I’ve chosen to finish up at The Australian National University this week. Some, incomplete, reflections on the six years there:
- The role of open data and models has never been more crucial. My code is https://github.com/bjornsturmberg and I recently got permission to share 2 household data sets https://zenodo.org/records/14885589
- I still chuckle at getting a Bluey into the Quarterly Essay in my response to Saul Griffiths essay. I’m all for electrification but the emphasis shouldn’t be placed on numbers and machines, for as Chilli Healer says “if there’s no trust, none of this [the world] is possible . . . No libraries, no roads, no power lines.” https://bjornsturmberg.com/response-to-saul-griffiths-the-wires-that-bind/
- I had never expected to write a kids book. Nor would I have imagined how Amy’s Balancing Act would take me to Parliament (as Craig Reucassel says, it’s “a great book to teach young children and old politicians about clean energy”), Australia’s largest music festival, and lots of schools (well that last part was predictable). I’ll always be endebted to those who supported the kickstarter campaign and to Cool.org for leveraging the story into teaching resources that have reached over 45,000 kids. https://bjornsturmberg.com/amys-balancing-act/ (there are only 2 boxes of the first edition left…)
- I remain sceptical that giving something the prefix ‘community’ makes it deliver community benefit. https://bjornsturmberg.com/community-batteries-a-discussion-paper/
- That an Australian electric vehicle fleet would have 5 times the energy storage capacity of Snowy 2.0 boggles my mind (so I refer to the calculation https://reneweconomy.com.au/are-19-million-electric-vehicle-batteries-equal-to-five-snowy-2-0s-61400/).
- The contribution of the REVS project in driving V2G from concept to commercial proposition in Australia is something I – and everyone in the consortium – will always be proud of. https://bjornsturmberg.com/category/transport/vehicle-to-grid/
- The passion, talent, energy and compasionate leadership of students is radical. They’re truly our hope for the future. It’s been an honour to be the academic champion of the ANU solar for 5 years (3 team iterations, 2 car designs, builds and 1 world solar challenge – the next one being but weeks away, go team!)
- Transdisciplinarity is hard to spell, harder to enact, and harder still to get funded. Hats off to the new McCusker Institute, I’m sad to not see out my Fellowship year.
- The totally equitable parental leave policy is outstanding, but ought to be the norm. I have been invaluably enriched by the good and the bad times during the time I took (and take) to do the bestest, hardest job. Annabel Crabb’s Men at Work essay is still my go to https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2019/09/men-at-work
- Contributing to growing a team from 3 to over 30 staff was a blast. It’s cliche and true that nothing is more influential than who you work with, which holds for partners as well as staff and students. I’ve been lucky to have this reinforced through positive examples from wonderful people.
- Shifting from organisational growth to sustainability is (surprisingly) tricky. Strategy and leadership structures have to evolve markedly.
- There is so much more to do to align decarbonisation (and broader sustainability) with social justice. This is my best attempt to contribute https://bjornsturmberg.com/presentation-watt-price-equity/, which is further developed in an upcoming Perspective article.