Curtin University’s Professor of Sustainability, Peter Newman, hit the airwaves on Wednesday night with his six-point plan for Australia to become independent of oil.
On the war
He told ABC Sydney’s evening radio program that while Australia was trying to get more oil, it was “not wrong”, but it was “not enough” either.
“It’s just a blip of oil that we might prize out of someone else’s use, so we can make it look like we’re doing something.
“I think we’ve got to think about the long term.”
He told the ABC, “It is not a good thing to have your cities built around a substance that is dependent on the Middle East not having wars.”
He points out that there has been fragility in the Middle East for the last 6000 years and there are “dozens” of cities that have not survived their fights.
“In the last 53 years since I started on the oil issue, I’ve not seen much stability we could rely on. We’ve had four oil crises based on the Middle Eastern wars, and that is going to keep going.”
Newman and co-author Peter Wills wrote in The Fifth Estate recently that “unlike fuel reserves that sit idle until a crisis, batteries work every day, stabilising the grid, absorbing cheap solar and wind, displacing gas peakers, and simultaneously creating a distributed emergency reserve.”
“It is not a good thing to have your cities built around a substance that is dependent on the Middle East not having wars.”
Australia has a unique and urgent opportunity to complete the transition started by solar energy, “the fastest energy transition in history”.
“Now batteries are beating solar’s trajectory.”
Following in China’s footsteps
The same needs to be done in transport, Newman said, and Australia could do well to follow China, which has recognised the need to be energy independent, especially in revolutionising the transport system, with 50 per cent of its new trucks electric and battery swapping technology rolling out.
“Global oil peaked eight years ago…, and now we’re fighting over less and less available cheap oil, and that is not a good competition to be a part of.
“[China] certainly picked up on the fact that it was the right thing to do in terms of climate change, and we could make a much more secure grid that is cheaper and easier to run, that could be done using solar, wind and batteries all linked together with smart systems that’s as good as any in the world.”
There were naysayers on electrifying heavy transport, ships, trucks and aircraft, but as with EVs and solar batteries, China would soon be able to put these vehicles on the world market and “bring them down in price”, and “we will have very cheap electric trucks on the market.
“We’re already showing that some of them work here; we just need to get a cheaper price, and that is going to happen.”
The argument for oil
Newman was likewise candid on questions about the opposition’s rhetoric about “building bigger fuel tanks” and “drilling our own oil”, saying it was quite disappointing to see this repeated “all the time on ABC TV.
“We don’t want to miss the obvious opportunity for a new economy to emerge that will be better and cheaper and will work better, [and] it’s definitely something that we can do.
“Global oil peaked eight years ago…, and now we’re fighting over less and less available cheap oil, and that is not a good competition to be a part of.
“We can’t depend on that oil anymore, no matter where it comes from; we need to depend on sunshine and wind because they are reliable, and that’s what the future is going to be about.”
“In the last 53 years since I started on the oil issue, I’ve not seen much stability we could rely on. We’ve had four oil crises based on the Middle Eastern wars, and that is going to keep going.”
He added that it would be a huge missed opportunity to get the wider community to save money and even make money off their solar system and EVs.
Opportunities also included making and selling products on the global market with a premium net zero brand.
“If we are trying to compete to be the last to get into this transition, then we’re just going to miss out on so many important things for our children and grandchildren to be able to get the best of.”
And the most powerful argument he said was always that the transition would save money.