There was perhaps an impression that public sector has more work-life balance than private sector where people slog hard to earn the extra dime from the market. Well, I think the truth is far from that.
In most organisations, the extent of the slog really boils down to 2 parameters: load distribution and system efficiency. An organisation where some work especially hard while others are not fully deployed struggles with load distribution while an organisation where everyone seems overworked struggles with efficiency. Of course it is usually a combination of both but simplifying to this 2 extremes allows us to look at working out ways to cope with it.
Load Distribution ridden companies need to improve their resource composition and utilisation. They might be chasing the wrong kind of work. Organisations dealing with efficiency issues might need to improve hiring or their overall system of managing their people.
Industrial production might have fallen slightly across the world last year and as we see more waves of Covid-19 hit different parts of the world I’d think industries have gotten better at keeping productions up. So even with more measures kicking back in to keep people safe, industries will probably still continue to hum along.
Energy consumption across domestic sector definitely rose quite significantly as people worked from home, binged on Netflix. Datacenters probably worked harder across the world as well and even more content gets put up online by new content creators and new exchanges online that replaced what was previously offline.
Transport is probably the sector where energy consumption fell drastically last year. First with air travel, but probably also with some longer-range land transportation as well. Though logistics probably continue to move along and delivery apps for food, groceries and all that might still continued running.
Resource use in terms of masks and takeout containers, plastic bags definitely increased. So waste management cost might have risen for most part. Environment wise overall things might not have been so different in terms of moving away from the longer term trajectory.
The opportunity here is rethinking the way and the amount of energy we are consuming, now that we might be spending more time at home, and industries might do with less people being at work. Likewise, if we are taking out more often, perhaps we could use reusable containers more. We might be able to cultivate better habits that set the world on a different trajectory.
Hybrid cars are efficient internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. They are electric vehicles to the extent they have batteries and an electric motor. But the truth is, 100% of the energy used by hybrid cars are from fossil fuels, unlike EVs which could offer a chance of using completely green electricity. Of course, you can argue that Plug-in Hybrids allows for that. So for a moment, I’m just going to declare I’m not talking about Plug-ins.
The thing about Hybrid is that they are probably great in terms of making the power generated by the ICE more efficient. Whether this is more efficient than the total process of generating the power from fossil fuels and then pushing the electrons down the power grid to the charging station to supply a pure battery EV, I’m not too sure. But the point is that you’re still using fossil fuels. On a per-unit traveled basis, your carbon footprint is lower. So yes, it reduces carbon emissions through its efficiency gains.
But then that’s what ultra-critical coal power technology does too. It makes coal fired power plants; and we stopped that. So when we think about phasing out ICE, it is important to make it more of a binary choice such that we are not leaving too much room for ICE cars in the form of hybrids. Accelerating decarbonisation is a significant priority and creating these wriggle room does not help.
At some point in my teens I loved observing the world, so much that I don’t like to ‘participate’ in the world. I enjoyed being by myself and thinking through narratives about what is happening – in those moments I think I’d lose myself and be completely unaware of my own presence in this world.
I wonder what that did for my ability to make friends but I was by and large comfortable by myself. Some like to believe I overthink but frankly, the self-talk I have tend to affect me hardly. In fact, I think the people who tend to fill up silence, who always need people around them are the ones who tend to overthink.
They overthink when they are on their own and prefer to shut it out by having their minds engaged in something else. They prefer to listen to others so that they drown out the voices in their heads which are from themselves. Or maybe this is all just me overthinking? How about you?
What has modern capitalism brought forth to us? Choice is one of the big important thing that the market grants us. But for most of the period of great growth in the decades prior to 2000s, the choice was mostly about new things that could be consumed which previously did not exist.
Fast forward today; we might have a tad bit too much choices that new products and services might be there to restrict or reduce choices. Freedom to choose becomes less of a relished freedom when we become compelled to make so many different choices. Do we really need to choose from 1000 available options for our bathroom tiles? Do we really need to have 5 apps for streaming shows?
Are all of these choices making our society, culture and people better in any ways? When capitalism rewards the people who entertain us more than those who bring clean water to more lives, do we want to allow the system to grow without bounds? Should we allow more markets to be regulated and more activities to proceed without profit motives driving them?
Today marks the 11th anniversary of the death of Dr Goh Keng Swee. People closer to me would be aware that he was a major influence to my choice of studying Economics, and particularly in the London School of Economics & Political Science. And he passed away about 4.5 months before I’d commence my BSc Economics at the LSE.
Ironically, I had in my youth, developed that aspiration to share the same spaces, breathe the foreign air and perhaps share in the magic of London city that Dr Goh had experienced so many years ago. It was a hope that I may come to share in a small slice of common academic pedigree and taste a bit of what went into his observations and thoughts in the days of nation-building in Singapore.
And I worked hard in my youth towards this aspiration. Eventually, I earned a scholarship from International Enterprise Singapore just a couple months shy of my matriculation. A year prior I had already secured my place in the LSE to be on exactly the programme Dr Goh did as part of his undergraduate days.
Even today, I continue to marvel at the mind that came up with Jurong Bird Park, GIC, CPF, EDB, National Service, Sentosa, Jurong Industrial Estate, the decision to continue the currency board system MAS manages, our export-oriented strategy. Lest I ascribe too much credit to him for the fruits of these ideas, I think it was also the time he lived in, the allies he had which helped to push through all of these and made the modern Singapore a reality.
But all those were early days of nation-hood; that nostalgia should only serve to motivate us to move forward. The context of our country both internally and externally have become much more complex – and we need to find a reason to progress that fits our current context and stage of development. A new narrative for the new generation is needed.
Having a good teacher who is appropriately empowered in the classroom can make a difference to the lives of students. If he or she stays in education, generations of students can benefit. The good teacher is not able to make the same impact on many more students within the same amount of time. It doesn’t scale.
But we always think we can scale these things; we create curriculum, syllabus, scheme of work. We think we are scaling good teaching, schooling through creating systems of learning. And then we enforce mass education; and allow it to grow into bigger and bigger parts of the lives of our people.
What exactly are we scaling then? We might not be scaling the good things we are trying to grow; in fact as I write, good teachers are being driven to frustration by the system; good teaching is being sacrificed at the expense of needing to standardise things. We are scaling frustration, suffering and misalignment with the original intentions.
What do you do when you don’t have anything on? Do you drift into thinking about work and try to make yourself “productive”? Only to subsequently think you spent too much time on work?
Or do you fill that time by scrolling through social media and going through motions of curiosity, envy, judging, outrage, and so on? Then on reflection think that you spend too much time on social media?
We have trained ourselves to default to some really poisonous habits when we feel bored. And we get upset over ourselves after that. Changing that default is so important. And it starting with awareness of that boredom default, helps.
In the latest Annual Shareholders’ meeting for Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett and Munger came together to trot out their wisdom for the shareholders and the world as usual. One of the point that came out was about CEOs or leaders in general – but I think more broadly, it is a warning about the narratives or messages that are crafted for the public.
And of course, so they go on every couple of months, and they repeat certain things about their company, and it becomes part of, sort of the catechism. And nobody’s going to go on two months after the CEO has said one thing and say, ‘Well, actually, that really isn’t the way.’ They’re not going to contradict themselves or change course.”
There are many organisations, not just companies that constantly bellow messages about themselves they want others to believe. The Berkshire Chairman is warning us against the danger of crafting myths that will get perpetuated. Leaders who defines goals for their organisation but do not take time to understand the truth about it will end up being cornered by journalists or media somehow blurt out something positive and aspirational but simply not a reflection of where the company is at.
The company and its staff will then be forced to window-dress the firm to align with what was spoken rather than focusing on the core value-drivers. So if you’re a middle-manager, or more junior, how are you going to respond to your bosses’ myths. How can we confront them gently and guide the organisation back to truth and its core?
Energy storage have been in existence for a really long time even before the rise of solar panels, wind power and electric vehicles. In fact, batteries has been a very core enabling technology for us to go wireless, to have sensors in places which are inaccessible, and to have any operable portable gadget at all. Batteries have transformed the concept of portability and its advancement have allowed for that. In most cases, the needs in the development of other products is what drives the development of batteries rather than the other way around.
And because of that, the economics of batteries and battery technology tend to always lag behind actual products and services. That means that if you have a product, such as EV that really needs good batteries to work well and serve the right customers, then the customers you serve must be willing to take on the price point with the costs derived from battery costs. And in order to improve your product, you have to dive into battery technology. EV is the best example of how the vehicle companies have to team up with battery manufacturers or get involved in improving the batteries themselves so they weigh less, can be more compact, delivers more power and can be charged quickly. One could say that most of the capabilities, convenience of the electric car comes through the improvements in battery technologies.
That has some spill-over effects: people are eyeing grid-scale batteries as another means to improve grid performance and provide some kind of insurance against the intermittency that solar and wind have in the system. The problem with this market however, is that there is no clear market. Projects in Australia has demonstrated that it is necessary for multiple revenue streams and yet if from day one, batteries are relying on electricity markets, or ancillary services markets to recover their revenues, it probably won’t work.
For one, most grids which can even afford to have grid-connected batteries would already be stable enough, with sufficient competition in the markets to provide those services that a battery can provide. Grid connected batteries are multi-purpose assets which find competition in all the different services it can provide.
If you really consider the economics of batteries once again; it has to be a derived demand. There are some other products or services that must really be able to fetch that price point. Traditionally for batteries, it is paid for by the portability it brings about, then for EVs, it comes from the desire for clean mobility. For the grid, is there some equivalent draw that can compensate for the cost of batteries? Better to require it of variable renewable energy owners contributing to the intermittency to bear the cost, or to simply put the responsibility on grid operators (who can be free to lease the storage capacity from third parties). Without clear assignment of responsibilities, you mute the demand for batteries.
