The huge pylon backbone that shifts power over great distances is only going to get more under-used as the network decentralises. The trend with power is interestingly opposite to the trend for things like data - the amount that gets moved is shrinking and localising and future interconnection is more likely to happen within areas rather than between them. Smaller-scale infrastructure will probably change less in the short-term- but I chicken out of making any predictions. The change is too fast and deep. The technical leaps are unpredictable. There could be forms of grid instability which weāre simply not prepared for. Weāll need to be adaptive.
Refer here for a really remarkable chart on where this is all going: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/ubs-australian-households-go-grid-2018
I just canāt see how traditional power arrangements will survive.
I understand Energy Policy Version 2 is still a draft?
I am a climate policy wonk with about 10 years of reading climate science and policy. I attended Paris COP21 as an official NGO observer for Climate Action Network Australia/Climate Action Moreland as a grassroots activist and citizen journalist/blogger. I think the draft policy needs to be updated to take into account the Paris Agreement and the latest science. Iād like to have a go at making some suggestions for improvement in Pirate Party policy in this area. I am a newbie to this forum so treat me gently, if I stray out of line.
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The current policy is here. No doubt it needs an update given the events of the past year, and it would be great to have an experienced environmentalist like yourself take a look.
I think, as Pirates, we could support any rise in sea levels.
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Until I read this thread I had not realised that not all solar power users were using battery storage! We are completely off grid & off all services, the only way to fly.
Keith.
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A lot of people have been asking me how to vote in this election and Iād love to be telling people to put the progressive independents ahead of Labor - especially given Labors poor record on both the environment and their support of police-state/surveillance bulls, but I canāt recommend anyone vote for a party which doesnāt have a decent policy on the most important issue of our time - fixing climate.
See https://www.environment.vote/scorecard which ranks you BEHIND Labor on this key issue.
Come on - get your act together - if you arenāt up to date on the issue get one of your members
to review policies of ICAN or Greens and adopt something meaningfull.
I find myself not really able to take this scorecard very seriously. Iām really unsure what part of protect biodiversity, and expand national parks says ādonāt end broad-scale clearing of remnant forestsā to the authors.
That scorecard doesnāt measure the quality or effectiveness of climate policy. It only measures the extent to which policies match the precise prescriptions which that particular group happens to favor.
We want a broad-based carbon price that would apply across the economy. It would bring emissions down in hundreds of different ways. It is much better than the Labor party policy.
I am an advocate of digital rights, and a strong critic of Laborās support of the police state bills, so Iām aligned with your views on this. I just canāt recommend people vote for a party independently ranked almost bottom on environmental issues. I know for a fact that if I ask most people to choose between digital rights and the environment they are going to choose environment - as I said 15% of the county population turned out for the Anti-Adani rally last week. Most people are sympathetic to digital rights but its a hard sell, and its not going to lead to votes if the party is getting ranked low by an independent assessment of its environment policies that is circulating widely locally (Iāve received it at least 6 times in the last few days, which is far more than Iāve received any digital rights messages).
I notice for example that the Pirate Party didnāt sign onto the Australian Conservation Foundationās deal on climate change between independent candidates.
Your call of course, as I said I support you on the digital rights issues, but if you canāt get the other issues up to a basic level ā¦
I am saying the ranking isnāt credible. It prescribes a fixed set of solutions and counts how many of those solutions can be found in a set of policies. The idea that there might be solutions they havenāt thought of has clearly never occurred to them. Nor that some solutions (carbon tax, for eg) are far more pivotal than others, and that each doesnāt warrant an equal weighting.
Our policy to expand national parks and restore ecosystems is given no weight in the scorecard, purely because whoever designed the chart didnāt think of it. Our policy to offset exported emissions (which are most of our emissions) is also not counted. A scorecard that leaves out things like that is just misleading, and an incredibly poor substitute for thinking seriously about the issue and coming to an informed view.
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Apart from renewables, there should be a definitive action on energy efficiency front. Program like Victorian Energy Upgrades need to be sincerly implemented.
The categories of how electricity gets used is what youāre missing. Around two thirds of electricity consumption in Australia goes to industry and commercial usage. Only around 27-28% goes to residential. Wikipedia admittedly has rather old info now, but it probably hasnāt changed all that much.