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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.

How reducing the methane from cows is helping to fight climate change

The UK should focus on making fuel from chip fat, whiskey dregs and forest waste and not from crops like wheat

A gannet bonanza is confirmed on the towering cliffs of Yorkshire by research from the RSPB.

Royal Academy of Engineering report backs increased use of biofuels but warns that some have been as polluting as fossil fuels

Biofuel use needs to increase to help fight climate change as liquid fuels will be needed by aircraft and ships for many decades to come, finds a new report requested by the UK government.

The Royal Academy of Engineering report says, however, that some biofuels, such as diesel made from food crops, have led to more emissions than those produced by the fossil fuels they were meant to replace. Instead, the report says, rising biofuel production should make more use of waste, such as used cooking oil and timber.

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For people in the Torres Strait, rising sea levels have long been a significant issue.

Energy debate gets nasty as Broadcaster Alan Jones says AEMO boss Audrey Zibelman is a "global warming hoax alarmist", a "promoter of wind turbines" and should be "run out of town."

Swedish experiment shows the notoriously brilliant bird has capacity to think ahead, an ability previously documented only in humans and great apes

Scientists from Sweden say ravens are able to think about the future, showing a general planning ability previously documented only in people and great apes.

Researchers Can Kabadayi and Mathias Osvath, of Lund University, tested five captive ravens in two tasks they do not do in the wild: using tools and bartering with humans. The results were published on Thursday by the journal Science.

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With the Coalition divided and distracted over energy policy, the States say they'll push ahead with a Clean Energy Target.

Birdwatchers are keeping the location of the newly rediscovered night parrot a closely guarded secret. Adventure Australia, Author provided

Highly collectable species, especially those that are rare and threatened, can potentially be put at risk from poaching if information describing where they can be found is published. But rather than withholding this information, as has been recently recommended, scientists should publish such information through secure data repositories so that this knowledge can continue to be used to help conserve and manage the world’s most threatened species.

Scientists are encouraged to publish data so their discoveries can be shared and scrutinised. However, a recent article has identified the risks of publishing the locations of rare, endangered or newly described species.

The example of the Chinese cave gecko shows that these concerns may be warranted. The species went extinct at the location where it was discovered, potentially at the hands of scientifically literate poachers.

But instead of withholding such information, we suggest (in a letter published today in Science) that scientists can publish sensitive data securely, while minimising the risk of misuse, by using one of a range of currently available tools.

A little knowledge

Typically, the problem for threatened species is not that too much information is available on their population and location, but rather quite the opposite. For example, in New South Wales more than 150 species have missed out on conservation funding because of a lack of such information.

On the flip side, there is little evidence that encouraging researchers to withhold this information will thwart people who are determined to find specific species. Collectors who specialise in highly collectable species can get location information from a variety of sources such as wildlife trade websites, pet and naturalist clubs, social media, and the popular press. This is despite the range of laws, regulations (such as scientific and collecting permits) and community reporting aimed at restricting the collection and trade of endangered species.

Grove of Wollemi pine, the location of which has been kept secret for more than 25 years. Jaimie Plaza How to publish sensitive data

Many governments have implemented sensitive data policies to protect ecological and species data, based on their own lists of sensitive species. Many of these policies have been in place for almost a decade and have kept secure the locations of hundreds of highly collectable species such as Australia’s Wollemi pine.

These policies are practised by numerous data portals worldwide, including DataONE, South Africa’s National Biodiversity Institute, Australia’s Virtual Herbarium, Australia’s Department of Environment, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, and the Atlas for Living Australia.

A wealth of advice is also available to researchers and data managers on how to manage sensitive species information, such as the guidance provided by Science International and the Australian National Data Service. Science journals also work closely with open data repositories to ensure that sensitive species information is securely published – see, for example, the policies of leading journals Science and Nature.

Information entropy - why it’s a good idea to publish data before they are lost in the mists of time. Michener (2006) Ecol. Informatics

One example of good data management is the AEKOS data portal run by Australia’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN). AEKOS contains data from different government monitoring surveys covering almost 100,000 sites across the country. Its default position is to make ecological data and information freely available for land-management or wildlife research.

However, sensitive data are flagged during the early stages of the publishing process. The data are then secured in one of three ways:

• masking sensitive information by giving only approximate locations or non-specific species names

• making data available only after approval by the legal owners

• embargoing the data for a maximum of two years.

To ensure data trustworthiness, TERN’s data reviewers further check for any data sensitivities that may have been overlooked during submission.

What’s the alternative?

We recognise the importance of keeping the locations of highly collectable species secure, and the need for caution in publishing precise site locations. But despite recent concerns, the examples given above show how online scientific data publishing practices have sufficiently matured to minimise misuses such as illegal or excessive collection, disturbance risk, and landholder privacy issues.

The alternative is not to deposit these valuable data at all. But this risks the loss of vital knowledge in the quest to protect wildlife.

In tackling poaching, we should perhaps seek to motivate poachers to help protect our most endangered wildlife. Such tactics are thought by some to have contributed to the discovery of several endangered bird species populations, and potentially the recent rediscovery of the night parrot, after a century of elusiveness in Australia. If poachers are willing to turn gamekeeper, getting them to share their rare species knowledge securely would certainly improve conservation outcomes.

The authors acknowledge their co-signatories of the letter published in Science: Ken Atkins (WA Department of Parks and Wildlife), Ron Avery (NSW Office of Environment and Heritage), Lee Belbin (Atlas of Living Australia), Noleen Brown (Qld Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation), Amber E. Budden (DataONE, University of New Mexico), Paul Gioia (WA Department of Parks and Wildlife), Siddeswara Guru (TERN, University of Queensland), Mel Hardie (Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning), Tim Hirsch (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), Donald Hobern (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), John La Salle (Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO), Scott R. Loarie (California Academy of Sciences), Matt Miles (SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources), Damian Milne (NT Department of Environment and Natural Resources), Miles Nicholls (Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO), Maurizio Rossetto (National Herbarium of NSW), Jennifer Smits (ACT Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate), Gregston Terrill (ACT Department of Environment and Energy), and David Turner (University of Adelaide).

Andrew Lowe receives funding from the Australian Government, and has previously received funding through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), for which he was Associate Science Director until 2016, and is currently serving on the TERN advisory board.

Anita Smyth receives funding from Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) which is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. She is a member of The Ecological Society of Australia and coordinates the Ecosystem Science Council's Data Resources working Group.

Ben Sparrow receives funding from the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) where he directs the AusPlots and Eco-informatics programs.

Glenda Wardle receives funding from from the Australian Research Council, the Long Term Ecological Research Network, and The University of Sydney. She is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia, the Rangeland Society, the American and British Ecological Societies, American Geophysical Union, Society for Conservation Biology, INTECOL, ILTER, and is Chair of the Ecosystem Science Council. 

‘I’ll still be doing this on a mobility scooter,’ says one of 100 volunteers who survey national park’s 1,628 miles of paths

One of the many reasons Sally Williams loves the Yorkshire dales national park is because its dramatic landscape has been marked by centuries of human activity. “It’s not like you get in America – a huge area of undiscovered land that nobody has ever trodden on,” she says, standing near the entrance to an old limestone quarry. “It’s an area where people have lived and worked for centuries, and you can see the evidence of that all over the countryside.”

The 67-year-old former librarian is one of an army of nearly 100 volunteers who, every summer, undertake a survey of the park’s 1,628 miles (2,620km) of public rights of way. The volunteers, mainly local retirees, walk every single path and bridleway, ensuring that the park’s “infrastructure” – including its 5,665 gates, 4,862 stiles, 4,399 signposts and 1,054 bridges – is accessible, undamaged and safe.

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EU asks court to protect one of Europe’s last primeval woodlands after the Polish government tripled logging operations at the Unesco world heritage site last year

Europe’s last major parcel of primeval woodland could be set for a reprieve after the EU asked the European court to authorise an immediate ban on logging in Poland’s Białowieża forest.

Around 80,000 cubic metres of forest have been cleared since the Polish government tripled logging operations around the Unesco world heritage site last year.

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Polish logging in one of Europe's last remaining primeval forests is to go to the EU's top court.

Falling battery costs to drive sales but European carmakers will lose out to rivals in the US and Asia, forecasts Dutch bank

All new cars sold in Europe will be electric within less than two decades, driven by government support, falling battery costs and economies of scale, a Dutch bank has predicted.

However, ING warned that with battery-powered vehicles accounting for 100% of registrations in 2035 across the continent, European carmakers would lose out to their rivals in the US and Asia who already lead on battery production.

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At least 200 campaigners in 24 countries were killed in 2016, according to a new report from Global Witness.

In Guatemala, one of the world’s largest silver deposits reaps millions for its Canadian owners but for local farmers the price is their land and even their lives

Deep underground, buried in the lush hills of southern Guatemala, lies a veritable treasure trove: silver, tonnes of it, one of the largest deposits in the world.

But it’s above ground where the really dangerous activity goes on. On a dusty highway, about 50 peasant farmers stand praying in a circle, a makeshift roadblock intended to stop trucks reaching the mine. They have already been violently dispersed by police teargas. Now they fear the army might move in.

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