Shows
Let Me Sum UpNotorious RBD Vs (Too Much) RABSupport us on Patreon and grab some merchThe merch is flying off the shelves (and into Summerupperer mailboxes near and far!). The website is live (and functional!) and the bonus episodes are tastier than Tennant’s home baked maruspice cookies. Join the Super Summerupperer secret society at www.letmesumup.net and click “Support LMSU” to get your fortnightly BoCo fix. Because THERE. IS. (STILL). TOO. MUCH.—This week your intrepid hosts are joined by newly minted Grattan Institute Energy & Climate Program *Director* Alison Reeve to unpack the Productivity Commission’s climate musings and a spic...2025-06-191h 18Let Me Sum UpIEA Nuclear Wedge vs. CCA Atomic WedgieSupport us on Patreon... Team LMSU are calling all Summerupperers to come join the expanded LMSU universe and support our Patreon! This year we are upping the ante and every fortnight when a regular episode drops, there will be an additional, delicious, subscriber only BoCo episode hitting the feeds as well. Because, THERE IS TOO MUCH! Head on over to https://www.patreon.com/LetMeSumUp.—After an extended summer vacay, Team LMSU is back - and not a minute too soon! The spidey senses of the folks at the Climate Change Authority must have been ti...2025-02-271h 09Let Me Sum UpH2 Fast H2 FuriousSupport us on Patreon... Tennant, Luke and Frankie are calling all Summerupperers to come join the expanded LMSU universe and support our Patreon! Sign up today for access to coveted BoCo like our recent bonus episodes on nuclear (could it work?) Plus tasty extras like our episode notes, custom memes and climate themed reworks of classic songs - it’s a vibe. Head on over to https://www.patreon.com/LetMeSumUp.—This week your intrepid hosts are joined by LMSU co-host-at-large - aka the sensible lady in paragraph five - none other than Grattan climate mave...2024-10-031h 20Let Me Sum UpHomes, how I upgrade thee? Let me count the ways (69)Come join us at Currently Speaking's trivia night! Our friends at the Currently Speaking newsletter are putting on a trivia night in Melbourne on Wednesday, 23 October (on the evening of the first day of the All Energy Australia exhibition and conference). So you should get onto that, obviously. But if you are a Super Summerupperer (or ready to sign up) we have three spare tickets for the LMSU trivia team, and maybe they have your name on them! Just head on over to https://www.patreon.com/LetMeSumUp, make sure you are a paying subscriber, and answer this question: i...2024-09-191h 03Let Me Sum UpNEM Fighter II: Ultra Turbo Reliability EditionSupport us on Patreon... Tennant, Luke and Frankie are calling all Summerupperers to come join the expanded LMSU universe and support our Patreon! Sign up today for access to coveted BoCo like our just-dropped bonus episode on the Federal Budget! Other savoury morsels include our notes on papers read, alternate paper titles and so so many custom memes. Head on over to https://www.patreon.com/LetMeSumUp.—Your intrepid hosts turn their gaze stateside for a gander at the recently published rules from the US EPA which will slash emissions and other pollutants from coal an...2024-05-161h 01Let Me Sum UpLMSU Holiday Special 2023: Explosion’s ElevenBy popular demand we are joined once more by marvelous guest host Alison Reeve to round out 2023 with our BUMPER HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR SPECTACULAR! That’s right Summerupperers, ‘tis the season for the Highly Anticipated and Much Sought After awarding of the second annual Wonkies! This year there were several contenders for top honours but your intrepid hosts have sent up the smoke signal and unanimously declared our favourite climate paper of 2023 was…DRUMROLL…Getting off gas: why, how and who should pay? By Tony Wood, Alison Reeve and Esther Suckling of the Grattan Institute! This paper was covered i...2023-12-281h 30Let Me Sum UpUltra Centrist But Not Super Critical: Blueprint’s Nuclear PlanFrankie is back from pod mat leave and Tennant is spruiking recipes from Dungeons & Dragons Heroes’ Feast Cookbooks! (Vol 1 and Vol 2). Pleasantries aside we dive in with our own stocktake of the first Global Stocktake on progress of the Paris Agreement towards achieving its purpose and long-term goals. Due to be discussed in Dubai at COP28 shortly, it’s an important if unsurprising summary of where we’re at: Paris has driven a lot of activity but we are not on track for 1.5C.And stay tuned for more COP news Sumerupperers as your intrepid hosts are depart...2023-11-231h 14Let Me Sum UpH2AB8 in LTS: Residual Emissions WTFOur starter is the Strategic Plan of the revived State Electricity Commission of Victoria. What are they up to? Much more than we expected! Large scale clean energy investment, taking on existing contracts for difference, getting into electrification, skills, and governance! No really, that last one might be the most controversial. Overall it’s very interesting and pretty positive, despite Tennant’s xenomorphic metaphors!Our main paper Residual emissions are the stuff that requires the Net in Net Zero - the emissions that can’t be (or, at least, aren’t) eliminated and have to be balance...2023-11-091h 05Let Me Sum UpContracts For Indifference? Equity v Social EquityWe start with a quick summary of the High Court of Australia’s decision in Vanderstock v Victoria, which struck down as unconstitutional the State of Victoria’s Distance Based Charge on Zero and Low Emissions Vehicles (aka the EV Tax). But we rapidly descend into an unqualified but compelling fiesta of legal speculation - is State-based EV taxation really dead, and what other unrelated taxes and charges might now be unsound?Our main paper More and more governments have been making use of Contracts for Difference as a tool of energy and climate policy - fir...2023-10-261h 00Let Me Sum Up“(You gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Partly Reform Policy Analysis)” feat The BCA BoysWe begin with the highs and lows of the International Energy Agency’s updated 1.5 Degrees Scenario, which notes fast progress on scaleup of key technologies that is - just - compensating for slow progress on emissions reductions. IEA reckon 1.5 degrees is still possible without immense reliance on overshoot and net negative emissions; but there’s a big gap between what would be needed to achieve that and most economies’ current plans.Our main paper Benefit-cost analysis informs - and sometimes dictates - a lot of policy decisions about climate and energy, and how the sums are don...2023-10-121h 03Let Me Sum UpFour Headings And No Numerals: Narrative Based Climate ScenariosThis satisfyingly hourlong episode (you’re welcome) starts with a discussion of the United Kingdom’s recent reset of climate policies, which PM Rishi Sunak casts as a “more pragmatic, proportionate and realistic approach” to Net Zero, and others decry as a mix of backsliding on things that matter and cancellation of things that weren’t even proposed.* Is this a sign of things to come?Maybe, say the (prescient? Or simply well-hedged?) authors of…Our main paper … “No Time To Lose: New Scenario Narratives for Action on Climate Change” by Mark Cliffe and teams fr...2023-09-281h 00Let Me Sum UpYou Must Remember Hon, A Tonne Is Not A Tonne, On That You Can RelyNewly informed and inspired by generous listener survey responses, LMSU bullseyes the 1 hour median YOU demanded! That’s the power of data.Carbon Leakage Corner:This ep we start with the Australian Government’s Carbon Leakage Review, which has found its supreme commander in the form of universally respected ANU boffin Prof Frank Jotzo. Somehow Tennant discusses this without CBAM taking over the whole episode. Our main paper:… is the Climate Change Authority’s April 2023 “Reduce, remove and store: The role of carbon sequestration in accelerating Australia’s decarbonisation”It’s a thought...2023-09-1457 minLet Me Sum Up"Mo Energy Market Mo Energy Problems (NEM Diss Track)” feat. The Notorious RBDFrankie’s maternity leave is well underway (it’s a girl!) meaning a new host graciously filling in (Alison Reeve) and a new shownote-writer rather less graciously filling in (Tennant).After briefly speculating on the virtues of peak energy nerd board game Power Grid (none of us have played it, but we hear good things!) we make a fresh listener appeal: tell us how we’re doing with the podcast and what you want, including shorter/longer episodes and more/less energy/Dungeons & Dragons crossover content, in our quick and easy survey. You’ll be glad you did!...2023-08-311h 10Let Me Sum UpIEA Asks: Can You Dig It?FLAMING HOT news out of Victoria – the State Government’s announcement of a ban on planning permits for gas connections to new homes from 1 Jan 2024 – had your intrepid hosts speculating on whether this is indeed the beginning of the end for domestic gas use in Australia. A big call but consensus was that this is an inflection point!And that wasn’t the only news to share with our Summeruppers this week. Dun dun DUNNNN!! It turns out that in addition to recording the occasional pod with Luke and Tennant, Frankie has been growing a tiny human who is a...2023-08-031h 03Let Me Sum UpHow Do You Solve a Problem Like My Heater? Grattan’s Get-Off-Gas PlanWe start this week’s show with Tennant taking on tech titan Elon Musk by combining his two great two loves in SPREADSHEETS and SPACE to cast some serious shade on Musk’s plans around Mars colonisation, with hot takes on implications for Hydrogen along the way.Your intrepid hosts also revisit the latest quarterly update from the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory for Dec 2022 and try as Frankie might to induce sleepiness a la BBC shipping forecast readouts with the numbers, no dice! TLDR: emissions reduction flatlined and there is cause for concern that the rollout of ener...2023-07-061h 23
First Fuel52: 'Safeguard mechanism performance art' with Alison ReeveIn Episode 52 of First Fuel, Energy Efficiency Council CEO Luke Menzel is joined by Alison Reeve, Deputy Program Director of the Energy and Climate Program at Grattan Institute to unpack their new report Towards net zero: Practical policies to reduce industrial emissions.
Luke and Alison discuss the distinct challenges of unlocking emissions reductions in small and large facilities, the opportunity to reform the safeguard mechanism to lower the carbon footprint of big emitters, and how we can leverage state-based energy efficiency schemes to support small and medium manufacturers on their emissions reduction journey.
2021-09-0243 min