Professor Alan Brent - Sustainable Energy Systems

03/21/21 • 77 min

Professor Alan Brent is Chair in Sustainable Energy Systems at the School of Engineering and Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington. Alan also holds the position of Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University and is an executive committee member for The Sustainability Society, NZ.
His research interests encompass engineering management and sustainable systems, and as an expert in systems thinking, Alan brings a wealth of knowledge to this conversation as we discuss the various pros and cons of the current renewable energy options.
As always, things are not quite as straight forward as they first appear - renewable energies aren’t always sustainable options. So, should we all be putting solar panels on our roofs and buying Teslas? Take a listen to find out! We hope this episode helps our listeners become more critical, mindful consumers.
In this episode we discuss:
• Alan’s background and journey from engineering to sustainable energy systems
• Renewable energy – what it means, what role it currently plays and where we are headed
• The importance of systems thinking approach
• Alternative energy options and the potential benefits and pitfalls of each
• Storage issues of sustainable energy systems
• Electric vehicles vs conventional vehicles vs hybrids – what’s the better choice?
• Renewable energies vs habit change
• Solutions into the future
We hope you enjoy this important conversation and would love to hear your feedback! Be sure to tag @TheLentilIntervention and help us reach more people by liking, reviewing, subscribing and sharing this episode with your friends and family.
Please support our work and enable us to deliver more content by buying us a coffee.

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.
Please support our work and enable us to deliver more content by buying us a coffee or becoming a member of Athletes for Nature.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky, subscribe to this podcast, and share this episode with your friends and family.

Previous Episode

Professor Boyd Swinburn - Population Nutrition and Global Health

Boyd Swinburn is a Professor of Population Nutrition and Global Health in the School of Population Health, University of Auckland. Originally trained as an Endocrinologist he is now an eminent public health physician conducting research on community and policy actions to prevent childhood and adolescent obesity, and reduce what he has coined the ‘obesogenic’ food environment.
Boyd is Co-Chair of World Obesity Federation's Policy & Prevention section and Co-Chair of the Lancet Commission on Obesity. He also established the World Health Organisation's first Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, at Deakin University. We take a deep dive with Boyd as he discusses the problems with our current food system and the changes needed in order to deliver on human and environmental health, as well as economic prosperity. Boyd also calls on us to reframe the role of the individual when it comes to obesity.
In this episode we discuss:
• Boyd’s transition from Endocrinology to Public Health Advocacy
• Obesity and the ‘obesogenic’ Food Environment
• The need for policy change when dealing with the harmful products that dominate our health environment; tobacco, alcohol and junk food
• Government’s role in curbing the detrimental marketing of junk food to children
• The potential benefits of a sugary drinks tax
• The policy inertia regarding nutrition - despite the evidence, and what we can do about it
• The heavy environmental impact of our current food system and the need for a social movement to change this
• The necessity of sustainable dietary guidelines and why we don’t yet have them; the strong lobby forces that unfortunately have a seat at the table
• The big-ticket items we need to address regarding policies on food
• And so much more – this is one fascinating chat!
We hope you enjoy this important conversation and would love to hear your feedback! Be sure to tag @TheLentilIntervention and help us reach more people by liking, reviewing, subscribing and sharing this episode with your friends and family.
Please support our work and enable us to deliver more content by buying us a coffee.

Next Episode

Professor Corey Bradshaw - Global Ecology

Professor Corey Bradshaw is the Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology at Flinders University, where he leads the Global Ecology Laboratory and heads the Flinders Modelling Node of the Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage.
Corey was lead author of a recent perspective article titled ‘Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future’. This paper discusses the major environmental issues that have regrettably received little attention but require urgent action. Anyone with a passing interest in the environment knows things aren’t great, but just how bad are they really? Professor Bradshaw is not here to appease the masses with a watered-down message, but rather gives us a well-needed reality check and urges us not to look away from the mess we have created. An overview of this research was published in The Conversation.
We are living on borrowed time by taking more from the planet than it can take. Scientists are no longer talking about avoiding environmental problems, but rather how to best deal with them. Irrespective of what we do now, the future is going to be ghastly – but just how ghastly depends on the path we take moving forward.
In this episode we discuss:
• How Corey’s childhood shaped his relationship with the environment and inspired his journey to academia
• The subject matter of Corey’s previous books Killing the Koala and Poisoning the Prairie and The Effective Scientist• The silos in academia, lack of connectivity and why this model won’t deliver adequate solutions for the wicked problems we face
• The catastrophic loss of biodiversity and the detrimental impact this is having on ecosystem resilience
• How humanity is driving the sixth mass extinction
• Why the rise of the right-wing populist movement, the weaponisation of environmentalism and ongoing political donations have led to political impotence on climate change
• The ignorance of wanting unlimited economic growth in a finite world
• The potential solutions we can all consider, individually and collectively
• Corey’s must-subscribe blog Conservation Bytes
• And a WHOLE lot more - there’s a lot of knowledge dropped in this one folks!
We hope you enjoy this important conversation and would love to hear your feedback! Be sure to tag @TheLentilIntervention and help us reach more people by liking, reviewing, subscribing and sharing this episode with your friends and family.
Please support our work and enable us to deliver more content by