Energy opportunities in Australia: Are you Optimistic? Kylie Hargreaves in Conversation.

Join Kylie Hargreaves (GAICD) was in conversation on "Energy opportunities in Australia. Are you optimistic?" hosted by IdeaSpies and The Centre for Optimism.

Kylie Hargreaves talks about decarbonising our economy and our lives. Not a question of "if" but "when" and "how fast".

As Chair of the Australian Ocean Energy Group, Kylie is most optimistic about new energy opportunities, including from as yet under-utilised sources of renewable energy like ocean energy ( tidal, wave, current, thermal or osmotic). She is also the Energy Idea Spy for IdeaSpies and showed positive ideas she has posted that can improve our lives.

Kylie Hargreaves was in conversation with Victor Perton, Lynn Wood, Robert Masters and many other people.

Australia is the world's largest island and has an enormous ocean energy resource, which at the moment is largely untapped. Yet tides are nothing if not predictable, so energy from the ocean can even out the intermittence of wind or solar, or can charge up batteries at night when the sun isn't shining. Or can be combined with other renewable energy sources to produce freshwater (desalination), oxygen (to assist waste treatment systems) or hydrogen (diesel replacement) leading to decarbonised, independent and resilient communities. But despite the many challenges we are facing in trying to maintain and/or raise living standards, whilst simultaneously reducing our energy intensity and reliance on fossil fuels, there are many reasons to be optimistic.

Australia has an abundance of fossil fuels, but it also has an abundance of potential renewable energy sources. Everyone knows about our solar and wind resources, but we also have some of the world's best ocean energy resources. We are also an extremely innovative and creative society, so we have the brains trusts, scientific, digital and advanced manufacturing capabilities to tackle the energy challenge on many levels: new energy sources ( solar, wind, ocean, green hydrogen, biomass, waste to energy, batteries) greater energy efficiency (energy intensity, energy demand management) new alternatives to energy-intensive products (plastic to steel making etc) And innovations in each of these areas not only benefit Australia but can be successfully shared with the world. In our modern world, energy is seen as essential to life. It sterilises and moves our water, it heats and cools our homes, it is used in the production, transportation and operation of essentially everything around us, including our webinar communications! Yet our historical reliance on fossil fuels to power our modern economies is problematic.

While the resources are finite, the real cost is in the contribution to man-made climate change. As the world heats up, we are running out of time to ween our economies off reliance on fossil fuels and onto clean, renewable and affordable energy sources.

 

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