Alison Reeve
LightNews LightNews
banner
reevealison.bsky.social
Alison Reeve
@reevealison.bsky.social
3.7K followers 330 following 1K posts
Program Director, Energy + Climate Change, Grattan Institute.
Views here are my own, naturally.

Usually posting from Ngunnawal Country.

I block Nazis, climate deniers, and Russian propaganda amplifiers.
Posts Replies Media Videos
reevealison.bsky.social
Seeing as I'm in sarcastic shout-out mode, I'll also give a big one to the rat that has died in an obscure part of my ceiling in the middle of a heatwave, leaving me to choose between opening the doors and windows and suffering the heat, or staying cool and suffering the smell.
December 17, 2025 at 6:35 AM
reevealison.bsky.social
Big shoutout to my next-door neighbour who is maximising the amount of legacy feed-in tarrif (90c/kWh) he gets from his 10kW rooftop solar system by cleaning it with two leaf blowers and a pressure washer running off a gen-set.

Cannot hear myself think RN.
December 16, 2025 at 11:38 PM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
billmckibben.bsky.social
Just noting that no one is ever going to seize a tanker full of solar energy
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...
U.S. seizes ‘very large’ oil tanker off Venezuelan coast, Trump says
The seizure was a significant escalation in the U.S. pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his country’s oil-dependent economy.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 10, 2025 at 11:29 PM
reevealison.bsky.social
There's a level of wealth above which you don't get happier, and there's a level of wealth above which you think physics no longer applies to you.
ketanjoshi.co Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · Dec 10
It is intensely funny to me that tech bro CEOs on an annual salary of 15 petabillion dollars think data centres can go in space because it's very cold but actually they would get obscenely hot because heat won't radiate into the vacuum of space

taranis.ie/datacenters-...
cold coolant returned to the loop. Typically the coolant is cooled via convective cooling to the air, so one way or another this is how things work on Earth. In space, there is no air. The environment is close enough to a hard, total vacuum as makes no practical difference, so convection just doesn't happen. On the space engineering side, we typically think about thermal management, not just cooling. Thing is, space doesn't really have a temperature as-such. Only materials have a temperature. It may come as a surprise, but in the Earth-Moon system the average temperature of pretty much anything is basically the same as the average temperature of Earth, because this is why Earth has that particular temperature. If a satellite is rotating, a bit like a chicken on a rotisserie, it will tend toward having a consistent temperature that's roughly similar to that of the Earth surface. If it isn't rotating, the side pointing away from the sun will tend to get progressively colder, with a limit due to the cosmic microwave background, around 4 Kelvin, just a little bit above absolute zero. On the sunward side, things can get a bit cooked, hitting hundreds of centigrade. Thermal management therefore requires very careful design, making sure that heat is carefully directed where it needs to go. Because there is no convection in a vacuum, this can only be achieved by conduction, or via some kind of heat pump. I've designed space hardware that has flown in space. In one particular case, I designed a camera system that needed to be very small and lightweight, whilst still providing science-grade imaging capabilities. Thermal management was front and centre in the design process – it had to be, because power is scarce in small spacecraft, and thermal management has to be achieved whilst keeping mass to a minimum. So no heat pumps or fancy stuff for me – I went in the other direction, designing the system to draw a maximum of about 1 watt at peak, dropping to around 10% of that wh… Cooling even a single H200 will be an absolute nightmare. Clearly a heatsink and fan won't do anything at all, but there is a liquid cooled H200 variant. Let's say this was used. This heat would need to be transferred to a radiator panel – this isn't like the radiator in your car, no convection, remember? – which needs to radiate heat into space. Let's assume that we can point this away from the sun. The Active Thermal Control System (ATCS) on the ISS is an example of such a thermal control system. This is a very complex system, using an ammonia cooling loop and a large thermal radiator panel system. It has a dissipation limit of 16kW, so roughly 16 H200 GPUs, a bit over the equivalent to a quarter of a ground-based rack. The thermal radiator panel system measures 13.6m x 3.12 m, i.e., roughly 42.5 square metres. If we use 200kW as a baseline and assume all of that power will be fed to GPUs, we'd need a system 12.5 times bigger, i.e., roughly 531 square metres, or about 2.6 times the size of the relevant solar array. This is now going to be a very large satellite, dwarfing the ISS in area, all for the equivalent of three standard server racks on Earth.
December 10, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
greenj.bsky.social
Just a thought… but maybe let’s not have massive data centres sucking up water, gutsing on electricity and destroying the social fabric. Could be an option?
December 4, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
grattaninstitute.bsky.social
🤓 GRATTAN’S 2025 WONKS’ LIST 🤓

In addition to our Prime Minister’s Summer Reading List, our Wonks’ List highlights some of the year’s best technical policy reads.

Here are our picks for 2025. buff.ly/YcFqGwm #auspol #ausecon
buff.ly
December 1, 2025 at 5:00 AM
reevealison.bsky.social
Spicy take from a professor of economics, suggesting that the way to get power prices down is to build more of the most expensive form of electricity
November 30, 2025 at 11:17 PM
reevealison.bsky.social
Mani. 😢
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...
Mani’s writhing, relentless bass was the Stone Roses’ secret sauce – it taught indie kids how to dance | Alexis Petridis
His love of ‘good northern soul and funk’ was always in evidence and had a lasting impact on alternative music
www.theguardian.com
November 20, 2025 at 9:15 PM
reevealison.bsky.social
Happy World Energy Outlook day to all those who celebrate. Here's your annual reminder about what the different scenarios mean (journalists and sub-editors: looking at you in particular).
November 12, 2025 at 8:05 AM
reevealison.bsky.social
A portrait to put in my attic, except instead of aging on my behalf it has severe grass pollen allergies
November 6, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
accr.bsky.social
Electricity demand is growing around the world but the growth in solar and wind was so strong it met 100% of the extra electricity demand, even helping drive a slight decline in coal and gas use. www.bbc.com/news/article...
Renewables overtake coal as world's biggest source of electricity
Developing countries lead the historic clean energy charge but the US and EU rely more on fossil fuels than before, a think tank study shows.
www.bbc.com
October 8, 2025 at 3:46 AM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
eroston.bsky.social
Oh:
- The US sold $80 billion in oil and gas abroad through July.
- China exported $120 billion in green technology over the same period.
By @akshatrathi.bsky.social
🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
China Is Beating the US in the Battle for Energy Export Dominance
China’s exports of clean energy technology hit a record in August, with $20 billion shipped globally.
www.bloomberg.com
October 6, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
newyorker.com
The naturalist Jane Goodall died today at 91. Hope, she argued, is not merely “passive wishful thinking” but a “crucial survival trait.” Revisit a conversation with Goodall, from 2021: nyer.cm/F55JtsS
An image of Jane Goodall and a chimpanzee, from 1965. Photo courtesy CBS Photo Archive / Getty.
October 1, 2025 at 10:05 PM
reevealison.bsky.social
Dining with dinosaurs...
September 30, 2025 at 4:56 AM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
wblau.bsky.social
On why Trump is wrong on climate, renewable energy, the next economic growth cycle, on powering data centres cost-efficiently, and on geo-economics. Very good by the FT‘s Gillian Tett.
on.ft.com/3KkjVcU
September 26, 2025 at 6:25 AM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
james-bg.bsky.social
Wonder if Starmer will find room in his speech to acknowledge the objective fact a century of escalating climate impacts means global migration will massively increase. We either find a way to effectively and humanely manage that fact, rather than deny it, or things will get very dark very quickly.
September 26, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
brenttoderian.bsky.social
WATCH THIS: The most amazing thing about this remarkable 2002 car commercial is that it didn’t seem to realize at the time, or perhaps didn’t care, how effectively it made the point that cars and car infrastructure are a HUGE waste of space in cities. Award-winning 2002 ad for Saturn car company.
Saturn Ion commercial
YouTube video by Eliyahu Biton
youtube.com
September 23, 2025 at 12:40 AM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
grattaninstitute.bsky.social
Learn what makes good public policy at our October ‘Changing public policy’ course.

Grattan policy experts Peter Breadon and Trent Wiltshire will teach you how to communicate evidence and navigate reform blockages.

Register now: buff.ly/QOXuUOX
A promotional graphic promoting the Changing public policy course, featuring pictures of the two speakers Peter Breadon and Trent Wiltshire.
September 22, 2025 at 4:29 AM
reevealison.bsky.social
Cracker of a chart
profraywills.futuresmart.com.au Prof Ray Wills @profraywills.futuresmart.com.au · Sep 12
The fastest energy transformation in human history

@fssau.futuresmart.com.au

expanded graph for pace of adoption of electricity generation by source from >100TWh annual generation threshold point
September 19, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
timothysnyder.bsky.social
General pattern in regime change: the comedy gets better and then it gets banned.
September 18, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
timothysnyder.bsky.social
"I saw the message on her son’s t-shirt: Always be kind. ...that word 'always,' on a boy’s chest in the middle of a city that has been pounded for three years, has to be there, as a reminder that ideals are ideals, and that they are part of reality."
snyder.substack.com/p/always-be-...
Always be kind
An unexpected wartime slogan
snyder.substack.com
September 18, 2025 at 12:33 AM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
drsimevans.carbonbrief.org
NEW: IEA reiterates ‘no new oil and gas needed’ if global warming is limited to 1.5C (but this time, it only says so quietly)

🧵quick thread

www.carbonbrief.org/...
1/6
September 16, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
greenj.bsky.social
To journalists various: the issue is not whether the coalition tears itself apart over climate denialism… the issue is whether we do what we can to save our home.
Stop reporting the goddam horse race.
September 16, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
voicesofwentworth.bsky.social
“modelling suggests an increase in heat-related mortality of 444% for Sydney”

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...
What happens to Australia when the world warms by 3C? It's revealed in this report
For the first time, the government has modelled the threats from climate change on Australia's future. What’s the point of a document like this, and can it help us avoid the worst-case scenarios?
www.abc.net.au
September 15, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Reposted by Alison Reeve
voicesofwentworth.bsky.social
Climate Risk Assessment Report:
💀 400% increase in heat deaths
🔥 1m homes uninsurable by 2050
🥵$211 billion in lost wealth from reduced labour productivity.

Uninsurable means unsellable, means ppl lose wealth, reduced tax revenue & economic recession for all

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...
#auspol
One million homes at 'very high risk' will be effectively uninsurable by 2050
One in 10 homes could be effectively uninsurable by 2050, while lost labour productivity to extreme weather could wipe $211 billion in household wealth, the Climate Risk Assessment warns, with tourism...
www.abc.net.au
September 15, 2025 at 8:48 PM