China's Emissions Drop, Solar Soars - Tim Buckley Ep53
Spark Club Podcast
The Highlights * Labor's re-election * Bradfield recount - a celebration of the integrity of our voting system * Labor's Residential Battery Program - Minister Bowen re-commits to his election pledge of $2.3bn home and business BESS subsidy * Australia on track to see utility BESS increase 8x to 16GW by end 2027 The Lowlights * The Albanese Government approved the North West Shelf expansion. The decision will put 4.4 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere in the coming decades. That’s the equivalent of approving 12 new coal fired power stations * Queensland Deputy Premier...
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How to Lobby Canberra - Kylea Tink & Blair Palese Ep52
Spark Club Podcast
Great conversation recorded at the How to Lobby Canberra at the live event at EnergyLab in Sydney. Thanks to and for an open and honest scorecard on how the cleantech and climate sector is performing in Canberra. The 'Shine Baby Shine' side shone on the night. The Cleantech / Climate industry has work to do in; 1. Aligning our message 2. Funding our positive message directly to the public, and in Canberra 3. Maturing as an industry, if we're going to be taken seriously This is a REDACTED podcast of our conversation on the night. As you'll hear, it's always worth coming along to...
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Nuclear to cost Australian economy $4.3T - Tim Buckley - EP51
Spark Club Podcast
Tim Buckley joins the Spark Club regular podcast in the lead up to the Australian Federal Election on the 3rd May 2025. Highlights China 1QCY2025 electricity statistics. Battery Energy Storage BESS announcements continue at a rapid speed and scale, with proposals advancing across Australia almost daily. China’s response to the US trade war Lowlights Rolled into the Main Story this week. Main Story New Climate Energy Finance report: What’s coming up? The Australian Federal election on the 3rd of May, will Labor win?
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Energy Transformation Live Event - Danny Kennedy - Ep 50
Spark Club Podcast
In our first Live Spark Club event for 2025 Danny Kennedy joins us to share his recent experience on the ground in Pakistan and Bangladesh where he witnessed first hand the Energy Transformation underway with rapid deployment of solar PV. Danny shares the positive effect of China's Five Year Plans and the flywheel effect of low cost solar PV, battery storage and EV's deployed in new markets. We also discuss Australia as a beacon of successfully integrating high renewable energy assets onto our grid and how our leadership should be seen as an opportunity to build strong commercial...
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Australian Federal Election 2025 - Tim Buckley - Ep49
Spark Club Podcast
Tim Buckley joins the Spark Club regular podcast on the day the Australian Federal Election is announced for 2025. Highlights Federal election has been called this morning - for 3rd May 2025 Budget - not much climate or energy information in the budget, perhaps there's more to be announced during the election. BYD’s amazing stats. Matt Pollard's oped in RenewEconomy. 120,000 R&D staff!!! EV momentum Tim shares overall EV market stats, perhaps a lowlight for Tesla. Caroline’s Wang work on electricity generation stats. Highlighting the first two months of 2025...
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Australia's Strong China Relationship - Dr Zhengrong Shi Ep 48
Spark Club Podcast
It's great to welcome Dr Zhengrong Shi onto the Spark Club podcast. We had some time before a UNSW Fireside Chat event with Professor Martin Green and Dr Shi. We open our conversation with Dr Shi’s thoughts on entrepreneurship and the six principles of what it takes to build a successful business. We discuss solar manufacturing from its infancy in China and Suntech’s contribution as a cornerstone, ‘root company, of the solar sector. We then explore the distributed solar manufacturing potential for Australia, and other Nations, and how new markets are emerging in Pakistan for example. ...
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Engie aims to invest €21-24 billion - Tim Buckley - Ep47
Spark Club Podcast
This week Tim shares his highlights, lowlights and main story with us starting with; Highlights Green iron report by Deloitte & The Fifth Estate forum with Matt Kean and Martijn Wilder hosted at the Greenhouse. China's massive US$11bn 19GW (85% RE) . Canadian Solar's reported CY2024 BESS shipments surged 505% yoy to 6.5GWh. Engie pulls out of a Texas gas project as the numbers no longer stack up. And EV highlights for BYD, not so much for Tesla Lowlights Gas cartel stitch up. Story by via Drilled Media. Main Story of France reconfirming its NZE by 2045 commitments...
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Whyalla Steel Works - Tim Buckley - Ep 46
Spark Club Podcast
This week Tim shares some good news from Canberra with the Climate Capital Forum leading a delegation to meet with politicians across the spectrum and share a positive message. Our focus this week on the South Australian State government working in partnership with the PM Federal Government to put the financially distressed Sanjeev Gupta 's Manufacturing division into administration, and to offer a A$2.4bn rescue and modernisation package to transform Whyalla into a potentially world leading green iron and steel centre. For more information, refer our detailed Linkedin post here: And 's ...
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China Leaps Forward - Tim Buckley - Ep45
Spark Club Podcast
Welcome to episode 45 of the Spark Club podcast. Tim Buckley is back to take us through our regular format of Highlights, Lowlights, The Main Story and What Coming Up. In this episode we open with good news from the Middle East as large scale solar and battery storage deployment hits new records. Tim shares news on the $2Bn Green Aluminium production tax credits, Labor's 2025 Build Australia's Future plan and big BESS installations numbers across across the world. Amazing. In the Main Story for the week we discuss China's headline energy and economic growth numbers in 2024...
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Solar S-Curve - Birchy - Ep44
Spark Club Podcast
Welcome to episode 44 of the Spark Club podcast. A large part of our conversation on this podcast is about solar PV as the engine behind the global energy transition. Traditional media still maintains solar as a rounding error, a technology in its infancy. Well the stats tell a different story, which is why I'm delighted to have Andrew Birch 'Birchy', onto the podcast. Birchy shares his start in the solar industry, way back when, and how his career has informed the work he's doing on the S-Curve. Birchy has distilled the noise down to one key idea, and a number of important stats,...
info_outlineThe Highlights
* Labor's re-election
* Bradfield recount - a celebration of the integrity of our voting system
* Labor's Residential Battery Program - Minister Bowen re-commits to his election pledge of $2.3bn home and business BESS subsidy
* Australia on track to see utility BESS increase 8x to 16GW by end 2027
The Lowlights
* The Albanese Government approved the North West Shelf expansion. The decision will put 4.4 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere in the coming decades. That’s the equivalent of approving 12 new coal fired power stations
* Queensland Deputy Premier rejecting a 450MW Wind farm and BESS - climate science denialism in the LNP strikes again
The Big Story this week
* China emissions peaked in March 2024, and now for 12 months have plateaued and marginally declined
* 4MCY2025 thermal power generation in China down 3.6% yoy
* China installs 46GW of solar in just the single month of April 2025
What's coming up
* A carbon market price path towards an Asian CBAM - new Climate Energy Finance report released next week