Dylan McConnell

"... indirect deaths range from 3–15 times the number of direct deaths... it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict. ...this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip. " www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essentialwww.thelancet.com By June 19, 2024, 37 396 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli invasion in October, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as reported by the UN Offi...

Some more in what's going on in the national electricity market: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Is coal’s recent revival in Australia’s energy mix just a blip or something more?www.theguardian.com Australia’s electricity sector was fast to cut carbon pollution due to renewables as alternatives to coal and gas – until lately

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Dylan McConnell

Well this is grim

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Ahead of my book release, I wrote a piece for the newly launched Break/ Down, which focuses on capitalism and the climate crisis. In it, I preview one of my main arguments on what a just transition does- and doesn’t- entail

What is a Just Transition?www.break-down.org As the idea of the

Coal generation up (very slightly) - first time in ~9 years 🫠 www.afr.com/companies/en...

Coal power on comeback trail as wind, solar falterwww.afr.com Electricity generation from coal has surged for the first time in nine years, wrecking emissions cuts and hammering home the disarray of Australia’s energy transition.

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Thread: Each week I run a simulation of Australia’s main electricity grid using rescaled generation data to show that it can get very close to 100% renewable electricity with 24GW/120GWh of storage (5 hrs at av demand) Results: last week: 93.1% RE last 149 weeks: 98.5% RE (1/4)

"... the truth is Homer Simpson enjoyed the sort of secure job these communities fear will soon disappear" www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

The Coalition’s nuclear fantasy serves short-term political objectives – and its fossil fuel backers | Peter Lewiswww.theguardian.com Dutton’s policy latches on to genuine concerns about power prices and disruption evident in the latest Guardian Essential report, but what are its real motivations?

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"Electrify Everything" is going to be even harder to sell ppl on if the power keeps going out every time the weather sucks and the weather keeps sucking more often and worse.

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Yesterday, I shared this same Canada Day thread on Bluesky, Threads, and X. Here's what I found. 🧵

“Canada is such a northern country, don’t we want a little global warming?” I often hear. In a nutshell, NO. We’re warming 2x faster than the rest of the world, driving extreme heat, flood, and sea level rise we are not prepared for. The wildfire season started in Feb this year. Feb! #canadaday

Canada’s Changing Climate Reportchangingclimate.ca

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Crossing the floor on a matter of principle? Who does the Senator think she is having principles in this government. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Crossing the floor to support Palestinian statehood?! Who does Fatima Payman think she is? | First Dog on the Moonwww.theguardian.com Here at the ALP we value caucus solidarity over principle

Oh ps - the Department projections have NEM emissions declining ~11.75 million tonnes from FY23 to FY24 ..about a 9.5% reduction. (They were basically flat...)

So NEM coal generation for FY24 very slightly up on FY23 😬 (... and also up quite a bit this year calendar year +2.3 TWh c.f. same time last year 🥲) Remnder: supposed to go *down* (and down quite alot - in >10TWh per year, to hit emissions goals etc)

Well I am doing my part on reducing gender exercise gap (... By also not exercising much) www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07...

Men 'borrowing' free time from women is driving the gender exercise gapwww.abc.net.au As family demands increase, women's physical activity becomes more limited, but the same doesn't happen for men.

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Australia's grid operator modelled going from ~39% clean power to ~97% in a couple of decades, and found that *less* gas would be needed than the average over the past 16 yrs. Somehow, this has translated into "WE NEED MORE GAS" New quick video explainer here: www.instagram.com/p/C81Tqt2shaO/

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Calling all power systems modellers! Are you looking at #LCOE? Calculating technology competitiveness? Let me introduce GNESTE – a new database with over 5,000 entries from 56 sources on the cost and performance of #electricity generators🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The Global and National Energy Systems Techno-Economic (GNESTE) Database: Cost and performance data for electricity generation and storage technologieswww.sciencedirect.com Power sector and energy systems models are widely used to explore the impacts of demographic, socio-economic or policy changes on the cost and emissio…

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Just noticed in the EIA Electric Power Monthly that SEGS IX is scheduled to retire this October. End of an era. 🔌💡 www.eia.gov/electricity/...

Quite an incredible figure in this piece from @adammorton.bsky.social earlier this week 🔌💡 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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This is the world’s largest wind turbine: Goldwind’s GWH252-16MW intelligent wind turbine has a rotor diameter of 252m. It also has a swept area of around 50,000 sq – equivalent of seven standard football pitches. The turbine’s hub is 146m high – that’s as tall as a 50-story building.

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China added 19 GW of solar, 3 GW of wind and 1.2 GW of nuclear capacity in May. 79 GW of solar and 20 GW of wind were added in Jan-May, increasing 29% and 21% from last year's record numbers. Solar additions sped up in May from last month and May last year.

This is me. (sorry everyone)

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Hey there, I'm back - and it seems #GreenSky is back too, for those who were using it 🙏🏽

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NEW RESEARCH: What do we do with the gas grid when gas demand drops? Who will pay for the gas grid if more and more people disconnect? A new regulatory approach is urgently needed to ensure costs for gas grid do not spiral out of control. Free copy here 👇 authors.elsevier.com/a/1jJcf9C%7E...

Some (very quick!) reflections on the Final 2024 ISP! theconversation.com/coal-free-in...

Coal-free in 14 years as renewables rush in: new blueprint shows how to green the grid – without nucleartheconversation.com There’s no mention of nuclear in Australia’s latest energy transition roadmap – because our energy market operator can only model power sources legal in Australia.

After much consideration I have decided I shall not be retiring ( in order to avoid becoming a "retired engineer") In other news, thanks for all your emails this week retired engineers! 🙏

Big Government is good, actually