an autodidact meets a dilettante…

Toyota Camry hybrid – hybrids are way outselling pure EVs here, probably due to range anxiety and lack of infrastructure and other support

I’ve probably not been paying sufficient attention, but I’ve just learned that the Federal Energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, is advocating, against the naysayers, for government support to the EV industry. An article today (Jan 22) in The Australian has Frydenberg waxing lyrical about the future of EVs, as possibly being to the transport sector ‘what the iPhone has been to the communication sector’. It’s a battle the future-believers will obviously win. A spokesman for the naysayers, federal Liberal Party MP and AGW-denier Craig Kelly, was just on the gogglebox, mocking the idea of an EV plant in Elizabeth here in South Australia (the town I grew up in), sited in the recently abandoned GM Holden plant. His brilliantly incisive view was that since Holdens failed, a future EV plant was sure to fail too. In other words, Australians weren’t up to making cars, improving their practice, learning from international developments and so forth. Not exactly an Elon Musk attitude.

The electric vehicles for Elizabeth idea is being mooted by the British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta, the ‘man of steel’ with big ideas for Whyalla’s steelworks. Gupta has apparently become something of a specialist in corporates rescues, and he has plans for one of the biggest renewables plants in Australia – solar and storage – at Whyalla. His electric vehicle plans are obviously very preliminary at this stage.

Critics are arguing that EVs are no greener than conventional vehicles. Clearly their arguments are based on the dirty coal that currently produces most of the electricity in the Eastern states. Of course this is a problem, but of course there is a solution, which is gradually being implemented. Kiata wind farm in Western Victoria is one of many small-to medium-scale projects popping up in the Eastern states. Victoria’s Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change (an impressive mouthful) Lily D’Ambrosio says ‘we’re making Victoria the national leader in renewable energy’. Them’s fightin words to we South Aussies, but we’re not too worried, we’re way ahead at the moment. So clearly the EV revolution is going hand in hand with the renewable energy movement, and this will no doubt be reflected in infrastructure for charging EVs, sometimes assisted by governments, sometimes in spite of them.

Meanwhile, on the global scale, corporations are slowly shuffling onto the renewables bandwagon. Renew Economy has posted a press release from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which shows that corporations signed a record volume of power purchase agreements (PPAs) for clean energy in 2017, with the USA shuffling fastest, in spite of, or more likely because of, Trump’s dumbfuckery. The cost-competitiveness of renewables is one of the principal reasons for the uptick, and it looks like 2018 will be another mini-boom year, in spite of obstacles such as reducing or disappearing subsidies, and import tariffs for solar PVs. Anyway, the press release is well worth a read, as it provides a neat sketch of where things are heading in the complex global renewables market.

Getting back to Australia and its sluggish EV market, the naysayers are touting a finding in the Green Vehicle Guide, a federal government website, which suggested that a Tesla powered by a coal-intensive grid emitted more greenhouse gas than a Toyota Corolla. All this is described in a recent SMH article, together with a 2016 report, commissioned by the government, which claimed that cars driven in the Eastern states have a “higher CO2 output than those emitted from the tailpipes of comparative petrol cars”. However, government spokespeople are now admitting that the grid’s emission intensity will continue to fall into the future, and that battery efficiency and EV performance are continuously improving – as is obvious. Still, there’s no sign of subsidies for EVs from this government, or of future penalties for diesel and petrol guzzlers. Meanwhile, the monstrous SUV has become the vehicle of choice for most Australians.

While there are many many honourable exceptions, and so many exciting clean green projects up and running or waiting in the wings, the bulk of Australians aren’t getting the urgency of climate change. CO2 levels are the highest they’ve been in 15 million years (or 3 million, depending on website), and the last two years’ published recordings at Mauna Loa (2015 and 2016) showed increases in atmospheric CO2 of 3PPM for each year, for the first time since recording began in 1960 (when it was under 1PPM). This rate of CO2 growth, apparently increasing – though with variations due largely to ENSO – is phenomenal. There’s always going to be a see-saw in the data, but it’s an ever-rising see-saw. The overall levels of atmospheric CO2 are now well above 400PPM. Climate Central describes these levels as ‘permanent’, as if humans and their effects will be around forever – how short-sighted we all are.

The relationship between atmospheric CO2 and global warming is fiendishly complex, and I’ll try, with no doubt limited success, to tackle it in future posts.

Mustn’t forget my update on Trump’s downfall: the Mueller team has very recently interviewed A-G Sessions, who’s been less than honest about his meetings with Russians. Nobody knows what Sessions was asked about in in his lengthy session (haha) with the inquirers, but he’s a key figure when it comes to obstruction of justice as well as conspiracy. Word now is that Trump himself will be questioned within weeks, which could be either the beginning of the end, or just the end. Dare to hope.