Disruption from electric car 'revolution' will rival the introduction of the iPhone: Josh Frydenberg

The global electric car revolution is coming to Australia, Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has declared, likening the scale of technological disruption to the introduction of the iPhone.

Australia's Environment and Energy
Minister, Josh Frydenberg, says the
electric car revolution is coming.

In an interview and opinion piece for Fairfax Media, he said three barriers to electric vehicle uptake in Australia - high purchase prices, limited driving range and a lack of charging infrastructure – are on their way to being solved.

Read Nicole Hasham’s story in today”s Melbourne Age - “Disruption from electric car 'revolution' will rival the introduction of the iPhone: Josh Frydenberg.”

(The idea of the electric car is, in itself, not offensive, but what is disturbing is the creation and establishment, of an industry and infrastructure that his enmeshed with the ideology of private profit and public expense. Rather than government endorsement of an electric car industry we need our politicians to support, in every sense, the creation of a publicly owned nation-wide fleet of autonomous vehicles that would respond to smartphone instructions, taking people hither and thither and once a task is completed, return to their base for recharging - Robert McLean)

Solar power bypassing people who need it most, Curtin University report says

The rooftop solar power revolution may be helping millions of Australians bring down their power bills, but a new report has warned that the people who need it the most are missing out because they cannot afford the technology.

A new report says just 7.4 per cent of WA's most
disadvantaged citizens have rooftop solar.

The report from Curtin University suggests poor households are being bypassed by the shift to renewables.

The benefits of solar panels and batteries could also bypass renters whose landlords are reluctant to invest in solar technology, a double-whammy for poor households — who are more likely to rent — and people living in buildings unsuitable for solar panels, such as old apartments.

Read the ABC News story by Rebecca Turner - “Solar power bypassing people who need it most, Curtin University report says.”

Get in on the ground floor: how apartments can join the solar boom

While there are now more solar panels in Australia than people, the many Australians who live in apartments have largely been locked out of this solar revolution by a minefield of red tape and potentially uninformed strata committees.

Getting your strata committee to agree to solar panels is tricky, but it can be done.

In the face of these challenges, Stucco, a small co-operative housing block in Sydney, embarked on a mission to take back the power. Hopefully their experiences can serve as a guide to how other apartment-dwellers can more readily go solar.

From an energy perspective, Stucco was a typical apartment block: each of its eight units had its own connection to the grid and was free to choose its own retailer, but was severely impeded from choosing to supply itself with on-site renewable energy.

Read the piece on The Conversation by an Associate Lecturer in Physics at Macquarie University, Bjorn Sturmberg -  “Get in on the ground floor: how apartments can join the solar boom."

Inflamed rhetoric of revolution can disguise the reality

Inflamed rhetoric frequently results in revolution – Victorians, and beyond that those throughout the world interested in climate mitigation, have heard much about the ills of the state’s Hazelwood coal-fired power plant in the Latrobe Valley.



Speculation is mounting that
Hazelwood power plant will close.

Much has been said about why Victoria should shut down what has been described as the “dirtiest” electricity generator in the world (never seen any real evidence about that and although I have no reason to doubt the claim, I’m yet to see anything supporting that idea, but maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong places).



While much has been said about why we should close the plant down and there has been an equal amount of rhetoric about how we could replace it with renewable energy, there still appears to be a yawning gap between the rhetoric and the reality.

So before we pull the plug on Hazelwood, let’s first work together to ensure we actual have a serviceable renewable energy source actually generating electricity.

Many revolutions have begun with great fervour as the protagonists knew precisely what they wanted to be rid of but that push for change evaporated with a strangely equal zeal for those leading the charge had only a vague idea of what the future should look like – Robert McLean.

The Hazelwood power plant has been saddled with multiple repair notices for ageing equipment, amid growing expectations it will close next year. 

Several insiders reported that the plant was facing at least four WorkSafe notices that would be expensive to fix.

Read the latest about Victoria’s prime energy source in today’s Melbourne Age - “Hazelwoodfacing WorkSafe notices amid expectations of closure.”

Renewable energy is now 'unstoppable'

Renewable energy in full flight -
it's now unstoppable.

Once upon a time, people imagined that replacing fossil fuels with renewables like solar and wind would jeopardize the electric grid’s reliability. Then along came some major countries which showed that it didn’t, and that there really are no limits to renewable integration.

The result was explained last year in a Bloomberg Business piece aptly headlined, “Germany Proves Life With Less Fossil Fuel Getting Easier”: “Germany experiences just 15 minutes a year of outages, compared with 68 minutes in France and more than four hours in Poland.”

Germany is the most powerful economy on the planet to depend so much on renewable electricity — renewables currently deliver 28 percent of Germany’s total grid power (and up to 40 percent in some regions). The United States has a very long way to go to hit that level, by which time there will be an even wider range of cost-effective strategies to deal with much higher levels of renewables.

Read the ClimateProgress story - “Why The Renewables Revolution Is Now Unstoppable.”

Pssionate and serious revolution is a battle of wills

Treasurer, Joe Hockey - it is his
 intent to dismantle the good work
 of the Labor Government.

In a passionate and deeply serious recent interview comedian Russell Brand argued that a revolution was coming.

Forget about the revolution in which men stood toe to toe and slaughtered each other for what we are witnessing, for the moment, is a somewhat more sophisticated difference of opinion.

Australia’s recent federal election saw you and me dump the sitting Labor Government in favour of a Coalition Government led by Tony Abbott.

Labor had worked hard in a less than positive political environment with a hung parliament to press ahead with several innovative legislative changes that won sweeping praise for Australia from those in the world community who understood the seriousness of climate change.

The Abbott-led Coalition, then in opposition, mischievously, and inaccurately, portrayed the work of Labor as simply wrong and most Australians, unable to vision life beyond the end of the decade, threw their lot in with Mr Abbott and his cohort of Liberal and National Party climate change skeptics.

Since its election on September 7, the government has moved quickly to erase all the climate change mitigation  steps taken by Labor, including the scrapping of the carbon tax and just today the ABC reported in a story headed: “Bill Shorten says Labor wants carbon tax replaced by ETS”, that the Coalition’s ambitions will not be realised easily.

In what is rebellious if not revolutionary, the government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation, that had been directed by the new Treasurer, Joe Hockey, to stop lending money has defied that order and is still fulfilling its mandate.

In another story published today headed: “Clean Energy Finance Corporation defies Government call to stop lending”, explains that the Coalition intends to dismantle the corporation.

The Brand revolution looks like being more a “battle of wills” than a battle in the traditional sense.