Flood

• This week, Parliamentary Secretary Julie Dabrusin represented the Government of Canada at GLOBE Forum 2024 in Vancouver, B.C., to advance action toward net-zero innovation and inclusive economic growth with partners.
• The Government of Canada is supporting clean technology innovation, the creation of good jobs and meaningful partnerships.
• "At this year's GLOBE Forum, the Government of Canada connected with clean technology innovators including many Indigenous partners, young people and women leaders to advance discussions on our shared energy and resource future.
• "The Government of Canada's investments in infrastructure across Canada are helping to protect homes, businesses and communities from climate-related risks like floods and wildfires.

• Big environmental changes mean ever more Australians will confront the tough choice of whether to move home or risk staying put.
• Communities in the tropical north are losing residents as these regions become hotter and more humid.
• Others face rising bushfire risks that force them to weigh up the difficult decision to move home.

We’ve been slow to adapt to increasing impacts

• It is increasing the frequency and intensity of disasters and extreme weather events such as heatwaves, fires, storms and floods.
• It is also accelerating environmental changes such as soil erosion, salinisation of waterways, loss of biodiversity, and land and water degradation.
• Both sudden disruptions and gradual pervasive decline have impacts on the places where we live, work and play.

What factors affect the decision to stay or go?

• Systemic inequalities mean some people are more at risk from environmental change and have less capacity to respond than others.
• This makes it more likely to be owned or rented by people with fewer financial resources, compounding their disadvantage.
• For First Nations peoples and communities, connections to and responsibilities for places (Country) are intimately intertwined with identity.
• For them, the impacts of climate change, colonisation and resettlement interact, further complicating the question of relocation.

So who stays and who leaves?

• They nominated bushland, beaches, fauna and flora, and the climate/weather as characteristics they valued and feared changing or losing as climate change progressed.
• One study participant wrote:
  It would be hotter and much more unpleasant in summer.
• I would miss being able to cycle or walk to the local lakes to connect to nature and feel peaceful.
• We also found place attachment was associated with people acting to protect that place, such as protesting environmentally destructive policies.

Proper planning for adaptation is long overdue

• It causes significant economic and non-economic losses for both individuals and communities.
• A changing climate and inappropriately built or located housing interact to create conditions where some people can or should no longer stay.
• We need co-ordinated, well-governed, long-term planning for people to move in the face of environmental change to ensure equitable and positive transitions for individuals and communities.

Justine Dandy received funding for this work from the Centre for People, Place and Planet, Edith Cowan University. Zoe Leviston received funding for this work from the College of Health and Medicine, Australian National University

• Once installed like wallpaper, hi-tech infrared fabric emits heat in a similar way to the sun’s rays.
• This could be a logical way to add low-carbon heat into existing homes that need retrofitting to improve energy efficiency.
• However, infrared fabric technology could be much better suited as a low-carbon heating solution for our existing housing stock, and here’s why.

1. Instant heat

• Unlike heat pumps, which are a slow response heating system, infrared fabric emits radiant heat that can be felt within minutes.
• Gas boilers heat up our rooms quickly so we don’t have to leave the heating on when we’re out, but heat pumps don’t work like that.
• Instead, they deliver a continuous low level of heat, so homes need to be well-insulated to retain that heat and airtight to stop draughts.

2. Simple to install

• It’s essentially a graphene sandwich, a thin film of carbon between two sheets of paper that conducts low voltage electricity and emits infrared heat, like the sun, but without the light or harmful ultraviolet.
• A room’s ceiling area emits the right amount of heat for a room, making installation very simple in any property, irrespective of its construction, shape or size.

3. Affordable heat

• Heat pumps are known to generate more energy than they use, up to three times as much, by taking low grade heat out of the air and compressing it.
• Infrared fabric can’t match that, but because radiant heat is instant, it’s only being emitted when needed in the rooms that you’re in, so even allowing for a hot water system the total energy use can be up to 20% less than from a heat pump.

4. Radiant heat is healthy and safe

• Once the infrared heat warms the people, objects and surfaces that it touches, they in turn give off secondary heat through the process of convection.
• Radiant heat also means the air carries fewer allergens due to reduced air movement – it’s the convection currents from traditional heating systems that stir up the dust and allergens.
• Radiators reach 60 – 70˚C, whereas infrared fabric emits a low-level heat (45˚C) over the whole area.

5. Our homegrown future

• That’s a long and expensive process, but the all important SAP Appendix Q certification is due in 2025 if not before.
• It already has BSEN (British Standard) approval as a large area low temperature emitter and it’s class A fire rated.

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Michael Siebert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Half a million homes and businesses in Victoria were left without power late on Tuesday following a major power outage.
• Victorian Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio described the blackout as “one of the largest outage events in the state’s history”.
• But in this case, the fact that a complete system blackout was avoided is testament to the resilience of the system.

A day of wild weather

• It caused two transmission lines near Geelong to collapse, prompting several generators to disconnect from the grid and cutting power to parts of the network.
• This involves temporarily cutting off electricity supply to some customers to keep the network stable and prevent damage.

What happened at Loy Yang A?

• The disruption to electricity transmission caused AGL’s Loy Yang A generator to go offline.
• It appears that Loy Yang A was the first generator to disconnect.
• Loy Yang A tripped up to protect itself from permanent damage and in doing so actually kept the system stable.

What part did renewables or coal play?

• This includes all types of generators – wind, solar, gas, hydro and coal.
• The power outages on Tuesday were unrelated to the proportion of renewables and fossil fuels in the energy mix.
• It’s possible that old coal power generators are more sensitive to transmission disruptions than newer technologies.

Lessons from South Australia

• In September 2016, wind storms in South Australia also blew over transmission lines.
• But it may well show that the lessons learned from SA blackout saved the Victorian grid.

A warmer future

• It will manifest in many different ways: strong wind events, heatwaves, bushfires and floods.
• It means all of us – researchers, the market operators, and generator operators – must work hard to make energy systems more resilient as we move into an uncertain future.

Roger Dargaville receives funding from the RACE for 2030 CRC and the Woodside Monash Energy Partnership.