Who Picks the Winners in the Australian Electricity Market?

Last week, Reuters published an interesting piece about Australia's progress on renewable energy - For those who can't be bothered reading the article, I'll summarise it for you:

• The Aussie government recently committed to generate at least 20% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2020. To support this goal, it put in place a scheme called the Renewable Energy Target (RET).  
• Although it is still early days for the RET, it appears to be working pretty bloody well. So well in fact, that we seem set to beat the 20% by 2020 target (perhaps even generating as much as 25%), if things continue.
• Because of this success, "The Australian Coal Association (ACA) has argued that the RET should be abolished completely because it unfairly picks winners in the electricity market."

I do not intend to write another scathing post about the hypocrisy of the ACA's position - Blind Freddy can see that a highly profitable industry that still sucks billions of dollars from Australian taxpayers every year is taking the piss to argue that their competitors shouldn't help themselves to a small serve from their feeding trough…

I'll try not talk about the ACA at all actually, because I think it's time that Aussies started to talk about the big picture...

Australia is one of the richest countries on the planet and we have a tiny population. Our land abounds in Nature's (renewable energy) gifts. We have boundless plains on which to harvest solar, wind, and geothermal energy. For fuck's sake - hasn't anyone noticed that our home is girt by sea? Maybe we might look into some marine and ocean energy? 

Nature and history have picked the winners in the Aussie electricity market, not the RET!

What is wrong with Aussies these days that we just let the ACA get away with spouting that kind of crap? We should all march down there and tell them to shove it!

The Big Issues: Anyone up for a Game of End-Times Bingo?

I'm an avowed atheist, but apart from occasional lapses, I try to limit my anti-supernatualist "preaching" to light-hearted piss-taking of thick-skinned religious friends.

Wherever we sit within the many spectra of faith systems though, a conscious concern for Sustainable Human Flourishing forces reflection on the positives and negatives of religion… For me this is especially true at times like this when such madness is again on display in places like Cairo and Benghazi - insanity that has reached my adopted home of Belgium and even as far away as my erstwhile secular homeland of Australia. At times like this, I must pause to reflect on the potential for religious extremism to affect those that I love.

I have to say though, that while I consider religiously motivated terrorism to be a real danger, it seems a massively over-hyped threat when compared with two elephants that quietly share a room with today's most popular religions, specifically:

The Big Issues: Is Organic Food a Sham?

A good friend asked for my thoughts today about this Gawker report (about a USA Today article about a meta-study and a University of Oxford study) which claims that organic food is no better (and in some cases worse) than non-organic food.

I get variations on this theme all the time, so this time I have actually written my answer down for posterity and for future reference - I will also tell you definitively whether I believe that Gawker is correct in its conclusion of "Science Suggests That Organic Food Is Largely a Sham". 

First though, I will frame my response to this specific article with three four observations:

1. (Edit) I believe that most studies, meta-studies, and popular discussion on the topic of "organic vs. conventional" miss the point entirely (including, disappointingly this recent TreeHugger article)
2. As someone who aspires to live sustainably, I don't give a shit about "organic food". I only care about "sustainable food".
3. As someone who aspires to live rationally, I trust scientists to report results correctly and factually, within the parameters of their study.
4. For the same reason as 3) I do not trust USA Today to report scientists' results impartially.

The Big Issues: The Greatest Challenges of Our Time

I think that the most deliciously idiosyncratic thing about Belgium is that we are right at the heart of all that is good and bad about Europe. So many interesting and potentially world-changing discussions happen right here.

Living close to Brussels also means that I can gatecrash some of these discussions at the various European institutions based there. I have no affiliation with these institutions beyond the fact that my tax dollars help to support them, but I honestly consider "Europe" to be an amazing achievement - even more so because normal people like me are encouraged to participate occasionally.

On Wednesday, for example, I went to the European Parliament with a couple of friends to watch a presentation based on the book "The Greatest Challenges of Our Time" by László Szombatfalvy.

Important note: You can and should get your free download of this enlightening book (or read online) in English, French, Swedish, Spanish, and more languages coming...

Before we go any further though, I should warn you that this is a pretty straightforward wrap-up post. It contains lots of information about a fascinating presentation, with many interesting links, but I apologise that I don't have time right now to add too much of my typical rambling, opinionated commentary.

Also, since the link between the presentation and this blog should be self-evident, I won't waste too much of our time tying everything back to Sustainable Human Flourishing.

Two reasons to celebrate #NOKXL and #OWS

I'm back after a quick family staycation where I was largely offline. Did you miss me?

It is rare these days to have something to celebrate in the domain of Sustainable Human Flourishing, but this week, there have been two significant breakthroughs.

The first was the success of the NOKXL campaign to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. As you can see in this inspirational victory video, after the most extensive environmental activism campaign in recent history, President Obama finally sent this awful project packing.

Here's a more light-hearted interview with one of the heroes behind that success, Bill McKibben

World Changing Ideas: Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

Last month, DESERTEC were in Almería, in the south of Spain to record the opening of the impressive Andasol 3 Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant. This short movie gives an idea of the power (pun intended) of that project.

I have been convinced for some time that CSP will be the most important wedge in the world's future energy supply, so I'm delighted to see such tangible steps from Andasol.

I first started to take CSP seriously when I saw the following picture over four years ago, via The Oil Drum (a cool resource that you should subscribe to just after you've subscribed to my blog using the button on the right there ==>)

The Big Issues: When Should We Stop Burning Fossil Fuels?

I often hear people making statements like - "There is no point reducing my carbon footprint, because anything that I do is insignificant compared to increases in developing countries."

Realistic people convince themselves that this is a realistic position. Sensible people make the sensible choice to enjoy life now before the oil runs out. Rational people come to the rational conclusion that we are ripping ourselves off if we don't gorge on the cheap fossil fuel pie - Nobody will leave the last piece of the pie on the table out of politeness, right?

Sure, we'll move to cleaner, more expensive fuels later, but only when we really need to. You've heard this all before, haven't you?