Avenging5

While Australia debates the merits of going nuclear and frustration grows over the slower-than-needed rollout of solar and wind power, China is going all in on renewables.

New figures show the pace of its clean energy transition is roughly the equivalent of installing five large-scale nuclear power plants worth of renewables every week.

A report by Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) said China was installing renewables so rapidly it would meet its end-of-2030 target by the end of this month — or 6.5 years early.

It's installing at least 10 gigawatts of wind and solar generation capacity every fortnight.

By comparison, experts have said the Coalition's plan to build seven nuclear power plants would add fewer than 10GW of generation capacity to the grid sometime after 2035.

Energy experts are looking to China, the world's largest emitter, once seen as a climate villain, for lessons on how to go green, fast.

"We've seen America under President Biden throw a trillion dollars on the table [for clean energy]," CEF director Tim Buckley said.

"China's response to that has been to double down and go twice as fast."

"In the largest public sector trial of the four-day week in Britain, fewer refuse collectors quit," reports the Guardian, "and there were faster planning decisions, more rapid benefits processing and quicker call answering, independent research has found." South Cambridgeshire district council's controversial experiment with a shorter working week resulted in improvements in performance in 11 out of 24 areas, little or no change in 11 areas and worsening of performance in two areas, according to analysis of productivity before and during the 15-month trial by academics at the universities of Cambridge and Salford... The multi-year study of the trial involving about 450 desk staff plus refuse collectors found:

• Staff turnover fell by 39%, helping save £371,500 in a year, mostly on agency staff costs.
• Regular household planning applications were decided about a week and a half earlier.
• Approximately 15% more major planning application decisions were completed within the correct timescale, compared with before.
• The time taken to process changes to housing benefit and council tax benefit claims fell.... Under the South Cambridgeshire trial, which began in January 2023 and ran to April 2024, staff were expected to carry out 100% of their work in 80% of the time for 100% of the pay. The full trial cut staff turnover by 39% and scores for employees' physical and mental health, motivation and commitment all improved, the study showed. "Coupled with the hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayer money that we have saved, improved recruitment and retention and positives around health and wellbeing, this brave and pioneering trial has clearly been a success," said John Williams, the lead council member for resources...

Scores of private companies have already adopted the approach, with many finding it helps staff retention. Ryle said the South Cambridgeshire results "prove once and for all that a four-day week with no loss of pay absolutely can succeed in a local government setting".