Hello, and welcome to the RIO's PD Plus Scientist session on wind technology.
We are very grateful to our sponsors for this PD Plus session, Adelaide Shores and
the West Beach Community Bank branch of Bendigo Bank, and to our science expert, Andrew Dixon.
Andrew is new business manager with Wind Prospect Proprietary Limited.
For eight years, he has worked as a developer of large-scale renewable energy projects,
including the Snowtown Wind Farm north of Adelaide, which was commissioned in 2008.
He has also developed a large-scale solar thermal power station project in Queensland
and is sponsoring a long-term research project with Flinders University,
investigating low-energy desalination membranes incorporating nano technologies.
He is a keen sustainability advocate and is director of a team which raced a South
Australian-developed electric car around the world in 80 days using just $400 of electricity
with zero net emissions. Okay, so my talk today is it's about wind energy, but it's actually
about the way that we harness and use energy in general, because really there's a big picture
going on here and that's about the way that we harness energy. Obviously, modern civilization
has been made possible through abundant and cheap energy, when the industrial revolution,
particularly, harnessed fossil fuels in ways that just changed our lives and enhanced our lives.
And fossil fuels are really amazing because they've got a really high energy density, they're
easy to transport and store, and you can do really good stuff with them. But unfortunately,
we're now realising that we're paying a price for using vast amounts of fossil fuels because
they obviously, they pollute, so that they directly contribute towards climate change
and they're a finite resource that the more you use, the less there is left to use,
and the more you use, the more expensive it gets. And I guess also the more reliant on it,
we become. Well, we're thoroughly reliant on fossil fuels and really what we need to do now
is, now that we're understanding the implications of, or the consequences of using fossil fuels
that pollute, we need to start undoing that and introducing new energy sources and that's
really where wind fits in and other renewable technologies. So, if we just switch to the
first slide that I have, I've got a few slides, not many. This first slide in two parts, the left
part shows the sectors in Australia that contribute to our CO2 emissions, and down the bottom in the
dark blue is power generation. So, the message there really is that power generation is the
single biggest contributor to carbon emissions. On the right hand side, it breaks down what
different power energy sources we use, and the brown and the black are coal. And so coal basically
is 80% of our power generation in Australia is from coal, brown and black coal. Then there's gas on
top of that, so all of those are fossil fuels. And then on top of that, we have renewable energy.
So really, we're still overwhelmed with fossil fuel generation, but it's gradually changing,
and that's kind of the game that I'm part of. So globally, wind energy is really growing very,
very quickly. I mean, at the end of last year, there were almost, well, there's 238 gigawatts
installed, over 40 of which was installed just in 2011 alone. So like a sixth of the total capacity
was installed in one year. So it's really big growth, $68 billion worth of investment in wind
last year alone. And the annual investment in new wind generation and renewable generation is
greater than annual investment in new fossil fuel generation. Obviously, the whole dynamic's
changing, and investors don't want to put their money in something that's going to be stranded.
Carbon pricing is coming, people see the writing on the wall, and they're increasingly wanting
to invest in renewable sources, including wind. So this is only going to keep increasing in the
future? I think so. I hope so. I mean, humans have been using wind for an awfully long time.
In your notes, I think it notes that the Persians were using it thousands of years ago.
Obviously, in Europe, wind mills were used as mills to grind grains. That's where the name
came from. Obviously, in Australia, we've been using it to pump water from over a century ago,
even to generate electricity, even before the Second World War, using free lights.
So most of our grandparents will be aware of free lights. So we've been using wind for a long time.
Large-scale power generation is kind of the newest manifestation of that,
but it's just continuing something that we've been doing for a long time.
Now, can you just go back for some of our younger lismas, watches, free light? What is that?
Free light is just a little wind turbine that spins, that drives an alternator that
creates current that just lights a filament. So it's basically just a direct wind turbine
that lights up a light bulb, effectively, so it's free light because it just comes from the wind.
Okay, so now if we just flip to the next slide, this slide shows the evolution of modern wind
turbines. And really, the story of modern wind turbines began in the 1970s. There was an oil
shock in the early 70s, where the price of oil went through the roof. And basically, the world
realised that we need to become less reliant on oil, particularly. So there were a number of
government sponsored programs playing around with different types of wind turbines in the 70s.
And then in the 80s, the first sort of commercial wind farm started appearing,
and there were all sorts of weird and wonderful turbines then. There were the vertical axis,
horizontal axis, one bladed, two bladed, three bladed, four bladed, five bladed,
all sorts of weird and wonderful turbines. And really, some of the bad name that some
people perceive that wind turbines have these days started then, where turbines were much
noisier in those days. They, developers put them in places we wouldn't do today. And really,
a lot of the problems really started then, but a lot of those have been overcome and are really
non-issues now. So it's a regulations issue? Partly, I mean, partly just learning what works
and what doesn't. Where you shouldn't put, you know, how habitat works, where bird migration
paths are, all these things where we're learning more as we go along as a society. And, you know,
wind turbines are being placed better and better to avoid negative consequences and to maximise
the benefits. So really, in 1990, through to today, the form of wind turbine that we see
commonly, which is a horizontal axis, three bladed wind turbine, upwind wind turbine,
has become dominant, and it's just basically scaled and become bigger and bigger. So, yeah,
so that just gives you a bit of an idea of the development of wind turbines. So,
now, some stats about Australian wind energy. Wind energy sort of started being installed
in Australia in the late 80s, but it was really sort of, it's in the last 12 or so years where
the growth has been really, really strong. We've been growing at around 25 per cent per year of
installed wind capacity for the last decade, which is really substantial growth. We've got 59
operating wind farms in Australia now. It's about two and a half gigawatts of installed,
with about 1345 wind turbines currently. And it contributes around, I think it's 2.4 per cent
of our total energy use. It's just from wind. So, it's still a fairly small number, but it's growing
pretty significantly. So, if we jump to another slide now, this slide shows generation in South
Australia, where the story is really, really interesting. So, basically what we can see,
each of these areas that we can see on the left coal, and basically we see the last,
well, nine years worth of generation from coal. And you can, it's a few years old this slide,
but it hasn't really changed very much. And we can see that the amount of coal that we use to
generate electricity in South Australia is pretty stable, hasn't really changed much.
Distillate is oil. We don't use oil anymore in South Australia.
Gas, it fluctuates a bit, but it's still a fairly large chunk in South Australia.
Yes, absolutely. The next one is very interesting, because you can see the growth of wind. So,
wind has just been every year increasing, and that's, you know, it's still increasing year by year.
And then the final group of the bars there is the interconnectors. So, South Australia has
interconnectors to other states, and we import or export power. And, you know, 10 or 15 years ago,
we were much more reliant on dirty coal-fired power from Victoria. But it's basically dropped
right off because we're producing more energy from wind farms here. And so, basically, we're
importing less dirty energy. We're generating a lot more of it ourselves. And therefore,
emissions of South Australia are actually dropping. So, wind is actually playing a really big role
in South Australia. So, we're also talking about transportation emissions and so on.
No, no. Transporting energy. So, energy interconnectors. So, South Australia is actually, you know,
at world-leading levels of the amount of wind energy we have. We have over half of Australia's
installed wind turbines. And last year, 26% over a quarter of our electricity generated in the state
was from wind farms. So, it's a really significant chunk of what we generate and consume in South
Australia. So, wind has been a big success story in South Australia. So, I have to admit, I myself
haven't been thinking of South Australia in that way, associating ourselves with wind technology.
I mean, to change the way I'm thinking about it. We're very progressive in South Australia in many
ways. And wind farms are just one example of many. So, it's been a very big success story here in
South Australia. It's great. So, this next slide, oops, sorry, I've jumped the slide. So, this slide
shows where some of the proposed wind farms and operating wind farms are in South Australia.
Again, it's a few years old, but all the projects are basically the same. And you can see that,
you know, it's predominantly the projects in South Australia are in the mid-north.
There are some down in Mount Gambia and then a few on the air in New York Peninsula. But really,
the mid-north is where a lot of the activity has been happening. And, yeah, so, I've been
involved with some of these projects and they're cracking projects. They're really terrific projects.
So, yeah, I mean, not all of those are built. Only some of them are built. But over time,
hopefully, you know, more of those will be will be built out and will have even more
energy from wind in South Australia as the load increases. We can, you know,
keep supplying that from wind farms. So, what goes into choosing a good site?
Okay. So, there's a lot of skill in developing a wind farm project. And that's really the game
that my company is involved with. So, the development process essentially consists of
prospecting for sites, which is you start off on a computer with a GIS system,
geographic information system. And you look at the wind resource, you look at where the grid is,
because there's no point having lots of wind if there's no grid to plug into.
You look at, you know, roads to get the kit onto site, vegetation, houses, all the obvious things
that would cause a project to fall over. Then you typically negotiate with a landowner to have
access to the land to explore and to further develop. And then enter proper legal agreements
to do that. Typically, then you put up windmars to measure the wind, to really quantify whether
there's enough wind to build a project. Then you gradually build models to model the energy flow
or the wind flow and the energy yield from a project to see if it's going to be economic.
Yeah. Conduct public consultation, start then, and then keep that going throughout the whole
life of the project. Just to basically educate the community on what's proposed and tweak based
on objections or concerns. Consult with a whole variety of stakeholders, some government,
some private community and so on. There's a lot of consultation and that's been a big part of my
job. Then we do all sorts of surveys on site, so ecology, Aboriginal heritage, you know, TV
interference, noise, and also our flight paths as well. So all these different other existing
amenities and uses of land, basically making sure that what's proposed is not going to interfere
negatively with those things. Then we seek planning and environmental approvals from the
state or council or local governments. Then we negotiate the grid connection with Gen with a
like Electronet transmission company to then connect to the grid and then negotiate power
purchase agreements to sell the power to a retailer, the turbine supply contracts and then
basically build it and then own and operate it, maintain it for 25 years into the future.
That's in a nutshell. So not too much at all, really. There's quite a skill in doing that,
all those things well. Absolutely, because it's so terribly important that you've got
buy-in and the support from everybody involved, isn't it?
But again, if this stuff's done well, it can really result in very positive benefits for
individuals who have wind turbines and the communities in which they're located. I've
seen that firsthand with Snowtown and that really motivates me as a developer because
renewable energy creates jobs, money flows down to communities and in terms of farmers,
it helps give them a really substantial income that's drought-proof. Obviously, the weather
varies their income year to year, but with wind turbines they've got income that they can depend
on that then gives them opportunities to invest in their farm, to invest in their house, their
family, and it's wonderful to see the results of that. Absolutely. So are you going to take us
through more about Snowtown at some stage today? In fact, I've got some slides now that show what
construction of a wind farm is like because it's really fascinating actually. Yeah, and something
that I guess not many of us necessarily get to see. That's right. So, okay, the first,
this slide shows a foundation being made and that ring basically is the bit which the towers are
bolted to. There are two different types of wind turbine footing more or less. One, this is called
a gravity footing and essentially it relies on a big mass of concrete. It's a really big heavy
pad that just the weight of it holds it up. So this is from Mount Gambia where it's very sandy.
The next slide shows a different type of footing which is much, much, it's not as wide and it
doesn't have as much ground disturbance or as much concrete or embodied energy and it's much
smarter and it's an Australian design using rock anchors. So basically at each of the apex of that
octagon there's a hole that's drilled down into the ground about 20 meters and basically a big
cable is lowered down into that and then it's grouted or glued in place and it holds it firm
against the bedrock. Goodness me. Yeah, so it's a much smarter, you know, less embodied energy
way of doing it and it's being employed pretty widely in the mid-north. So in terms of the
engineering that goes into the wind turbines it's not just the different designs of these
turbines that we're seeing, like for example at the SA Mini wind trial down at West Beach,
it's actually all of the engineering that goes into holding the things up in the first place.
Yeah, there's a really big value chain around renewables and wind and there are many opportunities
for people to get involved and add value. So I'll talk a little bit more about that soon too.
Perfect. So the next slide shows just another photo of the footing. Then there's trenching
of cables between the turbines. So it's underground cables with a trenching machine
and that shows a trenching machine that goes through rockets. It can go several kilometers a
day. It's pretty impressive. Wow. Then the towers come in and the towers for South Australian
projects are generally made on Churchill Road. So they're all rolled and made here locally.
And then there are some really big cranes that basically lift them off the trucks and then
lower them onto the footings and then bolt them one to each other. So it's not rocket science,
none of this stuff is rocket science but it's just really big in scale and it's very impressive to see.
So then they're all bolted together and then the blades arrive and the blades
up to sort of 50 meters long, they're really big and it's actually one of the big constraints
of where you can put wind turbines. You can't put them everywhere because often access is too
difficult and the blades are so big that you can't get them in some places because the turns of
you know. Exactly, a nice tight corner on a dirt road is not what you want. That's right. You can't
really helicopter them in. And then the blades are also lifted off the backs of trucks and then
they're assembled into what's called the rotor on the ground. It's just much bigger than what it
appears. I was thinking that these slides aren't showing us that scale as much. The span from
one side to the other is greater than the wingspan of a jumbo jet. It's really big. And then you
can see there's the rotor again and then basically the nacelle which is the engine room where the
generators and transformers are. They get lifted up. They're about 80 tons or so. They're lifted
on top of the towers and then the rotors are lifted and then they're fitted onto the nacelle.
Then you have a completed wind turbine. Then you have a completed wind farm.
Goodness me. So yeah, very quickly that shows you how wind farms are built.
In terms of, I mentioned before, there are lots of different jobs for scientists and
engineers in wind farm development. Some of the jobs typical in a company like ours are
development engineers who provide all sorts of engineering and mapping support to the
development team. We have wind engineers who specialize in monitoring the wind and doing
all the mathematical modeling and number crunching. We have development managers who are
basically our project managers. That's been my job. We have to be real generalists around all
these areas and pull it all together. And good with people I suppose as well.
It's a really important job and I'll talk more about that soon. Development officers
who support development managers, Jack of all trades. GIS specialists who are the mapping
people. That's a very good skill as well. Town planners who can negotiate with councils around
policies of planning and so on. Electric engineers who can do electrical design and talk to good
companies basically. And then all sorts of consultants. So even if not just for the wind
farm development companies but the consultants who do work for them. And again also it's like
ecologists, environmental engineers, surveyors, Aboriginal heritage consultants, noise engineers,
geotechnical engineers, wind engineers, civil engineers, lawyers, you name it.
There's a whole bunch of people who play a part in the process.
So in terms of wanting to provide opportunities for STEM careers, science, technology, engineering
and mathematics, these wind farms are just sort of a one-stop-shop in terms of providing
careers in all of those areas, aren't they? There's lots of opportunity in wind technology
and renewables in general. But also in sustainability in general. I think we'll talk a little bit
more about career-y stuff and certainly focus on my career later on and the opportunities that I
see for people to get involved. Exactly. That's very exciting. So I mean one issue that I'll
just touch on briefly is some of us are becoming aware through the media of some of the issues
around wind farms. And my view is that a lot of these things are really grossly overstated.
One example is so-called wind turbine syndrome. There are claims from some and it's certainly
reported well in the media that wind turbines cause all manner of ill. And I'll name some of
them. I mean there's about 120 elements now that have been blamed on wind turbines, which is quite
preposterous. And some of them are, I'll just list the first 14, accelerated aging, air quality damage,
angina, anxiety and panic disorder, Asperger's syndrome getting worse, arthritis getting worse,
autism getting worse, balance to service like falling off horses, bowel cancer, brain tumours,
cancer, cardiovascular disease and goes on and on and on. So all sorts of things. Basically,
there's an argument of apocalypse of wind turbines causing all this damage, which is
absolute nonsense in my view. I mean the only thing that I can think of that would be worse
than wind turbines is a nuclear explosion in a city, which it's just not, it's just farcical
really. But unfortunately this is some of the stuff that's getting traction in some parts of the
media. And really the thing that worries me is that there's no proof that that's the case. I mean
it's easy to make claims on things and that's the case with the climate change debate too. I mean
you know often sound bites overrule sound science. So unfortunately but the whole point of being a
scientist or an engineer is to use evidence and with medicine too is to use evidence for things
and there's no evidence that wind turbines are causing these alleged problems. They've been used
for decades particularly in Europe and there's no problem there. It's really just people who
don't like wind turbines for whatever reason and that's valid. But they're really latching onto the
health sort of vehicle to carry their agenda forwards and yeah that's fine but you've got to
show proof and to date they haven't shown proof. So you know it's issues like wind turbines and
renewable energy attract this sort of attention but obviously it's a lot of it's conducted in a
way that's not scientific. So that's probably where I'll leave it. Yeah I guess if we're considering
the you know the success of wind technology in Australia and so on if anything's going to
impinge upon that success we really do want evidence to show that it is a reasonable
obstacle to it. Yeah and I mean if we're going to talk about health impacts of different technologies
fine let's talk about the health impacts of coal. Yes. I mean coal-fired power stations are filthy
obviously vast amounts of CO2, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, radioactive particles.
I mean really if you were design if you were developing a coal-fired power station from
scratch today and there weren't any other coal-fired power stations you're breaking your ground
there's no way you'd be let allowed to do it. It's only because we have a dominant coal sort of
generation industry and that's the way that people assume is the way that we should do it.
That's why it's accepted not questioned. So you know we really question and scrutinise something
as clean as wind and we ignore the health effects of a filthy source like coal. I mean come on.
Yes that fear of the unknown isn't it that we've got to overcome. So there's a lot of nonsense
in some of the debate around renewables and climate change and I think it's really important for
scientists to stand up and and be involved in proving or disproving things and for that to
inform the debate. So I think it's really important to have good scientists but not only those who
can do science but can communicate it as well. And I guess this is an important point for teachers
in the classroom too isn't it when they've got students who are listening to these sorts of
claims being made on news programs seeing them in the newspaper hearing them on the radio and so on
watching them on the internet all the time this is the perfect sort of thing that they need to be
picking up in the classroom and it's coming down to a media literacy type skill as well as
understanding the scientific method and all of the advantages that go with us. That's right I mean
I've certainly I've been I've been on the inside of a number of things that have come out in the
media and I've you know I really question now a lot of the stuff that I read in the media
and I mean things are reported for different reasons not just reporting facts but
really presenting an agenda. So I've learnt to really question that and and to question what
I read in the media and I'd certainly encourage other people to do the same. Yeah and there's a
few bits and pieces in our wind technology notes in there that help teachers take that into the
classroom as well which yeah I think that's a really important way to go. Yeah so that's that's
wind and so that's that's been a big part of my career and passion but now I've sort of changed
tack a few years ago I'm now involved with large scale solar. So well actually before you touch
on that solar we've got a couple of questions here from our audience members I'll just pass them
on to you. One question when I lived in London there were little wind turbines on heaps of
buildings the local church for instance was entirely powered by its own little turbine.
In South Australia should we be encouraging more smaller turbines or the big wind farms
you see in the outback which is better? I think I mean like many complicated questions it's not
an it's not an all question it should be an end question so really I think we need both. My experience
and my greatest understanding is large scale and really there are very efficient way of
generating large amounts of electricity but obviously you know in many places small scale
can work really well and that's yeah I guess that's what the SA mini wind trial is all about
down at West Beach isn't it? Exactly right so testing it out finding the evidence and just
seeing how viable they are yeah exactly in that urban environment isn't it? I mean having said
that I mean I think many places where people just assume you can stick solar panels up and you
want to stick a wind turbine up but it's not that easy often because urban environments are very
turbulent the wind is not really as good as it could be so in some places small scale turbines
can work really well but in many places they wouldn't work very well and people would be disappointed
by them so I think yeah large scale is really important for large volume but in some places
absolutely small small scale can work well. So it's it's if you've got a location and you're
considering wind as a form of energy production then you look around and try and find the right
sort of turbine to suit your location and then it's the opposite for maybe those larger wind
farms where you go out and you know that you need a massive amount of space so you find a location
that suits what you want to do. That's right yeah so a number of sort of domestic scale energy
retailers or solar providers also offer small wind turbines as well so hopefully they can
present options for wind and solar or one or the other or both. Yeah our other audience question
was actually about those medical concerns and whether or not they're real so I think we've
addressed that one. Well yeah I mean one more point I did have a but basically there's I mean
there's there's there's no credible there's no there's no medical evidence that really indicates
this is the epidemic that many are claiming and I mean there's been a there's been a senate
inquiry last year there are all these independent health bodies who are saying look we find no
evidence so if we're evidence based I mean what do we believe I mean hysterical claims or do we
look at evidence. Exactly. If there is a problem we want to know about it but there's no there's no
proof that there's a problem at all so you know let's be real. Yeah yeah all right and that's all
about audience questions for now so please continue on where are you going. Okay so a little bit about
solar now so I'm involved in a project called Solar Dawn it's a large-scale solar thermal power
station being developed in Queensland and it's using technology that was developed in Australia
actually in the in the mid 90s and it's I'm really excited by solar thermal technology
basically what it does is use mirrors to concentrate sunlight to boil water to create steam to drive a
steam turbine. Okay. It's not rocket science again but it's using the sun and I've got some photos
again in a moment. The good thing about solar thermal is that we can we can store large amounts of
energy thermally okay we can store heat. The holy grail of renewable energy is energy storage.
Fossil fuels offer energy storage because you've got a tank full of you know oil that's energy
storage. With renewables you know like solar or wind when it blows or when the sun's shining
that's when the generation is regardless of whether you need it then. Yes. So energy storage is the
holy grail and it's coming but it's still fairly early days but solar thermal you can store large
amounts of heat so solar thermal offers the holy grail of large-scale energy storage that you can
then use at night time for example. So can I ask what might be a really dumb question but how are
you storing that heat? There are a number of ways but the main way is is molten salt so you can
store heat in in molten salt and you have tanks of hot and tanks of cool salt and you exchange them
and you have heat exchangers and then create steam and to drive a steam turbine basically
and then phase change materials and all sorts of weird and wonderful things. You can also hybridise
it with existing fossil fuel plants so for example in our plant we originally proposed having a large
solar field that creates steam from the sun and then having an adjunct with gas-fired boilers so
we can we can do evening generation from gas and daytime generation from solar okay so it's a hybrid
yeah or you can have a large existing coal-fired power station and bolt on a solar field to create
more steam to feed into into existing sort of generation turbines so to reduce the need for
coal so you can hybridise it which is really clever and so by with energy storage or with
hybridisation you can you can have dispatchable energy energy you can you know you can rely on
when you need it so it's it's more valuable than a wind farm that yeah it was blowing or it's not
blowing depending on the wind exactly so it's exciting so a couple of photos now of this technology
okay so this is looking end on into a solar steam generator
basically they're a space age so they're basically imagine a mirror that's about two
meters wide it's about 500 meters long and it's it's located at head height and you put 30 of them
about 30 of them side side by side and each of them rotates on the long axis and focuses on an
overhead receiver so that the the the the receiver that's sort of white hot at the top is receiving
the sunlight from all of those mirrors and basically so they just receive the reflectors
that reflect together into the receiver there are boiler tubes that flow in that receiver
water flows in those and gets turned to steam that's it basically so there's a couple more photos
this is looking end on in one of the mirrors to see the sort of scale and then this schematic shows
each of those mirrors focusing on the overhead receiver to concentrate sunlight yeah so again
pretty straightforward stuff and it's just it's just creating steam from the sun and then the final
slide just shows on the left hand side is the big is the solar field the big blue thing is what we
just saw and then basically steam goes through a steam turbine and then into a generator create
electricity and then the steam gets condensed and goes back either into the solar field to start again
or through a gas boiler so everything on the right hand side of that diagram is the same as
almost any coal fired power station anywhere but but the left hand side instead of burning
something and polluting you use sunlight to create that heat so it's really you know it's really
exciting technology so that's that's something that I'm involved with I'm also involved I'm also
very interested in in solar photovoltaic solar pv and this is this is taking everyone by surprise
because the prices are just plummeting with solar pv this is you know like solar panels you'll see
on your roofs at home so the the module prices of people sort of pv have dropped 75 percent in the
last three years 45 percent last year alone and and and it's still falling so it's reaching parity
with you know with existing sort of retail prices so it's making sense economically to put it on and
it's getting better and better all the time and really I think there's a revolution coming in in
people owning their own generation technology like currently our grid is pretty dumb it's pretty
old it's an old design where we're all dumb consumers just basically you know sucking in energy
from a dirty power station yeah it's changing so that we're all becoming not just consumers but
generators so we we have our own we invest some of our own money to create our own electricity
and then when we have electric cars we can store that energy and we can become traders of energy
as well so it's it's becoming like the the internet of energy when you add communication
technology smart grid the whole game changes so it's a very exciting place to be and I guess
hopefully the upshot of that again is that as as consumers as a society we're actually becoming
more informed about where our energy is coming from and where it's going to absolutely that's
right so I mean in the old model you know where we're dumb consumers but most of us it just we
don't have any idea what you know no one has any idea that 80 percent of our generation is from coal
in or in South Australia 25 or 26 percent is from wind and most people have no clue
so I think we need to be a lot more literate and get for young people to get involved in this space
because I read recently someone compared the energy you know the transformation in energy is
like the transformation in IT but but 20 years later and much much bigger it's just it's an
enormous opportunity for young people to get excited about and to get involved with which is brilliant
yeah so tell us a little bit about your career in terms of maybe start us off with why you're
passionate about science clearly from the way you're speaking um that engineering side of science
is where where your heart lies yeah what got you into that why are you passionate about it well
I mean I I'm an engineer rather than a scientist but it's kind of similar in some ways I mean I
started in life as a as a Navy engineer and you know it's kind of interesting but kind of boring
at the same time yeah it can be quite dry but really for me it's all about being alone with values
and for me I really get the whole sustainability thing now I you know I get climate change I get
peak oil I see the changes that are coming and I see the opportunities that they're now too so
I'm really excited about that and sustainability is more than just energy although it's a big part
of it it's really it's energy it's housing you know energy efficient housing and water efficient
housing it's around transport so it's efficient ways of transporting ourselves without the emissions
and it's about food and water as well so the way we produce and transport food is highly oil
intensive so I'm passionate about permaculture and ways of growing food much closer to source yeah
so yeah I'm really excited by all aspects of sustainability so and again there's a huge
opportunity for scientists to be played active you know roles in in creating the future so
so for me I guess I kind of got into renewables a little bit not by accident but I started off
being a fairly dry sort of Navy engineer and I did a master's of science and technology commercialization
so in Australia stereotypically we're very good at inventing things but we're not very good at
commercializing them so you know the stories are legion of things that we invent that just
you know get flogged off overseas and we don't really benefit from yep we just end up buying it
back later on as consumers so I'm really interested in the way that we can climb up the value chain
and and and really you know achieve the full commercial potential of our ideas and so I through
that course I got interested in renewables and I just I landed the right job at the right time
I've never really looked back I've you know really but but again I'm passionate because it's
the work that I do is aligned with my values and that that's the case in the work that I do at work
and also what I do in my own personal life too but it's all in the same space in my own mind
yeah yeah so is it something about the way that engineers think is there something particular
about that yeah there is in my experience yes um interestingly when I my last year of the night
in when I was in the Navy I was moonlighting organizing an event for the Dalai Lama actually
in Sydney you have done everything and been everywhere haven't you well I mean but but really
it's it's it's only because I had a very logical sort of mind I mean in engineering you break
complex problems down into manageable chunks and you manage those and so managing a big event was
just an exercise in that so breaking things down but I mean the same thing with the electric car
that you mentioned in the introduction yeah team team trev I mean yeah basically there's a really
cool little electric car lightweight three-wheeler for two-person three-wheeler that was developed
at UniSA and basically we we put a team together and got sponsorship and you know enhanced the car
to drive it around the world so similar a similar process where you know if you have an engineering
mind and approach it methodically that you know you can really do really cool stuff and not just
sort of boring engineering things about power generation but you know driving a car around
the world on renewable energy with no emissions so again you know having an engineering mind
or a scientific way of approaching things can benefit in all sorts of ways personally and
professionally yeah I was going to say what about your day-to-day thinking how much is your day-to-day
thinking affected by your skills in that engineering type thinking I don't know I mean I think my
thinking is driven by my values again around sustainability and I guess it manifests in
the things that I do and the way that I do them so and again that's where the engineering
you know approach and the scientific approach really kicks in so how you pick what what choice in
energy is the best way to go yeah how you pick whether permaculture is the way to go or whether
there's a better option yeah I mean and again it's just you know it's evidence-based like I
with permaculture and you know that it's a design philosophy based on ethics and it's
arguably Australia's greatest intellectual export culture and you know I I really value it because
I've tried it out at home and it works you know so it's evidence-based so I approach personal stuff
in an evidence-based way as well and I'm fairly scientific in the way that I'll try things out
at home yeah and in my professional life as well I just think that's such a benefit if we can
have students thinking like that all the time looking to the evidence whether it be scientific
evidence or a different type of evidence that's pertinent to whatever field or area they're working
in and it's so beneficial and getting hands on too I mean I mean when I went through school in
the 80s science was and may still be I'm not sure it was pretty dry you know you go into the science
labs and it was all a bit snoozy really no offense to the science teachers out there I hope it's
changed but I mean if you compare a scientist to an artist you know like an artist is self-taught
you know you don't go to a school and well you obviously you can go and study arts but people
who are your painters or good at drawing or you know sculpture generally go and play in their own
time because they're passionate about it and they're wanting to learn and they learn by doing
science needs to be the same in engineering and in fact there's a very interesting movement called
the maker movement where there are all sorts of like little microcontrollers like the Arduino
microcontroller where you know any ponder can buy a you know really capable microcontroller that they
can plug into their computer easily and program it easily for you know 20 bucks okay and they can
use the to to measure things to control things yeah and there are all sorts of different technologies
and websites and support groups and and and like peer-to-peer sort of knowledge sharing
and it's really turning into a grassroots movement where people can actually play with scientific
things play with engineering things that control things and do you know do what scientists and
engineers do and it's it's a it's a tinkering exploratory you know curiosity led process
where in you know when I was a kid it was much harder to do that arguably I think yeah but these
days it's getting easier and easier and I think that's what sort of science teachers should be
really encouraging is is programs to get kids out there to get involved with making things and
trying things out and and seeing where their passions lie and pursuing those so it's main
working to maintain that curiosity that that we know that young kids have trying to maintain
that all the way through high school that's finding those hands on ways in order to do that yeah and
to really spark excitement because at the end of the day I mean we can't get if we just push the
whole sort of you know white lab coat sort of model and you know the whole life stuck behind
a microscope I mean that's the stereotype that many people have of scientists but you know it can
be really exciting it's not just that dull and boring but you know how to excite people to really
get in and put that get their hands on and play and explore and be curious you know and adventurous
and that's that's where the excitement is I think yeah so anything else about your career
that you would like to tell us did you study yourself in Adelaide no I joined the Navy straight
from school at the Defence Academy did engineering there I lived away from Adelaide for a long time
traveling between different bases and so on and then sort of travelled the world and just kind
of you know followed my own curiosity yeah and then came back here to study the master's degree
at Adelaide Uni and that and then really fell into you know wind farm development and this has
really been the epicenter of early wind farm development in Australia so I was just again
in the right place at the right time I really for once in my life I lucked in well done so yeah I mean
but again I've just I've been really lucky to be in this space but but really what I've discovered
is I've connected with the whole sustainability thing I've been involved you know actively around
the issues of climate change and and peak oil and you know permaculture and building community
and yeah and I really see that with climate change there's going to be you know the world's
changing and there's a lot of change coming that's going to be foisted upon us and you know there's
a lot of suffering coming actually because I mean dealing with climate change is not around
saving the planet because the planet's going to be here regardless it's around preserving
you know the the ecosystems and the climate that that we currently thrive in and that if you know
as it gets warmer and drier predominantly for us it's going to be harder to sort of thrive and
survive the same way that we are now not just for us but for the species around us so I'm really
motivated by that and I really think that rather than adopting a bunker mentality and just you know
getting a gun and a you know a horde of baked beans I'd rather mobilize community and and build
resilience into into communities and find out ways that we can be more resilient individually
and collectively so that's you know kind of off topic but no very much so and I think it really
opens up it certainly opens up my eyes and I hope it does to other people as well the sort of
a vast range of work that an engineer such as yourself does it is not just getting out there
you yourself behind a little sort of desk fiddling around with something or designing
something on a computer screen you're out there in the thick of it working with collaborating
with other scientists and engineers but also working so much with the community I mean that
that's a really key point in my career because I'm not really a like a propeller head hands on
you know geeky engineer yeah I'm a peopley engineer and I'm motivated by the way that
technology and projects meet communities and individuals and I think that's a really important
space to do well because you know obviously there are many examples of things that are just plonked
down on people who just don't want it or don't get it yeah and they don't necessarily work very
well so it's you know there's engineers don't have to be and scientists don't have to be just
propeller heads they can be you know there's a really important role to communicate and to
to do all the soft stuff as well as the hard stuff so my career is a testament to that
and you know for people who aren't motivated by the hard corners of of science and engineering
that's okay there's still plenty of stuff to do that's really important um that that advances
science and and and engineering and I guess as we keep saying the jobs that the students now who
are in high school are going to be doing in 20 years time we have no idea what those jobs might be
I mean there are so many jobs around today that weren't they didn't exist 20 years ago yeah and
it's the same now like you know future scientists and engineers and technologies we can't really
imagine what they're like yet but but you know the fundamentals of the way that the scientific method
works the way that the engineering mind works are the same exactly you stuff different content
into it you know but you know you crank the handle in the same way but I think it's really exciting
I mean it's it's a really exciting future ahead and you know the world is what we create it you
know it's it's not just inevitable that will happen it's it's predominantly engineers and
scientists who come up with these ideas and and build ideas and try them and evolve them and that's
that's really exciting to me absolutely make me want to go out and be a scientist well that might
be a nice little spot for us to finish I just want to pick up on that idea of being involved
getting people involved getting the community involved to make a project work and I guess
that's one of the core things that is happening out at West Beach which is just outside of the
Adelaide CBD there's an article in the wind technology teacher notes which is on the South
Australian mini wind trial which is happening at the moment I guess the one of the exciting
aspects of this is that the data that's being collected on the four different turbines and
one of the solar projects that's happening down there as well that data is publicly available
and free for people to use to answer their own research questions and so on and I think that's
a good way of getting people involved in their local community getting people involved in wind
technology sustainable energy and getting people involved in scientific thinking and so on so
have a look at that in the teacher notes as well as the other bits and pieces we have in there
about wind technology and I think we might have one other question let me just check here
yeah yes we do okay oh this one's for you Andrew did you find maths and science hard or easy at
school good question I did the standard maths one and two physics chemistry in English which
kind of the brighter you know more sciencey kids ended up in but interestingly I did fairly well
at most of those maths maths I was pretty good at but not a genius physics same chemistry not as
good because I had bad teachers but English actually was my strongest subject which is
interesting looking back on it so I'm a people engineer but and I'm a communicator and and
English was the subject that I did best at so yeah I mean obviously I was disposed towards
you know sciencey stuff and maths but I certainly am not great at that stuff I can do it well enough
to get by yeah but really for me it's all about communicating so yeah just because people aren't
necessarily you know hardcore propeller heads at the hardcore stuff it doesn't preclude all these
exciting areas of science and engineering yeah which is a really important message to get out
there I think isn't it too especially I mean I know there's you know quite likely lots of teachers
out there who understand that message but it's helping their students understand that even if
you're if you don't think you're the the smartest kid at science in school that's okay you can still
have a career in science without being the smartest yeah and also it doesn't have to be dry and I
think in in the notes there's the article about that young lady who's involved with exactly with
the clean energy council I think now and yeah you know she's start she got her engineering degree
and started off that way but again found it pretty dry but now she's thriving because she's involved
in as a communicator and as a you know policy developer and at the softer side of things but
still you know sort of residing on top of her experience and her way of thinking as an engineer
so that's you know it's an important thing for young women particularly because you know
because of the communication ability so there's you know again it doesn't have to be a dry
propeller head existence it can be very exciting and very people focused as well as being technical
or scientific an important point to get across to to our students okay well I think we'll wrap up
for today so I'd like to thank Andrew very much for coming along and sharing his expertise with us
and thank you to all those who are watching online today as well thank you again to our sponsors
Adelaide Shores and the West Beach Community Bank branch of Bendigo Bank and again I urge you to
jump onto our website pull up the teacher notes download those we've also just popped up
Andrew's slides that he brought along today too so they're there for you to have a closer look at
Peru's and maybe even show your students particularly those photographs of the the
foundations of the turbines and so on and I think what I'd also like to urge you to do as well
is if you are in Adelaide or in South Australia by any chance pop down to West Beach if you can
have a look at those turbines down there even if you're a student who's driving down there on the
weekends down there with your family you can stand down look at the turbines read about each of them
at the base there and I think it's it's a really interesting project to get involved with as well
as jump onto the database and actually use that data to answer some of your own research questions
okay I think that wraps it up for today thank you very much Andrew we hope you enjoyed the discussion
remember to download the accompanying teacher notes and explore the rios website to discover
the wonders of science
