in the 60 kilowatt range than the 40. I’m happy about that. And we said, well now’s the time I’m going to use some of that solar and get myself a battery. So we got a 16 kilowatt battery. This was before the rebate. It was about this time last year. And Mike had to do a little bit of research because we are on three phase power here.
And so the Teslas and things were not going to work for us, but he found this remarkably good looking battery called the Sygen store, which most people are very familiar with now, that’s SEC Solar Energy. So we got the modular form, 16 kilowatts. And because Mike… There’s always been a bit of a revhead – he loves cars, et cetera. We got the DC charger for 12.5 kilowatts per hour. So no more trickle feeding in our house. So we had this lovely gear all in the garage, spent quite a bit of money, but we felt we’re doing the right thing for the environment. We feel good about that. And we got fast charging and everything. And then boom, you know, a couple of months later or not even that, Minister Bowen says, we’re all ready to go for vehicle-to-grid charge.
Now we knew that the DC charger was supposed to be V2G – Vehicle-to-Grid charging – ready, but we also knew that nothing was really happening in that space. And despite Minister Bowen’s announcement, there wasn’t anything happening in that space for a wee while afterwards. And then, you know, the following year… – I can’t remember whether the battery rebate had been announced or not, but at about the same time, I bumped into a fellow from Energy Queensland who said, we’re looking at V2 charging and we’ve already approved your battery and your DC charger for V2G charging. I thought, wow.
Why did nobody tell me this? Because it isn’t working at our end. So I’m afraid I gave him the bad news that, you know, you may have done the right thing, but it’s not working at my end. So it was Peter’s job, actually, to look into this energy grid transformation. He’s a terrific fellow, really committed. And so he went away and looked into it. And a couple of months later, he got it all working for us in cooperation with SEG Solar Energy. So that was just really exciting because whereas before we had our, you know, handsome 16 kilowatt household battery, we’re now in a new world. We’re looking at a 60 kilowatt battery in my garage.
And like I say, my solar produces enough, almost, to fill it almost every day and my little battery. So I do download a bit from the grid and there’s more good news there too, because I do that for free. And then we export it back at night and make a little bit of money. Would love to make more, but make a little bit that brings forward the payback period on all the stuff we’ve bought. And it’s just really exciting because you could see on the app that whereas we got the battery, still making lots of solar because obviously we’ve gone from a 1.5 to a 10 kilowatt battery, you know, still being a curse in the system according to Energy Queensland because I’m dropping all this rooftop solar into the system in the middle of the day which they then have to manage and find a home for. But suddenly, just overnight, once we turned on the V2G, boom! It was all going into my car, and it was all being fed back at night, which is exactly what they want because that will bring down prices for everyone. So it was just a kind of ‘this fixes everything!’ sort of a moment for us.
Now all we need is really a good retail offering to encourage everybody to do that because of course with the battery rebate, so many people have gone out and bought, you know, a 10, 20 kilowatt battery or a 30 kilowatt battery or even a 40 or a 50 kilowatt battery to make the most of the rebate. And so what we really need is a good offer to get all those people doing what we’re doing, emptying that battery every night into their grid and refilling it every day with our rooftop solar. There’s plenty of space for more as it turns out. So it’s just transformative.
Mik:
Hmm. The numbers, Philippa, is that there’s just been almost like a celebration of the rounding of 90,000 batteries sold because of the government campaign. 90,000 people, new people, are now coming on board that transformation that you’re talking about.
Philippa:
It’s phenomenal, isn’t it? In three months, 1.7 gigawatts of storage in the system. I tell you what, it’s going to take Energy Queensland a lot more than three months to install 1.7 gigawatts of battery storage. But we just have so many great installers. They’ve really come on board. You know, they weren’t all doing batteries beforehand. I know they’ve been hunting around for batteries. The demand is so strong. We always thought it would be. But finally, they got around to giving a subsidy there because it’s just transformative, the change it’s making. And I think even Energy Queensland is starting to realise that this is going to be a ground-up revolution.
Colin:
Most certainly, Philippa. But have you noticed other people are joining you? Have you been talking to friends and are they doing the same? Do you have many other people that you are aware of who are doing their vehicle to the grid system?
Philippa:
There’s a lot of gurus who are interested in it, a little bit like us really, from a technical point of view. Can it be done? In reality, advantages of… so doing are a little bit nebulous at the moment. For example, everybody’s worried about what it will do to the warranty on your car. You know, they’re only just starting to smooth that out. Well, that should have been done really before they made these announcements. Everybody’s wondering how much I need for my use? Do I use the car a lot? Not everybody’s got an EV yet, but there’s a lot of interest in it.
What we need to see is the equipment was quite expensive. That DC charger when we bought it was 6,000 but great works of SEC [Solar] Energy, they’ve now brought it down to I think they’ve knocked off 40 per cent or maybe even 50 per cent of the price of that charger and there are more models coming in as well that are cheaper so people that do go out and buy an EV will be interested and they’ll have that technology accessible to them moving forward. But it’s still a little bit of a niche market. It has to be said. But having said that, of course, well, you know, it’s going to take a while for V2G to ramp up and it’s really not as convenient, as easy as your household battery set up. You know, a lot of people are going for household batteries. That is flying along and they’re also supersizing, which is fantastic, because that means there is scope.
You know, you can sell… I sell about 50 to 60 kilowatts a night from a combination of my battery, which has now grown thanks to the rebate and the car. So if you only have your battery and you’ve got excess in there, you may be able to sell 20 kilowatts an evening, which is also fantastic. And it won’t make you a fortune. Some people are keen to tell you that it will, there’ll be spikes, we haven’t seen any of those yet, but it will make you a trickle and that trickle will go all year and that will end up paying off your fixed charges on your electricity bill and really gives you the option of going down at least to zero, if not a little bit into credit on your electricity.
Colin:
I’m assuming that you have a Tesla.
Philippa:
No, we have a BYD ATTO 3. In fact, there were some who were about Tesla switching off the vehicle to a grid charging facility. Our charger, which is integrated with my SIG energy battery, because it’s DC to DC, it can take it out of a Tesla. We’ve tried. My daughter has a Tesla, but now I just have a BYD ATTO.
Colin:
And you’re happy with that? That’s a Chinese make, isn’t it?
Philippa:
It’s a Chinese make. I’m very happy with that. My daughter has a Tesla and thinks the Tesla’s way superior. My husband, a bit of a redhead by nature, has been out to buy a Zika, a Zika X, which is another Chinese model. Yeah, very super duper. He loves that and thinks the BYD is, you know, a bit ordinary now. But the wonderful thing is…
Colin:
Oh, he’s going to lose his license. He’s going to be losing his license. It’s too fast.
Philippa:
Well, actually, that’s what he always says about EVs and we’re coming on a road trip to Melbourne soon, but well, to the Great Ocean Road. He says EVs encourage him to relax in the car and not to over kill the speed limits. So that’s one of the biggest benefits for him of actually driving an EV. There you go. It’s not my problem, you know, but anyway. Yeah, it is a sports model and it is very effective. He did take it to the track to give it a drive through and found it was so fast he got dizzy and felt sick and had to come home.
Colin:
That’s nice! Look, I have a smaller, cheaper version of your system in that we still, well, we’ve got a Nissan Leaf, which is, we got it secondhand and it’s, we’ve had it now for three years, yeah, coming up for three years. And we only trickle charge it because we have panels on the roof. So whenever it drops below about 80 per cent we’ll put it on to charge and we’ll take advantage during the day. It only charges during the day when the sunshine is because we’re in Victoria. We do have panels and the battery and the system that we’ve got into the habit is that while we turn off power points when we don’t have anything on standby. We turn them on again at the power points and we don’t use a vast amount of power, which essentially means that we haven’t paid a power bill this century.
But now we’re also paying petrol bills through the power because nothing has changed, even though we’re driving around. Instead of paying, I used to fill the thing up maybe once a month. We don’t do that at all. The system of trickle-charging our car, we’re still not, and drawing a little bit from the grid at nights, we’re putting it back again during the day. And this is despite the fact that our energy company has stopped paying us anything at all for the power that we put back onto the grid. What we’re doing essentially is making enough power for our own use.
Yeah, but we didn’t have to pay large amounts for fast charging or I found to be really honest when I took a longer trip I found that I couldn’t really trust the roadside fast charging and I was going to ask you about your experience of Trans Queensland. Did you ever get to the point where you thought to yourself, are we going to make it to the next charger?
Philippa:
Yes, yes we did. I mean, it’s a really good point because if you think charge is bad in Victoria, it’s terrible in Queensland. I did my research before we went on the trip. And remember this was two and a half, three years ago now. I did my research. So we knew where there were charges because unless you kind of followed this particular route, you really were going to get stuck.
But we also had to be very careful because so many of them are broken and they don’t get serviced for ages. Queensland is a very big place, I’m telling you. And we were lucky at the time, really, there were not many people using them. There were only two places where we either had to wait – or we did not cause someone to wait, to have to wait when we were charging. But you would go to these places, you are getting, you know, 50 kilowatts an hour at the best.
Colin:
You were risking to see whether it was going to work or not.
Philippa:
Yeah, there was probably only one charger that would charge at that rate. The other one was a much slower one. This is not the way. And you would have to drive into town into a council area for it, which is fine because you want to go for a coffee or a break, whatever. But you have to hunt around for these charges. This is not the way to encourage EVs because of course, you know, the best place to have EVs in Queensland would be in the regions where they do miles and miles and kilometres of driving, you know, those are the people we want to get into EVs and that’s where the biggest savings would be for everybody.
But, you know, until they improve on this performance, because much as we all charge at home, of course, using our solar where we can, but on these long trips, you do have to top up. You have to know that you can top up anywhere because these are long distances that people take. You know, the next Zika, 650 kilometres before a charge, is going some way towards fixing that. But hey, come on, we need charging in the regions as well.
Colin:
And the obvious place, of course, is to put power charges in service stations. That’s right. I mean, it is so obvious. It’s only the fact that the fossil fuel industry is so intractably opposed that they’ll say you’ve got to drive past several service stations and go to a supermarket car park.
Philippa:
Absolutely, especially those ones with coffee service as well. That’d be great, you know.
Colin:
Where you might even find that somebody has parked their car blocking access to the chargers.
Mik:
Can I add that – Colin, you are absolutely right – I was just in Denmark in August and – hallelujah!, it’s actually absolutely doable and possible: In Denmark, you go to a petrol station, yes, and there’ll be chargers for you. So you drive around in your EV and you go to the petrol station. There’ll be not just one, there’ll be 20. Denmark has really rolled out. I know Denmark is not at all to compare with Australia when it comes to size. I mean, I think Denmark is 44,000 square kilometers or something like that. You know, it’s a small… tiny, it’s a tiny country. But what I really noticed, and this has happened in just two years, Denmark has gone from being a bit like Australia with people saying, EVs are very expensive, they don’t work, how do you charge range anxiety, all that talk. In two years, that country has transformed into everyone talking about the joy of riding an EV. There’s so much happiness and joy around, suddenly.
And we’re talking now 60 per cent of cars sold in Denmark. It’s up there now with Norway coming up to 90 per cent of new cars being sold. Diesel cars are completely out. But I think the most important thing is that people have taken it into their hearts and there’s that sort of sense of comfort, joy, feeling safe and many other things. It’s simply a matter of modernising the fleet and getting better cars.
Colin:
In Australia, we’ve got a couple of other obstacles too. I mean, the fact that we’ve gone the other way to the rest of the world and we’re now driving great big utes that America can’t sell to any other country, we actually subsidise them. We’ve got federal government tax rebates here if you get one of the great big ram things, which is way too big for our city roads. And yet that’s where people are using them.
Philippa:
Certainly this idea of convenience, you know, because everybody is worried about range anxiety. This real solution for V2G as well is convenient. So you have to be able to drive to work, fill your car. Imagine if all our school teachers could go to school, work at school, have their car charging, come home, discharge into the grid. Now, until we get that kind of penetration, across everywhere that people work as well as in service stations for those long distance trips, we are not going to see a wholesale uptake of vehicles to grid charging.
Once we do, a small price will trigger it. But until then, my daughter drives a Tesla. She’s bewildered by Mike and I’s enthusiasm for CER and batteries and everything, everything, et cetera. But even she admitted that if it was super convenient to do this stuff, you know, if she got to work plugged in, came home plugged in, it was all sort of happening in the background, then yeah, she’d be happy to do that. But until we get to that stage, we don’t make it a joy.
. . .
SONG
‘EV Smile’
Intro:
No tailpipe. No rumble.
No drama. Just sunshine.
E.V. smile. Let’s roll.
Verse 1:
I glide out the driveway – smooth and silent
Kids wave, magpies sing
I’m not choking my kids with exhaust anymore
When I roll down my window, I can hear the trees breathing
Pull up at the lights. Waiting for green
Arm out the window, and the E.V. smile
While the SUV next to me’s guzzlin’ dollars every mile
I drive for free – by clean powers of the sky
Chorus:
My sunshine powered car
Goodbye petrol, I for one won’t miss you!
My sunshine powered car
My car runs on sunshine, no smoke, no roar
My sunshine powered car
Cutting the carbon, while saving money too
My sunshine powered car
That’s the E.V. joy – that’s what we’re doing it for
Verse 2:
Cost of living’s up, I feel it as too
But I don’t feel it at the bowser
I skipped that queue
Charge at home, off my rooftop
While I make a cup of tea
It’s freedom – not just for the rich
But for people like me
Funky Breakdown:
Through the forest – windows down
Can hear the kookaburras laughin’
No drone of diesel, just that smell of life
And I’m still tappin’ into the sun
Bridge:
No oil changes! (None.)
No tailpipe tax! (Nope.)
No engine heat, no huge repair bills!
This is the life! I’ve got the E.V. smile.
Chorus:
My sunshine powered car
Goodbye petrol, I for one won’t miss you!
My sunshine powered car
My car runs on sunshine, no smoke, no roar
My sunshine powered car
Cutting the carbon, while saving money too
My sunshine powered car
That’s the E.V. joy – that’s what we’re doing it for
Outro:
This car runs on sunshine
Clean. Calm. Clever.
I’m cruisin’ past the servo signs
Like “nah, not ever.”
So come to Torquay, take a spin
Talk myths, ride bikes, get the E.V. grin
The future’s here – keys in hand
Let’s drive it together, across this land
No fumes. No fuss. No fortune required.
Just sunshine – and the will to do the right thing.
Let’s move.
. . .
Tony:
We’re listening to Philippa England and joyously talking about her experience with an EV car and batteries, et cetera, et cetera. Now, before, Philippa, earlier on you mentioned about the lack of appetite from the Queensland government to get real on climate. Are you aware of efforts, community efforts that… that are going on to change that?
Philippa:
Yes, yes, I’m active with local community groups who are disappointed, but not surprised by the Queensland energy roadmap that came out just a couple of weeks ago. We’ve seen this all before, I think, because it’s not only the community that’s getting behind renewable energy and hey, households in Queensland are fantastic on rooftop solar, whatever else they’re a bit skeptical about.
But it’s the market. The market knows Queensland has fantastic solar, you know? And the market knows that the cost of batteries is coming down and down and down. It’s fallen off the cliff, whether that’s a big battery, a medium scale battery, a community battery, a school battery, a household battery. The price has fallen off the cliff.
I mean, for households, we do need that subsidy because there’s a cost to install them. You want our installers to continue in their jobs. you know, all be all well and good. But this makes the 24 hour solar a real, real thing for Queensland. You know, it’s not a joke anymore. That is really where we’re heading.
And the work has been done. The research has been done by a group called Ember, which shows that in sunny destinations, Queensland, Sunshine State, you can live, know, I mean, obviously we have some rainy and cloudy days and monsoons and whatever, but you know, on a good day, you can live 24 hours, when the whole economy on solar for just about, shall we say, but you do need, you know, a lot more battery storage. That’s what’s holding us back now. So the rebate is fantastic for households.
Big batteries are fantastic for the economy. You’re going to need about three and a half times your storage capacity to your capacity of solar, if that’s where you want to go. And has-hots do. We all want to be independent of the grid as much as possible.
Colin:
Yes, Philippa, and you’re also assuming that everybody lived in a Queenslander house. For people who live in units or people who live in apartments of a tower block, for example, which are what we’re installing in Geelong at the moment rather than spread suburbs. They must be feeling incredibly frustrated in that A), they can’t put panels on the roof and B), they can’t drive an electric car because their one parking place in the basement doesn’t have the facility to charge.
We need to change government rules to say that when you’re building a new unit you do put charging points even if it’s going to be rented. Always, you know, we’ve got to rethink in the 21st century mode rather than just leave it to each individual because when you leave things to the individual, true, you get wonderful people like you who takes giant steps and strides but most people just think, yeah, it’s too hard, I’ll get a Toyota Corolla or I’ll buy one of the cheap Rams and that’ll do for putting the caravan as well.
Philippa:
Absolutely. And I was sitting beside a guy who now tows his caravan with a Tesla car so they can do it, EV, and shows off every time he goes to the caravan site and creates a lot of interest. It is, you know, changing hearts and minds, but convenience and cost reduction are, you know, the winning market pitch, you know. So we will get there.
Queensland now, I mean, you know, how oldfashioned are we in Queensland, you know, doing it the Queensland way, but you know, Queensland now has the fastest uptake of EVs in the country at the moment. So long may it continue because we have the sun to, to charge it. So again, this all comes back to, and let me just explain to you how absolutely wonderful it is. You know, God bless Energy Queensland, you could almost say.
But they’ve given us a solar soaker, a solar sponge tariff rate from 11 till 4 o’clock every day. So if you live in an apartment, you could, you know, install a battery and download all the electricity you need during the day for actually get paid for it. That’s what we do, because often the cost of electricity in the middle of the day, we have so much extra solar supply is minus four. So.
You know, you can get my solar effectively free and then use it at the evening time to be green, even in an apartment that has not a single solar panel on its roof because it’s got a very small panel. So the times they are changing. Yes, it has to be done when we do new buildings, but yes, we have to go back and retrofit as well.
And yes, there is going to be some reluctance in apartments. Obviously, you have to get everybody on board. That is the tricky thing. And yes, it’s hard to put it in the basement because there are certain fire risks. The next generation of batteries will be safer again. And this, again, is the importance for the early adopters, and I know several, of having those destination charges everywhere you go during the day. In fact, everywhere. At the supermarket, at the office, in the servo. So nobody is locked out of the potential of having an EV.
And of course, the one thing about an EV is it is a battery on wheels. So for all the renters, once they can afford an EV, this is your battery to run your home off. Vehicle to home is going to be a really big thing, I think.
We just need more people to know about it. So thank you for asking me onto the show.
. . .
SONG
‘The Green Transition’
Intro:
The world is turning, faster than before
Between lightness and love, and power and lies
Verse 1:
I’ve seen the floods, I’ve felt the storms
Watched the news as cities drowned
Want to shut off, can’t watch this breakdown
It’s hard to see we can turn this ship around
Bridge:
They say it’s too late, they say ‘just wait’
But I won’t watch it wash away
I choose the truth, I change my ways
I’ve signed up and, I’m ready to join
Chorus:
The Green Transition is inevitable
From home to work, from town to town
Solar’s shining, wind is strong
The air is clean, life is fun
Verse 2:
They call them ‘natural’ – disasters untamed
But I know better, I know who’s to blame
Coal, gas, oil – the damage they do
But I’m the one to choose, I know what’s true
Bridge:
They said ‘just go slow, don’t shake the ground’
But I refuse to back down
Not someday, no, right here, right now
I make it right, I make it count
Chorus:
The Green Transition is inevitable
From land to sea, around the world
I speak the shift, I share the news
A great renewal, a bold decision
Bridge:
I build, I vote, I call out the lies
We shape the rules, we change the tide
It’s not impossible, it’s on the rise
A world reborn before our eyes
Final Chorus:
Welcome to the Green Transition
It’s in our hands, it’s underway
No more waiting, the time is now
We rise together – this is the way
. . .
Audio clips in the song:
Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forest:
Australia has called for a phase out of fossil fuels
Arnold Swartzenegger:
Hey
Mo Gawdat:
You should be leading this revolution
. . .
Senator Pete Whish-Wilson (“Senator Surfer”) – Instagram video clip:
Well, scientists have just released a new research report that shows this planet has passed its first catastrophic climate tipping point. And it’s really important today that we talk about hope. How did we get to this first tipping point? Well, global temperatures have now reached 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And as a result, we’re seeing a global die-off in our warm water coral reefs.
So to put it simply, we’ve reached the tipping point where most warm water corals can’t survive in our oceans. Around a quarter of all marine species globally rely on coral reefs for their home. And nearly 500 million people around the planet, communities right across our country and all around the world rely on coral reefs for their livelihood. What’s worse is this new report suggests we’re on the brink of other critical tipping points where we could not just see the decline of a great natural wonder like the Great Barrier Reef, but also our Amazon rainforests or our Tasmania’s wonderful Gondwana rainforests. The reason we’re hitting these tipping points is not complicated. It’s actually very simple. It’s because we keep burning more fossil fuels and politicians keep putting the interests of big dirty corporations above yours. So let’s bring it back to hope. And let’s be honest, this stuff is scary.
And sometimes it’s easy to lose hope. But that’s exactly what these big fossil fuel corporations and their politicians in parliament want you to do. If we give up, they win. They get to keep polluting this planet to make a buck. Just imagine what the world would be like if there weren’t people like us to hold the government to account, get meaningful climate action and work to secure our future.
. . .
Jingle
. . .
Mik:
That’s all we could fit in one very electrified Sustainable Hour. Thank you so much to Philippa. A last word to our listeners, Philippa? – in terms of: if you’re sitting on the fence at the moment about getting an EV, or getting house batteries and so on, what would your advice be?
Philippa:
Look, if you’re looking for a new car, go test drive an EV. They’re a joy to ride. And my husband, total redhead, he’s total convert to the pleasure of driving an EV.
Rusty:
Just on the point of storage, the guys are aware, I spend a lot of time on rural properties, which is where I am now. Australia being the innovation capital of the world, a lot of, and this is a couple of, well it was before the battery re-bite was announced, I must point out. What one farmer did is he went and bought an insurance write-off EV, bought it home, sat it next to the shed, and that is one of his storage units, battery storage units. So it can be done.
Colin:
We did an item a couple of weeks ago on the stadium of Amsterdam, which runs on secondhand Nissan Leaf batteries. They brought up just about, it must have been most of the Netherlands secondhand Leaf market, and they’re all compatible to work together. They run now the national stadium – their version of the MCG if you like – it runs on Nissan Leaf batteries.
Philippa:
There might be good lesson there for the Olympics. Brisbane Olympics.
Colin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mik:
Philippa, we used to end The Sustainable Hour with saying ‘Be the difference’. But we have become more creative, so now we’re asking our guests to say, what do you want to be? What should our listeners be?
Certainly, I would say we should, as I was saying in the beginning: ‘Be courageous’, but also that we should ‘be certain’ that we can change things. That’s exactly what you are a great example of today, Philippa.
Philippa:
Be optimistic. In the face of adversity, I must confess, but sometimes you’ve to do the work that’s in front of you.
Mik:
I like that, that’s simple and clean. Be optimistic.
Colin:
And Be connected.
. . .
SONG
‘Be Eco-nnected’
Verse 1:
There’s a wind that knows your name
As you walk through the frozen grass
It doesn’t ask what side you’re on
Just kisses you to let you pass
Bridge:
Down by the garden’s gate
The silence carries real truth
The Earth remembers everything
and science finally found the proof
Chorus:
Be brave, be strong
when you feel you get neglected
On the journey you’ve begun
where the climate is protected
Be… econnected
Verse 2:
Not just data in a stream
Unjust laws that fail to guard us
We need to be the change we dream
Every act and each single day… econnected!
Chorus:
Be brave, be strong
When the ground feels disconnected
Listen deep to nature’s song
There’s a voice that’s not deflected
Its e… econnected!
(Instrumental interlude)
Vocal interlude:
The seas are rising, the plastic flows
But action whispers where no spotlight goes
From city drain, to island shore
We hold the line, and we can still do more
Chorus:
Be brave, be strong
when our future gets neglected
On this journey we’ve begun
our children will be protected
Every step, we’ve econnected!
Outro:
Let root and reason blend:
We can be econnected
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Live-streaming on Wednesdays
The Sustainable Hour is streamed live on the Internet and broadcasted on FM airwaves in the Geelong region every Wednesday from 11am to 12pm (Melbourne time).
→ To listen to the program on your computer or phone, go to www.947thepulse.com – where you then click on ‘Listen’ on the top right of the page.
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