Tilting at windmills

Daily Telegraph
Monday 31/3/2008 Page: 69

IT'S nice when you can stand toe to toe against the world's best and come out the winner. Sydney "smithie" Paul Goldie feels this way after winning a multi-million dollar contract to supply the German giant Siemens more than 1100 tonnes of precision engineered steel forgings for its subsidiary Winergy. What's more, one of the oldest industries in the history of civilisation is now playing a part in a new era, as the world grapples with environmental challenges and climate change.

The gear components forged by Botany-based CGC Kymon will be used in Winergy's wind turbines that are spread around the North Sea. And all the steel used in these gears is recycled - from old car bodies, fridges - which then goes on to help create clean energy. "In the past there were environmental problems with wind turbines," said Mr Goldie. "They were noisy and birds flew into them and were killed. "But what the Germans have done with their turbines is that they are 90m high and the blade is 30m in diameter. And they spin at 20 revs per minute. "There is no noise and there is no effect on birds.

Only a really dumb bird would fly into a turbine going that slow." Most of Europe, apart from France, is abandoning nuclear energy and adopting wind power, Mr Goldie said. Germany has more than 16,000 wind turbines and produces 40 per cent of world's total wind power. "You see them everywhere, and there is no noise," he said. Winning the contract was a long process, and is a testament to the fact that Australian business can withstand intense scrutiny and supply products that meet exceptionally high standards.

After all, Mr Goldie said, Siemens doesn't want to be sending engineers up a 90m pole to repair the broken teeth of a gear. Siemens contacted CGC Kymon in February 2007, asking if they were interested in taking part in some trials that would test the company's ability to produce what it wanted. The trials took about eight months and were successful so in January this year, Siemens sent out a quality assurance audit team to examine how the company operated.

"They looked at all sorts of things, our employment laws, occupational health and safety," said Mr Goldie. "It was very detailed, but they came back to us with 10 out of 10 in all categories. That was a feather in our cap. Quality assurance is everything." Siemens told him his prices were as good as the Chinese but quality was higher.

CGC Kymon has had plenty of time to work on the quality. It's been operating for 90 years, since 1918 when Mr Goldie's grandfather established it with two partners. Mr Goldie eventually bought out the other partners and as a former "bean counter" now runs the company. His passion is the forge and he says he's now a half decent tradesman. Mr Goldie is also proud of the fact that the forge has its own green credentials, being powered by natural gas.

Free permits to pollute not a smart move

Sunday Canberra Times
Sunday 30/3/2008 Page: 25

ISSUING free permits to pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases is not a smart move. Which is why it is crucial that the Federal Government accepts the recommendation of its chief adviser on climate change, Ross Garnaut, that all permits to emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide be auctioned.

Coal-fired power generators insist they need free emissions permits or the nation will face a drastic electricity shortage. But Garnaut says that when generators were issued with free permits in Europe they increased electricity prices and pocketed huge profits. The whole idea of the carbon cap and trade system to be introduced in 2010 is to cut emissions and encourage the use of low-emitting technologies by putting a price on gases such as CO2 (via tradeable permits that reward low emitters).

Issuing free permits to big emitters will undermine the entire scheme. Reducing emissions to 60 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050, as the Government intends, is unlikely to have a. huge economic impact. Australians will feel far more pain if the global credit crunch causes a recession. If an emissions permit rises to $30 per tonne of CO2 within a few years, this will add 7.2c to a litre of petrol, much less than normally can occur now.

Its impact will not require big compensation packages for low income earners. Governments will also be able to use some of the proceeds from permit sales for the development and deployment of low-emission technologies, and for helping make energy efficiency gains by improving public transport and subsidising home insulation.

Research into developing "clean'' coal should not be confined to capturing and storing emissions from power stations, as Garnaut seems to prefer. That technology is unlikely to prove a winner. Serious funding should also go to promising technologies such as carbon fuel-cells, among others.

Water Corp shortlists wind and waves

West Australian
Monday 31/3/2008 Page: 19

Groundbreaking wave and biomass technology is being considered to help power WA's second desalination plant near Binningup, north of Bunbury. The Water Corporation yesterday shortlisted 11 proponents seeking to provide up to 200 megawatt hours of energy, enough to run the 45GL, $1 billion desalination plant due to produce drinking water by the end of 2011.

Eighteen proponents lodged expressions of interest in providing 160 megawatt hours from proved renewable energy technology or 40 megawatt hours from unproved technology. The seven shortlisted for the proved technology proposed wind farms or biomass plants burning waste wood. The unproved technology, four proposed wave power or biomass projects.

Carbon catchers launch coal's brightest hope

Age
Monday 31/3/2008 Page: 2

AUSTRALIA will take a major step into a carbon-constrained world this week when a world scale carbon dioxide sequestration plant is commissioned in Victoria. Carbon captured from polluting coal-fired power plants and then stored underground is the hope for the future of coal as a power source. The Government's climate change adviser, Professor Ross Garnaut, singled out Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in an interim report last week, saying revenue from a carbon trading scheme could be used to fund the new technology.

While there are three commercial carbon storage plants operating in the world - Weyburn in Canada, Sleipner in Norway and In Salah in Algeria - other test efforts have been small, only storing a few thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide. The new Victorian project, at Nirranda near Warrnambool in the Otway Basin, will eventually store 100,000 tonnes, enabling the injection, storage and surface behaviour of the stored carbon dioxide to be monitored for future commercial application and linkage to carbon capture at power plants.

The $40 million pilot scheme is receiving keen government, business and foreign attention. Martin Ferguson, the federal Minister for Resources and Energy, and his Victorian counterpart Peter Batchelor will be at the formal commissioning on Wednesday. The project has also received support from New Zealand, Canada and the US. Big miners and petroleum companies have joined the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) to operate the Otway Basin project. They include BHP Billiton, Xstrata, Woodside, AngloCoal, Rio Tinto Solid Energy, BP, Chevron and Shell.

CO2CRC chief executive Peter Cook said the commercial scale project - the world's largest geosequestration research effort - would use gas piped from a nearby field to inject into the depleted Nirranda field and stored two kilometres below the surface. Sound waves bounced off rocks would reveal the behaviour of the stored carbon dioxide. "Once we have about 10,000 tonnes stored in a month or two we will have the first results," said Dr Cook.

Guide reveals more choice in carbon-offsets market

Age
Monday 31/3/2008 Page: 2

THE market for carbon offset providers that are helping business and individuals to become carbon neutral is continuing to grow. The first update of the carbon offsets guide, a joint initiative between Victoria's Environment Protection Authority and RMIT, shows a 13% boost to those servicing the offsets market. The offsets guide shows that more than 16.7 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalents worth more than $45.9 million were traded by Australian offset providers during 2006-07. It is an area that is expected to grow rapidly as Australia heads towards an Emissions Trading Scheme.

This month federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said a consultation paper on emissions trading would be released in July and legislation could be drafted by the end of the year. Last week the Federal Government's chief climate change adviser, Professor Ross Garnaut, released a discussion paper on emissions trading that encouraged business to prepare for its introduction.

Four new carbon offset providers have been added to the carbon offsets guide. Greenpass, accredited by the NSW Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme (GGAS), provides accredited offsets from methane capture projects. Greenpig, accredited by the federal Department of Climate Change's Greenhouse Friendly program, provides accredited offsets from forestry-related projects. Hydro Tasmania sells accredited offsets through NSW GGAS. Low Energy Supplies and Services (LESS) sells Greenhouse Friendly accredited and NSW GGAS accredited offsets from energy efficiency projects.

Link www.carbonoffsetguide.com.au

Desal a drain on energy

Adelaide Advertiser
Monday 31/3/2008 Page: 15

THE State Government is being urged to power Adelaide's desalination plant using renewable energy amid revelations it will be one of the top 10 electricity consumers in South Australia. The State Government has not yet committed to using renewable energy, such as wind and solar, to power the plant. Greens MLC Mark Parnell said the root of the water crisis was climate change. "To make climate change worse in order to create new water is a tragic irony," he said. Water Security Minister Karlene Maywald said the plant was still in the design phase.

With an eye on the climate

Ballarat Courier
Saturday 29/3/2008 Page: 124

CLIMATE change in Ballarat will be put in to perspective at a forum next month. Four of Australia's leading scientists will share their knowledge on global warning, water biodiversity and energy issues at the forum.

Presented by Ballarat Renewable Energy and Zero Emissions and University of Melbourne, School of Forest and Ecosystem Science in Creswick, the forum will challenge people to hear the facts about climate change and its impact on Ballarat and its residents, and discover local solutions that will play a pivotal role in creating a sustainable lifestyle for the region's children.

BREAZE spokeswoman Elise Constable said climate change could be tackled on a local and regional level. As the impacts of global warming on our region increase, such as reduced rain fall, increased temperatures and storm activity intensify, it will be local residents, business and government groups working in concert which will yield the most powerful, relevant and successful solutions, largely because we know our region and our needs," Ms Constable said.

The differences between our current lifestyle and the one our children will experience in just 40 years time will be many and varied, but solve of the obvious changes can be grouped into two of the four subjects we are covering in the climate change forum. These include water and energy which rust be used far more efficiently."

Speakers at the forum include Professor of Meteorology and University of Melbourne Federation Fellow Professor David Karoly; Monash University director of the Institute for Sustainable Water Resources Dr Tini Fletcher; Canberra Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU, Visiting Fellow Barney Foran; and University of Melbourne head of School of Forest and Ecosystem Science Professor Rod Keenan.

Ms Constable expected some interesting conclusions to cone out of the forum. She said the most important issues and solutions would be presented to the council, business groups and the community. The forum will be held at the Wendouree Centre for Performing Arts on April 12 between 12pm and 5.30pm. People can select and attend preferred sessions or attend all four sessions.

Admission is $12.50 for adults, $10 concession and $5 for students.

For more information visit www.breaze.org.au or call 5338 0980 to book tickets.

Big-time swim for Narooma

Bay Post
Friday 21/3/2008 Page: 10

FOLLOWING the success of the Jindabyne Big Swim last month, the Narooma LifeSaving Energy Big Swim will be held in the Wagonga Inlet on April 20. The seven-kilometre swim will start at Taylor Bros on Riverside Drive in Narooma at 8am on the Sunday. Entrants will swim into the bay and around a clearly marked buoy before heading down the Wagonga Inlet (with the tide) to finish at Little Bar Beach.

Although there is no entry fee, swimmers will be asked to look for sponsorship to go towards funding renewable energy for the Narooma and Bermagui surf clubs. A two-kilometre swim will be held on the same day, starting from the bridge and finishing at Little Bar Beach. Clean Energy for Eternity founder Dr Matthew Nott said swimming with the tide would make the two kilometre swim a quick one, so an entry fee would be required.

"A surf boat race will follow the seven-kilometre swim," he said. "The day's water safety will be provided by the Narooma and Bermagui surf clubs and there will be live music in the afternoon." Dr Nott said the swim must raise at least $8000 to be a success. "We get an $8000 AGO (Australian Greenhouse Office) rebate," he said. "The Bega Valley and Eurobodalla Shire councils have agreed to fund LifeSaving Energy dollar for dollar with community donations. "Along with that the Narooma and Bermagui surf clubs have already started fundraising.

"If you put that all together, if we can raise about $8000 with this swim then we can get the Bermagui and Narooma surf clubs set up with renewable energy." Dr Nott said they would get solar panels and a wind turbine onto the roof of the Narooma surf club in June but wait for Bermagui to get a clubhouse. "We can install the renewable energy at Bermagui as a free standing set up on the site of the surf club so it can immediately start saving money for the Bermi club," he said.

Along with the renewable energy fund requirement, the swim is also looking to raise some much-needed funding for the Narooma swimming club. "The swim club is an integral part of this event," Dr Nott said. "The event is evolving into a strong partnership between Clean Energy for Eternity and the surf clubs of South East NSW." Dr Nott said the Jindabyne LifeSaving Energy Big Swim held earlier this year raised nearly $20,000 for the Jindabyne surf club.

"Renewable energy will be installed on the roof of the Jindabyne surf club on May 3," he said. The next Lifesaving Energy Big Swim will be in the Moruya River on May 11 for experienced swimmers only. "This will be to raise money for the Moruya and Broulee surf clubs," Dr Nott said. "Both surf clubs are well underway with fundraising."

Stuck in our cars on the highway to hell

Sunday Age
Sunday 30/3/2008 Page: 19

CLIMATE change, peak oil, mounting traffic congestion and planning inertia have given Melbourne a transport headache. For half a century, we have hitched our hopes to an impossible dream - the dream of automobility. The freedom to drive when, where and as often as we like has become almost a sacred right. Now our dream has become a nightmare.

As petrol prices rise and the environmental costs of maintaining a car based city hit home, we may wonder how we got ourselves into this jam. And whether we can get out of it. Australians have always been in love with mobility. A century ago, steam trains and cable trams helped to make Melbourne one of the most suburbanised cities in the world. We were even more likely to travel to work by train or tram than Londoners or New Yorkers.

The city might have continued to develop along these lines. In the early 1920s, rail and tramway officials planned to double the network, electrify the system and encircle the CBD with an underground rail loop. But these plans were stillborn. The Great Depression and the Second World War curbed public transport investment. In the late 1940s, patronage on Melbourne's over-strained public transport reached an all-time high. But the city of strap-hangers was growing tired of public transport.

In 1948, Labor PM Ben Chifley greeted the first Holden, Australia's Own Car, as it rolled off the assembly line at Fishermen's Bend. A year later, Liberal leader Robert Menzies won power with the promise of finally ending wartime petrol rationing. Melbourne had glimpsed a different future, a future based on the car. To its admirers, the car was a freedom machine. It symbolised the self-directed, mobile, status-conscious society emerging in the suburbs. Cars promised to liberate people from the tyranny of the timetable, and the crush and sweat of the crowd.

In those days, Labor championed public transport. Six of premier John Cain snr's cabinet were former transport unionists. Socialists believed there was something egalitarian and fraternal in a form of transport shared by the people as well as owned by them. A little of that ideal lingers in the outlook of present-day public transport advocates.

Melbourne embraced the car with astonishing speed. In 1951, only one Melbournian in 10 drove to work, but by 1974 two-thirds did so. In the late 1960s, the Bolte government hatched the Melbourne Transportation Plan, a blueprint that guided the city's transport development for the following three decades. It included only one major public transport project, the long-delayed underground rail loop. Its centrepiece was a 500-kilometre network of freeways extending along the Yarra and its tributaries, and criss-crossing the inner city from north to south.

Protests by inner-city activists killed off most of the north-south connections, leaving the radial connections along the creek and river valleys, such as the Monash and Eastern freeways. The outcome made political sense but left a truncated system that duplicated the radial pattern of the existing CBD-centred public transport system while doing little to accommodate the rapidly growing volume of cross-city movement.

The big transport projects of the Kennett era, such as Citylink, reinforced this pattern. Labor has improved rolling stock and tinkered with the ticketing system but has done little to extend public transport to the suburbs that lacked it. The further the metropolis has extended, the vaster have become the wedges of car-dependent suburbs between the thin ribbons of rail and tram.

Melbourne is now so dependent on the car that there may seem to be no way out. Yet if it took only 20 years for us to get hooked on the car, perhaps it's not too short a time to cure our addiction. Two fallacies bedevil thinking about our transport future. One is the belief that automobility, like the free market, is an irresistible force - that we must simply keep driving and hope that someone soon comes up with a petrol-less car.

Given the choice, most Melbournians would probably vote for an automobilised future. It's what our mobile society seems to require. Automobility, however, is not an end in itself, just one good among many. Not everything about it may even be good. In promoting individual freedom, for example, it may erode community ties.

The other fallacy is the nostalgic belief that the future lies in a return to the past. But the shortest distance between the present and a desirable future seldom detours through the past. The costs of retro-fitting a 21st century city with a 1920s-style fixed rail public transport system is likely to be prohibitive.

Too much recent debate has centred on bib ticket solutions to ease congestion in the inner city, through road tunnels or underground railways; too little on developing lower-cost public transport solutions for the car dependent outer suburbs. It's no longer good enough to release new residential land without a transport plan. And it's time someone looked again at our ossified suburban bus system. After all, it's in the outer suburbs that the poorest people now live and, as Ross Garnaut observed last week, that's where the high cost of our addiction to automobility is likely to be felt most acutely.

Graeme Davison is the author of Car Wars: How the Car Won our Hearts and Conquered our Cities, published by Allen and Unwin.

Council at vanguard of change

News Weekly
Wednesday 26/3/2008 Page: 17

Bega Valley Shire Council is a leader in combating climate change and was the first local government authority in NSW to buy renewable energy from Country Energy for 100 per cent of its sites. Over the next four years, the council will power all 197 of its sites - including water and sewerage facilities, sporting grounds, buildings, swimming pool and streetlights - with renewable energy.

"There are all sorts of pressures in the community, and worldwide, to do something about global warming, so as a council we have committed to making improvements. We decided to take charge," the Mayor, Cr Tony Allen said. Prior to the `green deal', council consumed almost seven million kilowatt hours of energy each year, emitting more than 7,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

By buying renewable energy for all its sites, council's operations will effectively he carbon neutral, having no impact on global warming. When the green energy deal was signed, Country Energy's regional general manager for the south east, David Bellew congratulated council on leading the way in environmental conservation and encouraged locals to follow council's lead by also buying renewable energy from Country Energy.

"Bega Valley Shire Council is really setting the benchmark for other councils," Mr Bellew said. "Their commitment to using 100 per cent renewable energy is helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 36,000 tonnes over the next four years. "Purchasing renewable energy is a simple way that we can all help protect the environment. "You cannot underestimate the difference just one home can make.

"Generally, 100 per cent renewable energy customers save eight tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, which is equivalent to taking just over two cars off the road." Bega Valley Shire Council has supported a community objective of reducing energy use by 50 per cent and the generation of 50 per cent clean renewable energy by the year 2020.

"It's a big challenge to meet the 50/50 by 2020 targets, but our council is committed to doing its part for the environment," Cr Allen said. Council joins a growing number of environmentally- aware homes and business that have already made the `switch' to electricity bought from renewable sources that cannot be depleted or can be replaced.

Zero carbon, zero waste

Weekend Australian
Saturday 29/3/2008 Page: 5

GROUND was broken last month in one of the world's most harsh environments - the initial step in spending $US22 billion on the first zero carbon, zero waste and car free city. But Masdar City --- the name means "the source" in Arabic - is more than a bid to turn 7 sq km of featureless desert into a sustainable urban area. It is also the core of an audacious attempt by oil-rich Abu Dhabi to become the silicon Valley of global renewable energy research.

Abu Dhabi, capital of the seven-state United Arab Emirates, is today the world's richest city. Its 4.2 million inhabitants are the collective owners of an estimated 100 billion barrels of oil - and, after 50 years of feeding the world's oil thirst, they are wealthy enough to also have the globe's largest per capita ecological footprint, the product of ubiquitous air conditioning, chilled water swimming pools and a transport system largely consisting of SUVs and Hummers.

Masdar, however, will be different. Ahmed al Jaber, the Californian-educated chief executive of the project, says Abu Dhabi is setting out to create a standard for re-engineering world urban planning. Using the services of renowned architect Lord (Norman) Foster and his London-based Foster and Partners design business, Al Jaber will supervise the construction from the ground up between 2009 and 2016 of a walled city to house 50,000 people and 1500 businesses.

Energy for Masdar will come from solar and wind power. The construction work will be fuelled by a 100MW solar power station and its output will be supplemented later by rooftop solar panels on city buildings and by a wind farm. Water will be supplied from a solar powered desalination plant. Energy will be efficiently used. "A city of this size would need 820 megawatts of electricity," says Al Jaber,"but Masdar is being, designed so that its load will be only 220MW."

Wind powered grid to drive Denmark's cars

Adelaide Advertiser
Saturday 29/3/2008 Page: 87

DENMARK'S DONG Energy and a silicon Valley-based start-up firm yesterday said they would install an electric car network in the Scandinavian nation with almost 20,000 recharging stations. The grid, set to be in place by 2011, will be operated by Project Better Place, an initiative by Israeli-American entrepreneur Shai Agassi, using power from DONG Energy's wind turbines. A similar network is being built in Israel.

A fleet of battery-driven electrical vehicles will be introduced in Denmark after the recharging stations are built at parking lots and outside homes, Mr Agassi said. French car maker Renault will provide the vehicles and Japan's Nissan will make the Lithium-ion batteries under a partnership with Project Better Place announced earlier this year. Mr Agassi said other car makers and battery producers would join the project later.

The battery would allow a car to drive a maximum of 150 km before recharging, he said, adding that he expects the network to expand to other European countries soon. "We're in discussion with 30 countries - Europe, America and Asian nations," he told a news conference in Copenhagen.

When Israel's network was endorsed by the government there in January, supporters hailed it as a bold step in the battle against global warming and energy dependency, but sceptics warned that much could still go wrong along the way. DONG Energy chief executive Anders Eldrup said yesterday the grid would run on excess energy that its wind turbines generate on windy days. Windmills make up around 20 per cent of Denmark's electricity production.

Across Atlantic by kite

Lloyds List DCN
Thursday 27/3/2008 Page: 20

THE KITE-propelled ship Beluga SkySails has completed her maiden transatlantic voyage, arriving in Norway with the owner and engineers happy. "I believe it to be the start of the renaissance of wind power in modern shipping," SkySails managing director Stephan Wrage said. However, the first kite in use exploded somewhere high in the sky above the ocean. "We are in a testing phase and therefore pushing the limits," he said.

On January 22, the 9,775 dwt new building Beluga SkySails sailed from Germany to Venezuela, the US and Norway. Her first voyage focussed on calibration work and adjustments to stabilise the towing kite propulsion. "The towing kite system could be tested extensively on the transatlantic routes for periods of between a few minutes and up to eight hours," Mr Wrage said.

"During that time, the kite system pulled the ship with up to five tonnes of power at force five to six winds, which is a reduction of the engine output of more than 20%. "Projected onto the entire day, this performance represents a saving of some 2.5 tonnes of fuel or about US$1,200 per operating day." The testing of the kite system onboard the Beluga SkySails is co-funded with E1.2m (US$945,000) from the European Union's LIFE program.

Competitive
"By co-funding the project we want to set clear signals for climate-relevant technologies of the future and at the same time support the competitive ability of European shipping," Paul Nemitz, deputy head of the European Commission's Maritime Policy Task Force, said. After the pilot phase, the 160 sqm kite is to be replaced by one that is twice the size, delivering double the amount of energy and saving twice as much fuel.

By 2009, 10 kites with some 600 sqm should be available, which could then be operational with handymax vessels of 35,000 dwt-40,000 dwt. Mr Wrage said that with the success of the maiden voyage, shipowners would overcome their cautiousness and sign contracts. So far there were only three firm orders, including the one from Beluga Shipping. Mr Wrage said that SkySails was in final negotiations with five or six German shipowners and others.

Volharding Shipyards in the Netherlands built the Beluga SkySails. It cost about E500,000 to install the SkySails system - a 15 metre mast and the gondola containing the kite. Strengthening her bow cost about E150,000, taking the cost of the ship to E20m. It would pay off financially in three to five years depending on the routes, Mr Wrage said.

Wideform expansion puts wind in its sails

Illawarra Mercury
Friday 28/3/2008 Page: 7

THE Wideform Group of Companies is expanding into new territory in a move it says will create hundreds of jobs in Wollongong. Wideform has already come a long way from its humble beginnings as a small formwork company with three employees in 1974 and during the past decade the Unanderra-based business has expanded into building construction, development, seniors living, interior design and decorating.

Now it has announced three new joint ventures with a major European partner which will see Wideform move into renewable energy, the manufacture of aluminium and property development in East Timor. Wideform's new association with the Portugal-based Martifer Group could generate up to 300 jobs in Wollongong and inject many millions of dollars into the Illawarra economy.

Managing director Fred Ferreira said Wideform's expansion would involve the construction of an eight-storey national headquarters in Young St, Wollongong, the acquisition of Sassall Aluminium in Berkeley Rd, Unanderra and the creation of a new wind tower factory covering 12,000 sqm nearby. The renewable energy joint venture will result in a company called Eviva Energy committing billions of dollars to wind farm projects throughout Australia during the next decade.

A $2.5 billion project is being considered in Victoria with a flow-on of 100 new jobs in Wollongong. "Construction will be undertaken by Wideform," Mr Ferreira said. "We will be establishing a new factory for the manufacturing of towers." The turbine technology will be delivered by Martifer but the rest of the work will be done at Unanderra.

Another joint venture involves the acquisition of Sassall Aluminium, which makes aluminium windows and curtain walls. Sassall Aluminium is located across the road from the Wideform Group's existing head office. Mr Ferreira said the good news for the Illawarra was that the curtain wall manufacturing that was now taking place in Thailand, would be moved to Wollongong.

"We will be installing new technology (at the existing factory) to meet the demand of the market." Mr Ferreira said Wideform products would also be marketed more extensively in other states. The company was also exporting its skills and expertise overseas by investigating new initiatives in East Timor. Mr Ferreira's wife Estela is Australia's Goodwill Ambassador to East Timor and Wideform's goal is to foster economic and social development with construction and infrastructure development.

Through another joint venture with the Martifer Group, a company called Wideland has been created to develop offices, apartments, private condominiums, hotels and industrial business parks in East Timor. Horizon Living was also preparing to enter into a joint venture with the Martifer Group to build luxury seniors living communities in Portugal, Mr Ferreira said. A development application would soon be lodged for a new head office in Young St. Wideform will occupy five levels of the eight storey building.

Epuron sweetens wind farm deal

Barrier Daily Truth
Friday 28/3/2008 Page: 2

Epuron is moving forward with its plan to build the Silverton Wind Farm, and seems to be sweetening the deal for residents. The Silverton Village Committee met the company on Wednesday night at a community consultation. Committee secretary Albert Woodroffe said Epuron had raised the possibility of establishing a community fund if the project went ahead.

"Apparently this is one of the things power companies do when they move in to a new community," said Mr Woodroffe. Epuron would pay into the fund annually. Mr Woodroffe said it was not yet known what the money could be used for. He hopes it could be used to fund a water treatment plant, upgrade infrastructure at Penrose Park or restore an old bridge across Black Hill Creek to provide an emergency road out of the town in times of flood.

Epuron also offered to install and subsidise solar power and water systems for Silverton residents, Mr Woodroffe said. While this would score points with residents, Mr Woodroffe said the meeting got heated about placement of the wind farm, as some people felt it was going down "right on top of them."

Garnaut warns of political fixers

Australian
Friday 28/3/2008 Page: 1

AUSTRALIA'S risk in combating climate change lies in a revival of rent-seekers, political lobbyists and sectional manipulators who hurt our economy for most of the past century, government adviser Ross Garnaut warned last night. He said reducing greenhouse gas emissions was the next battle between economic reformers, who relied upon transparency and competition, and the old Australian impulse to political fixes.

In his dinner speech to The Australian - Melbourne Institute economic and social conference, Professor Garnaut took aim at critics of his proposed Emissions Trading Scheme, particularly those who want emissions permits issued for free. That approach would have government deciding which firms and which activities should be given permits to emit greenhouse gases," he said. We once handed out foreign exchange in this way firm by firm, activity by activity.

"If this course were to be followed, managers would find it more rewarding to put pressure on government to secure emissions rights than to find and to apply low-emissions ways of going about their business. "We wouldn't find enough new ways to reduce emissions at low cost." Professor Garnaut warned that some people saw climate change as the chance to "invite back into the centre of policy-making all of the rent-seeking interests that blighted our economic performance from the time of Federation to the 1980s."

His message was that nations could get their Emissions Trading Schemes right or wrong with grave consequences. An ETS was "a new market established by government decree" that relied upon government coercive powers. As a result, "the rich possibilities for corruption of an ETS" had led many economists to favour a direct carbon tax that was transparent and "much less amenable to manipulation by private interests." But Professor Garnaut said there was merit in a good ETS. Properly designed, it would minimise the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But he warned of the "stark" contrast between his own market based model and other proposals designed to "shelter some interests from the adjustment that must occur if the abatement goal is to be met." Professor Garnaut said the turning point for the ETS would be when people saw the returns were higher from investing in new markets than lobbying to get the best political fix from government.

He said he would be optimistic once a proper ETS were established. "Well-designed markets can unleash the ingenuity of Australians in reducing emissions at minimum cost to the standard of living," he said. He predicted this could be done without a noticeable effect on rising living standards. The Garnaut speech fused the two ideas of economic reform and climate change abatement. His theme was that Australia must bring an economic reform mindset to the ETS design and deny the old impulse for rent-seeking and political deals.

In a report issued last week, Professor Garnaut identified four pillars essential for an effective ETS: the auctioning of permits, firm long-term trajectories that define emission reduction paths, a mechanism to move between trajectories and careful linkage of an Australian ETS to international schemes.

Reviewing the challenge, Professor Garnaut said: "There are two things that could go wrong. We could dissipate resources in seeking to influence discretionary government decisions rather than get on with the job of efficiently reducing emissions. And if we get this wrong, then the resulting instability can itself require costly economic policy resources."

Market forces `will short-circuit power'

Australian
Friday 28/3/2008 Page: 22

AUSTRALIA'S major electricity generators will suggest to Ross Garnaut's emissions trading review today that the application of pure market forces will cause severe disruption to the nation's electricity supplies. Professor Garnaut has proposed that the dirtiest power stations, three in Victoria's Yallourn Valley and those in Western Australia based on the Collie coalfields should receive no assistance in meeting emissions caps when the system is introduced in 2010.

John Boshier, executive director of the National Generators Forum, which represents the generating companies, said yesterday that Professor Garnaut was so far ignoring the realities of the Australian electricity market, which was dominated by coal-fired operations. Unless there was a transitional system that catered for the fact that some of the baseload operations were operating on low quality coals and therefore had higher emissions per unit of electricity generated, there would be no balance sheet security for investors.

Security was necessary for the electricity industry faced an investment of about $130 billion between now and 2050 if the nation was to meet its government-backed emissions targets. Mr Boshier said Professor Garnaut had acknowledged that if generators closed down, electricity prices would go up. But what he had failed to take into account was that existing generation operations could not be replaced overnight.

"The National Electricity Market has been operating for only 10 years and it was not set up to take account of the closure of important baseload units," he said. "When the NEM was established, Australia had a generating surplus of around 25 per cent of capacity over demand. Now it is down to world's best practice of around 14 per cent. "Taking baseload units out of the system will create huge instability in supply," he added, noting that the current supply shortages in South Africa resulted from under-investment in generation.

Mr Boshier said it was inconceivable that state governments, having gone through the pain of accepting reform of the electricity system as part of national competition policy, would accept an emissions trading system that did not make some concessions to operations that currently ranked first in the electricity system's order of merit.

Liberals wary of `climate change' tag

Age
Friday 28/3/2008 Page: 4

A MOTION to ban the term "climate change" when referring to man-made environmental impacts will be debated at next month's state Liberal council as the party wrestles over its position on global warming. The agenda for the Liberal state-council includes the proposition "that the party avoids using the term `climate change' when referring to man-made environmental impacts." The agenda says the term is favoured by green activists "as this implies man's responsibility for all change in the environment."

"Their aim is to dismantle the industrial economy," notes to the motion warn. "We can still have a debate on how we can reduce our impact on the global environment - but the Party needs to be wary of accepting the (green activists') premise in our policy." A separate motion calls for the Federal Government to instruct its climate change investigator Ross Garnaut to "provide evidence as to the extent of the contribution of human activity to global warming." State policy debates will include a motion for "land-based treatment and disposal" of toxic silt dredged from the Yarra river as part of the channel deepening project, and a motion to abolish stamp duty.


Denialists and dinosaurs still roam freely in the once proud and liberal Liberal party.

Wind farm briefing

Macedon Ranges Leader
Tuesday 25/3/2008 Page: 7

A TWO-PAGE newsletter on a proposed wind farm in Sidonia Hills has gone to more than 7000 homes in Kyneton, Newham and other houses near the proposed site. Tasmanian group Roaring 40s has applied to develop a farm with 34 turbines, 10km north east of Kyneton. The state planning department is assessing whether the 130m towers will need an Environmental Effects Statement.

Primary schools going green

Esperance Express
Thursday 20/3/2008 Page: 4

Esperance primary schools are going green, with three primary schools in the district recently receiving grants to install solar power systems. Grass Patch, Munglinup and Esperance Primary Schools are all recipients of funding from the Solar Schools Program, which aims to have 350 solar schools across the state by 2010. Munglinup Primary principal Mark Rawlings said that the funding for the solar panels would help the school achieve its aim of becoming completely self-sufficient.

"The Solar Schools Program is about trying to get schools to recognise green and renewable energy," he said. "We are trying to encourage our students to be energy efficient because oil won't be around for ever." The school, which is also participating in Earth Hour, grows its own vegetables, collects rainwater and is currently looking at funding to purchase wind turbines.

Esperance Primary deputy principal Nola Smith said that the push to go green had come from the students themselves, who were concerned about climate change. "The school had an education program on climate change, and the push to be more energy efficient came from the kids. "The students undertook an energy audit, which included basic things that kids can do to reduce energy consumption, and a policy was produced that the school must adhere to." Ms Smith said that the students were in control of the program and that representatives met every week to brainstorm ideas.

According to Grass Patch Principal Jeff Brown, initiatives such as these are important to educate children about energy consumption and raise awareness about energy alternatives. "Human beings are part of one big ecosystem and kids need to learn how we fit into that ecosystem," Mr Brown said. "Through these initiatives we are planting the seed to help the kids recognise that we have an obligation to the people that come after us."

Solar Power for new Bellingen Library

Bellingen Courier Sun
Wednesday 26/3/2008 Page: 3

Photovoltaic cells will be used to generate power for the new library and this will be fed back into the electricity supply grid. Building Manager Bob Malone reported to Council on the various scenarios being considered to provide "Green energy" to the library. Mr Malone said the architect Steve Gorrell has designed the extensions with the objective of complying with the new energy efficiency requirements of Section J of the Building Code of Australia (BCA) 2007 in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He said: "The proposed office extensions are relatively conventional buildings, purposely designed in an attempt to keep costs within a limited budget and to fit in with a smaller country town and heritage context." Mr Malone said an Energy Simulation Model was undertaken and the building found to be 30% more efficient than the target level as required by the BCA. He said elements of the building which contribute to energy savings are sun louvres, deep overhangs, wind turbines, roof insulation, floor insulation and air conditioning.

Other items which Mr Malone describes as "modest energy measures" are provision of new generation T5 fluorescent lighting, perimeter lighting adjacent to windows switched separately to interior, turbine ventilators to roof spacing along with eaves vents to cool roof space and reduce air conditioning loads. Mr Malone also says there is a device that monitors and displays current and logged energy use and carbon emissions through a mounted LCD screen enabling both stall and the public to visually recognise the building's carbon outputs.

Two systems for solar energy have been proposed, a 5kW and a 6.6kW system. The two systems would have approximate payback periods of 33 years for a $36,000 and $47,000 investment respectively or 21 years if a 5% per annum increase in electricity fees is presumed. The savings then is rather in greenhouse gas saved. This equates to 132 tonnes of carbon dioxide for the 5kW system or 172 tonnes for the 6.6kW system over 20 years.

Mr Malone also suggested that Council switch their present power requirements for the Administration Building and Library to Greenpower. Even though it's not as cost efficient and doesn't generate as much positive publicity Council can immediately cut greenhouse gases by 60%. The cost increase over 20 years would probably be $12,000.

General Manager Mike Colreavy said the cost of the solar system had not been factored in to the original cost of the library and that was why it was being brought to Council now. Cr Child asked whether more trees would have to be removed to make way for the panels on the roof to be free of shade. Director of Engineering Mike Edsall said he would have to check. Council passed the resolution to install the solar system and to transfer their present power requirements to Greenpower leaving details of the proposed system and supplier to the administration.

Excluding petrol will make climate change pricier: Garnaut

AAP Newswire
Wednesday 26/3/2008

SYDNEY, March 26 AAP - Excluding petrol from an Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) would only increase the overall cost of moving to a low emissions economy, the government's chief climate change adviser says. Professor Ross Garnaut was asked today about moves by the federal government to consider excluding petrol from an ETS. "I wouldn't want to say anything more than what we said in the discussion paper, and that is the broader the coverage the lower the overall cost to the economy," he told reporters in Sydney today.

Prof Garnaut says electricity and petrol prices will inevitably rise under the proposed Australian ETS due to start in 2010. He highlighted the rising cost of electricity and petrol under an ETS last week, when he released his climate change discussion paper. Labor won last year's federal election after promising, among other things, to combat rising petrol prices on behalf of working families struggling under increasing costs of living.

Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt says Prof Garnaut had done what Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had refused to do - acknowledge the effect of an ETS on petrol prices. "Contrary to what he led Australians to believe, petrol will be going up rather than down under these proposals," Mr Hunt said on Thursday in response to Prof Garnaut's paper.

On Sunday, federal Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen said the government was thinking about excluding petrol companies from any ETS. Mr Bowen said excluding petrol companies was one issue under consideration in the government's forthcoming green paper on emissions trading. "We need to have a regime which cuts emissions but does not put an undue impact on those who can least afford it," he said.

"Petrol is a very important commodity for working families, for small business and for the economy as a whole and we need to be very careful about its impacts." Mr Bowen said the government still had a long way to go in developing its emissions trading scheme, which it has pledged to have up and running in 2010.

Garnaut has faith in market forces

Australian
Thursday 27/3/2008 Page: 8

LABOR'S chief adviser on climate change policy believes the market will resolve most problems arising from the introduction of an emissions trading scheme, while power companies claim market forces are likely to cause the greatest disruption. Presenting his blueprint for an emission trading scheme from 2010 to 800 business representatives yesterday, Ross Garnaut said he favoured a simple and transparent system with minimal intervention from government.

While acknowledging the damaging potential of volatility on energy costs driven by speculation in the new permits market, Professor Garnaut said applying price caps would just turn the scheme into a carbon tax. He admitted that the capacity for the Rudd Government to start the scheme gently with a lower price on emissions that increased over time could be disrupted by big emitters aggressively buying permits to use when they were more scarce.

"I would imagine the market would price in some probability of tightening, but nowhere near the whole potential," he said. "So there would be a bit of tendency in that direction, but that means the market is deciding that the lowest cost abatement over time would mean to do a bit more now, and a bit less later." National Generators Forum director John Boshier said Professor Garnaut displayed an "absolute faith" in the market to find the most efficient outcome, but warned that big power stations could close suddenly, sending prices skyrocketing as a result of market forces.

A high price on permits would mean some privately owned power stations in Victoria and South Australia would become commercially unviable and their owners would come under pressure to shut them to minimise their losses, Mr Boshier said. The implementers of an ETS needed to micro-manage the transition from existing power stations to new low-emission sources to avoid power shortages and price spikes that would arise, he said.

"If there's not enough power to take its place, then prices will go sky high," he said. Professor Garnaut reiterated his preference to include transport fuels in the scheme despite comments at the weekend by Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen that the Government was considering exempting them. In a speech to the Sydney Institute last night, Opposition Treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull warned the transition to a low-emission economy would not be simple and called for a reform of the tax system using revenue from auctioning emission permits.

Construction begins on Bungendore wind farm

Queanbeyan Age
Friday 21/3/2008 Page: 4

CONSTRUCTION has started on the $220 million Capital Wind Farm near Bungendore. Necessary surveying and geotechnical drills have been completed and workers are ready to build an access road and begin to construct the turbine foundations and meteorological towers. Wind farm owner, Renewable Power Ventures, an offshoot of investment and resources company Babcock and Brown, has asked for more staff to help with construction. They placed advertisements in local newspapers calling for workers to start as soon as possible.

The wind farm will span 10 kilometres from north to south and about six kilometres from east to west when it is complete. There will be 63 turbines at three separate locations - 17 at Groses Hill north-west of Lake George, 29 on Hammonds Hill near Tarago Road and 17 at Ellenden, on the western side of Lake George.

Let the symbolic step turn you greener

Newcastle Herald
Wednesday 26/3/2008 Page: 9

EARTH Hour is well on the way to capturing the hearts and minds of Australians. The action of turning off all unnecessary power for one dedicated hour is a powerful symbolic step towards a smart energy future for our region and our planet. And we can use it as a catalyst to make every hour energy smart. We already know about the simplest things that can be done around the house and at work; these will only begin to make a difference once we set them in motion.

These are the commonsense actions such as turning off the beer fridge, changing light globes, completely filling dishwashers and washing machines, limiting air conditioning use, turning off appliances at the wall, buying fewer packaged and imported goods, and using the car less. Community group Climate Action Newcastle has been urging local households and businesses to go further and make the switch to 100 per cent accredited GreenPower.

A 2007 Hunter Valley Research Foundation poll found that more than 90 per cent of people in the Hunter are willing to pay more for renewable energy. Significantly less have put their money on the line, although most energy retailers now provide accredited GreenPower. GreenPower comes from entirely renewable sources such as solar and wind energy; and the more of us who buy it, the cheaper it will be as investment flows into development of these exciting industries.

Renewable energy technologies currently receive 28 times fewer government subsidies than the fossil fuel industry; and a recent Newspoll found that 78 per cent of Australians were unaware of this, and 90 per cent want at least equal funding. Renewable energy will continue to be more expensive without a level playing field provided by state and federal governments.

More GreenPower also reduces the need for coal and gas-fired plants. In fact, climate change academic Dr Mark Diesendorf points out in his 2007 book Greenhouse Solutions With Sustainable Energy that if domestic off-peak electric hot water systems were replaced with solar or gas boosted solar in NSW, we would not need another baseload power plant for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the terms of reference of last year's Owen inquiry into the future of NSW electricity precluded this. Instead, the NSW Government insists on selling off all responsibility for the state's electricity this year.

It's easy to use less energy from the grid. Government rebates are available for solar hot water (up to $1500), solar energy panels (more than $8000), and ceiling insulation (up to $300). Households should be jumping at these offers of substantial cash incentives to reduce their energy use, which will also reduce power bills. All of these actions will significantly reduce the contribution to climate change, while saving household dollars. Earth Hour is an important meeting of minds. We all need to recognise the urgency of addressing climate change every hour, every day.

Goals to go green

Diamond Valley Leader, Nillumbik
Wednesday 26/3/2008 Page: 3

Nillumbik Council will spend $170,000 on green power for its council buildings. It is estimated the green power, from South Australian wind farm CO zero, will reduce the council's greenhouse gas emissions by 53 per cent. Mayor Warwick Leeson said the new contract, in place until 2010, would contribute greatly to the council's environmental goals.