The ostrich or emu-like resistance to renewable energy in Godzone is displayed by the contribution of renewables to each state’s energy supply so far this year.
Leading emu state by far is Queensland with 4.7% renewables, followed by NSW with 8.8%, Victoria 15.8% and South Australia 36%. The almost regular doubling of those figures from north to south and then west, struck researchers at Kookynie Lo-Tech University (KLOTU) as curious and worthy of closer investigation.
The technique used was to trace that trajectory with a thick black pencil. Lo and behold, a classic J curve! But our economists noted that there weren’t any trade or currency factors at play (apologies to non-economists), so other social scientists were called in to try and explain this mysterious J curve phenomenon.
Is there a perverse, inverse relationship between total daylight hours of the states and their interest in renewable? As in, the more sunshine you have, the more oblivious you are to its potential energy source, aka the Sunshine State, which also by the way, has recently approved a massive coal mine. The idea of a direct relationship with intelligence was discarded as too improbable.
However the hypothesis is refuted by the standout performance of SA with lots of sunshine, and the highest renewables by a long shot. So, what makes SA different? Could there be a positive relationship with wine-growing and refundable bottle deposits? Or less convict genes in the local free settler bloodlines?
No, an exciting clue to the puzzle is emerging in complex data-mining by our statisticians, who have noted the proportion of German ancestry citizens in the state. The KLOTU team has just retired to the pub’s back bar to further crunch the numbers over an Emu Bitter or three, but it’s looking promising.
And it certainly makes sense, as Germany is an early adopter of renewable energies, despite their uneven sunlight hours (but plenty of wind). Germans migrated to SA in the 1830s and Victoria in the 1850s, so the progressive renewables DNA arrived early and flourished there. Eureka!
Maybe all those German backpackers and other recent arrivals from the fatherland will over time help to raise the renewables intelligence quota in this recalcitrant coal-addicted corner of Gondwana.
