Price gouging in Victoria's electricity retail market
The release of the Victorian Independent Review into the Electricity and Gas Markets is damning of retail margins in the electricity market. Most of the focus of the report is on price gouging but I think the bigger issue is the effect of economic reforms on the...
Pathways to the Post-Carbon Economy
In June 2017, Nafeez Ahmed published an article 3 ways Clean Energy will make Big Oil extinct in 12 to 32 Years — without subsidies which illicited debate in the sustainability community. In response, Nafeez suggested a symposium titled Pathways to the Post-Carbon...
The climate mitigation gap and the role of voluntary action
About 10 years ago I was involved in a council project providing information on energy efficiency for the local community. I remember commenting to my collaborators that a lifetime of changing light globes is not going to make up for our recent overseas trips. Local...
A few thoughts on the AS/NZS 5139 battery standard
The controversy around the draft AS/NZS 5139:2017 for the safe installation of battery systems highlights two competing interest groups. The first is the residential-based activist community that support ‘democratised energy’, ‘distributed energy’, and...
Japan as a template for how societies might reconfigure with economic stagnation and declining net-energy
Japan has enormous debt, falling population, and faces a demographic ‘time bomb’. But my current visit to Japan reveals a vibrant, friendly, and civilised society. So how to make sense of these observations? My sense is that Japan may become a model for societies...