Graham Palmer: "Energy Storage and Civilization: A History"
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 553 Ratings
🗓️ 6 September 2023
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode, Nate is joined by Graham Palmer, a scholar and engineer in the field of energy. While this show frequently covers the importance of energy itself, this discussion focuses on how the ability to store and access energy has critically shaped societies. From agriculture, to wood, to coal, to oil, each transition has marked a new way for humans to interact with the world around them. What would it mean for economic growth if we no longer have access to these storable energies? What does the necessity of storability mean for electricity - an inherently flow-based energy form? Would human societies moving back to a flow-based energy system also mean once again becoming in-sync with the Earth and her ecosystems?
About Graham Palmer
Graham Palmer is a researcher at Monash University, with an industry background as an engineer and researcher in manufacturing, HVAC and electronics. He has published in the area of biophysical economics, renewable energy, life-cycle analysis, and energy-economic modeling. Graham obtained his PhD in the area of energy-return-on-investment (EROI) of electricity supply. His current research interests include the future role of emerging energy storage systems.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/tSsp_XyXfyY
More info and show notes: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/87-graham-palmer
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to The Great Simplification with Nate Higgins. |
| 0:06.2 | That's me. |
| 0:07.7 | On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, in our society. |
| 0:17.0 | Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's eye |
| 0:23.3 | view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about it as a |
| 0:29.1 | society and as individuals. |
| 0:33.3 | Energy is a topic we discuss often on this podcast, but today we're going to focus not on the creating or the delivering of energy, |
| 0:41.3 | but the storage of it. |
| 0:43.1 | My guest today is Graham Palmer, who currently works at the University of Melbourne in Australia. |
| 0:49.6 | Graham does research in biophysical economics and is a technical specialist in energy hydrogen, energy |
| 0:56.3 | modeling, and particularly energy return on investment. Today we discuss the role storage has played |
| 1:04.4 | in the human past, the role it will play in our future, and how we think about the energy |
| 1:09.7 | mix and the energy scale in coming |
| 1:12.6 | decades. |
| 1:13.4 | Please welcome Graham Palmer. |
| 1:29.1 | Good day, mate. |
| 1:30.7 | Oh, good day, Nate. |
| 1:35.4 | I always love to say that on my very few Australian guests. |
| 1:38.4 | Do people really say that there when they see each other? |
| 1:42.9 | Look, gillet is pretty common, but it's not, you know, high, whatever. |
| 1:46.3 | I guess we like to play it up a bit as well. |
| 1:52.1 | All right. Good. Yeah, I mean, a lot of my Australian phrases come from 90s movies and, and food commercials like bloomin onions and shrimp on the Barbie. But we digress. You and I are here to |
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