Innovatia

ENERGY TRANSITION Q&A WITH JOHN WOOD The Energy Transition is a matter of great public importance ongoing, and one that rests largely in the hands of a collective of experts across industries spanning renewable energy, oil and gas, and infrastructure, to name a few. John Wood, CEO of revolutionary zinc-based battery technology manufacturing company Gelion, is one voice worth amplifying as the discourse continues. What surprising science and technology principles and practices has your industry uncovered in recent years? The pace of renewable energy adoption will be increasingly governed by the ability of en- ergy storage to scale. Battery technology as a method of energy storage is a very exciting area but also very complex. There are many battery materials and many types of elec- trodes, conversion (chemical reaction), in- tercalation, plating, and alloying. Effective- ness can be a function of crystallography, ionic flow, catalytic enhancement, or passi- vation. The permutations are almost infinite and each change to an anode or cathode composition or electrolyte means starting

house Gas Assessment Guidelines. Later, when Australia’s international climate change mitigation credentials have been re- stored, linking to the European Union emis- sions trading system would avoid truncation of the mitigation effort. Time would be needed to negotiate change in European and Austral- ian rules on trade in carbon credits. Australia would need to navigate European scepticism about the legitimacy of our rules on farm cred- its, make any necessary adjustments, and ul- timately persuade European policy-makers of the value of soundly measured and adminis- tered carbon farming. Our efforts in persuasion would be support- ed by growing international recognition of the importance of natural climate solutions to the global mitigation effort.

whole of the funding for the Climate Solutions Funds available for use now as legitimate car- bon credits are certified by the Clean Energy Regulator. This would see the new fund ex- hausted over a few years. The second step would be to require in the next parliamentary term an initial phasing in of full offsetting of fugitive emissions by pur- chase of ACCUs, to be completed through the 2020s. Demand for credits from the farm sector would be further enhanced by the current re- quirement for all exceedance of baseline emis- sions within the Abbott safeguard mechanism to be accompanied by surrender to the Clean Energy Regulator of ACCUs. Alternatively, state governments through their mineral leasing or environmental powers could require offsetting of fugitive emissions by use of certified ACCUs – sourced from their own territory, as the local politics would favour expansion of opportunity for the local farm and station community. This is the approach proposed by the WA Environ- mental Protection Agency in 2019, in its Green-

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again with safety and performance testing that can take years to complete. This is lead- ing to use of AI, and techniques like digital molecular modelling to zero in on the areas of highest potential before physical science development – not unlike the process of as- saying resources carefully underground be- fore baking decisions to extract resources in mining development. Where and how can these be transferred to other nationally important challenges? As resources become more scarce and tech- nological challenges more difficult, a na- tion’s general core competitive advantage lies in its leaders’ ability to distil clarity from

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