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The supermarket giants have announced they'll phase out single-use bags over the next 12 months.

Annual Big Butterfly Count urges wildlife lovers to help assess whether the insects are really returning to gardens this summer

Clouds of butterflies have been sighted in southern Britain this summer but wildlife lovers are being urged to help scientifically assess whether our insects are really bouncing back by joining the world’s largest butterfly survey.

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States formalise split with Canberra over clean energy target as COAG endorses other 49 recommendations from Finkel Review.

The Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee is undertaking public consultation to inform its review of the Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency method and invites interested businesses, community organisations and individuals to make a...

The Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee is undertaking public consultation to inform its review of the Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency method and invites interested businesses, community organisations and individuals to make a...

SolarEdge unveils "world’s first" inverter-integrated electric vehicle charger, with EV charging up to six times faster.

Draft Emissions Reduction Fund method for Industrial Equipment Upgrades released for public consultation. Consultation period closes 9 August 2017.

Draft Emissions Reduction Fund method for Industrial Equipment Upgrades released for public consultation. Consultation period closes 9 August 2017.

Australia’s two largest supermarket chains say they will stop using lightweight plastic bags and will offer reusable bags instead

Single-use plastic bags will phased out from Woolworths and Coles stores across Australia.

Woolworth Group announced on Friday morning that stores Australia-wide would phased out the use of plastic bags by July 2018.

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Ventnor Botanic Garden, Isle of Wight A balmy microclimate and a scrubland habitat support Britain’s oldest colony of wall lizards

In mainland Britain the common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis) is considered an alien species, and concerns have been raised that competition from this robust and agile continental reptile may be hastening the decline of our rare native sand lizard (Lacerta agilis).

The Isle of Wight colony is the longest established population of wall lizards in Britain and a celebrated part of the island’s fauna, though its origin is hotly debated. It is believed that in the 1920s there were deliberate releases of the reptile, though local legend has it that they are descendants of survivors from a shipwreck off Bonchurch.

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Redflow taps shareholders to back new focus on market “sweet-spot” including south-east Asia's off-grid, telecom, commercial and industrial sectors.

A single, national market that supplies all of Australia's electricty is looking dangerously outdated – and politically impossible. Shutterstock

The Finkel Review was a valiant attempt to find a path towards a 21st century energy market model for Australia. But political infighting and powerful interests have blocked one of its core proposals, a Clean Energy Target (CET). Despite the creation of a new Energy Security Board to try to hold regulators and policy makers to account, the ability of the present structure to deliver is uncertain.

State energy ministers, who have gathered today for the COAG Energy Council meeting, are now threatening to go it alone if the Commonwealth government does not commit to a CET. But the problem and opportunity is much broader. It’s time to step back and rethink energy policy.

The national model is failing

The National Electricity Market (NEM) was established in a context of an energy system comprised of large generators and large energy utilities, with energy flowing in one direction: from power station to consumer. Things have moved on. Most of the activity now is behind the meter, local, or within regions, although interstate energy flows are still very important.

State governments now recognise that their voters will blame or reward them for “keeping the lights on”, and are not prepared to suffer to help supply other states. Forward-thinking politicians also know they will win votes, and create jobs, by driving clean energy solutions.

The NEM has failed. Its very narrow economic objective was to provide low prices, reliable and safe energy, and to act in the long term interests of consumers. Many would score it zero out of three.

Despite the government’s acceptance of 49 recommendations of the Finkel Review that aim to fix many of the problems, few observers are confident that the deep cultural problems and powerful vested interests can be overcome – let alone the impact of a small number of conservative politicians within the Commonwealth government, who are holding energy policy hostage.

The COAG Energy Council is unworkable. It requires consensus to act, but differing state-level agendas block this on key issues. Indeed, the government has just proposed to go over the heads of the Council, and COAG, to remove the right of energy businesses to appeal against regulatory decisions after years of internal disagreement. Overriding the COAG Energy Council is an extreme tactic that cannot work for many other problematic issues.

The “top-down” nature of the NEM is out of date. Repeated criticisms of the lack of discipline of state governments by federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg merely confirm that this model won’t work.

Importantly, a large proportion of the real energy industry is not acknowledged as a formal part of the NEM structure. The NEM framework defines the electricity industry as licensed generators, network operators and retailers. While NEM reports talk about consumer choice and rights, they ignore the emerging industries such as renewable energy, storage, demand management, energy efficiency, businesses with new financial models, and so on. These businesses simply do not have a seat at the table.

The scale of change needed to make the present NEM model work is simply beyond our political system. In any case, there is an emerging alternative that can evolve in parallel with the NEM.

A real 21st century energy model

In practice, the NEM has functioned in parallel with several other mechanisms for years.

The Renewable Energy Target has operated since 2001. It was introduced to address the failure of the NEM to support renewable energy development. This market is quite separate, and operates on an annual basis, using trading of certificates and obligations on energy retailers.

Several states and the ACT now operate energy efficiency obligation schemes. These also operate through obligations on energy retailers, and most use tradable certificates. These schemes drive the installation of a range of energy efficiency measures.

At the industrial level, increasing numbers of businesses are investing in large renewable energy systems “behind the meter”, so they can insulate themselves from the chaos of the NEM. They need the price stability and reliability the NEM can’t deliver.

Several states and the ACT now have aggressive renewable energy targets – which have repeatedly been criticised by Frydenberg. The ACT has demonstrated that these schemes can work very well. They can reduce electricity prices, create local jobs, reinvigorate rural and regional economies – and win votes.

Because they involve long term contracts, their output is predictable. Other states (and consortia of councils, businesses, universities and others) are copying this model. State governments also still have significant powers to regulate network operators and retailers.

The future is distributed

If we look to the future, we see enormous growth in a diverse range of distributed energy solutions. These have many advantages over centralised solutions. Further, we see astounding diversity emerging in the energy system.

These trends cannot be managed by “command and control”, top-down mechanisms. Although national standards and coordination can be useful, they are not essential, and can easily block innovation.

Slide from ‘Our efficient, smart, flexible, distributed and diverse energy future’ presentation to APEC energy ministers conference. Author provided, Author provided

A practical energy model involves states and territories working with businesses, councils and communities. They would use existing powers over network operators and energy retailers, and would implement their own strategies for security and emissions reduction.

In this scenario, AEMO would monitor their policies and rates of implementation of demand-side and supply side energy services, and use its modelling capabilities to identify emerging imbalances. It would warn states where issues such as gaps between supply and demand and grid instability were emerging. Where states failed to act, AEMO would have power to intervene.

The NEM would continue to operate as a wholesale market for the “big guys” – large generators, industrial sites and transmission line operators. It would also provide performance information and advice to AEMO to inform its modelling and analysis.

The national RET effectively finishes in 2020: it can easily be replaced by state level strategies.

Thanks Dr Finkel. The reactions to your Review have demonstrated conclusively that we need a real 21st century energy system, and that a national approach based on the existing NEM simply won’t work.

Disclosure

Alan Pears has worked for government, business, industry associations public interest groups and at universities on energy efficiency, climate response and sustainability issues since the late 1970s. He is now an honorary Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT University and a consultant, as well as an adviser to a range of industry associations and public interest groups. His investments in managed funds include firms that benefit from growth in clean energy. He has shares in Hepburn Wind.

Germany's election campaign shows we still have to get our heads around how fundamentally different electric vehicles will be.

Australia's public debate around clean energy plumbs new depths, with rebooted attacks on wind and solar, new attacks on battery storage and vehicle emission standards, and targeted attacks on key individuals. How did Australia get this stupid? And this ugly?

Al Gore has been visiting Australia this week – partly because he has a new film to promote, but also because he and Australian climate policy have had a surprisingly long entanglement. Given that this year is likely to be a bloody one as far as climate policy goes, don’t be surprised if he’s back again before 2017 is out.

Gore has a long and honourable record on climate change, although ironically his weakest period on climate coincided with the peak of his political power, as US Vice President.

As he says in his 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, he was first alerted to climate change by Roger Revelle, who can justly be called the (American) father of climate science. On becoming a Congressman, Gore was part of the move by Democrats to sustain momentum on climate policy that had stalled with the arrival of Ronald Reagan as President.

Gore organised Congressional hearings in 1981, and 1982 (NASA climatologist James Hansen’s first congressional testimony).

Even back then, the familiar political narrative around climate change had already formed, as journalism academic David Sachsman recalls:

The CBS Evening News for March 25, 1982, included a two minute and 50 second story by David Culhane on the greenhouse effect. Chemist Melvin Calvin raised the threat of global warming, Representative Al Gore called for further research, and James Kane of the Energy Department said there was no need for haste.

This report from the following year tells a similar tale, noting the political difficulty of solving the climate problem:

A youthful Gore in 1983.

By the time of the seminal Villach conference of October 1985, Gore was a Senator, and helped to organise the first Senate hearings since 1979. Gore’s colleague, Republican Senator David Durenberger remarked that “grappling with this problem [of climate change] is going to be just about as easy as nailing Jello to the wall”.

The following year, as Joshua Howe notes in his excellent book on the politics and science of climate change, Behind the Curve (2014), the then Senator Joe Biden introduced an initiative mandating that the president commission an executive-level task force to devise a strategy for responding to global warming – a strategy the president was meant to deliver to Congress within one year.

Gore scored another political victory on May 8, 1989, when Hansen testified that George H. W. Bush’s administration had ordered him to change the conclusions in written testimony regarding the seriousness of global warming

From Vice President to movie star

However, as Vice President to Bill Clinton, Gore disappointed environmentalists. An energy tax was defeated by industry lobbyists in 1993, and the Clinton administration (perhaps wisely) opted not to try and pass the Kyoto Protocol through a defiant Senate.

After leaving the West Wing he embraced Hollywood, where his budding movie career attracted derision in some quarters, despite the hefty policy achievements earlier in Gore’s career.

Besides an Inconvenient Truth (see here for an account of its impact in Australia), Gore “starred” in another movie, the 1990 philosophy-based talkie Mindwalk, starring Sam Waterston as Senator Jack Edwards, a thinly veiled version of Gore.

Former Australian industry minister Ian Macfarlane certainly considered Gore more entertainer than policymaker when speculating on his reasons for visiting in 2006:

Well, Al Gore’s here to sell tickets to a movie, and no one can begrudge him that. It’s just entertainment, and really that’s all it is.

Gore and Australia

Gore has been on these shores many times. During his May 2003 visit Gore urged the then Prime Minister John Howard to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. He met with the then New South Wales Premier Bob Carr, and also with former Liberal leader and current climate hawk John Hewson. He spoke at an event co-hosted by the Business Council of Australia to advocate sustainable development.

After a controversial visit in 2005, Gore visited twice in 2006. As Joan Staples notes in her PhD, he teamed up with the Australian Conservation Foundation to launch his Climate Project:

Having reached out to the wider NGO sector, to doctors, unions, and the corporate sector, this initiative then moved ACF’s efforts towards influencing individual citizens. Gore’s organisation aimed to harness the power of mass mobilisation by expanding the message of his film An Inconvenient Truth.

Gore returned in 2007 and spoke at a A$1,000-a-plate event on the Sustainability and Cleantech Investment Market, with Carr introducing him while clutching a copy of Gore’s 1992 book Earth in the Balance.

He had his share of Australian critics too. On a frosty morning in July 2009 Gore’s launch speech of the Safe Climate Australia initiative attracted around 30 members of the newly formed Climate Sceptics Party, who handed out leaflets and wore t-shirts bearing their slogan: “Carbon Really Ain’t Pollution – CRAP”.

Gore also offered an opinion on Kevin Rudd’s proposed climate legislation:

It’s not what I would have written, I would have written it as a stronger bill, but I’m realistic about what can be accomplished in the political system as it is.

Gore seems to have (wisely) eschewed direct involvement during the tumultuous Julia Gillard years, but pitched in in October 2013 when the new Prime Minister Tony Abbott refused to link bushfires with climate change.

The Palmer moment

Perhaps the most bizarre, rub-my-eyes-did-that-just-happen moment came in June 2014, when Gore stood alongside Clive Palmer in a deal to save some of Gillard’s carbon policy package from Tony Abbott’s axe.

In July 2015, with the Paris climate conference approaching, Gore visited on a whistlestop tour that included meetings with senior business figures (BHP, National Australia Bank, Qantas, and Victorian state government ministers) to try and build momentum ahead of the crucial summit.

Looking into the crystal ball

Despite his Nobel Prize shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, not everyone is a fan, with Canadian journalism academic Chris Russill arguing that Gore’s approach “narrows our understanding of climate change discourse”.

And just because some climate sceptics think he’s a very naughty boy – and can change the weather by his mere presence – that doesn’t mean he’s the messiah.

Ultimately, we all need to find new and better ways of exerting more sustained pressure, not only on policymakers but also other institutions and norm-makers in our society, to change the trajectory we’re currently on.

Gore will keep banging on about climate change. He will turn up to give speeches, and will be both praised and derided. What matters is not what he does the same, but what we all do differently.

One of Australia’s largest independent residential solar installers announces the appointment of former Conergy executive David McCallum as managing director.

Federal, state and territory energy ministers are gathering today in Brisbane for the tenth meeting of the COAG Energy Council. In the wake of the Finkel Review, and against a backdrop of rising electricity and gas prices, they have much to discuss.

Some of the focus will certainly be on gas policy and prices. Earlier this week, the federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, argued that state governments should develop their onshore gas reserves to relieve pressure on the gas market.

Victoria and the Northern Territory both have bans on onshore gas development, introduced partly to protect prime farming land.

Controversially, federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly suggested on Thursday that pressure from renewable resources on energy prices meant that “people will die” this winter if they’re afraid to turn on their heating.

Yet it is gas generation, not renewables, that typically sets the price in the electricity market. As Fairfax reported yesterday, electricity prices move up and down with the gas price, almost exactly in tandem.

What’s more, the reality is that Australia has enough existing gas reserves to keep producing at current rates, including exports to the international LNG market, for at least the next 25 years. Developing extra onshore gas potentially risks harming valuable agricultural land for little gain – and certainly won’t bring energy prices down by the end of this winter.

How much gas does Australia have?

In March this year, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) published its Gas Statement of Opportunities. This reports forecasts, among other things, maximum demand and annual consumption over a 20-year period, and the ability of the eastern Australian gas market to supply this demand.

The report also highlights locations where new infrastructure or developments may be needed. Gas resources are categorised into levels, according to how difficult and expensive it will be to access and process.

It’s worth taking a moment to define what’s meant by reserves and resources, as this makes a big difference to the cost and feasibility of development.

• Reserves. These are volumes of gas that are expected to be commercially viable. The category of proved and probable reserves is considered the best estimate of commercially recoverable reserves. These are often used as the basis for economic assessments, or in reports to the share market.

• Resources. These are broken down into “contingent” and “prospective” resources, depending on how much is known about them. Contingent resources are one step down from proved and probable reserves, and are upgraded once any uncertainty about their development has been resolved. Prospective resources are estimates of gas volumes from reservoirs that have not been drilled. These estimates are based on much less direct evidence than the other categories and, as the name suggests, are more dubious.

So how much gas reserves and resources did this year’s Gas Statement of Opportunities report? A lot.

Gas extraction is forecast to be about 2,000 petajoules (PJ) per year for the next 20 years, to meet both domestic and export demand. The table below, which shows the reserves and resources as published in the latest Gas Statement of Opportunity, shows we are in no danger of running short any time soon.

The proved and probable reserves alone are large enough to support another two-and-a-half decades of gas production. Notably, those reserves do not include gas from the Northern Territory, onshore gas from Victoria, or the controversial Narrabri onshore gas project in New South Wales.

Prices

Developing new sources of gas in eastern Australian is not cheap, particularly when compared to historical prices of A$3-4 per gigajoule (GJ). The Gas Statement of Opportunities includes the development costs of proved and probable reserves and contingent resources. (Prospective resources are not published, but are assumed to be above A$10 per GJ.)

The figure below, derived from the report, shows the cost curve of development. It indicates that at the low-cost end, some proved and probable coal seam gas and conventional gas reserves have development costs around A$2 per GJ.

Gas development cost curve for reserves and resources. There are currenly no onshore reserves or contingent resources in Victoria. AEMO, Gas Statement of Opportunities.

It also shows that about 40,000 petajoules (40 billion GJ) of gas – enough to supply 20 years of domestic and LNG export demand – is available at production costs of less than A$5.50 per GJ.

That gas prices are currently well above this points to the impact of the LNG export industry and internationally linked pricing in a sellers’ market.

As can be seen in the cost curve, Narrabri is the only onshore resource in NSW and Victoria that scores above the somewhat dubious prospective category. The Narrabri coal seam gas project is listed as a contingent resource, and is estimated by AEMO to cost A$7.25 per GJ to produce.

To put it another way, this gas is estimated to be more expensive to produce than 58,000PJ of other gas reserves and resources in eastern Australia.

Lifting the ban?

Given the volume of cheaper gas available offshore and in states without bans, it is unclear how lifting bans or placing additional pressure on states to develop onshore resources will have a material effect on gas prices.

This sentiment was reflected by the NSW energy minister, Don Harwin, who recently pointed out that “the idea that NSW’s gas sector was supposed to save the nation from the way the LNG sector grew is curious”.

Given the availability of other reserves, the potential impacts on agricultural land and the need to dramatically reduce our emissions, the expansion of the onshore gas sector is indeed a curious idea.

Dylan McConnell has received funding from the AEMC's Consumer Advocacy Panel and Energy Consumers Australia.

CEFC backs landmark NSW project to slash freight transport emissions by shifting containers from road to rail, and powering operations with renewable energy.

Victoria and South Australia have suggested a states-led initiative if the federal government continues to stall on a clean energy target. Could it work?

Australian states exasperated by federal government inaction on the key Finkel review recommendation of a clean energy target have indicated they might band together and go it alone if the federal Coalition does not provide the required leadership.

Before Friday’s meeting of energy ministers, for which the federal government refused to put a CET on the agenda, Labor-led Victoria and South Australia called for consideration of a linked-up state-based scheme, and urged Coalition-led NSW to join up. Given recent comments by the NSW energy minister, Don Harwin, who indicated support for the CET, such a move seems plausible.

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TV broadcaster Sir David Attenborough says species have suffered "significant declines" recently.