Around The Web

Options for collaboration between research communities post-Brexit will be set out in a government paper.

New studies reveal that tiny plastic fibres are everywhere, not just in our oceans but on land too. Now we urgently need to find out how they enter our food, air and tap water and what the effects are on all of us

Sometimes a single revelation opens our eyes to a whole new view of the world. The contamination of tap water around the world with microplastics, exposed on Wednesday in the Guardian, unmasks Earth as a planet pervasively polluted with plastic.

What that means for the seven billion people who live on it, no one yet knows. All the experts can agree on is that, given the warning signs being given by life in the oceans, the need to find out is urgent.

Continue reading...

Shortfalls of energy supply may lead to blackouts this summer and the solution could cost consumers $50 million.

As the Turnbull government ties itself in yet more knots over the future of coal-fired power, it’s worth reflecting that climate and energy policy have been a bloody business for almost a decade now.

There was a brief period of consensus ushered in by John Howard’s belated realisation in 2006 that a price had to be put on carbon dioxide emissions. But by December 2009 the Nationals, and enough Liberals, had decided that this was a mistake, and have opposed explicit carbon pricing ever since.

Read more: Ten years of backflips over emissions trading leave climate policy in the lurch.

The resulting policy uncertainty has caused an investment drought which has contributed to higher energy prices. Now, with prices a hot potato, there are thought bubbles about extending the life of coal-fired power stations and a new effort to set up a Conservatives for Conservation group.

But the Liberal Party’s tussles over climate and energy policy (as distinct from denying the science itself) go back even further – some 30 years.

Early days and ‘early’ action

It’s hard to believe it now, but the Liberal Party took a stronger emissions target than Labor to the 1990 Federal election. Yet green-minded voters were not persuaded, and Labor squeaked home with their support. After that episode the Liberals largely gave on courting green voters, and under new leader John Hewson the party tacked right. Ironically, considering Hewson’s climate advocacy today, back then his Fightback! policy was as silent on climate change as it was on the price of birthday cakes.

In his excellent 2007 book High and Dry, former Liberal speech writer Guy Pearse recounts how in the mid-1990s he contacted the Australian Conservation Foundation, offering to to canvass Coalition MPs to “find the most promising areas of common ground” on which to work when the party returned to government. The ACF was “enthusiastic, if a little bemused at the novelty of a Liberal wanting to work with them”. Most Liberal MPs – including future environment minister Robert Hill and future prime minister Tony Abbott – were “strongly supportive” of the idea. But others (Pearse names Eric Abetz and Peter McGauran) were “paranoid that some kind of trap was being laid”. Nothing came of it.

Elected in 1996, Howard continued the staunch hostility to the United Nations climate negotiations that his Labor predecessor Paul Keating had begun. Not all businessmen were happy. Leading up to the crucial Kyoto summit in 1997, the Sydney Morning Herald reported how a “delegation of scientists and financiers” led by Howard’s local party branch manager Robert Vincin and Liberal Party grandee Sir John Carrick lobbied the prime minister to take a more progressive approach. Howard did not bend.

Howard stayed unmoved until 2006 when, facing a perfect storm of rising public climate awareness and spiralling poll numbers, he finally relented. Earlier that year a group of businesses convened by the Australian Conservation Foundation produced a report titled The Early Case for Business Action. “Early” is debatable, given that climate change had already been a political issue since 1988, but more saliently the report tentatively suggested introducing a carbon price. And Howard finally relented.

The carbon wars

The ensuing ten years after Kevin Rudd’s defeat of Howard don’t need much recapping here (go here for all the details). But one interesting phenomenon that has emerged from the policy wreckage is the emergence of some very unusual coalitions to beg for certainty.

In 2015, in the leadup to the crucial Paris climate talks, an “unprecedented alliance” of business, union, environmental, investor and welfare groups called the Australian Climate Roundtable sprang briefly into life to make the case for action.

Then, after the seminal South Australia blackout last September, a surprisingly diverse group of industry and consumer bodies – the Australian Energy Council, Australian Industry Group, Business Council of Australia, Clean Energy Council, Energy Users Association, Energy Consumers Australia, Energy Networks Association and Energy Efficiency Council – called on federal and state energy ministers to “work together to craft a cooperative and strategic response to the transformation underway in Australia’s energy system”.

Read more: Who tilts at windmills? Explaining hostility to renewables.

It’s in this light that the new Conseratives for Conservation lobbying effort should be seen. Its spearhead Kristina Photios surely knows she has no chance of converting the committed denialists, but she can chip away at the waverers currently giving them comfort and power.

Questions on notice

Of course, there are always cultural (or even psychological) issues, but you’d think that conservation would be a no-brainer for conservatives (the clue should be in the name).

There are a few questions, of course (with my answers in brackets).

• Where were all the people who are now calling for policy certainty back in 2011 when Tony Abbott was declaring his oath to kill off the carbon tax? (They were AWOL.)

• Will any business show any interest in building a new coal-fired power station? (No.)

• Is renewable energy technology now advanced enough for them to make serious money? (We shall see.)

• Can we make up for lost time in our emissions reductions? (No, and we have already ensured more climate misery than there would have been with genuinely early climate action.)

• Will the Liberals further water down the Clean Energy Target proposal? (Probably.)

• What will Tony Abbott say to UK climate sceptic think tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation when he gives a speech on October 6? (Who knows – grab your popcorn!).

• What will happen to the Liberals in the medium term? (Who knows, but Michelle Grattan of this parish has some intriguing ideas.)

• Are there reasons to be cheerful? (Renewable energy journalist Ketan Joshi thinks so.)

Perhaps the last word on this issue should go to John Hewson, who noted last year:

The “right” love to speak of the debt and deficit problem as a form of “intergenerational theft”, yet they fail to see the climate challenge in the same terms, even though the consequences of failing to address it substantively, and as a matter of urgency, would dwarf that of the debt problem. The “right” is simply “wrong”. It’s political opportunism of the worst sort, and their children and grandchildren will pay the price.

England’s householders get a raw deal over insulating their homes to save on energy bills, researchers say.

A strong-beaked bird named after Barack Obama, a fire-tailed titi monkey and a new pink river dolphin are among species recorded by the Living Amazon Initiative of the WWF Network

Continue reading...

A home security camera caught the moment a meteor over Canada burst into flames.

Government must incentivise households to make energy saving improvements to improve air quality and warm homes

More efficient use of energy in the UK would save as much power as could be generated by six new nuclear reactors and shave £7.5bn from energy costs, experts have calculated.

But to achieve such savings would require substantial changes to government policy because there are few incentives for households to carry out the necessary measures, such as insulation, which can take 20 years to pay for themselves via bill savings.

Continue reading...

One big mess: the market has failed to deliver on cheap, reliable energy. Shutterstock

The only way the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) could be blunter in its report on the state of our electricity system would be to stick a neon sign on top of its Melbourne head office saying “The market has failed”.

AEMO’s Advice to Commonwealth Government on Dispatchable Capability, released today, shows there are significant but manageable risks of the lights going out in South Australia and Victoria over the next two summers. And beyond 2018, AEMO will need more tools if shortfall risks are going to be dealt with.

The conclusions about the short-term risks are not surprising. AEMO has issued several reports over the past year or so telegraphing supply shortfalls in the next couple of years.

What is surprising is its view that action needs to be taken when Liddell, the AGL-owned power station in New South Wales, closes in 2022. That is five years away, and AGL has been trumpeting the decision at every opportunity, but AEMO is clearly not confident that the market will respond by delivering new generation, or storage, or demand response, to fill the gap.

Read more: AGL rejects Turnbull call to keep operating Liddell coal-fired power station

AEMO recommends immediate development of a strategic reserve that it can deploy to prevent loss of power over the next few summers. A strategic reserve is basically back-up generation (or storage or demand response) that is used only in an emergency.

AEMO’s job is to make sure there is enough generation available – that supply equals demand. A strategic reserve will deliver the capacity – be it gas generation, storage or demand response – that it needs to meet any shortfall. Neither coal nor wind and solar can fulfil this function. Coal takes too long to come online, while wind and solar provide intermittent supply so there is no certainty that renewable energy will be there when needed.

Read more: Managing demand can save two power stations’ worth of energy at peak times

A strategic reserve is an insurance policy, only to be used in extreme circumstances. And like any insurance policy it has a cost – a cost that will be passed on to consumers. Of course, if electricity keeps being delivered as required over the next two summers, governments and consumers may well consider this money well spent.

But a strategic reserve does not deal with the second problem AEMO is seeking to solve: that not enough dispatchable generation is being built in the National Electricity Market. Even with backup generation controlled by AEMO, Australia will still need new generation to provide day-to-day power when existing power stations such as Liddell close.

AEMO’s second major recommendation is the immediate “development of a longer-term approach to retain existing investment and incentivise new investment in flexible dispatchable capability in the NEM”.

Read more: The government’s new energy plans will leave investors less confident than ever

Since it was set up 20 years ago, the NEM has delivered sufficient generation to meet demand, and at a reasonable cost. But this report makes it clear that AEMO believes this is no longer the case and that changes to the market are needed.

The report is understandably silent on what this “longer-term approach” might look like, given that market design is tricky. But the report is unequivocal that a new mechanism needs to be in place by the time Liddell closes. If not, supply shortages – and the associated loss of power to consumers – will be far more likely.

AEMO has provided the federal government with a pathway to securing electricity supply for the foreseeable future. There will be costs, but all governments will have greater assurances that the lights will stay on.

What AEMO hasn’t done is call out the policy instability that has been a major reason we have got ourselves into this mess. Commentators, Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, and numerous industry players – including the Big Three owners of generation in Australia – have all long been arguing that the major barrier to investment in the NEM has been the dog’s breakfast that is climate change policy.

The federal government can use this report to satisfy critics within its own party that there is a plan to ensure enough dispatchable generation in the NEM.

But the government must not use AEMO’s report as a get-out clause that allows it to continue to avoid creating an effective emissions reduction policy in the electricity sector. If anything, the report should stand as a stark warning to politicians of all stripes about what happens when you get policy so badly wrong.

Bipartisan agreement on the only politically acceptable emissions reduction policy – a Clean Energy Target – may not be sufficient, but remains absolutely necessary, to ensure there is enough generation to meet Australia’s electricity needs.

AEMO has shown it is willing to do its job. It is now up to our politicians to do theirs.

David Blowers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Scientists have tracked the ruddy shelduck to 6,800 metres, making it the first duck known to fly at extreme high altitudes

A high-flying species of duck reaches altitudes of up to 6,800 metres (22,000ft) to cross the Himalayas, research from a British university has revealed.

Scientists from the University of Exeter used satellite tracking to find out how ruddy shelducks – which are a similar size to mallards – find their way through the mountain range.

Continue reading...

Energy market operator's message on baseload generation is blunt: it's struggling to compete and not well suited to the changes taking place. It's time to modernise.

Australia's wind and solar energy resources should put on a bit of a show on same day as Coalition declares its attachment to coal.

Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce speaks to reporters in Canberra on AGL’s plan to close its Liddell power station in 2022

Continue reading...

Clean Energy Finance Corp backs Macquarie Leasing program offering discounted finance for electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and other low-carbon investments, including rooftop solar and battery storage.

With an estimated 3000 deaths pa and many illnesses in Australia due to heart and lung disease from air pollution The Prime Minister’s proposal to keep open heavily polluting Liddell as the solution to his government’s failures in energy policy must be condemned.

Nissan's “completely reinvented” LEAF, with more than double the range for under $US30,000, puts it toe to toe with Tesla Model 3.

Help is sought to digitise a unique set of records gathered on top of the UK's highest mountain.

Is the only time we can discuss the truly ‘big issues’ when no one is paying attention?

Is the only time we can discuss the truly ‘big issues’ when no one is paying attention?

The kindest thing to say about Turnbull's absurd proposal to extend the life of the country's oldest coal generator is that he is playing politics. There is no other reason to ask AGL to stick a bandaid on an increasingly unreliable coal generator on basis that it will lead to increased security and lower prices.