Feed aggregator

Trump’s climate stance is blatant and extreme but just as damaging is the daily denial that goes unchallenged, from airport expansion to pub patio heaters. A first step to change is to call it out #DailyClimateDenial

You know things are bad when it takes Donald Trump pulling the US out of the Paris agreement for climate change to be discussed during the UK election. His climate denial is of the extreme and obvious variety: pages were removed from the Environmental Protection Agency website explaining its causes and consequences when he came into office.

Equally if not more damaging, however, is the daily climate denial that passes mostly unremarked all around us. The Institute of Directors recently proposed not one, but two new airport runways for London in a report called Let’s push things forward. It made no mention of the effect on rising emissions and a better title might have been “Let’s push things over the edge”. The oil company BP’s irony free sponsorship of the British Museum’s Sunken Cities exhibition merely highlighted how removed climate now is from our everyday cultural imagination.

Continue reading...

Chief scientist’s report flies in the face of previous recommendations on reducing electricity emissions

Less than two weeks ago, Alan Finkel told the Senate his landmark report would help Australia meet the commitments it made in Paris to reduce its economy-wide emissions by 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.

But his recommendations on the future of the National Electricity Market, released today, appear to fly in the face of those very commitments.

Continue reading...

Landmark report... or 'political agreement to let the planet burn'? A collection of the comments on, and reactions to the Finkel review.

Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s long-awaited review of the National Electricity Market, released today, will make a significant difference to Australia’s electricity system in three key areas: reliability (making sure the system generates enough power to meet demand), security (making sure the system doesn’t break), and governance (making sure the electricity market can run effectively).

Reliability

The review recommends a Clean Energy Target (CET), which will provide subsidies to new low-emissions generation. The actual choice of scheme is less important than its durability. If broad political agreement can be reached on this target, it can provide the policy certainty that industry crucially needs to build new generation capacity and meet electricity demand.

Finkel also proposes a Generator Reliability Obligation, which places a limit on further wind and solar power in regions that already have a high proportion of intermittent generation. New intermittent generators will have to provide backup for some of their supply, in the form of new storage or contracts with new dispatchable generators such as gas. The aim is to ensure that federal and state subsidies for renewables do not push too much intermittent generation into the market without adequate backup.

Large generators will also need to provide a reasonable notice of closure – the review suggests a period of three years – before leaving the market. The aim here is to ensure the market has enough time to respond by installing new generation.

Finally, the review floats the possibility of further changes to ensure reliability, potentially a day-ahead market to lock in supply ahead of time, or a strategic reserve – a mechanism by which the market operator can sign contracts requiring generators to sit idle unless needed in an emergency.

The market operator (AEMO) can already do this, and the report is silent on how a strategic reserve would be different or whether it is definitely needed.

Security

To secure the electricity system, Finkel calls for existing standards to be tightened and new mechanisms to be introduced.

Transmission companies will be required to provide and maintain a prescribed level of inertia in the system – high levels of inertia can prevent rapid changes in frequency that harm the system. Fossil fuel generators may be required to change their settings to control the frequency in the system, whereas new generators, including renewables, will be required to provide fast frequency-response services to help avoid frequency fluctuations that can damage the grid.

While technical in their nature, these measures will reduce the likelihood of instability in the system and provide extra tools to fix the it if instability arises.

Finkel also makes recommendations to bolster the emergency management plan for the 2017-18 summer and to encourage consumers – both residential and business – to reduce their demand at peak times. The review strongly encourages the development of “demand response” schemes to give consumers incentives to switch off and help smooth the load at peak times.

Governance

The biggest change to how the market will be run is the proposed creation of an Energy Security Board (ESB). The ESB will comprise an independent chair and vice-chair, as well as the heads of the three governing bodies: the AEMC, AEMO and the market regulator (the AER). At a minimum, the ESB will be responsible for implementing many of the Finkel Review recommendations, although the panel leaves scope for it to do much more.

Finkel recommends a comprehensive review of the rules governing the electricity market. It also argues for increased accountability for market bodies and the COAG Energy Council, through enhanced performance indicators and a beefed-up process for determining and monitoring priorities for the energy sector.

What happens next?

The report makes a range of other recommendations designed to ensure better service for energy consumers, more transparency in gas markets, and improved planning and coordination of electricity networks.

The Finkel Review successfully addresses the main issues confronting the electricity sector today. At the very least, it is a step towards a more reliable and secure system.

The devil, as always, will be in the detail. Much will depend on how the recommendations are implemented. Australian households and business can only hope that the new Energy Security Board and the nation’s political leaders will see this through.

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

Finkel wants new wind and solar farms to be paired with storage or gas fired generators. Renewables industry says reliability should be function of system, each individual power station.

Finkel spoke of an "unstoppable" energy transition, but he may have found a way to slow it down. He promises cheaper power and lower emissions, but leaves power in hands of "gentailers", meaning states will have to carry ambition, and reliability measures are controversial.

The long-awaited report from Chief Scientist Alan Finkel into Australia’s National Electricity Market was released today.

The key recommendation is the adoption of a Clean Energy Target. This mandates that energy retailers provide a certain amount of their electricity from “low-emissions” generators – sources that produce emissions below a threshold level of carbon dioxide per megawatt.

Crucially, Dr Finkel has not made a recommendation as to the precise threshold or the number of certificates to be issued, saying:

The Panel acknowledges that the specific emissions reduction trajectory that should be set for the electricity sector is a question for governments.

At a minimum, the electricity sector should have a trajectory consistent with a direct application of the national target of 26-28% reduction on 2005 levels by 2030, as per Australia’s international obligations under the Paris Agreement.

Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market/The Conversation, CC BY-ND

Langstone, Hampshire Bees scouting the hawthorn unrolled their tongues to mop up the sticky fluid excreted by the greenfly

Since mid May the hawthorn next to my kitchen window has been covered with greenfly. The leaves and stems are plastered with clusters of the sap-sucking insects and a dandruff of white cast skins, which the sub-adults moult as they mature.

Reproducing asexually by parthenogenesis, these aphids give birth to live offspring born with the embryos of the next generation inside their bodies. Nymphs reach sexual maturity in as little as five days, and a reproductively active adult can produce up to 12 genetic copies of itself a day.

Continue reading...

Finkel's plan for Clean Energy Target throws a lifeline to coal, but keeps a cap on both gas and large scale wind and solar, despite the plunging cost of renewables.

Report by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, models a clean energy target that would reduce electricity emissions by 28% on 2005 levels

Australia’s chief scientist says a new clean energy target will deliver lower power prices to consumers than the status quo, but his report also models a scheme with a low target for emissions reduction from the electricity sector.

In his much anticipated review of the national electricity market, Alan Finkel has examined a scheme with an emissions reduction target of 28% on 2005 levels by 2030, rather than the reductions of 60% that some experts say would be necessary for Australia to meet its whole-of-economy pollution reduction target under the Paris climate accord.

Continue reading...

Dr Alan Finkel presented the Final Report of the Review to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Leaders’ meeting on 9 June 2017.

Australia's chief scientist says we need an energy market plan, unveils suite of recommendations including a Clean Energy target, but which appears to favour coal over gas, and puts lid on renewable energy developments.

Australian households and businesses are installing rooftop solar PV at record rate, with May total the highest since 2012 and year-to-date the highest ever.

Danish wind energy giant DONG Energy plans to integrate a self-proclaimed “first of its kind wind power and battery hybrid system" to off shore wind farm.

Big jump in ACT energy prices suggest big rises elsewhere, as households and businesses react with record installations of rooftop solar.

It’s been a week since President Trump announced he was pulling US out of Paris Agreement. In that time, a remarkable transformation has taken place.

From Friday 9 June, Tesla will offer to arrange for any customer who orders a car before 31 July to receive free electricity at their home address for vehicle charging for an entire year.

Tony McAvoy says traditional owners are ‘proud and independent’ and are not being used by anti-mining activists to block the $16bn mine

One of Australia’s leading native title lawyers has spoken publicly for the first time as a traditional owner fighting to stop the Adani mine, a campaign he said was driven by “proud and independent people” who were among the best-informed Indigenous litigants in the country.

Tony McAvoy, who became Australia’s first Indigenous silk in 2015, said the Wangan and Jagalingou people were keenly aware of how their priorities differed from environmentalist allies in a battle to preserve their Queensland country from one of the world’s largest proposed coalmines.

Continue reading...

Clean energy provides 70% of demand in UK, with each of wind, solar and nuclear producing more than coal and gas combined.

Australian consumption of chicken and pork both now far outstrip beef, mutton and lamb. Ben Phillips/Flickr, CC BY

Australians were once world champion beef-eaters but now you’re much more likely to find chicken than steak on Australian dinner tables.

Total meat consumption per capita in Australia has been stable since the 1960s, at around 110 kilograms per person per year. But the type of meat consumed has changed significantly, with chicken and pork both now far outstripping beef, mutton and lamb, according to historical data from researchers Wong et al and more recent data from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES).

(The apparent spike in beef consumption in the late 1970s is linked to Australia’s beef export trade crash and much of this spike was thought to have gone to pet food and by-products rather than the dinner table).

Whereas chicken was once a rare meal, eaten on special occasions, today the Australian chicken industry produces around 600 million chickens a year. Most are consumed domestically.

The per-capita annual consumption of chicken meat in Australia increased ten-fold from 4.6 kilograms per person in 1965 to 47 kilograms in 2016. The industry projects growth to 49.2 kilograms a person by 2019–20.

From the 1960s on, public health messages steered people away from red meats. There was also a rapid proliferation of fast food franchises selling chicken - notably the entry of Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1969.

Similarly, pork consumption has been bolstered by re-marketing. Once considered a red meat, pork was reinvented as “the other white meat” through a marketing campaign categorising pork as lighter and healthier, alongside chicken (and due to changes in breeding, pork meat really has lightened in colour over recent decades). While not as steep an increase as chicken, pork consumption in Australia has nearly tripled since the 1980s.

However, a major driver of these changes has been price, linked to massive changes in production.

After adjusting for inflation, chicken per kilo costs less than a third of its price than it did in the early 1970s, while real prices for other meats have been comparatively static. The Australian Chicken Meat Federation, which represents chicken producers, reports that over the five years to 2014–15, chicken meat was on average 50% cheaper than pork, 59% cheaper than lamb and 65% cheaper than beef.

Since the 1960s, most Australian chicken and pork production has become rapidly industrialised and automated in large intensive indoors operations. Piggeries and broiler farms have typically become specialised, intensified, high technology factory farm complexes. Intensification of chicken production has increased efficiency, in turn steadily decreasing the retail price of chicken. Around 70% of chicken meat is supplied by two privately owned processing companies, the Australian Chicken Meat Federation says.

Chicken farms in Australia have increased markedly in size and intensity. Our research on planning disputes shows farms of the 1970s housed around 10,000 chickens. Now, while nearly 600 million broiler chickens were slaughtered in Australia in 2014-15, there were only around 750 broiler farms, a decline from the 1990s. The average chicken farm now has nearly 120,000 chickens at any one time and some run into millions. The number of pork farms has also dropped, consolidating into larger operations.

Global meat consumption continues to rise rapidly as more countries – notably China – increase their consumption of meat and dairy products. Australia imports very little meat due to strict quarantine, but is a major exporter of beef, sheep and goats.

Sheep and cattle farms are more extensive, more common, and produce fewer animals than pork or chicken farms. There were over 66,000 cattle farms and around 39,000 sheep farms in Australia in 2015-16. Cattle farm numbers and the overall cattle herd declined slightly, although this belies the formation of two extremes: at one end large and export-focussed grazing, while other areas have seen a proliferation of sub-commercial, small-scale, scattered “hobby” grazing. The national sheep flock also declined, and is transitioning away from wool production to meat and dual-purpose breeds.

These transitions in production and consumption of meat result in some rural and semi-rural landscapes shifting to expansive, remotely-managed holdings in areas with declining population. Closer to cities, hobby farmers and amenity migrants sit in often uneasy proximity to industrial scale production.

As other countries take up Australia’s traditional fondness for meat, global as well as domestic forces continue to change the nature of farming and Australian rural landscapes. That, in turn, also affects the price and type of meat Australians consume.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.