Reading this week about Bonaire – a small island off the coast of Venezuela, where renewable energy provides almost all the power for tens of thousands of locals and tourists. ReRu has a strong connection to renewable energy and we are especially interested in the stories of the people behind them. It’s not quite the Carribean, but on our epic road trip to document clean energy solutions we met Australians making and saving money from green tech.
On the 6,000 km journey we spoke to innovators and hard-headed business people. There was the young family running Elgo Estate Winery 100% on wind power, staking their future on sustainable production. The boss of Keppel Prince engineering firm, who built wind turbine towers in Portland, Victoria, providing re-training to around 200 local tradies. And the publican at the outback town Innamincka, hosting geothermal hot rocks exploration.
Innamincka is about 1,400 km due west of Brisbane, past the Bourke and Wills tree, and driving there is to really experience Australian Outback. It’s a dead straight road, where you don’t pass oncoming traffic for at least an hour at a time. The town itself has only a dozen or so permanent residents, but in the tourist season they serve meals and host over a hundred driving adventurers under the stars each night.
On the journey, Dean once again demonstrated his dedication to the art of photography. With a massive black cloud hanging right over the hood of the car and lightning cracking on the horizon, he took the opportunity to capture some storm pictures, just before the rain started. We learned then that you can tune the radio to static and it can crackle as a lightning charge builds up – helping to anticipate the shot. We swapped drivers, and slowed the vehicle to well under 20km an hour, because clay roads get pretty slippery in the rain. As the rain got heavier, there was some discussion about appropriate speeds for the conditions and whether we needed to go slower. I’m already on a 1 second exposure was the response from the award-winning press photographer, who has a different definition of “speed” when he’s working.
Arriving at Innamincka, we were confronted with a rare desert downpour, 20 millimetres that afternoon and night – the most rainfall they had seen in a full year. The publican and friends were shovelling the torrent of water out from the front door, because over the years the pub had sunk into the clay, creating a natural dam in the car park. We actually got rained in for a day longer than intended – not something you would usually accommodate in the schedule for visiting one of the driest places in the country.
Just outside town, we learned about Habanero 3 – the test rig to try to reach the natural heated rocks a few km under the earth, in order force water down the holes which turns into steam and runs a generator back on the surface. The electricity would have no noise and no emissions. A pilot plant would replace diesel power for the outback station and demonstrate the power of hot rocks to the world. The renewables in action video explains how it works and the economics. Since most of the action is underground, it could have been challenging to find visual ways to tell this story. The photo essay, however, provides an impression of the vast spaces and the potential of this untapped power source.
The reality of renewable energy is a fast rising as an economic force, new installations are actually outpacing the optimistic predictions of environmental groups.
Solutions stories are essential for change away from unsustainable practice towards smarter practice, and we love telling them. On Bonaire, they use wind turbines and diesel generators that take biodiesel made from locally-grown algae, to provide electricity to 14,500 residents and 70,00 tourists a year.
And of course, the team is available and willing to cover the people and communities that are at the forefront of change – if that’s a remote Caribbean island paradise, well its a tough job but someone’s got a to do it. See more about the team and what we do.