Month: January 2025
Perihelia 2030
And so on this 5th of January 2030, John and I set out not long after dawn on a long long long ride, more than two hours, out past the new airport to see what was nothing more than very deep hole in the ground, but looks to be – whenever it’s done – the first grid-scale nuclear power plant in Australia.
We arrived around 9 am, but still need to be careful. Temperatures out here are expected to top 40° today. And we’ve both decided that we’re going to put our bikes on the train for the ride home. Spare ourselves the heat stroke. It’s another heat wave they say but it’s always another heatwave. These days.
Read More »Perihelia 2040
Standing in the blazing hot sun of the 4th of January 2040, too close to another old man softly muttering something about offending the Sun gods. But we both stare in some mixture of admiration and horror at the gigantic concrete cooling stacks that even in this heat gave off traces of vapour, high above us.
Here it was, at long last: The long-promised nuclear power that would make energy too cheap to meter and free us all from the dominion of energy mined and burnt – entering the air to vex us.
Read More »Perihelia 2050
It’s just past 9am on this 3rd of January, 2050. The temperature is already in the mid-30s with a high of somewhere north of 43º expected by mid-arvo.
This is the fourth heatwave of the summer, expected to last another three to four days, and it won’t be the last. Likely it won’t even be the worst, as another, more intense heat dome over the central desert looks to be headed our way for early next week….
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