Thinking about rates of change
There seems to be an evolutionary advantage to being able to spot small changes in the natural world. For example, the Australian amateur astronomer Bob Evans has such an incredible knack for spotting minute changes in the night sky that he holds the record for visual...
Environmentalism is weird
Figure from XKCD - https://xkcd.com/552/ On Twitter, Alex Trembath laments that - Environmentalism is weird. We want a Green New Deal, but not if moderates adopt it. We want vegan meat, but not if Burger King sells it. The...
The power of narratives and framing – Snowy 2.0
Narratives and framing are an essential part of political story telling. Snowy 2.0, Australia’s proposed pumped hydro project, is building on the “nation building” narrative of the original Snowy 1.0, and being framed as a universal solution to wind and solar...
The Green and the Brown – the varied colours of hydrogen
Hydrogen ‘colours’ can be a useful shortcut for differentiating hydrogen supply options. But delimiting by colour can obscure the nuances between supply options, and oversimplify what are difficult policy and commercial choices. There is no universal standard for...
Why is the energy density of hydrogen so much higher than batteries?
I’m sometimes asked why the gravimetric energy density of hydrogen is so high, and much higher than batteries. For example, the Tesla Model S (85 kWh) requires a battery pack weighing about 540 kg to achieve a 400 km range, but a similarly sized gasoline...