Welcome to Issue #25 – Draft

The Port Phillip Council election results are in! Congratulations to all our new councillors. In this issue, we look at the make-up of the new council and what we might expect over the next four years. Take some time out of your busy summer to tell the incoming council what you want to see prioritised over their term: you have until 15 December.  

As we face Trump’s second term as president of the US, many of us are struggling to find a sense of optimism. Here are some hopeful takes: 10 reasons why Trump can’t derail global climate action, how the US could still play a key role in the shift to renewables, and why clean energy is here to stay – even in America. Let’s be part of the momentum. 

We wish you all a happy and peaceful festive season. We’ll be taking a break over summer – look out for our next issue in February.

Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on Earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.

                                                                  Naomi A Klein

We are living and working on the unceded lands of the Yalukit Willam people. We pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land and their ongoing connection to land, waters, sky and culture.

Our new council

Six of our nine new councillors will be serving for the first time in Port Phillip, although three have previously served on other Victorian Councils. Our new mayor is Louise Crawford, and Bryan Mears is our new deputy mayor.

As TWISK tells us, the new Council is finely balanced, with three progressive councillors (Louise Crawford, Libby Buckingham and Justin Halliday), three non-aligned independents (Heather Cunsolo, Alex Makin and Serge Thomann) and three Residents of Port Phillip councillors (Bryan Mears, Rod Hardy and Beti Jay).

During campaigning, many councillors supported climate action, so we hope to see significant progress on these issues in the coming months and years. At PECAN we look forward to collaborating with and supporting council on expanded climate initiatives.

It’s great to see that Port Phillip has joined with the federal government to spend $3.1 million on making the lower Elster Creek cleaner and greener. We look forward to seeing the new council’s plan for spending on this project. 

Have Your Say

The City of Port Phillip is calling for your input on:

The Plan for Port Phillip 2025-2029: as the name implies, this is a very important document that will shape the new council’s term. 

• Upgrading Smith Street for the new Fisherman’s Bend Primary School
• What you love about your neighbourhood
• Greening the Fred Jackson Reserve and Sandridge Beach

The Fisherman’s Bend Primary School is an important initiative, but unfortunately, on first inspection the site seems far too small, so the kids would not have anywhere near enough natural open space. This seems to be a repeated issue with most inner urban developments – not enough public green space – and it’s something we should speak up about. 

The City of Port Phillip is also assembling a community panel to consider the Plan for Port Phillip 2025-2029. The panel will meet during February 2025 – learn more and register your interest in joining the panel.

Take personal action

Sign a petition, turn out for a rally, become an environmental leader … 

Want to be in the forefront of climate action? The City of Port Phillip Environmental Leaders Course is now accepting applications. The course will help you home in on your areas of passion and discover how you can most effectively work towards local and large-scale change. 

The Port Phillip EcoCentre is running a series of Beachkeeper activities during December, including a Black Rock clean-up and a Mentone Beach planting. Learn more here.

While we’re on the subject of the EcoCentre, here’s their 2023-24 Annual Report, which is a great record of all their vitally important work over that period. Congratulations to the new committee of management!

Here are five things you can do at a personal level to combat our climate and biodiversity crisis.

And, as Google and Amazon turn to nuclear energy to power AI and cloud storage, take a moment to sign Environment Victoria’s petition to keep the Latrobe Valley nuclear free.

What’s happening in Australia?

It’s estimated that the average Australian household spends about $2,000 per year on food that gets wasted – bad for the environment and our economy. Thankfully, there are many Australian social enterprises trying to resolve this problem. 

Here’s a feel-good story about a Port Arlington-based business recycling PVC to make numerous different products for local consumption and international export.

After years of delays, we’re starting to see legislation that allows vehicle-to-grid technologies to be used throughout Australia so we can catch up with South Australia and the rest of the developed world. The Australian electricity company Amber is even launching a new product that could see EV owners getting paid for charging their car at home, and, in the future, paid for sending power back to the grid. Wireless EV charging is also peeking over the horizon, so in the future you should be able to auto-magically power your house just by parking your electric car in the right spot! 

And around the world …

Watch this sobering video about the Colorado River to see the likely future of the Murray River.

Photovoltaic panel installations are taking off all round the world – it seems that the total globally installed PV capacity has just reached 2TW (terra watts), just four years after reaching 1TW (and it took 68 years to reach that capacity). Learn more

We’re also pleased that we’re starting to hear more about the benefits of solar energy for apartment buildings, and not just stand-alone homes. Watch this news report

The world’s energy systems are evolving, as are the technical and economic pressures driving these changes. Watch this great TEDx talk that briefly summarises the situation.

New Scientist explains how a new plastic vapourising process could recycle bags and bottles indefinitely – sounds great, although it’s very early days for the technology.

Heat Pumps are wonderful things …

… for heating water, or heating or cooling your home. They just move heat from one place to another, so they’re much more efficient than burning a fuel or using electricity to heat a wire. Learn more

The ever-entertaining Dave Borlace explains why using hydrogen to replace gas in homes for cooking and heating is a really dumb idea.

And this Environment Victoria Report explains how Victorians can save up to two thirds off their energy bills by switching from gas to electric heating. To get you started, Solar Citizens are hosting a free home-electrification webinar on Thursday 5 December, with Tim Forcey as their extra-special guest.

Renting sheep is a thing!

Australian solar and livestock farmers are finally starting to understand that grazing animals underneath the panels is a win-win for everybody. The grazing keeps down plants, greatly reducing mowing and related maintenance costs. And the panels encourage dew formation and provide shade to stimulate plant and livestock growth. Renting sheep to solar farms is already a billion-dollar industry in the USA. Why are we so slow on the uptake in the land that “rides on the sheep’s back”? 

Another great pairing: solar and wine. Putting solar panels in vineyards reduces exposure to extreme weather, cuts environmental impacts, lowers water consumption by up to 20%, and increases land yield by 20% to 60%.

Here’s a dairy farmer deciding to do more value-add activities: he makes gelati and cheeses on site, and powers all the equipment he uses on the farm with solar.

Commercial sales of perovskite solar panels begin
Perovskite based solar panels are touted as the next big thing for harvesting the sun’s energy, but researchers have had great difficulty in stopping their performance quickly degrading after weather exposure. A UK company seems to have cracked this intractable problem and has commenced commercial sales. Watch a video about it

In a sort of related topic, researchers in New South Wales have demonstrated a proof-of-concept for generating electricity from something like a solar panel during the night-time – learn more

Also somewhat related, the growth of solar means that we’ll no longer need the large (coal, oil, gas or nuclear), centralised 24×7 power stations that our existing electricity grid is designed around. The solution to replacing them and maintaining system stability is more grid-connected batteries. 

Solar panels between railway tracks – looks good to us!

This seems a much better idea than trying to embed them into roadways. And there is a lot of usable land devoted to railway tracks. Learn more about this Swiss experiment here.

Complementary technologies for long- and short-term energy storage

Dams are efficient for long-term energy storage, while electro-chemical batteries are good for short-term storage. Combining the two makes both work more effectively. Learn more here

This is also why batteries are sometimes combined with ultra-capacitors. It’s all about the trade-offs between energy-storage density, storage capacity and leakage, and maximum energy-charging and discharging rates.

In space, what is environment protection?

Space architects are preparing for humanity’s return to the moon and the prospect of building permanent habitats there. Space architecture was established as a discipline in Milan earlier this year – you can even get a Masters degree in it! We think the whole notion raises some interesting questions about how we define environments and environmental protection.

Something to think about … 

Recent research shows that the carbon footprint of a total knee replacement in Australia is on par with driving a car from Brisbane to Sydney. We really do have a long way to go until we are carbon neutral.