profraywills.futuresmart.com.au
Futurist
Disruption
Ag, biz, cities, climate, ecology, economy, energy, renewables, robots, tech, transport
World Top100 Sustainability
MD Future Smart Strategies™ Aus
Prof UWA
NB: I only follow accounts with name+pic+profile (+give me poke!)
1,631 posts
3,272 followers
533 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
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I was distracted by battery size 🤔
But lack of detail, misleading headline number 🤯
Story content doesn't help: “$165m economic impact over 35-year life”
My back of envelope guess: Darden project (1.15GW solar, 1.15GW/4.6GWh storage) likely: cost ~$2.6B, generate ~3.6TWh/year, revenue ~$250M/year
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Yes, I was distracted by battery size 🤔
Now recognising unexplained headline number 🤯
Story content doesn't help: “$165m economic impact over 35-year life”
My back of envelope: Darden project (1.15GW solar, 1.15GW/4.6GWh storage) likely: cost ~$2.6B, generate ~3.6TWh/year, revenue ~$250M/year
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The growth rate of batteries is astounding, will astound many, and will change the energy landscape
bsky.app/profile/prof...
And is pretty much what we @fssau.futuresmart.com.au have been expecting since 2015
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I've found that, being now irrevocably on the other side of 60, humour seems to naturally come to relate to the frailties of this mortal coil
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batteries are the catalyst - as long as they take hold, we've won
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While I'm confident peeps can always (as the Brits say) 'cock things up', I remain optimistic that we'll accidentally get it right
We've been as patient as we must
The tech is in hand
The price if cheap
The transition is now inevitable
Now we ought be impatient
bsky.app/profile/prof...
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And impact of Donny's orange cloud of obfuscation is yet to be evident in 2025 of existing renewables implementation
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There's not a 'difference', one leads to the other
Anthropogenic global warming causes climate change
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Back last century I was a man from CALM - a government botanist and ecologist at large working the south coast between 1988 - 1996
It's a great protection for a class 5A reserve! But the reserve ought also be a beneficiary of the wind farm tenancy directly providing funds for conservation
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Yes, needs new turbines on existing footprint, no brainer
#Albany Grasmere wind farm
Originally 12 wind turbines in 2001
Wind farm approved by then Energy Minister Colin Barnett in ~1999 in Richard Court Govt!
6 more turbines installed 2011
12 old turbines close to EOL- but all should be upgraded
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The rapid expansion of utility-scale battery storage in Australia, with 43 facilities and 6,994MW/13,671MWh* by June 2025 that the AEMC's decision to reject a new market for critical grid services may need reconsideration.
(* up a GWh in a month - bsky.app/profile/prof...)
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“If you win the lottery, Who Wants to be a Millionaire or The Block, you don’t pay tax on your prize money.
"Win the Stella Prize for writing by Australian women, and you pay tax.
"Win the Archibald prize for painting, pay tax."
Read more ⤵
australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-cos...
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We've known for a number of decades that snow fields in Australia are in decline
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Stuff I voted for
Action on climate
Fed ICAC + truth in (political) adverts
Scientifically literate gov (yay!)
Funding for arts & science
Return of my ABC + objective journalism
And CSIRO and ABS
Insane stuff I didn't vote for
Huge defence budget + AUKUS
Stage 3 tax cuts (sorted)
Fossil fuels
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It's not Africa can't afford to have #renewables and #EVs
It's Africa can't afford to NOT have renewables and EVs
bsky.app/profile/prof...
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Well done Guardian for reporting issue of sea level rise arising from climate change contributing to the mix of problems
The many ways we're already paying for climate change through increased extremes events like floods, droughts, and fires, and through sea level rise
bsky.app/profile/prof...
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Yup, 2025 ought to see peaking if all the energy changes add up
@iea.org reported in June 2025 that renewable energy capacity reached 3,064GW globally in 2024, up 50% from 2023, signalling a potential turning point for emissions reduction starting in 2025
bsky.app/profile/prof...
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If electric cars were such a problem, then car carriers like the fleet of BYD RoRo vessels carrying up to 9200 electric cars would be exploding every voyage
Er, they haven't
Combustion engine cars 11 times more likely to catch fire than battery electric vehicles
bsky.app/profile/prof...
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Now, do Putin
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I've been working in and around climate since 1988
And joined my first protests in 2006
And modelling the future for more than a decade
Recent iterations of the model account for increased energy consumption from new demands like data centres and AI
Graph on the left 2025, on right 2017
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indeed, me too - and of course consistent across the planet, as it is in Australia where usually #isitihotrightnow is true across all seasons
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Better without the tracks - like this. Will be much lower cost
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I generally find that ACT Government ahead of the curve
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Only if they buy in to autonomy as a possible solution
Transport like electricity - transmission (big wires) vs distribution (little wires) in poles and wires
trams/light rail etc still make sense for the big routes - the smaller systems suitable for the last mile (or two or three)
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Now do wind
China share of generation from wind + solar up to 25%
bsky.app/profile/prof...
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When you don't have to have a driver, and so a shortage of drivers not relevant, you can downsize to multiple smaller driverless systems coming more frequently every minute rather than a large system coming every 5 minutes - better service, less impactful on traffic flow
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A small reduction in flights - but nothing like the covid decline pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
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lets try that attribution again: @vcs-blbs.bsky.social
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Imagine buying fuel, like diesel, every week to run a noisy engine for many hours every day to generate expensive electricity, and every week you needed to go buy more fuel to burn
Or else, imagine you just collect the sunshine that falls on your roof and turn sunlight to electricity
(And no noise)
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