Weaning Ourselves Off The Dead Dinosaur Teat

In Australia, we’re in the no-longer-so-unique situation of the whole damn country knowing that everything’s going to change due to COVID-19 and it’s progeny, we know that things DO DAMN WELL HAVE TO CHANGE if we want the planet to survive. And our government is still firmly stuck in the pre-Industrial Ages and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that they have a duty to Australians and the entire world, of accepting (and exceeding!) the Paris Agreement.

In an effort to try and highlight what the right thing (vs the wrong thing) is, I’ve rounded up just a few of the highest-profile happenings in my country, and present them as a way to point the direction we should all be going. So here goes . . .

The Ground-Breaking Tesla Baseload Battery:

Tesla completed the installation of a 100-megawatt battery bank in Australia, meeting Elon Musk’s promise to have it ready in 100 days or waive the costs. The battery is now in action and will store power from a wind farm as a way to even out loads and provide a back-up if the powergrid needs to be shut off in periods of excessive local demand.

https://www.geeksaresexy.net/2017/12/29/the-year-in-news-what-happened-next-stories-from-september-december-2017/

At the time it was the biggest baseload battery in use in the world, and it did prevent the brown-outs and black-outs of previous summer seasons, and it also reduced the costs of running the South Australian power grid so far that it almost amortised one third of its own costs in its first year.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/27/south-australias-tesla-battery-on-track-to-make-back-a-third-of-cost-in-a-year

And Its Successor(s):

And while Australia’s government was going all gung-ho-hard-on for coal and fossil fuels, making shady deals with Adani for a coal mine and port that would go right through the rapidly-dwindling (by then already no longer so)Great Barrier Reef, smart Australians noted the huge economic and reliability gains of these batteries and went right ahead and did sensible things such as closing down (a few years later) a major fossil fuel power station after installing another baseload battery. Victorians hardly noticed the missing power station that summer.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/victoria-officially-opens-states-first-big-battery-at-ballarat-93671/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/25/hazelwood-power-stations-eight-chimneys-demolished-in-live-stream-viewed-by-thousands

Then Along Came The Latest One:

Now, Australia’s government is once again – still. . . – bellowing and bleating to “restart the economy, restart the economy, restart the economy” as though that was even remotely possible ever again now that we’ve experienced so many profound changes due to COVID-19, and they’re touting gas as the wonder fuel of the Dirty Decade (which they seem to think Aussies will allow them to create) and meanwhile . . .

Sensible Aussies are once again pushing the envelope and installing what will be another world record load levelling battery near Geelong, just south of Melbourne.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/05/victoria-plans-300mw-tesla-battery-to-help-stabilise-grid-as-renewables-increase  — 

And Electric Vehicles Didn’t Miss Out, Either:

Sensible Aussies (SEA Electric) have also partnered their battery and electric vehicle drivetrain factory with Toyota to make Hino -badged electric trucks. 

https://thedriven.io/2020/10/08/australias-sea-electric-partners-with-toyota-for-electric-trucks/

SEA Electric also had plans to revitalise Morwell after the closure of the power station that had created a large part of the region’s economy to make for new BEV/HEV (Battery Electric Vehicle/Hybrid Electric Vehicle) but ran into problems when they failed to meet milestones needed for the government investment they needed.

https://www.latrobevalleyexpress.com.au/story/6989283/morwell-electric-vehicle-plant-at-an-impasse/

Meanwhile, in NSW, sensible Aussies have started an EV bus/van company to bring back a new automotive factory near Mossvale to build clean commercial vehicles, and seem to intend to also bring in electric SUVs and other BEVs as well.

https://www.electrive.com/2020/10/20/nexport-to-build-electric-vehicles-in-australia/  —

STUPID Aussies (aka our government, this time South Australia’s State government) seemed determined to completely undermine the adoption of BEVs by proposing a mileage tax (probably because they couldn’t sukc taxpayer dollars out of our pocket by way of fossil fuel tariffs, greedy conniving bastards) but sensible Aussies seem set to throw that particular STUPID piece of legislation out the door, and if South Aussies do the right thing, perhaps throw the pollies that thought up this particular piece of Catch-22 idiocy out the flaming door too.

https://thedriven.io/2020/11/12/south-australias-proposed-electric-vehicle-tax-faces-defeat-in-parliament/

So despite Scott Morrison’s LNP Coalition being so firmly entrenched in fossil fuels and their implacable hatred of renewable / sustainable sources of energy, Aussie have been quietly sticking the finger up at that, and doing the right thing

One wonders, though. 

  • Human greed can be counted upon to be as greedy as possible. 
  • Impossible greed can be counted upon to extract every cent that can possibly be, from a population, for such basic necessities as, e.g., energy.
  • When added to bank interest (also a government requirement, to be noted that the government wishes us to move entirely to depending on banks to handle our incomes
  • and rental / mortgage costs and 
  • rising food prices, that means that 
  • the population is quite literally enslaved.

That, right there, is what is behind every government decision, at root.

Yes, they can dress this up by pointing to “benefits” and “advancements” created by their decisions, but we should note that every “benefit” and “advancement” serves only to remove one more degree of freedom. Beware.

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