Nathan Surendran is a Transition Engineer and principal consultant at Schema Consulting Limited, bringing with him an extensive knowledge of macro-scale systems and risks, and synthesising economic, energetic, and environmental factors.
Nathan is an active member of Degrowth Aotearoa New Zealand and passionately advocates for realistic, fact-based strategic decisions on issues of resilience and strong sustainability across all levels. Here Nathan helps bring much-needed understanding to some key concepts around energy efficiency and limits, degrowth, renewables and so much more!
In this episode, we discuss:
- Nathan’s background and his work as a transition engineer
- Biophysical constraints vs wishful thinking
- Degrowth Aotearoa New Zealand and their advocacy work
- Degrowth 101 – what is degrowth?
- The challenges and limitations of green growth
- The concept of net energy, and its decrease over time
- The impact of renewables on total energy consumption
- Are renewable energy technologies truly renewable or scalable?
- Promoting and transitioning to a degrowth paradigm in Western societies
- Percentage growth rates and the rule of 70
- Taking action: Community level resilience and the fallacy of individual self-sufficiency
Nathan has also generously provided links to his ‘Distributed Energy Generation in Southland’ presentation and his recent submission to a draft regional energy strategy if you are keen to dig deeper into the facts, figures and scientific concepts mentioned in this episode.
Further resources mentioned by Nathan in this episode:
To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, leave us a review and share this episode with your friends and family.
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