Greener water and light

The Australian,
June 08, 2006

Why the need for nuclear when carbon pricing is more efficient energy use?
By Nic Frances

WE all know the federal Government is touting nuclear energy as a solution to global warming and as a "clean" way to power giant water desalination plants. But there is a far more immediate and cheaper alternative. And one state is showing the way. In NSW, more than 100,000 households have already received free of charge, a six-pack of low-energy light globes and many of them a water-saving shower head as well.

That number could easily grow to a million or more households before the end of this year.

Yes, in the halls of power, promoting simple consumer energy efficiency in the suburbs and regions may sound pretty uninspiring alongside grand visions of multi-billion-dollar nuclear power plants lining our coast, next to similarly expensive desalination plants. Yet it's an amazingly easy, if low-key way for Australia to avoid building a number of new base load power stations altogether - whether coal, gas or nuclear - and save huge volumes of water.

So, as the nuclear debate we're being told we have to have gathers fury, and carbon dioxide emissions rise at the same rates as the political hot air in Canberra, one state is quietly fighting climate change through a very simple market-friendly action. It put a price on carbon.

The NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, Australia's only mandated carbon trading system, has started a quiet revolution in the suburbs. A revolution that could soon spread around the world.

It may surprise many people to learn that carbon trading is now a dynamic, multi-million-dollar a year market in NSW with buyers, sellers, brokers, watchful regulators and new businesses rushing to compete.

In a little more than two years, about 20 million tradeable carbon credits, worth more than $250 million at today's market prices, have been created via accredited carbon dioxide emission reductions from 159 separate projects, and more than six million have been traded.

Globally the world's carbon trades totalled more than $US10 billion in value in 2005, up from $US1 billion in 2004. According to a World Bank carbon trading expert, last year's figure is considerably more than the entire trade value of the US wheat crop, at about $US7.1 billion, making carbon a commodity on the make internationally.

Unlike nuclear power stations, a price on carbon is no longer a theory, at least in NSW. And it lets ordinary people make a difference. When customers take the crucial step of installing the globes and shower head, they can on average cut more than $150 a year off their energy and water bills, while also reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions by up to one tonne and water use by about 21,000 litres a year. If one home does it the savings are worthwhile but small. If a million homes do it, the economic and environmental benefits from this energy and water-saving activity are large. And that's the plan in the next year, a million homes.

Installation in a million homes would reduce pressure on government to increase supply by building new power stations and dams, cut carbon dioxide pollution by about one million tonnes a year (equivalent to taking 300,000 cars off the road permanently) and save about 21 billion of litres of drinking water a year. So it's good economics and good politics. It saves money for those who shop and vote. It helps the environment. And it creates economic activity and jobs.

Replicate that across most of the six million or so homes in Australia and the savings both financially and environmentally will get very big indeed. And all governments need to do is put a price on carbon. If this approach was taken nationally, the benefits would be considerably greater than the entertainment created by the nuclear debate. We'd see consumers benefiting financially, the environment being protected, and government avoiding some costly and politically unpalatable infrastructure decisions. Add to this the entrepreneurial businesses that are finding creative ways to seize the opportunity the market has created and that's a lot of winners.

Having spent much of my working life searching for innovative ways to help the socially disadvantaged - among other things, I ran the Brotherhood of St Laurence for five years - I reckon I know a good deal for people when I see one. For my money, a nuclear future isn't the debate we need at all. Certainly not until we've exhausted the opportunities for simple energy efficiency in all walks of life, from our homes to our grandest infrastructure. It may seem an old-fashioned ethic, but "waste not want not" - in this case of energy and water - makes more sense than creating hot air and nuclear waste.

Nic Frances, an Anglican priest, is founder of Easy Being Green, a company with a goal to make 70 per cent of Australian homes 30 per cent more energy and water efficient within 10 years.