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Jan 15, 2025 | 
thefifthestate.com.au | Alan Pears
Alan Pears recently read the entire 900 pages that wrap up commercial building regulations. There are another 300 or so pages on plumbing regulations, about the same again on residential buildings. That’s before you get to the Australian Standards which are expensive to buy. It’s unreasonable to expect tradies, small builders, and even building surveyors, to deal with all this, he says. We need better solutions.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | Alan Pears
The climate crisis is much more severe than most people and politicians realise.Most information, education and media reporting around climate change (global heating) focuses on reducing our annual emissions to a target based on a ‘trajectory of progressive reduction’, and eventually ‘net’ zero annual emissions by 2050 or some other date.
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Nov 11, 2024 | 
onestepoffthegrid.com.au | Alan Pears
The Charlie is the world’s first energy storage equipped induction electric stove (Source: Copper)People, and businesses, don’t just want energy or technologies for their own sake. They want services they value, such as health, comfort and entertainment. If we don’t provide those services, we will not succeed in transforming energy costs and cutting carbon emissions. As we develop strategies to drive rapid electrification, we need to confront some practical obstacles.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
thefifthestate.com.au | Alan Pears
Alan Pears has been following the challenges of electrification for many years. As a member of a small owners’ corporation, he has a few observations about how apartments can make the big switch.
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Oct 16, 2024 | 
reneweconomy.com.au | Alan Pears
My recent Renew Economy article seems to have provoked some interesting discussion on electricity pricing. But few of the comments seem to have focused on key consumer thinking and the differences between retailer and network thinking. Consumers like rewards and dislike penalties, especially if they feel unable to avoid the penalties.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
thefifthestate.com.au | Alan Pears
Victoria has had insulation regulations since 1991, and national regulations have been in place since 2003. But no one checks that the insulation has been installed properly. One of the problems is the difficulty of installing insulation near the edges of a ceiling due to the difficulty of getting access where the roof clearance is tight.
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Aug 8, 2024 | 
reneweconomy.com.au | Alan Pears
Variable renewables cannot, by themselves, reliably supply all of our electricity and heat. But we can change our demand for energy supply through targeted energy efficiency and smart demand management. The ISP focuses on electricity supply, so it does not effectively address gas-related factors such as the impact of efficient building electrification on electricity demand. Assumptions that electrification will dramatically increase electricity demand are risky.
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Jul 22, 2024 | 
renew.org.au | Alan Pears
Do we need as many tradies for electrification as many think? Not if we are innovative, writes Alan Pears. There is a lot of important discussion about our emerging needs for training of tradies to install electric appliances and manage refrigerants as we transition from fossil fuels. We certainly need a lot more, but how many? Australia’s usual ‘supply side’ thinking seems to dominate discussion, based on assumptions that existing products and business models will be used.
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Apr 12, 2024 | 
thedriven.io | Alan Pears
Last year, Australians paid over $60 billion to import petroleum products. On top of that we paid tens of billions of dollars for storage, distribution and sales of these products, often to overseas-owned businesses. Efficient electrification can dramatically reduce this substantial drain on our economy as well as reduce consumer costs and deliver other benefits. Obviously a shift to electric cars will cut imports of petrol, which comprises 41% of petroleum consumption.
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Mar 27, 2024 | 
thefifthestate.com.au | Alan Pears
I will declare, my Melbourne roof is coated by an advanced heat reflecting, insulating coating. It has helped to make my home a bit cooler in summer while having an unmeasurably small impact on heating energy use in my Melbourne home. It has also extended the life of my rusting 50 year-old steel roofing by more than a decade, and is still going. I think people are having the wrong debate.
