Sydney Morning Herald
Monday 29/1/2007 Page: 11
On Thursday, David Mills will board an airliner and fly to the United States to help build something that will exploit the clean and limitless energy source - solar power - that can replace our addiction to energy heroin, which is what oil and coal have become.
What is disturbing about this Australian success story is that Mills and his company, Solar Heat and Power Pty Ltd, are moving to America, where one US investor has just put $42 million into the company. "We are relocating the headquarters of our company in the USA," Mills told me.
"We will be a global company and are planning a number of large solar plants overseas. Some of the largest investors and power companies in the USA have realised that solar thermal power is a probable replacement for coal, nuclear and oil. They believe this will be very big business and power companies are willing to provide the large amount of initial equity to get the industry moving." His departure is the latest variation on a depressing local theme. "No one here is listening to him," Michael Mobbs told me. Mobbs is an environmental lawyer best known for building the most sustainable, energy-efficient urban home in Australia, his famous "Chippendale house".
Given Australia is the No. 1 nation in the world in terms of available land and available hours of sunlight to develop solar energy, given Australia once led the world in solar energy research, given our appalling level of greenhouse emissions, and given one of the most advanced companies in the field of solar thermal energy is Australian, you might think this would be the place to build an industrial-scale solar power plant. But no.
`Australian business does not offer the risk equity we need, especially under the current climate in which the Government clearly favours existing coal and nuclear options based around mineral resources," Mills told me.
"The Australian Federal Government refuses to put in place strict emissions targets, strict legislation to enforce those targets, and reliable long-term market valuations for carbon emissions avoided. We can find all of those things overseas." Don't be lulled by last week's announcement by the Prime Minister, John Howard, of the Federal Government's $10 billion, 10-year plan to attack Australia's water and soil degradation.
Howard has been in office for 11 years and his response to the greatest environmental threat in Australia's history has been, and remains, incremental, piecemeal, reactive and belated.
Even the Texas oil man and environmental reactionary, President George Bush, has come round to the importance of energy security and renewable energy. In his 2007 State of the Union address before both houses of Congress last week, he said: "For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable.. . We must continue changing the way America generates electric power, by even greater use of clean coal technology, solar and wind energy, and clean, safe nuclear power.. .
"Let us.. . reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 per cent in the next 10 years. When we do that, we will have cut our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East.
To reach this goal, we must increase the supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017 - and that is nearly five times the current target." Surely this is a straw in the wind.
Another straw in the wind last week was the honouring of Tim Flannery as 2007 Australian of the Year, the person who has done more than anyone to mobilise and develop public opinion on the dire fate the Australian environment faces. Since Flannery's book, The Future Eaters, first published in 1994, sounded the warning, climate change and global warming have mobilised opinion across the political spectrum.
For example, I first encountered David Mills at an energy symposium at Sydney Town Hall last year. It was organised by Michael Mobbs, hosted by the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, chaired by Alan Jones, addressed by Malcolm Turnbull, and Mills delivered the dinner address. An eclectic crew.
Mills explained that solar thermal power was very different from the solar panels we are familiar with, which use solar photovoltaic power but which "are far too expensive for large-scale use". Good for the home, but not for the main electricity grid. In contrast, solar thermal power creates steam, the engine of all power stations. While the retail price and initial plant construction costs of solar thermal energy are higher, once carbon emissions and energy inputs are accounted for, solar thermal power is cheaper and, obviously, incomparably cleaner over the long term.
As for supposedly clean nuclear power, once carbon emissions, longterm operational costs, and the removal and storage of radioactive waste are factored in, solar thermal power is far cheaper and cleaner. Yet the only politician championing Mills's technology is the Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, Chris Harris, a member of the Greens.
"The lack of discussion in Australia about solar thermal power reminds me of the same lack of interest shown by the media, by experts and politicians 15 years ago when I was the consultant to the parliamentary inquiry into Sydney Water," Mobbs told me. "Most of them said we couldn't use rainwater in Sydney and we couldn't reuse sewage. So I built my house to show we can." We don't have another 15 years.
The metaphor for Australian policy is the imminent departure of Mills and Solar Heat and Power, having developed their technology at a plant in Singleton, in the Hunter Valley, the heart of big coal, with all its political connections and Labor Party strings.
0 comments:
Post a Comment