We gotta get a better battery. But how?

“It will not be easy. It will not be immediate. But it must be done.” With that imperative, Governor Jerry Brown signed a law that required California to obtain all of its electricity from sources like solar, wind, and hydropower by 2045. It was an admirably ambitious goal, commensurate to the civilizational challenge of reducing the carbon emissions responsible for climate change. The only difficulty was that neither Brown nor any anyone else knew how to do it.

Building a better battery.

The world’s fifth-largest economy had been on track to get half its power from clean sources by 2020. But by signing the new law on September 10, the governor made a promise that existing technologies cannot keep. The problem with advanced renewable sources of energy like solar and wind is that the sun doesn’t shine at night and wind blows intermittently, and both sun and wind (especially in California) are seasonal, waxing in summer and waning in winter. Right now, technologists don’t know how to store electricity from renewable energy at scale cheaply or efficiently. The person or group who solves that problem will be the Prometheus of our age.

Read the Wired story by Jason Pontin - “We gotta get a better battery. But how?”

Everywhere Man Josh Frydenberg: The minister who could make or break the Turnbull government

Josh Frydenberg has always been a man in a hurry.

The scene when Josh Frydenberg's press
conference in South Australia was crashed
by state Premier Jay Weatherill.

By 35, he had achieved honours degrees in law and economics, studied at Oxford and Harvard, advised Alexander Downer and John Howard, and been head of global banking at Deutsche Bank. Determined to enter Parliament, he tried to blast long-time member Petro Georgiou out of Kooyong - a prestigious Melbourne seat that had been held by Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies. He lost. But by the next election in 2010 the seat was his.

A prodigious networker and media performer, Frydenberg was touted as a potential future leader as soon as he arrived in Canberra. No job, it seemed, would be enough to contain his enthusiasm and ambition. Then Malcolm Turnbull found it. 

Read Matthew Knott’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Everywhere Man Josh Frydenberg: The minister who could make or break the Turnbull government.”

Australia procrastinates, prevaricates, while France acts

A

ustralia procrastinates and prevaricates while others act.

Yes, Australia is caught in a coal conundrum – the country’s economy is inextricably linked to the coal industry and so with coal being the global warming villain, it’s imperative that we extricate ourselves from this dilemma.

While the Australian Government and a handful of others, primarily Canada, are blind to the alternatives, either knowingly or otherwise, others are acting, with the latest being France.

ClimateProgress reports that France will halve the country’s energy consumption by 2050, cut nuclear power production by a third by 2025 (from 75 percent of electricity mix to 50 percent), and increase renewable energy to 32 percent of total energy consumption by 2030.

Read the ClimateProgres story - “France Passes Law To Halve Its Energy Use, Slash Fossil Fuels A Nuclear”.

Professor explains what United Kingdom is doing to limit Co2 emissions

Sir Prof Brian Hoskins deliver
 the Miegunyah Lecture at
the Carrillo Gantner Theatre
in Melbourne.

The United Kingdom’s plans to limit carbon dioxide emissions were explained at last night’s Miegunyah Lecture at the University of Melbourne.

Sir Prof Brian Hoskins told a near full Carrillo Gantner Theatre that it was now law in the UK to restrict emissions with the goal of reaching 80 per cent of 1990 emissions by 2050.

That law, he said was implemented with overwhelming support with just three parliamentarians voting against what was proposed and 450 voting in support.

Targets taking the country to that goal have been established and now a working part of government at all levels.

He said the goal provides a 50/50 chance of staying within the two degree limit, but admitted that by the end of the century the earth could warm to 3.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Prof Hoskins’ presentation was sweeping, illustrating his broad and deep understanding of climate change and its manifest complications with him admitting, several times, that many outcomes were something those in his position were unsure of, both in terms of timing or their gravity.

He came to Melbourne with a reputation and resume almost without equal and was introduced to those in the theatre by Prof David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne’s School of Earth Sciences, who said the visiting professor and he knew each other well as he had been his PhD supervisor.

The near full Carrillo Gantner Theatre for
last night's Miegunyah Lecture - 'Climate
 change: are we up for the challenge?'

Prof Hoskins is recognised as one of the world's leading atmospheric scientists. He became the first Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London in January 2008, and now shares his time between Imperial and Reading University, where he is Professor of Meteorology.

His research is in weather and climate, in particular the understanding of atmospheric motion from frontal to planetary scales.  His international roles have included being President of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences and involvement in the 2007 IPCC international climate change assessment.

He is presently a member of the UK Committee on Climate Change and the science academies of the UK, USA, China and Europe and has received a number of awards including the top prizes of the UK and US Meteorological Societies. He was knighted in 2007 for his services to the environment.

Kate resigns one role and takes on another of equal importance

Beneath the Wisteria and Slap Tomorrow friend, and supporter, Professor Kate Auty, has resigned from one critical role and stepped, almost immediately, into another.

Professor Kate Auty.

Prof Auty was appointed Victorian Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability in June 2009, but resigned from that role and finished at the commission at the end of March.

Since relinquishing that role, Prof Auty has been appointed as a vice-chancellor’s fellow for 2014 at the University of Melbourne.

Prof Auty is a member of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

She is also Adjunct Professor in the La Trobe Institute for Social and Environmental Sustainability Centre.

In December 2012 she was appointed as a member to the Murray Darling Basin Authority Advisory Committee on Social Economic and Environmental Sciences.

Professor Auty holds tertiary qualifications in environmental science, law and history, having graduated from University of Melbourne, Monash University, and La Trobe University.
She also holds a Diploma of International Environmental Law from UNITAR.
Prof Auty was a senior lawyer for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia where she worked to incorporate an understanding of the underlying issues across a very broad spectrum of sectors.

In 2008 and 2009 she held the Chair of the Ministerial Reference Council on Climate Change Adaptation and was a member of the Premier’s Reference Committee on Climate Change.

A story headed: “Professor Kate Auty joins the University of Melbourne as a VC Fellow” published on The Melbourne Newsroom details the appointment.

CSG advocates simply waiting for lifting of Victorian moratorium

The arrival of coal seam gas production in Victoria appeared a given at a Melbourne conference yesterday.

Nearly 100 people gathered in the Victoria Suites at the Collins St Sofitel Hotel for a Deakin University organized event. “The Promised Land: The Future of Coal Seam Gas in Victoria”.

The conference had an obvious leaning toward the law and its relationship to coal seam gas and was overseen by an associate professor from the university’s School of Law, Samantha Hepburn.

Conference promotional material promised the chance to explore social, environmental and social issues surrounding the idea of coal seam gas (CSG).

An impressive array of nearly 20 speakers, along with questions to a panel of four speakers from seven Deakin law students, gave those who attended much to think about as Victoria edges closer to the lifting of its moratorium on coal seam gas drilling.

Although it is unknown when the moratorium will be lifted, some with intimate knowledge of the political machinations of CSG believe restrictions on the State Government pause on exploration and development associated with the industry will be lifted at next year’s state election.

With few exceptions, there appeared broad acceptance that the moratorium would be lifted and that Victorians would he introduced to coal seam gas.

Lakes Oil executive chairman, Robert Annells, questioned the validity  of views of CSG skeptics arguing that if any serious troubles were to be found, they most certainly would have arisen in Texas in the U.S. sere thousands of wells have been fracked.

Mr Annells pointed to examples that clearly illustrated that many of those things critics attribute to fracking are already a part of nature and not a well has been fracked in Victoria.

He indicated the Lakes Oil was ready to go, just as soon as the moratorium is lifted.

The introduction of CSG would, according to Mr Annells, mean jobs and security for those parts of Victoria in which the projects were undertaken.

However, questioning long term and innate value of CSG the chairman of the Land Management Committee for the National Farmers' Federation, Mr Gerald Leach, said the potential damage to farms because of fracking was “alarming”.

Interestingly, Beyond Zero Emissions has argued that the best place for hydro-carbons, considered by some to be the driving force of the modern developed world, is in the ground.

The group which has extensive and comprehensive plans for seeing an Australia free of carbon dioxide emissions is opposed to the use of gas, conventional otherwise, for any purpose and so is unhappy about any maintenance of or expansion of the CSG industry.

Gas is simply a fossil fuel and any worthwhile effort to mitigate climate change could not it as an energy source.

The CSG industry is an integral part of the “business-as-usual” paradigm and so is in direct conflict with any serious effort directed at climate change abatement.

The power of cycling recognised and to be made law

Recently a speaker advised that should you wish to retire a decade before your contemporaries with your health intact and your bank balance even healthier then don’t buy a car.

Dr Paul Tranter.

That piece of advice came from the Associate Professor and Geographer in the School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence for Force Academy, Dr. Paul Tranter.

The costs of owning a motor car are, for most people when examined clearly, honestly and objectively, financially disabling.

The chorus of advice about the practicality of bicycles as personal transport is world-wide and now Beneath the Wisteria supporter, John Pettigrew, alerted us to this article in Britain’s “The Times” headed - Safe cycle lanes to be made law in Wales.