Australia’s energy debate has, at long last, moved beyond the question of whether atmospheric pollution is affecting our weather, and onto a discussion about how best to reduce emissions. While the science may be settled, the costings aren’t. The energy transition to low emissions power sources is the biggest thing humanity is currently attempting.
Big things take big budgets, which must be spent for maximum impact. But what if we’re basing our spending, in fact our whole transition, on lousy numbers? Bent Flyvbjerg, a professor of major project management at the University of Oxford, recently published a book relevant to this challenge, How Big Things Get Done . In it, he brings together the important lessons from his decades of experience.
He draws a conclusion on how to best decarbonise the global economy. But before I tell you what it is, it’s worth starting as he would start a project. Flyvbjerg is a proponent of what he calls “ right-to-left thinking ”.
Before working out what to do, he argues, it’s vital to work out why you’re doing it. That’s a really interesting question where it comes to energy. What are we actually trying to achieve? Because different people would give different answers.
For some people, the goal is to guarantee our energy needs now and accommodate an increased need for power in future. Others believe we should be using less energy – not just better insulating our houses, but reducing our private and commercial consumption. This.