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Maundy Thursday 2025

Today is the night before Good Friday when we commemorate the last supper that Jesus had with His disciples. And interestingly the Chinese name for this day refers more to the washing of the disciple’s feet.

In the church I attend, the message preached focused on Jesus’ warning to Peter in Luke 22:31-34. Peter had imagined his faith in God to be much more than he eventually was able show with his actions. But the comforting words from Jesus was:

“But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭22‬:‭32‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Peter’s faith faltered but eventually did not fail. He returned to the Lord and was restored. I thought deeply about what Peter went through that night.

He said he was ready to go to prison and even to death with Jesus in verse 33, so what went wrong? Peter was not short of courage, he trusted in Jesus’ power and might. He was ready to fight that night at Garden of Gethsemane so much so the gospel of John recorded that Peter took arms and struck the ear of the servant of the high priest.

But what was probably shocking to Peter was that Jesus called out his violent response. In John 18, it was recorded after Peter injured the servant.

So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?”
‭‭John‬ ‭18‬:‭11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

And in Luke 22, Jesus reportedly said “Permit even this.”

Yes, the same Man whom the disciples marveled at when the storm was calmed at sea, now effectively says “let them have me” without putting up any fight at all. It is exactly another moment when the disciples would be thinking “Who is this? Who would respond to the treachery with such calmness? Who would respond to such corruption with love and grace? Whom have we chose to follow and what are we bringing upon ourselves?”

Peter’s thoughts about his faith in Jesus probably just vanished before him. Can he go to prison with Jesus and even death without putting up a fight? Will he submit himself to the enemies the way Jesus did?

Unlike most disciples who fled, Peter followed Jesus and his captors. Peter tried to figure out what they were doing to him and find chance to be of use or help. He actually was braver than any of them. But when confronted about being a disciple of Jesus, he denied. There was fear for sure, and he must have been so overwhelmed by the night’s event. But more significantly, he probably wasn’t so sure if he was a follower of Jesus anymore. The denial of Jesus perhaps wasn’t about a moment of weakness but a sense of loss. But it was needed for Peter to discover what he actually had been placing his faith on instead of the Lord he had thought he was following.

So when the rooster crowed and reminded Peter of what Jesus had said, he was probably jolted back to his senses but not before being filled with shame, despair and utter helplessness. He wept bitterly.

Peter would eventually return to Jesus. In John 21 when John told him Jesus was the one at the shore, Peter immediately jumped into the water to swim towards the shore. And sure enough Jesus restores him and calls him to encourage the brethren (“feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep”).

Our faith will be tested again and again; what is the basis of what we believe and how far are we going to lead our lives premised on God’s word and promises? Only time and our lives will tell; but it is more for us to know and respond and to learn to return to God each time.

My artist self

There seems to be some conventional or prevailing wisdom about people having to keep to their lanes in different ways. So there are so-called norms for being a worker, being a father, a brother, a son and so on. Overlay that with the dimension of culture, including heritage and religion, you get a different set of different norms that as an individual, you are expected to display.

And so all my life I’ve somehow been defying classifications. One of the big divisions in school I had was between a ‘science’ student and an ‘art’ student. In high school, I defied that classification by doing arts (not just humanities but even fine arts, digital arts, and film) alongside all of the sciences (biology, physics, chemistry). When I entered junior college, I took two science subjects and two arts subjects as my main subjects.

And when it came to college, I just had to go to a school that offered a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Economics when in most places, Economics was considered a Bachelor of Arts (BA). And then in my masters of economics, despite joining the advanced mathematics course, I also did a module in Economic & Business history.

I often recognise the value and importance of arts despite being an economist and finding it difficult to quantify the value that arts generate. Life in Singapore has become so draining and taxing on the human spirit often because we don’t know how arts play a role in helping us recover and restoring dimensions of our lives that we fail to see or identify. In recent times, as I caught plays from Checkpoint theatre and various films or shorts produced by Singaporeans about life in Singapore, even poetry that is written about life (eg. Government Haikus), I begin to see more and more that we all need arts more than we know. It could well be what will keep us alive.

Reframing our relationship with earth

This ad campaign by Activista, mainly targeting Space X on Earth day – I believe that was in 2021 – is brilliant. It helps to put things into perspective in terms of how we approach our resources and earth.

The message still rings true today and in many ways, it is saying something about the human heart. Our wandering heart often wants to look for something else to sustain ourselves. Something else that may not be designed to sustain us, but we want to make it what our lives depend upon.

Yes, as a Christian, I’m talking about Christ, who provides the salvation we need when we are wandering about seeking salvation through our work, relationships and other forms of addiction in our lives.

Clarifying Australia bioenergy figures

Over the years, thanks to the multiple pieces of work Blunomy (previously Enea Consulting) had completed on bioenergy in Australia, we have often been cited and also asked questions about the relationship between numbers in our reports.

Since the publication of a piece of analysis Blunomy completed for AGIG last year on Biomethane potential and benefits, I sat down to review and work out a sort of directory to connect together the various work that different clients have commissioned us to do and all now in the public domain.

This is an effort I have undertaken to help generate more clarity in the conversations around bioenergy, especially biomethane resources in Australia. Blunomy continues to seek to accelerate the transition by developing analysis that drives evidence-based decision-making.

We started working on the National Bioenergy Roadmap for Australia back in 2020 and that was an attempt to look into all the bioenergy resources, regardless of what kind of fuel they could produce. The total theoretical potential estimated at 2600 PJ was computed based on the net calorific value of the various feedstock streams available including forestry residue and biomass, with assumptions applied on their moisture content.

In the Roadmap, we assumed a 45% recovery rate under the Business-As-Usual modelling as ‘limited information is available to assess [feedstocks’] current and future, technical, commercial and sustainable accessibility’.

Subsequently, Blunomy started looking into biogas/biomethane in greater detail, studying the biomethane yield of various feedstock streams suitable. Sustainability Victoria commissioned a piece of work around Victoria’s biogas potential, which was published in 2021. The main contribution of this piece of work is the stricter selection of feedstocks and the application of different recovery rates for different feedstock streams. The study eliminated some of the resources from consideration for biogas potential due to high lignin content and also determined that paper & cardboard were more suited for recycling.

Table excerpt from the Victoria biogas potential assessment (2021)

While this work only covered the potential for the state of Victoria, once again, using data from the Australian Biomass for Bioenergy Assessment (ABBA) study, the approach on feedstock selection and recovery rates were eventually applied to more states in Australia to obtain the Australia biogas technical potential that was presented in the Appendix (Slide 36) of the 2030 Emission Reduction Opportunities for Gas Networks Report (2022) published for Energy Networks Australia. In it, we stated that the biogas technical potential of Australia was 506 PJ.

These figures, including the state-level breakdowns, were extensively used by ACIL Allen in their work on Renewable Gas Target for APGA and ENA. They added landfill gas into the mix, something we did not previously include in our studies as we felt that landfill gas was ultimately a subset of the feedstock potential from the waste streams we had already computed in our theoretical potential. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that when considering how much biomethane could be produced per annum in the near to medium term, the landfill gas resource cannot be ignored.

One of the important elements when considering the broad use of biomethane to displace natural gas was the consideration of proximity to gas networks. We got to dive more closely into that in 2023 when AGIG commissioned the mapping work for biomethane resources around their networks in South Australia, Victoria and Queensland. By this time, Blunomy had developed a new methodology to disaggregate the biomethane feedstocks spatially by using land-use data. This allowed us to estimate the amount of feedstock with greater granularity on locations, though the recovery rates were still applied according to feedstock streams.

The report was eventually published in 2024. It contained not just the biomethane potential near AGIG’s networks; we reviewed and updated waste stream figures in some states, included landfill gas resources into consideration, and updated the recovery rates in consultation with more local experts. As a result, we developed updated theoretical and recoverable potentials of biomethane in the states of South Australia, Victoria and Queensland. Those updated figures suggest that waste figures have been increasing over time, and the biomethane potential is likely above the 506 PJ we estimated in 2021.

It has been an incredible journey since the days of the National Bioenergy Roadmap. We had to deal with so many doubts about biogas and biomethane, misinformation and poor understanding of the nature of this biogenic source of methane. As Victoria’s government contemplates their approach to renewable gas in the state to deal with impending gas shortfalls and the need to decarbonise energy use, there is no longer doubt that we need biomethane. It is a question of how to get it into the system quickly. I hope we don’t have to hit up so many walls this time to get it right.

This article was first posted on Linkedin as my first article contribution to the platform. The link can be found here.

Return on Experience

Blunomy is a French firm and being part of the firm for over four years now brings fresh perspectives that an Asian person schooled in very Anglo-Saxon education systems did not quite have as much.

One was about the ability to disagree as a reflection of the group’s collective ability to grow and be smarter. As an Asian, I overvalue harmony and tend to see open disagreement as unhealthy or disrespectful. Yet being amongst the French taught me to recognise that in a room full of smart people, something might be very wrong if everyone agrees with one another because the world is inherently complex and we are probably missing out on diverse perspectives if there were no disagreement. Being able to wrestle with differing perspectives could help everyone grow and learn.

Another was this concept of ‘REX’ that I kept seeing the French people use in my firm. They typically use that term for ‘after-action review’ but the term refers to ‘return on experience’. It sounds logical to be able to gain some kind of return (as in flow of benefits) from having experienced something. But I never quite thought of it that way until now. We always somehow take for granted that someone who have done something often or for a long time would be ‘experienced’. That’s not really true. An industry veteran who have been at a job for 40 years could simply have had 40 times of 1-year experiences if he did not learn anything with each additional year of experience. Simply being at a job or a post does nothing to prove that you are ‘experienced’.

When we consider assessing people for ‘experience’, it is no longer as simple as considering the CV of someone. It is mostly about assessing someone’s learning capability. Someone who can learn fast and sustain their interest in a topic, going deeper and deeper is much better than someone who plainly had been in the same place for a long time without demonstrating the capacity or hunger to learn.

Fast followers

Being a fast follower is a good strategy; it allows you to take in the lessons from those who have tried and failed first. It is even a strategy that enables you to become a leader from public’s eyes.

But the challenge for the fast follower who gained leadership status is falling into the trap of thinking they are the leader. Their skills in curating what they learnt from the mavericks, scaling what was small and bringing things to market fast, are not going to be suited for what is required to take real leadership: influencing the market, uncovering innovation from their own values and principles.

They may have to pivot at some point when they’ve outcompeted all those whom they were fast-following.

Humanity in courts

This might be the first time tears have welled in my eyes as I read a news article. I was moved, perhaps, by the judge’s humanity. There was so much latent grief embedded in the case itself: the unreconciled relationship, unexpressed emotions, pent-up difficulties, and struggles that weren’t understood.

How different would the world be if we brought more of our humanity to our work, our relationships and our lives?

Newly ripened grain

Amongst Christians, perhaps even non-Christians, people know of this story about Jesus feeding of five thousand. And this really large scale miracle work probably pushed His name out far and wide during those times.

What I realised is how that story about God feeding many with a little (that was a small gift) isn’t something new. In 2 Kings 4, through Elisha, God brought about a small miracle of multiplying food for men.

“Then a man came from Baal Shalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley bread, and newly ripened grain in his knapsack. And he said, “Give it to the people, that they may eat.” But his servant said, “What? Shall I set this before one hundred men?” He said again, “Give it to the people, that they may eat; for thus says the Lord: ‘They shall eat and have some left over.’ ” So he set it before them; and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.”
– ‭‭II Kings‬ ‭4‬:‭42‬-‭44‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

My heart was moved after reading this passage, realising how much Jesus was even amplifying some of the grace shown to Israel by God in earlier episodes. The feeding of the five thousand in my mind now is no longer just about Jesus’ compassion and provision. It is another imprint of God’s unchanging love for His people through the ages.

Jesus’ ministry during the 3 years when He was active really amazing brings out the person of God within a short time. To say He lived and fulfilled scriptures was one thing, but when you really study the scriptures further, it just amazes you how much Jesus truly did that. And even more so, that life was one that taught and enriched our understanding of God.

Having the desire to emulate Christ is good, but it cannot be done without understanding. And the only proper way to gain understanding besides living out life and experiencing it, is through the word of God.

Pie-eating contests

Charlie Munger once said of the legal profession that it was very much like a pie-eating contest where the winner gets to eat more pie.

I laughed at that.

Because many other professions are the same. The capable staff gets more work to do; and having proven himself, gets promoted into handling more responsibilities.

But for most part, workaholics love their pie.

And to a large extent, for some, they don’t care about winning or losing at pie-eating. What matters to them is they get to eat pie.

Maybe that appreciation for work is what we need. Not to obsess so much over the winning or losing but instead, focus on the pie. And when the pie is no longer tasty, you quit. Because there wasn’t so much at stake to begin with.