This was originally published on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/11/some-good-news-environmentally.html.
Something that many people have been urging in Australia for many
years now is for us to export our solar power to the world. There have
been a couple of projects underway in northwestern and northern
Australia for some time now, aimed at exporting power to Indonesia.
Now, finally, we have some serious investment that will move this along - see here.
(interesting
to see Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest is involved: he has some business faults
[such as his opposition to the resource rent], but he has also shown
signs of being ahead of the times in many ways - philanthropically, but
of particular interest to me was that Mr Forrest was an anti-modern
slavery activist long before it was in public consciousness.)
The other piece of good news is the development of greener cement for making concrete - see here.
I have long felt the best way for Australians to build houses is using
materials that don't burn, like concrete - which is common practice in
South America.
It means we can start doing what Europe has for ages, and build the structures (or "shells", some would term it)
of houses to last for centuries, which is the best way to reduce
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as building houses that have
half a chance of lasting fires (internal fire load from books, clothes, curtains, etc can still be significant, as can outdoor furniture, etc), and that starts to people people and animals a quarter of a chance on extreme fire days.
