Energy is the foundation of life in the Goulburn Valley.
Whatever form you choose: it makes our cars go, warms and
cools our houses, makes the trees and grass grow, fattens our animals, takes us
around the world and takes our kids to school, allows us to make and use things
and, in a more intimate sense, literally makes our heart beat.
Energy in all its varied forms is what has allowed humans,
who have understood it best, to build and develop a complex society which,
without energy would collapse.
Read Ugo Bardi’s “Extracted” and you begin to understand that
fossil fuel-based energy upon which modern civilization is founded came from
two specific periods in earth’s history, 90 and 150 million years ago.
It is unlikely the world will ever exhaust its fossil fuels,
rather they will become so expensive and difficult to extract that
economically, we will be forced to leave them in the ground.
Beyond that, there is the further complicating factor – the
burning of fossil fuels has altered the chemical makeup of earth’s atmosphere
and is changing weather patterns to such a degree that humanity is edging
closer to the abyss.
Some people have thought deeply about this challenge and on
Friday of next week, the Shepparton-based group, Slap Tomorrow, will present a
forum in Mooroopna at which the idea of powering tomorrow will be explored and
discussed.
Leading discussions will be the Associate Professor and
Deputy Director of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of
New South Wales, Dr Mark Diesendorf.
Dr Disesnedorf, who has written the book “Sustainable Energy
Solutions for Climate Change” is convinced, and can illustrate how Australia
could be powered now by renewable energy, if we only had the will.
With him will be a director of Applied Horticultural
Research and an adjunct Professor of Horticultural Crop Physiology with the
University of Sydney, Dr Gordon Rogers
He has a PhD in crop physiology, and 24 years in agronomy
and crop physiology specialising in sustainable horticultural production
systems, crop water uptake and irrigation in horticultural crops.
Dr Rogers can help farmers understand how they can apply
renewable energy to their agricultural processes.
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| Dr Mark Diesendorf. |
A third speaker is a PhD student from the University of
Melbourne, David Coote, who has focussed his studies and research on community-scale
woody biomass energy systems, the integration of bioenergy with solar power,
small scale on-farm use of renewable energy and biodiesel manufacture.
Overseeing the September 26 forum will be thinker, comedian
and advisor to the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of
Melbourne, Rod Quantock.
The world’s conventional energy sources are either past
their peak, or unusable and next week’s Slap Energy forum will shine a light on
a new and renewable energy future.
