00:00 Here's what Australia's electricity generation over the past week looks like.
00:06 Yellow is solar, which is both rooftop and large scale, and it dominates the middle of
00:11 every day when the sun is shining.
00:14 Green is wind, blue is hydro, black is fossil fuels, both gas and coal.
00:20 And when the sun's out, gas and coal lose money.
00:23 But when we get home at night, turn on the lights and the air conditioning, gas and coal
00:28 make money, lots of it.
00:30 Here's the same thing over time, annually since 2000.
00:35 And while renewables might be generating two-thirds of our power in the middle of the day when
00:38 the sun's out, if you look at it over time, it's the other way around.
00:44 Fossil fuels generate two-thirds of our power on average, and renewables only one-third.
00:51 Last year, rooftop solar grew by an incredible 30%.
00:55 Now at that rate, the government's target of 82% renewables by 2030 would be a cinch.
01:01 It just really needs to grow by 17% a year from now, which is more than the average of
01:05 the past five years, but not impossible.
01:08 But there are a few problems.
01:09 Transmission needs to be rebuilt, which will be both expensive and unpopular.
01:15 And by the time we get to 2030, all the coal-fired power stations may well be broke and closed,
01:21 but we still need them to supply 18%.
01:24 And finally, here's that chart again of Australia's electricity generation by source, simplified
01:28 a bit with all the renewables together.
01:31 And here's the same thing for the world.
01:34 Now, India and China are still building a lot of coal-fired power stations, which means
01:39 that the burning of fossil fuels, and therefore carbon emissions, are still rising.
01:43 Well, Australia's boom in rooftop solar is a great story, but we shouldn't think for
01:48 a moment that it means we'll be okay.
01:51 Global warming is coming, ready or not, and we need to be ready and put solar on the roof.
01:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]
