imagine living in a time where six men kill themselves every day, and if we walk Basque gonna happen in 100 years. It sounds pretty gross, but it's actually originally fake. News starts is a critique of news that's considered to be inaccurate. It's become a term that's used now to dismiss any news that you don't like. And Iran wanting to young Australians has a provision. They are unwell generation that
people don't accept. Climate science, if I think about how we're going to save the world, are enables us to move in it. Hi, I'm Dr Susan Collins. Welcome to the final installment on the reality of renewables in the What Happens next podcast in this episode at experts offer up their tips for making the best use of Australia's abundant renewable energy. Whether that's joining forces with your community or lobbying government will have ideas for everyone. Roger Dogville has some advice.
My name's Roger Dartevelle on a senior lecturer in renewable energy in the civil engineering department. My research focuses on designing optimal renewable energy systems, trying to work out how to minimize the variability in the output of wind and solar plant when they aggregated over very large geographic regions. What can the average person that harm due to improve
the situation for renewables in Australia, particularly, if maybe they can't. Ah, they're renting so they can't put solar panels on their roof they can't afford or they have nowhere to charge. Ah, you know, electric car or can't get a hydrogen car.
What can the average person do in this regard? Most of the decisions that will be made to de carbonized the energy system were made at the corporate level in terms of investment in new projects and shutting down of coal fired power stations so individuals can can influence corporate corporations by taking the business away from fossil fuel.
So if you're buying electricity, you can talk to your retailer, and you can get a green energy plan where you pay a couple cents more per kilowatt hour and you get green electricity, and that encourages your retailer to invest in renewables. But probably the most important thing is to get the politicians to put the policies in place that really make the corporations make the right decisions so that the way you vote is probably the single most important thing you can do.
If you're particularly keen, you can write letters to your local member and say, I'm really concerned about climate change, and I'd like to see more action in that space. But politicians want to stay in power. If the voters say we want action on climate change, then they will make it happen. What is one thing you wish? What is one thing you wished the average person could understand about renewables? That this seems to be a lot of misinformation about? That's a good question.
I don't know what people don't understand. What do I not understand? Look, I don't understand much. Um, you okay, So what? One of the criticisms we have in the renewable energy spaces. You can't build a reliable energy system with wind and solar line, because obviously when the sun sets, it's not. It's died. There are gonna be doctors to If the wind isn't blowing, then there's no wind power.
The reality is you build solar farms in sunny places, um, which, which do not tend to get cloud covers, at least during the day that they're almost always producing power. And what about it? Not so. Our power consumption goes up dramatically during the day and actually goes down a lot at night time. Sleeping right, I forgot. And and at nighttime wind farms tend to produce more power so that the correlation between wind and solar works quite nicely.
And while in a particular location it might not be windy. It will always be windy somewhere in Australia. Um, so if we have a large transmission networks, which we actually already do, have connecting the grid together, you can move renewable energy around from the places where it's windy and sunny to the places where it's not so. Just because one place doesn't have wind and solar at a particular point in time doesn't mean it's not available somewhere else.
You still need to be a bit clever. You can't run it just with wind and solar, because there still will be times when it's calm over much of the the Eastern Seaboard and cloudy. So you need storage and pumped. Hydro is the best form of storage for folks during energy. We've already got eight gigawatts of conventional hydropower in the snowy scheme and in Tasmania, so harnessing that will be really critical as well. But a cleverly designed strategic placement
of wind and solar farms. Energy system can provide very reliable energy, and it's it's not any more expensive than the current fossil fuel driven system. Roger, I have to say you make it sound very easy and realistic. Why does it not seem that way? Why does it feel so hard? It does involve rebuilding a system in a fashion that that doesn't exist yet. So it's a no in the world has as a wind and solar 100% renewable energy system. We have countries that have close to 100% for hydropower
100 powers. Avery, well understood in mature technology, said this. There's nothing dangerous about that, but not no one's tried to build 100% wind and solar system before. So there's there's fear of the unknown. We're transitioning from a system that's been built over 100 years. It's very well established, and there's a lot of money invested in in it, so so moving away from that infrastructure is going to be somewhat costly.
But in fact, the renewable technologies and especially solar PV, have come down and cost so much that building infrastructure to make electricity from from the sun, and the wind is now cheaper than doing it from from fossil fuel. And that's true even for some coal fired power stations that have already been paid for. So just the cost of the cold going into the system is more than what it costs toe produce power from a new solar phone. I guess there's, Ah, we need to work on the
wheel side of things. Roger, Thank you so much. That was really interesting. Let's see from lame Smith.
I'm Lee and Mitt. I'm the director of behavior. What's Australia? High Boots Australia
Deployed five. Change research network, government and problems and projects.
You change behavior into
beautiful, such a good Liam Smith. Welcome.
Great, Great to be here.
All right, let's have a think about what individuals Condo's. What can we do to make a change? So what role do you think an individual has to play in making Australia you know, 100% renewable power?
There's there's certainly a few things, and then I guess you can divide them up into different types of behaviour. There was a really, really interesting work done, actually, in towns will probably close to a decade ago. Now, with AH 200 where there was a question of what can individuals doing their homes Teoh try to reduced energy consumption and Burgess carbon emission. And there were 240 identified behind his 240 different things.
And the question is, will which won the a target. Because, you know, behavioral scientists are applied behavioral researchers. We typically like focusing on one thing, not 240. And in fact, we know if you tell people to under 40 things that they get choice overload don't do much at all people to miniaturize get stagnated, and it stuck you is the best example that is Netflix thinking
tonight is
cruising and choosing nothing. Um, so, yeah, but in the top behavior that was that that they arrived at in this particular instance, was it was done in the city of Townsville, was the point. You're what? And that was chosen on two grounds on two criteria. The first waas, what impact does make and there were very distant. But certainly I'm a few degrees cooler in your house if you have a pile roof rather than
the back dot crews. I was feeling clearly a benefit to it, but also the likelihood that people would do that idea
because
of the relatively cheap one off behavior. Then it was into the Philly card priority of your choice. But I guess in your household in Victoria we might be a little bit different. So I'm not sure we might need this changing color roofs here because sometimes women a boy and sometimes we need black and certainly the cool of winter is quite problematical. Their deployment change. Clearly, we're gonna get more.
So so That's one thing. But always self argue. There is some other types of behaviour not just household and particularly, like sort of more advocacy behavior. And I think one of the things that is gaining some real momentum at the moment is trying to lobby. Ah, large holders of funds, whether they be business. Also granulated companies on the like to invest in sustainable options, particularly carbon for a year or not coal options
specifically. And I thought, I think that there is real value in people switching efforts to more sustainable outcomes or sustainable investment story, and I think from those, but there will be two things that I think immediately that would that people can do now and start to make a difference. Insistent signals the policy makers. I guess the question is longer term. Yes, there's got
to be different thing. Todo then we've talked about some of those already in terms of battery storage in your energies.
I love the idea of painting your roof right. I think as soon as you gave that example, I remembered when I was traveling through Morocco. And there's this little town called Schiff Shaolin, where the entire town is blue. You by by decree, everyone has to paint all of their house, all of the fence blues. Theo entire town is blue. It's phenomenal to go to. And so I'm and I remember when I went there, my husband, I like, could have anything like this in Australia. Would people do it?
What if we made like as an environmental statement, Melbourne or Sydney? Or whichever city? It's a white city for an environmental reason. You get hate more tourists because you don't know. The Instagram has come to have their photos in front of all these white buildings, and it's an environmental statement. You can have the idea for free, actually later study. I really check it out. Check out Shift Chauhan in Morocco and
white, Blue
Blue. What's really interesting is it wasn't always blue For a while, it was a different color, but for some reason it became a thing that the city did. And now it's so important for tourism. It's the only reason people go because it's not like the other biggest cities, like Americare Shore, Casablanca or fairs. But because everything's blue, it's this iconic place to visit. It brings in. A lot of tourists are now you have to. Everyone has to have a blue house. So
there you go.
I think we should look at it. I'm gonna send you peaches.
Certainly in town feel now that it wasn't poultry. Andi constantly could make it more compulsory. But if you fly over town, so now and I have been on Google Earth and taking snapshots from, you know, off Townsville on particularly new developments are a white Ruutel for my store. What room? 15 development. That a lot of water power colors. So I think there have been quite successful actually convincing people to do that.
All right. It's happening I'm sending you a photo right now. So what do you think the governments or institutions could do to make it easier for individuals to take action? Should there be subsidies, for example, like if you paint your roof white, I don't know, 50 bucks off your tax bill that year. Something like that. Free old dog attack. The paint itself would be a tax write off.
Yeah, well, certainly there are, uh our intent is options, and they're typically one of the tools that policy makers use. I always worry a little bit about incentives and determine season Piper economics called money for nothing, which is that you could you would people have done it anyway? Or indeed, could we have people to do it for non financial reasons.
And there is a bit of an issue with mo dividing people financial reasons, Um, which is that if you if you take, for example, you put solar panels on your roof, um, to save money, then in many ways it might predispose you to do other things that are in line with saving money and given another environmental choice, one that costs more. Sorry. Another situation where an environmental choice costs more and a left environment went one costless it maybe not the environmental consideration, but rather
than among the
factors in your decision making. And so we call that crowding out or or extrinsic motivations around the desired behaviour. So if we, yeah, the preference would clearly be to avoid incentives if we possibly could, can work and they certainly do work. But equally, I'd be thinking, Can we will be a bit more targeted in who they go to each other. It's more just trying to convince the Lakers leg to get them across the line rather than riot to everybody.
So the more powerful messages do this because it's the right thing to do Environmentally.
Yeah, there's a lot of working in the Bible sciences, that sort of target, you know, had heady convince someone in particular. Often there are divisions between lettering on watering or individuals more collectivist viewpoint head. He convince them to act in private iconic trying to do in environmental action that would support harmonized medications.
And you know there are ways to do that, and particularly the social norms or speaking to community based activities can be quite a powerful way of you know, everyone else is in your blood communities during the or do it for your local community. Those messages cannot work on both sides, including for people that don't even think. Comet stranger. Yeah, I think that message agony
Liam Smith. Thank you so much for your time.
You're welcome.
Joining us now is Barry's Barani. My name is Dr Behrooz back. Ronnie. I'm a lecturer at Electrical and Computer System Engineering Department at Monash University. My main field of research and expertise. Renewable energy integration, converters, power electronics, converted control and their application into by their area off great Barry's Barani. Welcome. Thank you so much. What can the average person at home due to improve things in terms of renewables?
Well, living green and living green has all sorts of actually aspects into it. Do you have solar panels on your house? I unfortunately don't because I am renting that car. But this will be one of my four years. As soon as I buy a house that it can do that. But I think you probably touched on something. A lot of people feel it. A lot of people are renting, so they can't like they come puts all the pedals. Is there anything else in terms of renewables? People who
dart are no harm can do well at the moment for, um, individuals. Well, one way, as you mentioned, would be solar panels. Another way would be driving an electric car, but unfortunately, electric cars a pretty expensive at the moment. But it will change, actually. Can I bring it back to me again? I would love to get electric cops, but I live in a city where no one has garages and everyone has to park on the street. Is that a viable from someone like me to get
an electric car? Because don't you have to plug it in overnight? You have to plug it in overnight, Correct. But that is only if you want to charge it with your own electricity at home, and that is called like slow charging. But they're fast charging solution for electric cars that you can, for example, charge your car in 15 to 20 minutes, where at least go from 10% State of charge to 80 90 s state of charge of your battery, which is good enough for your day to day travel of course.
So where do you do that? Well, yet the infrastructure is not there. So that's another thing that government could do to expand the infrastructure for electric vehicles Because, look, for example, um, how do you do for your normal petrol card, there is a gas station. You go there, you don't have gas and your home, you go to a gas station, you actually have access to guess you could have
charging station fast charging stations. And that would require a lot of infrastructure, a lot of actually investment from the government to have fast charging um stations. So you don't have to wait more than 10 20 minutes. Now that we mentioned electric cars. Let's mention another technology here which can hopefully be. Also, I some sort of, you know, alternative to petrol cars, and that would be hydrogen cars. Our decision cars are actually in terms of because many
people have these range anxiety with electric vehicles. And they say, What if you know I don't have access to any charging point comes from half phones, and we're always so worried about our phones going flat and needing to charge him that we kind of big of rechargeable cars as like big mobile phones with terrible batteries. It's a good analogy, and I think many people year there because they're very
much actually concerned about the cell phone. This is more or less the same scene because what if I don't have access to a you know, charging station every day? And that's actually a legitimate concern. If, for example, as you mentioned, if you live in a city and if you don't have I access to charge or you don't have, for example, renting an apartment cannot actually charge it, the it's difficult and it adds to the problem. So one
solution would be hydrogen cars, hydrogen cars. You can imagine well, the way they've work. Imagine that you've got exactly like a petrol car. But instead of like gas, it has ah, hydrogen as the you know, instead of electricity or anything else, it just hydrogen, and you can you probably can charge him in a matter of minutes
similar to a gas station. But again it requires a lot of investment and infrastructure, and, ah, you know, investment from the government or different developers of car manufacturing companies to come along and install these things, so we're yet not really ready for hydrant. At least in Australia. Some other countries are doing much better when it comes to hydrogen. Japan, I think, is the leader. When it comes to Hardison, cars fuel fill cars. They're great, but that could be
another solution. And the way I see it, I see the future B 2030 years from now, a mixture of electric and hydrogen cars because while hydrogen cars you one of that and, uh, range anxiety because you know that you've got access to a station, you know you go
in and get it charged. And not a good point about hydrogen cars is that Well, let's talk about the problem of electric cars and charging stations, because if you want it for example, charge a few cars simultaneously in your charging station, that high speed or fast charger it requires a lot of it puts a lot of burden on the electricity grid. We've already talked about that struggling so exactly So the good point about hydrogen is that it is disconnected, right? It is like
hydrogen liquid hydrant. Probably you actually go to your station and hydrogen stations, your local hydrogen dely. Exactly, And then you don't have the problem. Don't have that impact on your electricity greet. So that's another good point about hydrogen. Another, actually, Good point is that hydrogen can actually be makes the renewable energies. How well for hydrogen generation you need energy. You need energy for the
chemical reactions to actually generate hydrogen. That energy could come from a solar farm in the middle of the desert without any access to any transmission line or anything to transmit power to the city. You can use energy locally in the desert, where it is the perfect place for solar plant. Fill a farm, generate electricity. They're used electricity to generate hydrogen and then bring hunters into the city and few and use it
of the fuel for your car. That that could be a very nice use of renewable energies, and that can actually help us a lot to combat climate change and the problems they have. The conventional combustion engine cars Behrooz reassure me that this is not a hydrogen bomb because that's a ha Jin and creating Hadron. It's all I'm envisioning. Tell me how it's different. It's actually well, I'm not an expert in that field. So I don't wanna talk too much about the way hard vision Qarth work. The
fuel fill works, but no, it's totally different. Totally safe. A proven technology, already. Some manufacturers. Well, I don't know if it's we can. That way we can say that this is in the eye bay. Say you can say whatever brand you. Yes, I think he and I if I'm not wrong, they already have a feel self FC re fuel cell vehicle. Um, I think, um, some of the Japanese manufacturers are actually very much into that. And then they told you Japan is the leader in this field at the moment.
So it is a very proven technology. Very safe once exploded. Good. You know the beauty of that, is that Okay? Your combustion engine cause the out of your exhaust system is Theo to hear the out. The output of your exhaust system is water H 20 That's the fantastic thing about your fcv. What? It does it just come out of viper like a like a hose. It's just fantastic and clean. Clean.
Imagine that. Imagine that solar form in the middle of the desert generating what we solar energy with renewable energy generating hydrogen for you and that hard to use it. And it turns into water so clean, so that I I see that as the future. So again, I see a mixture of electric vehicles and feel still vehicles. Ah, but I see a higher chance for fuel cell, although they're not yet very much common in many countries. But then you look
at it. If you put all of these pieces of a puzzle together because it doesn't put any burden on your electricity network, that is actually fantastic. And you can very easily achieve, you know, ah, retiring combustion engine cause by fuel fill cars. So I see does as the future. Um Well, I cannot predict 100% but I think that in probably 10 to 20 years, we'll see a massive shift towards fuel fill and electric vehicles in many countries. And I hope we see that in Australia sooner,
as do I. But who is? This has been really interesting. Thank you so much for your time. There were thanks so much for having me some really practical advice there from all our experts. Thanks to all our guests today and that is it for this topic. More information on what we discussed can be found in the show. Notes. We'll catch you next time in Siris. Three of what happens next, where we will be exploring space, the future of health care, higher education
and research and a lot more. Make sure you subscribe, so you catch the new Siri's when it drops, I