New BNC podcast series and predict millionth page view

One of the new initiatives I’ll be trying in 2011 is an audio podcast series (I use the term ‘series’ loosely, as there’ll be no fixed schedule). This is now fairly straightforward to do, via my iPhone 4 and the Audioboo app.

This type of media/blogging is quick and flexible to do on the fly. This is a real advantage for me, because I quite often have time to take 5-10 minutes to record something, but often not time to compose a more detailed blog post (once every 3-5 days is about my sanity limit!). So, in this way, I hope to add a lot of detailed content on very specific topics by this method.

All of the podcasts will be short (<5 minutes) and will range from general observations of recent news in climate and energy, to very targeted answers to questions (please feel free to pose those you’d like me to have a go at answering), to short interviews with interesting people.

To access the podcasts, you could: (a) click on the purple Audioboo icon left sidebar of the BNC homepage (this will take you to the BNC Podcast site) or (b) subscribe to BNC’s Boo RSS audio feed or subscribe to the iTunes feed (same link as the RSS but replace “http” with “itpc“) to have it automatically delivered to your iPhone, iPad or iPod. Note that it is also automatically announced on my Twitter feed and Facebook page.

To kick things off, I’ve put up a couple of launch recordings:

Welcome to BraveNewClimate (4:27 min)

Integral Fast Reactor nuclear power – what is it and why should you care? (2:45 min)

Are the climate and energy debates missing the point? (4:56 min)

At least initially, this will be very much an ad hoc affair, but I hope it proves useful and interesting. More formally, I’m hoping to also set up a more professionally hosted podcast series, which will run weekly or fortnightly for 15-30 min — I’ve done some brainstorming about this with some key people, but am yet to finalise any details, so stay tuned.

Talking of public broadcasts, I’ll be doing an extended interview with ABC Counterpoint soon on the Energy paper. I’ll also be doing a session with ABC 891 mornings programme (Matt & Dave) on floods and climate change, which for Adelaide viewers, will be on at about 8:30am (note also that the Bureau of Meteorology has updated their special climate statement on this, to cover the extraordinary January conditions in QLD and Vic).

On 8 March, I’ll be doing a joint presentation with Ben Heard of ‘ThinkClimate Consulting”. It is called: POWERING A CLEANER AUSTRALIA Why nuclear power is the answer to the climate and energy crisis. Details here (where you can sign up to attend).

The talks are as follows:

Nuclear Power – From opponent to proponent

Ben Heard – Director, ThinkClimate Consulting

A deepening understanding of the gravity of the climate crisis has forced many people to rethink the role of nuclear power, and query Australia’s continuing opposition to this power source. This presentation will describe the real-life intellectual journey from a nuclear opponent to a nuclear proponent, outlining the common objections to nuclear power and showing how these were dismantled through a process of critical examination, research and learning. This presentation will challenge the views of some and reinforce the views of others, but all will take away vital new information regarding the challenge of climate change and the possible solutions.

Nuclear power as an inexhaustible and universal future energy source

Professor Barry Brook- University of Adelaide

The interrelated imperatives of climate change, pollution and dwindling supplies means our dependence on fossil fuels will need to be virtually eliminated within the next 50 years. While renewable energy technologies inevitably fall far short of meeting current or growing future demand, nuclear power is capable of providing all the carbon-free energy that mankind requires. Technology based on uranium fast spectrum reactors (or thorium variants), coupled to full fuel recycling, are capable of providing an inexhaustible supply of ‘clean’ energy; this technology is unrivaled in its ability to solve the most difficult energy problems facing humanity in the 21st century. This talk will cover the history and technical basis of “Generation IV” designs, consider current fast reactor developments in China, India, Russia and elsewhere, and map out realistic timetables for large-scale deployment and the critical synergies with current reactor technologies.

Finally, to the BNC website. Work is continuing in the background, and what is especially good news is that I’m going to hire someone to create a customised theme for me on WordPress.com. Why is this good? Well, following on from the suggestions offered here, this upgrade should allow me to restore comment numbering (and maybe add comment preview), add a built-in comment search facility, and do various other things to enhance the general usability and layout of the website… I hope. It’s just a matter now of finding the right person to do this, but my friends have leads!

Millionth page view competition

On the topic of the website, how about a little competition? As of writing this post, BNC had received 944,220 page views (at least by WordPress’ number crunching, although some say that it tends to under report). The competition, open to anyone offering a comment below, is to guess the date on which the 1,000,000 page view is passed. The winner is the person who gets closest, and if multiple people get the day right, then the winner is whoever gets the time of day correct (so you would guess something like: “I think it will be on 10 Feb 2011 at 9pm ACST” (this is NOT going to be the correct prognostication, I can assure you, it’s just for illustrative purposes).

What fabulous prize will you get? Nothing of monetary value, I’m afraid (this website lightens my pocketbook, it doesn’t earn anything for me!), so how about your choice of: (a) a guest post by you on a climate/energy topic (most any within reason) or (b) an interview with you, by me, on my Podcast show, or (c) something else you can think of that is related to the website content (and is within reason). These are broad terms and conditions, I know, but I’ll try my best to be accommodating.

Guess away!