Feed aggregator

Despite our sometimes heated national debate about our energy future, Australia is well positioned to benefit from innovative low emission technologies. No matter which avenue we take to cleaner energy, our energy-rich resources means there are opportunities for Australian businesses – and cheaper energy for Australian consumers.

That’s the conclusion reached by CSIRO in our Low Emissions Technology Roadmap, which outlines potential pathways for the energy sector to contribute to Australia’s emissions reduction target.

Our target under the Paris climate agreement calls for a 26-28% reduction of emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels. Our analysis also considers how the energy sector could meet the more ambitious aspiration of avoiding 1.5-2℃ global warming.

Looking past the political wrangling

Perhaps one of the reasons the energy debate in Australia is so vehement is that, with the exception of oil, we are rich in energy resources. While we cannot wait indefinitely, the lack of resource constraints means we can monitor and test what options emerge as the most cost effective. Technology neutrality is often called upon as a key policy design principle.

Another reason for caution is that technological change is inherently unpredictable. For example, at the start of this century, few would have expected solar photovoltaics to be one of the lowest cost sources of electricity. Current expectations of sourcing cost-effective bulk electricity storage would have seemed even less likely at the time.

However, there are two key choices that will determine how we reduce greenhouse gases, and the shape of our energy future.

First, we must decide how much weight we give to improving energy productivity, versus decarbonising our energy supply. This is essentially a policy decision: should we use our existing energy more intelligently and efficiently in our buildings, industries and transport, or aggressively pursue new technology?

Whatever strategy we pick, we also need to choose what technology we emphasise: dispatchable power, from flexible and responsive energy generation, or variable renewable energy (from sources like solar, wind and wave), supported with storage.

From these choices four pathways are derived: Energy productivity plus, Variable renewable energy, Dispatchable power and Unconstrained.

There are four broad pathways to cheaper, cleaner energy. (Click to view larger image.) CSIRO

Our electricity market modelling found the different pathways lead to comparable household electricity bills. High energy productivity scenarios tend to delay generation investment and reduce energy use, leading to slightly lower bills in 2030 (including the cost of high efficiency equipment).

Weighing risk

The main attribute that separates the pathways is the mix of risks they face. We’ve grouped risks into three categories: technology, commercial and market risk, social licence risk and stakeholder coordination risk.

Risks identified with each pathway to cheaper renewable energy. (Click to view larger image.) CSIRO

Energy productivity plus combines mature existing low emissions technology with gas, so there’s no significant market risk. However there is a social license risk, as many will protest a stronger reliance on expanding gas supplies.

Gas-fired generation is high in this scenario. If improved energy productivity reduces emissions elsewhere, the electricity sector will have less pressure to phase out highly polluting generators.

This scenario would also require a high degree of cooperation between government, companies and customers. We would need to coordinate, to make sure incentives and programs work together to bring down household and business energy use.

Variable renewable energy invites more technical and commercial risk, as our electricity grid will need to be transformed to accept a high level of energy from fluctuating sources like wind. There’s also considerable community concern around the reliability of variable renewables.

While the evolution towards a secure system with very high variable renewable generation has been modelled in detail for the Roadmap, its final costs will remain uncertain until demonstrated at scale. Whether stakeholders will have the appetite to demonstrate such a system (with some risk to supply security and electricity prices) represents a coordination risk for this pathway.

Dispatchable power is perhaps the most risky option. Solar thermal, geothermal, carbon capture and storage and nuclear power are all relatively new to Australia (although other countries have explored them further). Developing them here will mean taking some technological and commercial gambles.

Carbon capture and storage and nuclear power are also deeply unpopular, and there’s a risk of dividing community consensus even further.

While solar thermal – and potentially nuclear power – could be deployed as small modules, in general the technologies in this category require high up-front capital investment. These projects may need strong government guarantees to achieve financing.

Unconstrained would mean both improving energy productivity and investing in a wide range of generation options: solar, efficient fossil fuels and carbon capture and storage.

Unfortunately there is no objective way of weighing the risks of one pathway against another. However, we can narrow risks over time through research, development and demonstration.

Between now and 2030 we are likely to rely on a narrow set of mature technologies to reduce greenhouse gases: solar photovoltaics, wind, natural gas and storage.

As the world, and Australia’s, greenhouse gas reduction targets ramp up after 2030, we’ll be well positioned to adapt, with the capacity to incorporate a broader range of options.

Paul Graham has received funding throughout his career from electricity generators, electricity networks, federal and state government departments, non-government non-profit organisations and energy consulting and engineering companies.

ViaSat-2 enters the record books as the most powerful commercial broadband spacecraft ever launched.

Australia's biggest solar module retailer, Eurosolar, served with wind up notice from ATO. Company says it is a mistake, but future is clouded.

Queensland looking at new transmission line to unlock more than 2,000GW of low cost wind and solar, which energy minister says is clearly cheaper than coal plant.

The big fall in LGC market for 2019 delivery intrigued the market. Maybe there are more wind and solar projects than most think.

SPACE-TIME RIPPLES: For the third time, physicists have detected a gravitational wave: a tiny ripple in the fabric of space-time.

The Clean Energy Council encourages solar designers and installers to submit their entries for the 2017 Solar Design and Installation Awards.

President Trump says pulling out of Paris climate deal will stop world laughing at the US.

Trump’s confirmed withdrawal from the United Nation’s Paris climate deal shows it’s time to get to grips with the climate science denial industry

Moments before the US president, Donald Trump, strode into the Rose Garden, TV cameras pictured his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, shaking hands and looking generally pleased with himself.

Bannon once called global warming a “manufactured crisis”.

Continue reading...

President Donald Trump’s announcement overnight that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement comes as no surprise. After all, this is the man who famously claimed that climate change was a hoax created by the Chinese.

While it will take around four years for the US to withdraw, the prospect is complicated by Trump’s claim that he wants to renegotiate the agreement – a proposal that European leaders were quick to dismiss. But the question now is who will lead global climate action in the US’ absence?

As I have previously argued on The Conversation, there are good reasons for China and Europe to come together and form a powerful bloc to lead international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

China is now the world’s number-one energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter, and should it combine forces with Europe it has the potential to lead the world and prevent other nations from following the US down the path of inaction.

There are very early signs that this may be happening. Reports this week indicate that Beijing and Brussels have already agreed on measures to accelerate action on climate change, in line with Paris climate agreement.

According to a statement to be released today, China and Europe have agreed to forge ahead and lead a clean energy transition.

While it is too early to predict how Chinese and European leadership will manifest in practice, in the face of American obstruction they are arguably the world’s best hope, if not its only hope.

Decades of destruction

Trump’s announcement only reaffirms his antipathy towards climate action, and that of his Republican Party, which for decades has led attempts to scuttle efforts to reduce emissions at home and abroad. Let’s not forget that it was President George W. Bush who walked away from the Kyoto Protocol.

In just the few short months of his incumbency so far, Trump has halted a series of initiatives executed by President Barack Obama to address climate change. These include taking steps to:

• Repeal the clean power plan

• Lift the freeze on new coal leases on federal lands

• End restrictions on oil drilling in Arctic waters

• Reverse the previous decision against the Keystone XL pipeline

• Review marine sanctuaries for possible oil and natural gas drilling.

And the list goes on.

This remains the real problem, regardless of whether the US is inside the Paris climate agreement or outside it. As the planet’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, what the US does domestically on climate change matters a great deal.

As a result, if China and Europe are to lead the world in the US’ absence, not only will they have to ensure that other nations, such as Australia, do not follow the US – and some members of the government hope they do – but they are also going to have to think creatively about measures that could force the US to act differently at home. For example, some leaders have already mooted introducing a carbon tax on US imports, though such proposals remain complicated.

In the meantime, while these political battles play out around the world, climate scientists are left to count the rising cost of inaction, be it the bleaching of coral reefs or increasing droughts, fires and floods.

If only it were all a hoax.

Christian Downie 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.

The CSIRO’s Low Emissions Technology Roadmap explores opportunities for Australian industry to take advantage of low emissions technologies in the electricity, industrial energy and transport sectors that could help Australia meet our 2030 emissions reduction target.

Energy minister Josh Frydenberg says he’s disappointed with US decision but believes 26-28% emissions reductions by 2030 on 2050 levels are reasonable

The Coalition government has recommitted to Australia’s emissions targets in the Paris agreement after Donald Trump’s withdrawal but Malcolm Turnbull faces internal division as conservative MPs celebrated the American decision.

The energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, said he was disappointed with Trump’s decision but reiterated the Turnbull government’s full commitment to the Paris deal.

Continue reading...

Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from climate agreement is criticised by the French president.

Joint statement by France, Germany and Italy says deal cannot be redrafted, and calls on allies to speed up efforts to combat climate change

European leaders dismissed Donald Trump’s claim that the Paris climate accord can be renegotiated after the US president announced he will pull out of the deal struck in 2015 to seek better terms.

Shortly after Trump’s announcement the leaders of France, Germany and Italy released a joint statement rejecting Trump’s assertion that the climate deal can be redrafted.

Continue reading...

Trump decision to pull US out of Paris climate treaty was sadly inevitable when an ignorant buffoon is guided by self-serving climate deniers, economic nationalists and fossil fuel advocates. But what will Australia do now, given much of its ruling party shares the same view.

Donald Trump made a speech at the White House on Thursday in which he confirmed the US would be withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. Over nearly 25 minutes, Trump argued that the agreement was bad for America, but said he’d be open to renegotiating a deal which was ‘fair to the United States’

• Donald Trump confirms US will quit Paris climate agreement

Continue reading...

• Former president had spent years negotiating for landmark climate accord
• Mitch McConnell: ‘Trump has put families and jobs ahead of leftwing ideology’

Barack Obama led condemnation of his successor’s decision to withdraw from the landmark Paris climate accord, which the former president’s administration painstakingly negotiated over the course of several years.

In a statement released just before Donald Trump officially announced that the US would remove itself from the deal, Obama said the administration had joined “a small handful of nations that reject the future”. He warned that the more than 190 countries that remain participants will “reap the benefits in jobs and industries created”, but he said that US states, cities and businesses “will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got.”

Continue reading...

While many species are under immediate threat from illegal trafficking, climate change represents a longer term threat.

Donald Trump announces US will be withdrawing from the Paris climate accord ‘to protect America and its citizens’ and seek a new deal ‘on terms that are fair to the United States... but if we can’t, that’s fine’

• Donald Trump confirms US will quit Paris climate agreement
• Paris climate agreement: Trump withdraws US from global accord – live

Continue reading...

Conditions over the past few years are putting stress on butterfly populations as food sources are diminished, but certain species are thriving

A beautiful creature has fluttered into my path. Well, actually, it landed on the doormat with a resounding thud. The Butterflies of Sussex might sound of limited geographical interest but it’s the best new butterfly guidebook in the country.

Newcomers will enjoy the fascinating anecdotes and beautiful photos by lepidopterist Neil Hulme. Obsessives searching for the elusive purple emperor will gobble up the grid references for the “master trees” around which male emperors congregate shortly after midsummer.

Continue reading...