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What a gas: one of Moreland's new hydrogen-powered garbage trucks. Takver/Flickr.com, CC BY

A while ago I asked what types of people will lead our great energy transition.

Well, some of them seem to be living in North Melbourne. Earlier this month I watched as Victoria’s Climate Change Minister Lily D’Ambrosio announced A$1 million for a hydrogen refuelling station to power zero-emission local government vehicles. The money, from the New Energy Jobs Fund, will sit alongside A$1.5 million that Moreland Council is investing over three years.

The Council hopes that rainwater it harvests from its buildings can be turned into fuel, with the help of power from its solar panels and wind turbines, which can in turn be used to run its fleet of garbage trucks. If (and it is an if) everything works, then residents get less air and noise pollution, and the council gets a smaller energy bill and carbon footprint. You can read my account of the launch here.

Of course, there are doubters. One commenter under my report wrote:

It amazes me how anybody could still think [hydrogen fuel cells] are a step in the right direction for domestic land transportation. Their inherent lack of efficiency compared to batteries, difficulty with storage, explosion risk and the cost of building the support infrastructure has been demonstrated innumerable times.

Yet Japan is planning for 800,000 hydrogen-fuelled vehicles by 2030. Are all of these governments really backing the wrong horse?

This is the nub of the problem: technological outcomes generally become clear after the fact, and rarely before. After a “dominant design” has survived the battles then hindsight, via historians, tells us it was obvious all along which type of gizmo was going to win.

Scholars have long pointed out that this is a fallacy – starting with the humble bicycle. The truth is that technological innovation is not the clean predictable process that pristine white lab coats and gleaming laboratories would have us think.

The history of technology is littered with the carcasses of superior ideas that were killed by inferior marketing (Betamax tapes, anyone?). Meanwhile there are the success stories that only happened through serendipity – such as Viagra, text messages, and Post-it notes. Sometimes technologies simply don’t catch the public eye, and their proponents withdraw them and repurpose them (hello Google Glass).

Even the most successful technologies have teething problems. Testing prototypes is not for the faint-hearted (as anyone who’s seen Robocop will vividly remember).

If there’s no clear and obvious technological route to follow, then an industry can end up “perseverating” – repeating the same thing insistently and redundantly. As these two studies show, the American car industry couldn’t decide what should replace the internal combustion engine, and so hedged their bets by flitting between various flavours of the month, from biofuels to LPG to hybrids and everything in between.

Risky business

This is what makes Moreland Council’s choices so interesting. It might make “more sense” to wait and see, to let someone else run all the risks, and then be a fast follower, with the advantages and disadvantages that entails. But of course if everyone does that, then nothing ever gets done.

Meanwhile, if civil society is pushing for change, and a council’s own political makeup shifts (the Greens did well in the last local elections), and there are determined officers, then an experiment can be conducted. Coincidentally enough, Moreland Council’s chief exective Nerina Di Lorenzo recently completed a PhD on local governments’ attitudes to risk. Within a year or three she’ll no doubt have enough material for a post-doc.

Meanwhile, South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill seems to have lost all hope that the black hole-sized vacuum in federal energy and climate policy will ever be fixed. He has famously commissioned the world’s biggest lithium battery and, now, a long-awaited concentrated solar thermal power plant in Port Augusta.

Learning process

What we are seeing in Moreland is a local council and its state government acting together (what academics snappily call “multilevel governance”), while further west we have another state government that has resolved to push its chips onto the green baize and spin the roulette wheel.

Will these experiments work? Will the right lessons be learned, from either failure or success (or more likely, living as we do in the real world, a mixture of both)? How can the “successful” technologies (however that is defined) be scaled up at tremendous speed, so we somehow clamber up the learning curve faster than we slither up the Keeling Curve of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels?

Can it be done? We need industrial quantities of luck, and optimism. And seriously – what do we have to lose by trying, other than the love of some vested interests?

Scientists trace nuclear waste from Sellafield over 15,000km to Bermuda to see how the ocean transports carbon.

Trump is once again allowing hunters in Alaska to shoot bear cubs and hibernating bears, but is this as bad as it sounds?

Indian scientists say they can monitor the physiological health of elephants by analysing their dung.

UK shale deposits were formed 55 million years too late to trap large amounts of gas, a professor warns.

A report released this week by advocacy group Environmental Justice Australia presents a confronting analysis of toxic emissions from Australia’s coal-fired power plants.

The report, which investigated pollutants including fine particles, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, also highlights our deeply inadequate mercury emissions regulations. In New South Wales the mercury emissions limit is 666 times the US limits, and in Victoria there is no specific mercury limit at all.

This is particularly timely, given that yesterday the Minamata Convention, a United Nations treaty limiting the production and use of mercury, entered into force. Coal-fired power stations and some metal manufacturing are major sources of mercury in our atmosphere, and Australia’s per capita mercury emissions are roughly double the global average.

Read more: Why won’t Australia ratify an international deal to cut mercury pollution?

In fact, Australia is the world’s sixteenth-largest emitter of mercury, and while our government has signed the Minamata convention it has yet to ratify it. According to a 2016 draft impact statement from the Department of Environment and Energy:

Australia’s mercury pollution occurs despite existing regulatory controls, partly because State and Territory laws limit the concentration of mercury in emissions to air […] but there are few incentives to reduce the absolute level of current emissions and releases over time.

Mercury can also enter the atmosphere when biomass is burned (either naturally or by people), but electricity generation and non-ferrous (without iron) metal manufacturing are the major sources of mercury to air in Australia. Electricity generation accounted for 2.8 tonnes of the roughly 18 tonnes emitted in 2015-16.

Mercury in the food web

Mercury is a global pollutant: no matter where it’s emitted, it spreads easily around the world through the atmosphere. In its vaporised form, mercury is largely inert, although inhaling large quantities carries serious health risks. But the health problems really start when mercury enters the food web.

I’ve been involved in research that investigates how mercury moves from the air into the food web of the Southern Ocean. The key is Antartica’s sea ice. Sea salt contains bromine, which builds up on the ice over winter. In spring, when the sun returns, large amounts of bromine is released to the atmosphere and causes dramatically named “bromine explosion events”.

Essentially, very reactive bromine oxide is formed, which then reacts with the elemental mercury in the air. The mercury is then deposited onto the sea ice and ocean, where microbes interact with it, returning some to the atmosphere and methylating the rest.

Once mercury is methylated it can bioaccumulate, and moves up the food chain to apex predators such as tuna – and thence to humans.

As noted by the Australian government in its final impact statement for the Minamata Convention:

Mercury can cause a range of adverse health impacts which include; cognitive impairment (mild mental retardation), permanent damage to the central nervous system, kidney and heart disease, infertility, and respiratory, digestive and immune problems. It is strongly advised that pregnant women, infants, and children in particular avoid exposure.

Read more: Climate change set to increase air pollution deaths by hundreds of thousands

Australia must do better

A major 2009 study estimated that reducing global mercury emissions would carry an economic benefit of between US$1.8 billion and US$2.22 billion (in 2005 dollars). Since then, the US, the European Union and China have begun using the best available technology to reduce their mercury emissions, but Australia remains far behind.

But it doesn’t have to be. Methods like sulfur scrubbing, which remove fine particles and sulfur dioxide, also can capture mercury. Simply limiting sulfur pollutants of our power stations can dramatically reduce mercury levels.

Ratifying the Minamata Convention will mean the federal government must create a plan to reduce our mercury emissions, with significant health and economic benefits. And because mercury travels around the world, action from Australia wouldn’t just help our region: it would be for the global good.

In an earlier version of this article the standfirst referenced a 2006 study stating Australia is the fifth largest global emitter of mercury. Australia is now 16th globally.

Robyn Schofield received a Australian Antarctic Science Grant to research mercury in Antartica, and currently receives an ARC Discovery Grant. Robyn is a member of the Clean Air and Urban Landscape Hub.

Sheffield’s protesters need to be aware of the danger of trees falling over, writes Paul Faupel

The sudden collapse of a 200-year-old oak in Madeira, killing 13 and injuring many others (Report, 16 August), is a salutary warning to the tree protesters of Sheffield (Report, 16 August). Local authorities and other custodians of parklands and highways have a duty to ensure that trees do not endanger the public when they deteriorate through age or disease. Inspecting trees is a specialist task best carried out by trained professionals. Doubtless Sheffield city council has been doing just that. If a tree collapsed on the protesters or damaged their properties they would be protesting against the council, and more likely suing them, for failing to safeguard them. The hapless council is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t take action.
Paul Faupel
Somersham, Cambridgeshire

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Three wildlife rangers at DRC’s Virunga national park were killed this week in an ambush by Mai Mai rebels, bringing this year’s fatalities to eight

Three rangers have been killed and another is missing after an attack by violent militia in Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, bringing the number of fatalities in the park this year to eight.

The park rangers, Charles Paluku Syaira, Jonas Paluku Malyani and Pacifique Musubao Fikirini were murdered on the morning of Monday 14 August during a routine patrol around the park, which is home to critically endangered mountain gorilla.

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Japanese researchers have taught chimps the rules of rock-paper-scissors.

Governments need to step up to deal with technology-driven social change.

Elgin Energy is granted planning permission for a 20MW project near Urquhart in Moray

Exclusive: Nearly 12m barbecues in the UK likely to over-cater with food ranging from salads to burger rolls ending up in bins

It’s symbolised by dismal burgers and carbonised sausages served on paper plates with a splatter of ketchup. Yet with the great British summer well under way, Britons are this month set to throw away a staggering £428m worth of barbecue food, research reveals.

In August the nation will brave the changeable weather to enjoy nearly 12m barbecues, with people on average either hosting or attending at least two of the seasonal gatherings. The new research from supermarket chain Sainsbury’s shows that hosts typically over-cater to impress friends and family, with more than half (49.2%) putting on a larger than necessary spread.

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Behavioural evidence suggests marine organisms are not just ingesting microplastics by accident but actively seeking them out as food

Fish may be actively seeking out plastic debris in the oceans as the tiny pieces appear to smell similar to their natural prey, new research suggests.

The fish confuse plastic for an edible substance because microplastics in the oceans pick up a covering of biological material, such as algae, that mimics the smell of food, according to the study published on Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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The SA Premier talks eggs, sausages, solar thermal, battery storage... and why the federal Clean Energy Target still matters.

Origin Energy lost electricity customers but grew revenue, price and margin for the full-year 2017. Overall the result was strong at virtually every line.

How hard will climate impacts in China hit Australia's economy? It’s a question for the Senate inquiry into national security implications of climate change.

AGL is offering households with rooftop solar systems a free service to help them protect potential savings by monitoring their systems.

Origin results show its retail division made the most of a "transitioning energy market." But CEO says further power price rises "would be bad for everyone."

Kennards House, Cornwall At the agricultural show white-coated exhibitors vie for prizes as the heavy horses are hitched and cocks crow in the poultry tent

After noting the whereabouts of their parked cars relative to the windblown hedgerow trees, visitors converge on the entrance to Launceston’s one-day agricultural show.

Cloud shrouds Kit Hill to the south but Caradon, Kilmar Tor and Hawk’s Tor on Bodmin Moor, as well as nearby wind turbines, are silhouetted against an increasing expanse of blue sky.

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New Energy Solar has today been recognised as an ABA100 Winner in The Australian Business Awards 2017.