Comment by grumpy-de-sre | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grumpy-de-sre | Hacker News Reader

The idea of Solarpunk has been resonating with me for a while now. I'm not completely sold on some of the community aspects (a little too hippy) but it's an incredible breath of fresh air compared to the cyberpunk dystopian bullshit that we are being force fed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R8GlENvhLI

I'm an Aussie living in the EU, and if anything is going to eventually tempt me to go back it's going to be ridiculously cheap solar energy. I think the odds of building any kind of utopia there are pretty remote but I think massive scale green steel smelters (+ other metals), green ammonia facilities, and expansion of desalination (combined with indoor agriculture). If Aus doesn't completely fumble the ball, I think there's a really good opportunity for another "mining boom".

Had a lot of fun listening to Saul Griffith explaining that solar energy and electrification is inherently deflationary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFr87rZyr3o

Aussie in AU here - I think about this opportunity a lot too, but sadly it will not be our government that delivers this outcome if the current nuclear vs. solar/wind debate (like these are mutually exclusive outcomes) is anything to go by.

I had high hopes that Andrew Forrest might be the one to pull this off after watching him deliver this [1] Boyer lecture 4 years ago, but as far as I'm aware this none of this has materialised.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwfS3A_IXYc

Yeh I loved twiggy for a while there but then he went all in on the hydrogen bullshit, and now those hydrogen projects are getting wound down before completion (aka fumbling the ball).

In general I think the east coast and the national energy market is cooked, I'm not sure how, and when the pioneering spirit died but it did. On the non-fatalistic side EV and rooftop solar uptake are great, so who knows?

On the other hand I'm much more optimistic about WA, they seem to be quietly making the correct decisions as far as I can tell. Expansions in desalination, huge battery projects, green industry (ammonia up in the pilbara [1], and inroads into the lithium supply chain in kiwana).

Let's see how this all shakes out, and hopefully the public rejects the pro fossil fuel / nuclear bullshit.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYY9miC2Y2A

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