International Women’s Day – Meet the women shaping our future

We’ve all read the stats and we see it every day in the office and on the streets. We want progress, especially in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), to get more women in these roles and leading the charge. And we are making progress. Women are changing the world. We’re lucky enough that some of these incredible women work right here. They’re changing the world every day not because they’re women, but because they’re working on curing diseases, saving the environment, exploring the skies, and developing new technology and industries.

Anna Crewell - PhD candidate, CSIRO Ocean and Atmosphere. 

But before we meet some of these amazing women who are helping shape our future, we also want to acknowledge that to shape Australia’s future in with science, we need to consider the next generation and how we can encourage more young girls to consider STEM as a viable career option for them. Many young girls still think that STEM subjects are for boys and they couldn’t succeed in these careers. This is because you can’t be what you can’t see. We need more role models for the future generation so they too can shape our future and #PressforProgress.

Read the CSIROscope story by Nikki Galovic - “International Women’s Day – Meet the women shaping our future.”

'Staggering news' - solar prices plunge, again

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V Energy, a Berkshire Hathaway-owned utility company, has signed a PPA to purchase electricity from the 100 MW Playa Solar 2 power plant at a stunningly low price of $0.0387/kWh!

CleanTechnica just reported on “the world’s cheapest solar” landing in Austin, Texas, with bids under 4 cents/kWh (and the assumed unsubsidized price of solar thus being below 5.71 cents/kWh), and that was incredible news, but it looks like that staggering news wasn’t even the highlight of the month!

Note that 3.87 cents/kWh is approximately 68% cheaper than the national average electricity price. I’s also well below the low levelized cost of electricity of coal, natural gas, or nuclear, according to Lazard. The only electricity generation option that can compete with that is wind energy. Furthermore, it’s much lower than the low of 6 cents/kWh that Lazard was predicting for solar in 2017, even if you add in the expected federal subsidy boost (which brings the price up to 5.53 cents/kWh).

Read the CleanTechnica story - “Price of Solar Hits Record Low Again!”