Yes, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which has just released its draft results on whether Australia could run it's electricity supply off 100% renewable electricity by 2030 or 2050.
As noted here, this should kill off the idea that the intermittency of supply in renewable electricity prevents it from supplying all our electricity, especially in a country like Australia where we have good renewable energy resources. Some may remember that Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) released a report a couple of years ago that also outlined a plan for Australia to move to 100% renewables. One difference with the AEMO is that these are the people who manage the electricity market and so their conclusion that 100% renewables could provide reliable supply will probably carry more weight.
Similar to BZE the AEMO report sees an important role for solar thermal with molten salt storage and also biogass for helping to meet the meet peaks in electricity demand and to provide supply when there is little incoming solar and wind energy.
Obviously moving to 100% renewables isn't cheap, but as noted at Renew Economy, by 2050 most existing coal and gas fired power plants in Australia would need to be replaced anyway, so while the total cost may sound like a lot, it may not differ all that much from what would be spend over the next 40 years to maintain a fairly polluting power sector.
There are also a couple of interesting critisms of the report from Renew Economy, stating that the AEMO are likely overestimating the cost of renewables and ignoring a role for energy efficiency improvement in decreasing the actual amount of electricity required. Both of which would make 100% renewables cheaper and easier to obtain.
To learn more, you can find the draft report and executive summary here, as well as some good commentary here, here and here.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
TTKD May 2013 meeting: Reinventing the Toilet!
Thursday May 16
7.15pm for a 7.30pm start
Kenmore Library Meeting Room
7.15pm for a 7.30pm start
Kenmore Library Meeting Room
Also of note:
Moggill Market Stall:
TTKD will be holding a stall at Moggill Markets on Saturday 1 June – people are welcome to bring any surplus home grown produce to share. We will also have some native plants from Moggill Creek Catchment Group for sale at $2 each.
Healthy Waterways Awards:
Here is a link to the Healthy Waterways Awards people choice voting page. Please note, our August speaker, Matthew Fullerton is a nominee in the Young Adult Encouragement award, under the Individual and Lifestyle Group (voting closes 20 May).
http://healthywaterwaysawards.org/award/peoples-choice-award/
Monday, April 22, 2013
City council releases its bus review and proposed network changes
The Brisbane city council has now released its planned changes to the Brisbane Transport bus network. You may recall that after the outcry over the proposed Translink bus changes the city council took over responsibility for redesigning the bus routes that it ran.
Reading the BCC's proposed changes it seems to me that the city council has thrown the baby out with the bath water. If Translink could be accused of doing too much (i.e. making dumb changes like cancelling the heavily used 444) the city council appears to be doing too little to fix what is quite an inefficient network.
For example: good changes to the bus network proposed by Translink, like a well overdue high frequency buz service to the Centenary suburbs, and some attempt to clean up the spaghetti of low frequency bus routes between Centenary suburbs and the city appear to all have been canned.
Locally, the combination of the low frequency 414 (Indoroopilly to UQ) and 417 (Long Pocket to City) buses into a circular St Lucia local route, (which seemed like a good idea to me) is also canned.
Why does this matter? Well the main benefit of the Translink plan would have been more high frequency bus routes servicing more people, with the cost of these extra buses offset by having a more cost effective bus network. My understanding is that the council's changes aren't allowed to increase the cost of the bus network. So, because they are removing very few duplicated and inefficient routes my guess is that they are unable to add lots of new high frequency routes.
Anyway you can review the city council's proposed changes here, which also contains instructions on how to have your say.
Reading the BCC's proposed changes it seems to me that the city council has thrown the baby out with the bath water. If Translink could be accused of doing too much (i.e. making dumb changes like cancelling the heavily used 444) the city council appears to be doing too little to fix what is quite an inefficient network.
For example: good changes to the bus network proposed by Translink, like a well overdue high frequency buz service to the Centenary suburbs, and some attempt to clean up the spaghetti of low frequency bus routes between Centenary suburbs and the city appear to all have been canned.
Locally, the combination of the low frequency 414 (Indoroopilly to UQ) and 417 (Long Pocket to City) buses into a circular St Lucia local route, (which seemed like a good idea to me) is also canned.
Why does this matter? Well the main benefit of the Translink plan would have been more high frequency bus routes servicing more people, with the cost of these extra buses offset by having a more cost effective bus network. My understanding is that the council's changes aren't allowed to increase the cost of the bus network. So, because they are removing very few duplicated and inefficient routes my guess is that they are unable to add lots of new high frequency routes.
Anyway you can review the city council's proposed changes here, which also contains instructions on how to have your say.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
2012-13 Australian summer was the hottest on record
If you thought the summer we just had was hot. You were right, the 2012-13 summer we just had was the hottest Australian summer on record.
This and other facts are outlined by two scientists from the Bureau of Meteorology here.
Some other interesting facts:
This and other facts are outlined by two scientists from the Bureau of Meteorology here.
Some other interesting facts:
- Janurary 2013 when we had that massive heatwave was the hottest month in Australia on record, hotter than every other month going back to 1910.
- Sept 2012 - Feb 2013 was the hottest 6 month period on record.
- This record hot summer occurred without an El Nino event. El Nino's give temperatures a short term boost and generally mean hotter summers for Australia (the previous three hottest summers all occurred in El Nino years). This is consistent with increasing temperatures allowing records to fall without an El Nino "bump".
- This last summer saw record heat across the southern hemisphere land mass as a whole.
- "Six of Australia’s ten hottest summers on record have come in the last 11 years, meaning that very hot summers have been occurring at about five times the rate you would expect without a warming trend"
- "With higher average temperatures come more extremes of heat. In the last decade, record high temperatures have outnumbered record low temperatures in Australia by a ratio of about three to one"
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Govt to abolish 444 and 443 buses - western suburbs to loose only high frequency bus
Kenmore, Moggill and the western suburbs north of the river are to loose their only high frequency bus service and peak time express bus to the city in the recently announced changes to the SEQ bus system, with the popular 444 and P443 bus routes to be axed.
Last year the LNP state government committed translink to review every bus route and rate them by "value for money" and "patronage" as well as look at how to efficiently structure the network.
The outcomes (which can be found here), were to strengthen and expand the well utilized high frequency routes, close poorly used routes and reduce night time services. It might come as somewhat of a surprise then, that despite both being ranked as "high" value for money with "very high" patronage, both the high frequency 444 (from Moggill to the city) and the P443 (peak time express from Moggill to city) are being axed. To see this, go here and search for 444 or 443.
Passengers from the Western suburbs will instead have access to the "secondary network". Lower frequency services that might go into the CBD, but that also might require changing buses or to a train if the CBD is where you want to go. For example here is what translink has to say about the 444:
I am at somewhat of a loss to explain what the govt is playing at here. Probably the major message from the bus review is that passengers want high frequency (ie: convenient) services and so they want to realign the network towards this. To which their response to the western suburbs is to axe highly used and frequent route.
The translink report attempts a halfhearted defense of this saying:
If you want to have your say:
You can search the changes and read the report here.
You can leave feedback here. Or call 13 12 30
The state government minister for Transport is Scott Emerson. So you could also drop him a line here.
Update:
Scott Emerson and Translink have announced that the 444 will be retained for peak time services.
Update 2 (23.3.13)
The state government was now passed all responsibility for bus changes within Brisbane city over to the city council. Apparently no changes will now be instituted without the support of the BCC. So it's probably fair to say that bus review has now devolved into a mixture of buck passing, farce and uncertainty.
Last year the LNP state government committed translink to review every bus route and rate them by "value for money" and "patronage" as well as look at how to efficiently structure the network.
The outcomes (which can be found here), were to strengthen and expand the well utilized high frequency routes, close poorly used routes and reduce night time services. It might come as somewhat of a surprise then, that despite both being ranked as "high" value for money with "very high" patronage, both the high frequency 444 (from Moggill to the city) and the P443 (peak time express from Moggill to city) are being axed. To see this, go here and search for 444 or 443.
Passengers from the Western suburbs will instead have access to the "secondary network". Lower frequency services that might go into the CBD, but that also might require changing buses or to a train if the CBD is where you want to go. For example here is what translink has to say about the 444:
This route will be replaced with route #500 MOGGILL TO UQ at a reduced frequency. Passengers wishing to travel to the CBD can transfer to frequent route #26 MT OMMANEY TO CITY VIA INDOOROOPILLY at Indooroopilly.
I am at somewhat of a loss to explain what the govt is playing at here. Probably the major message from the bus review is that passengers want high frequency (ie: convenient) services and so they want to realign the network towards this. To which their response to the western suburbs is to axe highly used and frequent route.
The translink report attempts a halfhearted defense of this saying:
"While Moggill loses its direct connection to the CBD (previously provided by the 444), they gain a direct connection to UQ via Indooroopilly, where they can connect to rail for onwards journeys. Peak services from Moggill will now bypass Indooroopilly and thereby provide a faster connection to the CBD than the existing 444 alignment."This is all a bit pointless, the 427,432 (and sometimes 428) already provided services from the Kenmore and Chapel Hill to UQ and I doubt very many students live in Moggill. So I struggle to see what is gained by this. Also the 444 already went to Indooroopilly and almost no one would catch a bus to Indooro and then swap to a train when it could be a 15 min wait for one, instead of staying on the bus for a 20 min ride into the city. As for peak services bypassing the Indooro exchange, we already had that, it was called the P443.
If you want to have your say:
You can search the changes and read the report here.
You can leave feedback here. Or call 13 12 30
The state government minister for Transport is Scott Emerson. So you could also drop him a line here.
Update:
Scott Emerson and Translink have announced that the 444 will be retained for peak time services.
Update 2 (23.3.13)
The state government was now passed all responsibility for bus changes within Brisbane city over to the city council. Apparently no changes will now be instituted without the support of the BCC. So it's probably fair to say that bus review has now devolved into a mixture of buck passing, farce and uncertainty.
TTKD March Meeting: Waste Management: Past, Present and Future
Deana Nichols is Brisbane City Council's Waste Management Education
Officer - she will give us a comprehensive insight into waste management
in Brisbane.
Thursday March 21
7.15pm for a 7.30pm start
Kenmore Library Meeting Room
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