Australia’s Million Jobs Plan
A Million Jobs?
There’s something big brewing Down Under. Over a million jobs to be precise.
Mike Cannon-Brookes, founder of Atlassian, is publicly backing a plan to create more than 1 million jobs in clean energy and manufacturing in Australia. The purpose of the plan is clear. Jumpstart the economy post-COVID and simultaneously turn Australia into a renewable energy superpower.
Beyond Zero Emissions, an Australian climate think tank, released a plan with the ultimate goal of creating 1.8 million jobs in Australia in the next 5 years. In a country with 25 million people, that’s a big deal.
The Million Jobs plan underscores my firm belief that the technology already exists to save our planet. Check out this quote from Mike in the Australian Financial Review:
One of the things I really like about the million jobs plan is it’s not about inventing new technologies.
It’s about deploying the technologies we already have today at scale to generate jobs and economic prosperity for Australia. That’s exactly the direction we need to be heading in.
Mike Cannon-Brookes
Seeing our scientific and business communities collaborating to build a sustainable future for our country makes my heart swell with pride to be an Australian. From the point of view of an Australian living in the USA which is wracked by poor leadership and is actively withdrawing from positive climate action, this kind of plan is exciting to say the least.
This plan represents the kind of focus and vision that could turn Australia into a global leader in the post-COVID world.
What’s in the Million Jobs Plan?
Let’s dive into the plan a bit, and see how exactly the Beyond Zero Emissions think tank is planning to create those million jobs.
The report addresses 5 main areas:
- Renewable energy
- Better buildings
- Better transport
- Manufacturing
- Land use
1. Renewable Energy
The Million Jobs plan hinges on Australia’s vast potential for generating renewable energy.
Australia has unbelievable potential for renewable energy generation. The country has nearly unmatched levels of insolation, and huge expanses of land in the sparsely populated interior. These two factors alone support the idea that solar power will underscore a climate positive future in Australia. Australia also has huge wind power resources across much of the country.
The dark red areas in the map below indicate areas with “Good coexisting solar and wind.” Note that more than half of Australia is dark red. Exciting!
The Million Jobs plan proposes building 90 gigawatts of solar and wind energy generation. This will result in the avoidance of 80% of Australia’s emissions.
The plan also says that at scale, Australia could produce renewable energy at A$50 per megawatt-hour, and possibly less. For context, current energy prices range between $73 and $98 per megawatt-hour. This has been made possible by an 85% drop in the cost of solar power generation, and 49% drop in the cost of onshore wind power generation since 2010.
2. Better Buildings
The plan highlights the opportunity of retrofitting existing buildings with energy efficient upgrades. This is especially low hanging fruit. Simple solutions, like insulation, greatly improve the energy efficiency of buildings, and the installation of these solutions drives job creation. It’s a win-win.
My academic advisor, Prof. Michael McElroy, wrote a book “Energy and Climate: Vision for the Future” where he highlighted a business opportunity to use drones with thermal cameras to assess energy leakages from buildings, and then install insulation in the problem areas. Refrigerated warehouses could be wasting huge amounts of money on energy simply because their building is not as energy efficient as it could be, and most residential buildings are certainly not optimized for energy efficiency.
Cross laminated timber was highlighted in the plan as a building material to use in low environmental impact buildings. This material is being used in San Francisco at Samsara’s new office and in Australia at Atlassian’s new HQ. I’ll dive into this material more in a future post!
3. Better Transport
The plan proposes introducing 18,000 electric public buses, electrifying 3,000km of existing railway, and creating 5,000km of bike lanes. The plan estimates that this will create 138,000 jobs, with an emphasis in manufacturing of buses and trains.
Electric buses are an interesting proposal. According to a cited study by the Chicago Transit Authority, every electric bus saves the city US$110,000 every year in health care expenses due to the reduced air pollution. In addition, despite being 30–40% more expensive upfront, it ends up being cheaper over the lifetime of the bus, apparently saving $300,000 in fuel costs over the lifetime of the bus.
4. Manufacturing
Manufacturing is a hot button issue for many nations, the US included. It is no surprise that this plan to create over a million jobs in Australia is heavily focused on driving a new age of manufacturing.
The plan explains that Australia can become a global leader in the production of key materials like hydrogen, ammonia, steel and aluminum by leveraging our abundant supplies of renewable energy to power these hugely energy intensive manufacturing processes. The plan proposes a new economic structure called “renewable energy industrial zones.” These zones create a geographic area where energy intensive manufacturers can set up shop with access to fixed cost renewable energy.
The Million Jobs Plan aims to revitalize the Australian manufacturing industry by creating a competitive advantage through cheap, clean energy.
5. Land Use
The Million Jobs Plan recommends that Australia revegetates 27 million hectares of land in the next 5 years, and a total of 55 million hectares by 2030. For context, that’s the size of New Zealand and France, respectively. If successful, this would effectively remove 5% of Australia’s total emissions, while restoring ecosystems and creating jobs in land management.
This plan highlights the intersectional nature of environmentalism. It calls for the creation of 7,000 land management jobs for the Indigenous people of Australia, who are in many cases the traditional owners of the land that is being revegetated.
Traditional land management practices have already begun to be reinstated in some parts of Australia. Dean Yibarbuk, a fire ecologist and senior Traditional Owner in West Arnhem Land describes the success of the West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement project:
This fire management program has been successful on so many levels: culturally, economically and environmentally.
Through reinstating traditional burning practices, new generations of landowners have been trained
in traditional and western fire management, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas have been abated, and the landscape is being managed in the right way.Dean Yibarbuk, fire ecologist and senior Traditional Owner, West Arnhem Land.
Afforestation plans can potentially backfire as was seen in previous efforts in both Chile and China. In Chile, poorly implemented afforestation led to monoculture, and a decrease in biodiversity and native forests. In Northern China, soils that were already rich with carbon actually decreased in carbon density when new trees were planted. However, with well thought out policies and revegetation practices which take into account previous failures, I can see Australia executing this plan with great success.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this plan for Australia’s future is beyond exciting. It has the potential to restart a COVID-damaged economy, and lead the world in aggressively pursuing the clean energy future that we desperately need.
As the chair of Beyond Zero Emissions said, “These are the real shovel ready projects. If you are really serious about getting the economy back to work quickly this is the conversation we have to have.” Their plan reads like a clean energy handbook, it’s absolutely worth at least a quick read. Access it here.
The technology exists. We just need to deploy it.
Thanks so much for reading!
Check out more of my work @ domglover.com
