What will the growing use of household solar panels mean for the centralised electricity grid? Will it mean we won’t need the grid at all? As Professor Peter Newman explains, the city of Perth is providing us with an interesting case study of distributed electricity generation.
>more> ABC RN Ockham’s Razor
>more> young family house with 3kW PV and 8kWh battery exports 75% of power to grid and consumes just 3kWh/day
(Kelp forest before (left) and after (right) the marine heatwave)…per report in journal Science, 5 years on from heatwave, these kelp forests show no signs of recovery. . ..Instead, fish, seaweed and invertebrate communities from these formerly temperate kelp forests are being replaced by subtropical and tropical reef communities. Tropical fish species are now intensely grazing the reef, preventing the kelp forests from recovering… team surveyed reefs along 2,000km of coastline from Cape Leeuwin, south of Perth, to Ningaloo Reef between 2001 and 2015…This has implications for the Great Southern Reef (GSR), which extends more than 8,000km around the southern half of Australia from the southern half of WA all the way to southern Queensland – a coastline that is home to around 70% of Australians…Kelp forests are the GSR’s “biological engine”, feeding a globally unique collection of temperate marine species, not to mention supporting some of the most valuable fisheries in Australia and underpinning reef tourism worth more than A$10 billion a year.
<more> TheConversation
Concrete cancer: not pretty. Sarang/Wikimedia Commons By itself, concrete is a very durable construction material. The magnificent Pantheon in Rome, world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, is in excellent condition after nearly 1,900 years. .. repair and rebuilding costs of concrete infrastructure, just in United States.. trillions of dollars …Steel reinforcement was a dramatic innovation of the 19th century. Steel bars add strength, allowing creation of long, cantilevered structures and thinner, less-supported slabs. It speeds up construction times, because less concrete is required to pour such slabs. Concrete is 3rd-largest contributor CO2 emissions, after automobiles and coal-fuelled power plants.
Moisture entering tiny cracks creates electrochemical reaction. One end of rebar anode other cathode, forming “battery” that powers transformation of iron into rust. Rust can expand rebar up to four times its size, enlarging cracks and forcing concrete to fracture apart in a process called spalling, more widely known as “concrete cancer”.. ..collapsed civilisations of the past show us consequences of short-term thinking. We should focus on building structures that stand the test of time – lest we end up with hulking, derelict artefacts that are no more fit for their original purpose than the statues of Easter Island.
>more> TheConversation
Knife edge elections have a history of delivering decisive political shifts.With each passing election, the danger from climate change grows clearer and more pressing. We are out of time. This new term of government has to deliver enduring solutions, and continued partisan division is no longer an option. In April Opposition Leader Bill Shorten invited the PM to “take climate change out of the realm of petty partisan right-wing politics”…Whatever the motive, it’s an offer Turnbull should not refuse…With his prime ministerial career in danger of sinking without trace, bipartisan climate change platform may be his only chance to make a mark on his nation. God knows, the country needs it.
>more> TheMercury
It’s becoming increasingly clear that climate change is the number one threat to mankind…rising sea levels increasingly likely to cause a mass-movement in climate refugees...floating house jacks itself up from turbulent seas on retractable legs, like offshore drilling platform..moveable when necessary…These hermit-like homes..recent architecture exhibition in Italy – can float with tides and uses solar PV to provide electricity. The design was implemented so that it could be joined up with other pods to create floating communities, with its spherical roof protecting against strong winds…As planet becomes more urbanised and the need for rural crop growing becomes more severe, expanding communities out into the oceans may provide a sustainable solution to both urbanisation and food production.
>more> edie.net
As Smart Company explains, Flick customers are given access – via Flick app – to a platform detailing all costs involved in their energy purchase: the cost of generation, wholesaling, distribution of the energy, the meter costs and the service fee that goes to Flick…The app also users decide when to consume and when to switch off, and finally – but perhaps most importantly – gives them access to the wholesale price from the spot market…And it has had significant success, attracting more than 10,000 customers across New Zealand in less than two years and growing the company by 37 per cent a month throughout 2015.
Note – imagine the appetite for solutions like this when our Transition Feed in Tariff expires at end of 2016
>more> OneStepOffTheGrid
Every so often a book comes along that changes the way you view the world. The War on Science: Who’s Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It by Shawn Otto is one of those rare books. If you care about attacks on climate science and the rise of authoritarianism, if you care about biased media coverage or shake-your-head political tomfoolery, this book is for you.
>more> The Guardian
U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz speaks during a news conference in Beijing in March. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)BEIJING — Energy ministers from G20 world’s major economies failed to reach agreement on deadline to phase out hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies for fossil fuels — subsidies that campaigners say are helping to propel the globe toward potentially devastating climate change. Ministers failed to reach agreement on deadline, despite Chinese and American efforts and joint appeal from 200 NGO’s. G7 group of 7 richest economies last month urged all countries to eliminate “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.
A 2015 report by the British think tank Overseas Development Institute, along with Oil Change International, calculated that the G-20 major economies subsidize fossil fuel production to the tune of $444 billion a year, marrying “bad economics with potentially disastrous effects on the environment.”
>more> Washington Post
Exports U.S. LNG stand to benefit from $5.4 Billion expansion of Panama Cana…much shorter travel time and lower cost shipments…Gulf Coast to big markets in Asia and South America.. ..Wider and deeper navigation channels and larger locks mean the canal can accommodate 90% of world’s LNG tankers…Before facilities opened last week, the canal could handle only much smaller ships, which combined account for just 6% of the global LNG fleet…canal improvements cut travel time from U.S. Gulf Coast, to Japan to 20 days, compared with 34 days for voyages around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope or 31 days for ships using the Suez Canal. Similar time savings for ships using Panama Canal to reach China, South Korea and Taiwan, 4 countries accounting for nearly two-thirds of the global LNG market.
USA is on its way to becoming world’s 3rd largest LNG producer by 2020, after Australia and Qatar.
>more> USA Today
Why rent a lawyer when you can buy a judge
A blog by Julian Cribb
Learning Instrumentation and Control System based on case study
Sharing solutions that make the climate safer and our communities more liveable
Just another WordPress.com site with thoughts by Marcus Ampe
with Peter Sinclair
Writing about writing and the News Media.
Or why the world is going to hell
News and analysis for the clean energy economy
groundswell bass coast climate change renewable energy 