Tesla's Big Batteries Make Renewables Work - Move Over Fossil Fuels

"Within 100 days (from July 7, 2017), there will be a huge battery system making South Australia’s energy grid clean, affordable and reliable, and benefitting the eastern states along with it."

"Renewable energy, which obviously wins on emissions, is now beating coal on cost. What’s more, with an energy grid managed effectively by people who want renewables to succeed, it is no less reliable than fossil fuels."

"Elon Musk’s agreement to build the world’s largest battery for South Australia isn’t just an extraordinary technological breakthrough that signs coal’s death warrant. It’s potentially a game changer in the way we do politics, reinserting the importance of basic reality into a debate which has been bereft of it for too long."

(Read More in the Guardian)

Municipal Resilience to What? - A Post Carbon Institute Report

The Post Carbon Institute announces the release of our latest report, Resilient against what?: How leading U.S. municipalities are understanding and acting on resilience.  Resilience is often understood simply as the ability to “bounce back” from a single disaster like a hurricane or earthquake. This report found that leading US municipalities already have a much more sophisiticated understanding of resilience involving economic, energy, and social challenges—and they're putting it into action through policies, regulations, and programs.Post Carbon Institute announces the release of our latest report, Resilient against what?: How leading U.S. municipalities are understanding and acting on resilience.  

New Year Greeting 2: Donella Meadows on Love, Hope, & Sustainability

I have found no better framing of our sustainability predicament that leads to an accurate understanding, the basis for authentic hope, and the possibility of constructive action than Donella Meadows' discussion of love, hope and sustainability (Beyond the Limits: 1992). It is food for thought and a useful mental anchor, or at least perspective to remember, as the world moves into 2013.

In addition, Sweden's educating a nation campaign begun in 1990 with the launch of The Natural Step is an inspiring and instructive example of Donella's point (see this post for a global educational campaign it inspired for me and SSI2030).

The summary below highlights Donella's key points for a constructive understanding of our predicament, and her rich, couple-page discussion follows in its entirety for your immersion, contemplation, enjoyment, inspiration, and synthesis.

Wishing you the best for transformational sustainability in 2013 (the clock is ticking),

Scott

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New Year Greeting 1: The Challenge & the Basis for Authentic Hope

The dawn of 2013 breaks with ominous storm clouds gathering on the sustainability horizon. We know them as climate change, peak oil, decreasing resource supply, increasing demand, accelerating environmental destruction (fisheries, forests, etc.), increasing inequality, fraying of the social fabric, and an ideological and fiscal assault on the commons. What are the implications for successfully responding to this widening sustainability challenge? Fortunately, the dawn also breaks with slivers of hope shining through the storm clouds in the form of inspiring innovation and leadership.

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Solar Breakthroughs and Natural Gas Push Back

Two unrelated recent articles illustrate the political economy of sustainability and the creative technological challenge, policy challenge, human character challenge, and evolutionary challenge of sustainability.

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How Much Will it Cost to Save Our Economy?

How Much Will it Cost to Save Our Economy’s Foundation?  Lester R. Brown www.earth-policy.org/book_bytes/2012/wotech10_ss4

Altogether, then, restoring the economy’s natural support systems—reforesting the earth, protecting topsoil, restoring rangelands and fisheries, stabilizing water tables, and protecting biological diversity—will require additional expenditures of just $110 billion per year. Many will ask, Can the world afford these investments? But the only appropriate question is, Can the world afford the consequences of not making these investments? 

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Whole Systems Design and Factor 10 Engineering

You can find an accessible formulation and starting point for two fundamental practices underlying key sustainability strategies -- radical resource productivity and whole systems thinking -- at the Rocky Mountain Institute. 

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