www.bloomberg.com
Jan 13, 2011
Toyota Motor Corp., the world's largest seller of hybrid vehicles, said it's on schedule to sell hydrogen cars by 2015 or sooner in California, Japan and Germany as an alternative to battery-powered models coming to market.
Toyota, which also aims to sell plug-in hybrid and battery-only autos in 2012, is overcoming the cost and technical hurdles that have kept hydrogen fuel-cell cars from being sold to retail customers, said Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota's executive vice president for research and product development. The carmaker has cut the cost to make hydrogen models to less than $100,000 and aims to halve that price by the time sales begin, he said.
"I have high expectations for fuel-cell vehicles as a candidate for next-generation cars", Uchiyamada said this week in an interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. "Over the past several years, we've seen many of the outstanding technical issues solved".
Enthusiasm a decade ago for hydrogen cars faded because of costs estimated by some manufacturers at about $1 million a vehicle, as well as a lack of fueling stations. While Nissan Motor Co.'s battery-powered Leaf and General Motors Co.'s plug-in Volt target drivers who want to use little or no gasoline, Toyota, Honda Motor Co., Daimler AG, Hyundai Motor Co., GM and Nissan continue developing hydrogen cars, which offer greater range and faster refueling.
Comparable Cruising Distance
"When it comes to fuel-cell cars, the cruising distance is almost comparable to conventional gasoline-engine cars", Uchiyamada said. Toyota's cost reductions for the models come from improvements in making high-pressure hydrogen tanks and fuel-cell stacks, he said.
Separately, Toyota and 12 other Japanese companies including Honda, Nissan and JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp, plan to build 100 hydrogen fueling stations in the Asian nation by 2015, according to a statement on Toyota's website. Toyota rose 1% to close at 3,535 yen in Tokyo trading today. The stock declined 17% in 2010.
Fuel-cells, layers of plastic film coated with platinum sandwiched between metal plates, make electricity in a chemical process combining hydrogen and oxygen. fuel-cell vehicles share components such as electric motors and power controls with battery-only models, Uchiyamada said.
Honda has leased FCX Clarity hydrogen sedans to Los Angeles area drivers since 2008, and Daimler began a similar California program for its Mercedes-Benz F-Cell hatchback last year. Toyota will initially focus on selling hydrogen models in California, Japan and Germany, which have the most developed fueling infrastructure. "We'd like to gradually expand regionally to a global basis", Uchiyamada said.
Since the program initially will focus on large urban markets, "all we need is a small number of stations", he said. Toyota's first hydrogen cars for retail buyers "will arrive in 2015 or sooner", Akio Toyoda, the company's president, said Jan. 10 in Detroit. "Over the years customers will choose which technology is best for their needs".
Toyota is still working on details of how it will market hydrogen vehicles and hasn't decided whether the initial model will be sold under the Toyota brand or as luxury Lexus vehicle, considering a likely retail price of about $50,000, he said. "We'll be able to talk about performance specifications and other details reasonably soon", Uchiyamada said without elaborating.
Saturday, 15 January 2011
Friday, 14 January 2011
Wave power backers are buoyant
West Australian
11 January 2011, Page: 11
The phrase "wave of the future" has rarely been more apt. A renewable energy project to be launched this year is set to transform WA into the world's biggest centre for turning waves into electricity. The State is blessed with some of the strongest and most reliable waves in the world and that could turn out to be a boon for renewable energy as well as surfers in the coming decade.
Within months, Perth-based company Carnegie Corporation Wave Energy will install a network of 30 huge underwater buoys, each 7m across, covering a 200m² patch of seabed off Garden Island. The buoys, named CETO after the Greek goddess of the ocean, will use the energy of the surging waves to drive turbines and create electrical power. The project could generate up to 5MW of grid-connected power, roughly the same amount as a community wind farm, Carnegie Corporation chief executive Michael Ottaviano said.
If it works, wave energy could take off like no other renewable technology in Australia. CSIRO researchers have calculated that our nation which, let's not forget, is girt by sea has enough surf to generate 146GW of wave energy, almost three times the country's total power demand. The WA Government has already invested $12.5 million in Carnegie Corporation's efforts to bring the technology to market, not just in WA but on the world stage, much as Scandinavian companies led the charge into wind power in the 1990s.
11 January 2011, Page: 11
The phrase "wave of the future" has rarely been more apt. A renewable energy project to be launched this year is set to transform WA into the world's biggest centre for turning waves into electricity. The State is blessed with some of the strongest and most reliable waves in the world and that could turn out to be a boon for renewable energy as well as surfers in the coming decade.Within months, Perth-based company Carnegie Corporation Wave Energy will install a network of 30 huge underwater buoys, each 7m across, covering a 200m² patch of seabed off Garden Island. The buoys, named CETO after the Greek goddess of the ocean, will use the energy of the surging waves to drive turbines and create electrical power. The project could generate up to 5MW of grid-connected power, roughly the same amount as a community wind farm, Carnegie Corporation chief executive Michael Ottaviano said.
If it works, wave energy could take off like no other renewable technology in Australia. CSIRO researchers have calculated that our nation which, let's not forget, is girt by sea has enough surf to generate 146GW of wave energy, almost three times the country's total power demand. The WA Government has already invested $12.5 million in Carnegie Corporation's efforts to bring the technology to market, not just in WA but on the world stage, much as Scandinavian companies led the charge into wind power in the 1990s.
Projects running out of steam
Adelaide Advertiser
12 January 2011, Page: 55
Catch-22 as geothermals struggle to attract funding
Geothermal companies face a tough year as they work to attract enough funds to get their energy projects over the line. Two leading industry figures yesterday called for further government commitment to the "enormous potential" of the geothermal industry.
KPMG national leader, renewables, Matt Herring said geothermal faced a vicious cycle of needing to remove risk from projects to garner interest from the financial markets, but then needing to raise vital operating capital to reach government grant milestone requirements. Mr Herring, an Adelaide based partner at KPMG, said the Federal Government had supported the industry with $50 million in geothermal drilling grants.
But another $150 million announced under the Government's Renewable Energy Demonstration Program grants in November 2009 could not be accessed until the two recipients reached proof of concept - effectively showing they can circulate water through geothermal wells drilled more than 4km into the earth, and bringing it back to the surface where the heat it contains can produce electricity.
Geothermal company GeoDynamics was further advanced, but Adelaide-based Petratherm still needed to drill a second well at its Paralana geothermal energy project before it could access funds to build a pilot plant.
Petratherm reported this month it had successfully completed the first step toward fracturing the hot rocks at the base of its well located north of the Flinders Ranges. Once the rocks were fractured, scheduled for later this year, the second producer well could be drilled.
"While the industry has achieved an extraordinary level of progress in a very short period of time, it now faces a vicious cycle", Mr Herring said. "Investors are not prepared to provide funds until project risk is reduced and geothermal becomes more economically viable. "The Government could actually get much better value for money if it brought that money forward and actually increased the amount".
Australian Geothermal Energy Association chief executive Susan Jeanes said funding for the geothermal industry was minimal compared to the $1.5 billion committed to the solar industry. "Finance is the number one single biggest hurdle whether it's public or private", she said. "There are so many projects ready to go".
Ms Jeanes said it was prudent to support the development of clean energy technology in Australia, as many other renewable energy projects tended to rely on imported technology. "The technology question is whether the Australian resource can support a commercially viable project,.. there's a need to support the industry as it further refines the technology", she said.
12 January 2011, Page: 55
Catch-22 as geothermals struggle to attract funding
Geothermal companies face a tough year as they work to attract enough funds to get their energy projects over the line. Two leading industry figures yesterday called for further government commitment to the "enormous potential" of the geothermal industry.
KPMG national leader, renewables, Matt Herring said geothermal faced a vicious cycle of needing to remove risk from projects to garner interest from the financial markets, but then needing to raise vital operating capital to reach government grant milestone requirements. Mr Herring, an Adelaide based partner at KPMG, said the Federal Government had supported the industry with $50 million in geothermal drilling grants.
But another $150 million announced under the Government's Renewable Energy Demonstration Program grants in November 2009 could not be accessed until the two recipients reached proof of concept - effectively showing they can circulate water through geothermal wells drilled more than 4km into the earth, and bringing it back to the surface where the heat it contains can produce electricity.
Geothermal company GeoDynamics was further advanced, but Adelaide-based Petratherm still needed to drill a second well at its Paralana geothermal energy project before it could access funds to build a pilot plant.
Petratherm reported this month it had successfully completed the first step toward fracturing the hot rocks at the base of its well located north of the Flinders Ranges. Once the rocks were fractured, scheduled for later this year, the second producer well could be drilled.
"While the industry has achieved an extraordinary level of progress in a very short period of time, it now faces a vicious cycle", Mr Herring said. "Investors are not prepared to provide funds until project risk is reduced and geothermal becomes more economically viable. "The Government could actually get much better value for money if it brought that money forward and actually increased the amount".
Australian Geothermal Energy Association chief executive Susan Jeanes said funding for the geothermal industry was minimal compared to the $1.5 billion committed to the solar industry. "Finance is the number one single biggest hurdle whether it's public or private", she said. "There are so many projects ready to go".
Ms Jeanes said it was prudent to support the development of clean energy technology in Australia, as many other renewable energy projects tended to rely on imported technology. "The technology question is whether the Australian resource can support a commercially viable project,.. there's a need to support the industry as it further refines the technology", she said.
Thursday, 13 January 2011
A shameful WA lifestyle puts huge strain on planet
West Australian
11 January 2011, Page: 10
The great Aussie lifestyle isn't so great when you think about what it does to our planet.
If you're the archetypal West Australian you regularly fly to work at a mine site, perhaps, or have a job in the CBD Energy with a one-hour daily commute along the freeway; live in a pretty big house in the 'burbs with air-conditioning; run two cars for a family of four; and holiday interstate or jet off to Bali a couple of times a year your lifestyle is among the least environmentally sustainable in the world.
What's more, over the next years it is going to get increasingly costly to do the things you have done all your adult life, such as filling up the car, paying electricity bills and flying to a tropical resort. "If you exclude the ridiculous cities like Dubai, which is basically money built on sand, you can argue that WA is the most unsustainable developed economy in the world", Peter McMahon, a lecturer at Murdoch University's School of Sustainability, said.
Dr McMahon is director of its WA2020 Project, a research program that aims to address what he and his colleagues say is a "policymaking vacuum" in WA on sustainability issues. In the Australian Conservation Foundation's 2010 Sustainable Cities Index, which ranked Australia's 20 largest cities on criteria such as environmental performance, quality of life, and resilience to environmental changes, Perth came dead last.
According to the rankings, Perth has the worst over-reliance on cars, the highest water use relative to rainfall and the biggest ecological footprint per person in Australia. Perhaps the most alarming statistic is the ecological footprint an admittedly rough-and-ready calculation of the number of hectares of productive land (and sea) required to support one person with a given lifestyle.
The world has an estimated 1.8ha for every person alive. The Australian average ecological footprint is 8ha, which means if everyone in the world lived like an Aussie, we would need 3.8 Earths. Perth's average footprint is even bigger: it would take 4¼ globes to allow everyone to live life Perth-style. Dr McMahon said the "tyranny of distance" WA people lived thousands of miles from anywhere else had forced us to rely on planes and cars to get around.
Life is harsh in WA, and huge resources are needed for growing food or mining minerals. Perth came of age as a major city at a time when the car was king with predictably short-sighted planning decisions that are now locked into our urban fabric and it's no wonder our habits are among the dirtiest in the world. After all, most of us live in a sprawling city where cars and air-conditioning are widely seen as necessities, not luxuries. "We should question the whole premise that our growth is going to just continue", Dr McMahon said.
It might be surprising to learn, then, that according to many expert predictions, both household energy bills and motoring costs are set to plummet by 2020. "By the end of the decade, a lot of homes will have their own renewable energy" Ray Wills, chief executive of the Sustainable Energy Association of WA, said. "A lot of homes will have changed their building designs and, this will be surprising for most people, but I imagine by 2020 a lot of people will see a reversal in their energy bills and they will start to get cheaper".
Aided by government rebates, household solar power use has rocketed soaring from 500 homes with solar panels in mid-2008 to almost 20,000 today, In a decade, that figure is likely to be between 300,000 and 400,000, and the cost of domestic solar power could reach parity with grid power by 2015.
Solar power has been the first cab off the rank for powering city homes, but other technologies are following in its wake. Last December saw the launch of the WA Geothermal Centre of Excellence, which aims to harness the heating and cooling power of a geological formation called the Perth Basin.
Sitting hundreds of metres below the city is a reservoir of water naturally heated to 300C, which could provide electricity-free air-conditioning for large building complexes or even entire suburbs. Housing density is another area where Perth is poised to make big improvements. Unlike Melbourne or Sydney, where many homes are in strata developments, two-thirds of newly approved Perth homes are free-standing houses on individual blocks. Professor Wills predicts that will change as the city sprawl becomes unmanageable and as a new generation of homeowners looks for a home that isn't miles away from the metropolitan area.
But what about our love affair with the car, and our love-hate relationship with driving to work? "The outstandingly stupid thing about Perth is the peak hour", Dr McMahon said. "We shouldn't have it that everyone goes into the CBD Energy together". Dr McMahon predicts information technology will give us more flexibility in how we work and could eliminate that freeway slog.
When we do drive in 2020, however, it will hopefully do less environmental damage than it does now. A pilot network of 12 electric car charging stations around Perth was launched last November, as well as a fleet of 11 modified Ford Focus electric cars, including one owned by The West Australian.
11 January 2011, Page: 10
The great Aussie lifestyle isn't so great when you think about what it does to our planet.
If you're the archetypal West Australian you regularly fly to work at a mine site, perhaps, or have a job in the CBD Energy with a one-hour daily commute along the freeway; live in a pretty big house in the 'burbs with air-conditioning; run two cars for a family of four; and holiday interstate or jet off to Bali a couple of times a year your lifestyle is among the least environmentally sustainable in the world.
What's more, over the next years it is going to get increasingly costly to do the things you have done all your adult life, such as filling up the car, paying electricity bills and flying to a tropical resort. "If you exclude the ridiculous cities like Dubai, which is basically money built on sand, you can argue that WA is the most unsustainable developed economy in the world", Peter McMahon, a lecturer at Murdoch University's School of Sustainability, said.
Dr McMahon is director of its WA2020 Project, a research program that aims to address what he and his colleagues say is a "policymaking vacuum" in WA on sustainability issues. In the Australian Conservation Foundation's 2010 Sustainable Cities Index, which ranked Australia's 20 largest cities on criteria such as environmental performance, quality of life, and resilience to environmental changes, Perth came dead last.
According to the rankings, Perth has the worst over-reliance on cars, the highest water use relative to rainfall and the biggest ecological footprint per person in Australia. Perhaps the most alarming statistic is the ecological footprint an admittedly rough-and-ready calculation of the number of hectares of productive land (and sea) required to support one person with a given lifestyle.
The world has an estimated 1.8ha for every person alive. The Australian average ecological footprint is 8ha, which means if everyone in the world lived like an Aussie, we would need 3.8 Earths. Perth's average footprint is even bigger: it would take 4¼ globes to allow everyone to live life Perth-style. Dr McMahon said the "tyranny of distance" WA people lived thousands of miles from anywhere else had forced us to rely on planes and cars to get around.
Life is harsh in WA, and huge resources are needed for growing food or mining minerals. Perth came of age as a major city at a time when the car was king with predictably short-sighted planning decisions that are now locked into our urban fabric and it's no wonder our habits are among the dirtiest in the world. After all, most of us live in a sprawling city where cars and air-conditioning are widely seen as necessities, not luxuries. "We should question the whole premise that our growth is going to just continue", Dr McMahon said.
It might be surprising to learn, then, that according to many expert predictions, both household energy bills and motoring costs are set to plummet by 2020. "By the end of the decade, a lot of homes will have their own renewable energy" Ray Wills, chief executive of the Sustainable Energy Association of WA, said. "A lot of homes will have changed their building designs and, this will be surprising for most people, but I imagine by 2020 a lot of people will see a reversal in their energy bills and they will start to get cheaper".
Aided by government rebates, household solar power use has rocketed soaring from 500 homes with solar panels in mid-2008 to almost 20,000 today, In a decade, that figure is likely to be between 300,000 and 400,000, and the cost of domestic solar power could reach parity with grid power by 2015.
Solar power has been the first cab off the rank for powering city homes, but other technologies are following in its wake. Last December saw the launch of the WA Geothermal Centre of Excellence, which aims to harness the heating and cooling power of a geological formation called the Perth Basin.
Sitting hundreds of metres below the city is a reservoir of water naturally heated to 300C, which could provide electricity-free air-conditioning for large building complexes or even entire suburbs. Housing density is another area where Perth is poised to make big improvements. Unlike Melbourne or Sydney, where many homes are in strata developments, two-thirds of newly approved Perth homes are free-standing houses on individual blocks. Professor Wills predicts that will change as the city sprawl becomes unmanageable and as a new generation of homeowners looks for a home that isn't miles away from the metropolitan area.
But what about our love affair with the car, and our love-hate relationship with driving to work? "The outstandingly stupid thing about Perth is the peak hour", Dr McMahon said. "We shouldn't have it that everyone goes into the CBD Energy together". Dr McMahon predicts information technology will give us more flexibility in how we work and could eliminate that freeway slog.
When we do drive in 2020, however, it will hopefully do less environmental damage than it does now. A pilot network of 12 electric car charging stations around Perth was launched last November, as well as a fleet of 11 modified Ford Focus electric cars, including one owned by The West Australian.
'Sun King' bids for solar funding
Australian
10 January 2011, Page: 4
THE "Sun King", Chinese-born Zhengrong S hi, who is worth about $4 billion and is one of the world's wealthiest men, is behind a bid for $300 million in federal funding to build the first commercial solar farm in NSW. Mr Shi, a graduate of the University of New South Wales, is one of four directors of Infigen Energy Suntech Power one of seven companies competing for federal funding under round one of the government's $1.5bn Solar Flagships Program.
Infigen Energy Suntech Power's proposal is for crystalline-silicon solar photovoltaic energy farms at three sites in NSW and Victoria, generating a combined 195MW of power to go back into the grid. The NSW government yesterday gave planning approval for one of the sites, at Nyng an in northwestern NSW, where Infigen Energy Suntech Power plans to build a $300m solar farm covering 200ha.
The farm will feature 70 blocks, placed between lm and 3m off the ground, with a combined 300,000 solar photovoltaic panels. The state government planning approval pre-empts a final decision by the federal government, expected in June, on which project will receive funding under the Solar Flagships Program. Dr Shi's story is the classic rags to riches tale.
Born in China to a poverty stricken family, Dr Shi was adopted out as a boy. After receiving his masters degree in Shanghai, Dr Shi, then aged 23, enrolled in the University of New South Wales's School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. While studying for his doctorate degree on solar power technology, he worked in cafes to pay his rent.
He became an Australian citizen and stayed in the country for 14 years, working in solar research, before returning to China and starting up Suntech Power. He is now known as the "Sun King". In November last year, Dr Shi was photographed alongside actress Cate Blanchett when he and his wife, Vivienne, made a $2m donation to the Sydney Theatre Company to install solar panels along its harbourside roof.
The Solar Flagships Program was designed to support the construction of up to four solar power plants across the country. The seven shortlisted applicants each received a slice of $15m in feasibility funding last May.
10 January 2011, Page: 4
THE "Sun King", Chinese-born Zhengrong S hi, who is worth about $4 billion and is one of the world's wealthiest men, is behind a bid for $300 million in federal funding to build the first commercial solar farm in NSW. Mr Shi, a graduate of the University of New South Wales, is one of four directors of Infigen Energy Suntech Power one of seven companies competing for federal funding under round one of the government's $1.5bn Solar Flagships Program.
Infigen Energy Suntech Power's proposal is for crystalline-silicon solar photovoltaic energy farms at three sites in NSW and Victoria, generating a combined 195MW of power to go back into the grid. The NSW government yesterday gave planning approval for one of the sites, at Nyng an in northwestern NSW, where Infigen Energy Suntech Power plans to build a $300m solar farm covering 200ha.
The farm will feature 70 blocks, placed between lm and 3m off the ground, with a combined 300,000 solar photovoltaic panels. The state government planning approval pre-empts a final decision by the federal government, expected in June, on which project will receive funding under the Solar Flagships Program. Dr Shi's story is the classic rags to riches tale.
Born in China to a poverty stricken family, Dr Shi was adopted out as a boy. After receiving his masters degree in Shanghai, Dr Shi, then aged 23, enrolled in the University of New South Wales's School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. While studying for his doctorate degree on solar power technology, he worked in cafes to pay his rent.
He became an Australian citizen and stayed in the country for 14 years, working in solar research, before returning to China and starting up Suntech Power. He is now known as the "Sun King". In November last year, Dr Shi was photographed alongside actress Cate Blanchett when he and his wife, Vivienne, made a $2m donation to the Sydney Theatre Company to install solar panels along its harbourside roof.
The Solar Flagships Program was designed to support the construction of up to four solar power plants across the country. The seven shortlisted applicants each received a slice of $15m in feasibility funding last May.
'Sun King' bids for solar funding
Australian
10 January 2011, Page: 4
THE "Sun King", Chinese-born Zhengrong S hi, who is worth about $4 billion and is one of the world's wealthiest men, is behind a bid for $300 million in federal funding to build the first commercial solar farm in NSW. Mr Shi, a graduate of the University of New South Wales, is one of four directors of Infigen Energy Suntech Power one of seven companies competing for federal funding under round one of the government's $1.5bn Solar Flagships Program.
Infigen Energy Suntech Power's proposal is for crystalline-silicon solar photovoltaic energy farms at three sites in NSW and Victoria, generating a combined 195MW of power to go back into the grid. The NSW government yesterday gave planning approval for one of the sites, at Nyng an in northwestern NSW, where Infigen Energy Suntech Power plans to build a $300m solar farm covering 200ha.
The farm will feature 70 blocks, placed between lm and 3m off the ground, with a combined 300,000 solar photovoltaic panels. The state government planning approval pre-empts a final decision by the federal government, expected in June, on which project will receive funding under the Solar Flagships Program. Dr Shi's story is the classic rags to riches tale.
Born in China to a poverty stricken family, Dr Shi was adopted out as a boy. After receiving his masters degree in Shanghai, Dr Shi, then aged 23, enrolled in the University of New South Wales's School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. While studying for his doctorate degree on solar power technology, he worked in cafes to pay his rent.
He became an Australian citizen and stayed in the country for 14 years, working in solar research, before returning to China and starting up Suntech Power. He is now known as the "Sun King". In November last year, Dr Shi was photographed alongside actress Cate Blanchett when he and his wife, Vivienne, made a $2m donation to the Sydney Theatre Company to install solar panels along its harbourside roof.
The Solar Flagships Program was designed to support the construction of up to four solar power plants across the country. The seven shortlisted applicants each received a slice of $15m in feasibility funding last May.
10 January 2011, Page: 4
THE "Sun King", Chinese-born Zhengrong S hi, who is worth about $4 billion and is one of the world's wealthiest men, is behind a bid for $300 million in federal funding to build the first commercial solar farm in NSW. Mr Shi, a graduate of the University of New South Wales, is one of four directors of Infigen Energy Suntech Power one of seven companies competing for federal funding under round one of the government's $1.5bn Solar Flagships Program.
Infigen Energy Suntech Power's proposal is for crystalline-silicon solar photovoltaic energy farms at three sites in NSW and Victoria, generating a combined 195MW of power to go back into the grid. The NSW government yesterday gave planning approval for one of the sites, at Nyng an in northwestern NSW, where Infigen Energy Suntech Power plans to build a $300m solar farm covering 200ha.
The farm will feature 70 blocks, placed between lm and 3m off the ground, with a combined 300,000 solar photovoltaic panels. The state government planning approval pre-empts a final decision by the federal government, expected in June, on which project will receive funding under the Solar Flagships Program. Dr Shi's story is the classic rags to riches tale.
Born in China to a poverty stricken family, Dr Shi was adopted out as a boy. After receiving his masters degree in Shanghai, Dr Shi, then aged 23, enrolled in the University of New South Wales's School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. While studying for his doctorate degree on solar power technology, he worked in cafes to pay his rent.
He became an Australian citizen and stayed in the country for 14 years, working in solar research, before returning to China and starting up Suntech Power. He is now known as the "Sun King". In November last year, Dr Shi was photographed alongside actress Cate Blanchett when he and his wife, Vivienne, made a $2m donation to the Sydney Theatre Company to install solar panels along its harbourside roof.
The Solar Flagships Program was designed to support the construction of up to four solar power plants across the country. The seven shortlisted applicants each received a slice of $15m in feasibility funding last May.
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
China leads green war charge
Canberra Times
4 January 2011, Page: 11
The West is finding itself running on empty as Beijing powers ahead to become a clean energy giant, Michael Richardson writes:
As 2011 begins, leadership in clean-energy manufacturing is shifting from the West to Asia as countries their support renewable energy and development of new exportable technologies. Within the Group of 20 leading economies that includes Australia, four Asian powers China, India, Japan and South Korea are projected to account for about 40% of renewable energy investments in 2020, leaving the United States and Europe trailing.
China is the pacesetter. It is rapidly becoming a global colossus in "green" power as it seeks to reduce reliance on polluting fossil fuels and establish itself as the top clean energy manufacturer and exporter.
A recent survey by Bloomberg, in collaboration with the UN Environment Program, found that China became the largest recipient of renewable-energy financing in 2009, attracting more than 20% of the $US162 billion ($A159 billion) invested worldwide in wind, solar, biomass, small hydro, biofuel and marine energy.
While such investment in China grew by 53%, it shrank in the US by 45%. The US exported at least $US2 billion of renewable energy products in 2009, almost double the sum in 2007. But it ran a trade deficit in the sector, with imports of wind-power equipment alone amounting to more than $US3.6 billion.
Reasons given for the West's decline and China's rise are a new source of friction in Sino-US relations. Both Washington and Beijing consider the clean technology sector crucial to energy security and economic growth. However, renewable-energy companies in the US struggle to find investments. They've cut jobs and, in some cases, moved operations to China. US President Barack Obama maintains that the industry should be vibrant source of employment and exports for America. In September, Obama called for "a home-grown clean energy industry".
In October, the US Trade Representative's Office announced that it would investigate Chinese Government support for manufacturers of wind and solar power products, advanced batteries and energy-efficient vehicles the result of a petition from a powerful US union, the United Steelworkers, with 850,000 members in a range of energy-related jobs.
The petition claims that China protects and unfairly supports its clean-energy producers in breach of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. The main thrust is that the Chinese Government makes widespread use of cheap loans and land grants to subsidise exports of clean energy equipment.
In an angry reaction to the US probe, Zhang Guobao, head of China's National Energy Administration, implied that the Obama Administration deliberately courts protectionist sentiment in the US, where nearly one in 10 are unemployed.
Chinese President Hu Jintao is due to make a state visit to Washington on January 19. Both sides say they want to repair relations strained over trade, security, human rights and other issues. But clean energy is on the agenda. The US recently took the first step in filing a trade case against China at the WTO, alleging that Beijing has given several hundred million US dollars in wind power grants that exclude foreign-made parts and components.
China is illegally subsidising wind equipment production and the "subsidies effectively operate as a barrier to US exports to China", US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement on December 22. The US and China have 60 days to resolve the disagreement. If negotiations fail, Washington could ask for a VVTO dispute settlement panel to hear the complaint.
The US Government has belatedly recognised the China challenge and last month convened the first meeting of a high-powered private sector advisory committee charged with developing a clean-energy export expansion plan. At the same time, the US Export-Import Bank announced increased financing for "green" exports.
The US is destined to lose this battle for dominance if Congress refuses to pass an energy policy promoting renewables. As part of a compromise on the US tax bill, lawmakers agreed on December 17 to extend a tax-credit scheme for another year, offering clean power producers grants worth up to 30% of development costs.
But America needs a more coordinated approach if it's to compete with China in clean-energy manufacturing and exports. A study published by Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Centre found that, unlike industrialised countries, China and most other emerging economies coordinate and support their energy R&D through government-owned enterprises. The study covered Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa.
By some estimates, investments in renewable-energy assets may total $US2.3 trillion by 2020, yielding increased jobs and exports, as well as reduced greenhouse gas emissions, for countries that harness green technology. China's rise in key sectors of the green-energy business has been breath taking. In 1999, China made around 1% of the photovoltaic cells put into solar panels to generate electricity. A decade later, it's the world's leading producers, with a 40% share of the market.
Firms in China are expected to make more than half of all solar panels manufactured this year and nearly 80% of solar hot-water units. The world's second biggest economy is also on course to produce nearly half the world's wind power turbines, selling them at prices significantly lower than those of manufacturers in the West and preparing for large-scale exports.
If China becomes a green-power export juggernaut, it will consolidate its lead in global high-technology sales, leaving the US well behind. In 1998, the US share of worldwide high-tech exports was nearly 25% while China's was less than 10%. By 2008, China's share was 20%, with America's below 15%. The stakes in the green power race could hardly be higher.
The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.
4 January 2011, Page: 11
The West is finding itself running on empty as Beijing powers ahead to become a clean energy giant, Michael Richardson writes:As 2011 begins, leadership in clean-energy manufacturing is shifting from the West to Asia as countries their support renewable energy and development of new exportable technologies. Within the Group of 20 leading economies that includes Australia, four Asian powers China, India, Japan and South Korea are projected to account for about 40% of renewable energy investments in 2020, leaving the United States and Europe trailing.
China is the pacesetter. It is rapidly becoming a global colossus in "green" power as it seeks to reduce reliance on polluting fossil fuels and establish itself as the top clean energy manufacturer and exporter.
A recent survey by Bloomberg, in collaboration with the UN Environment Program, found that China became the largest recipient of renewable-energy financing in 2009, attracting more than 20% of the $US162 billion ($A159 billion) invested worldwide in wind, solar, biomass, small hydro, biofuel and marine energy.
While such investment in China grew by 53%, it shrank in the US by 45%. The US exported at least $US2 billion of renewable energy products in 2009, almost double the sum in 2007. But it ran a trade deficit in the sector, with imports of wind-power equipment alone amounting to more than $US3.6 billion.
Reasons given for the West's decline and China's rise are a new source of friction in Sino-US relations. Both Washington and Beijing consider the clean technology sector crucial to energy security and economic growth. However, renewable-energy companies in the US struggle to find investments. They've cut jobs and, in some cases, moved operations to China. US President Barack Obama maintains that the industry should be vibrant source of employment and exports for America. In September, Obama called for "a home-grown clean energy industry".
In October, the US Trade Representative's Office announced that it would investigate Chinese Government support for manufacturers of wind and solar power products, advanced batteries and energy-efficient vehicles the result of a petition from a powerful US union, the United Steelworkers, with 850,000 members in a range of energy-related jobs.
The petition claims that China protects and unfairly supports its clean-energy producers in breach of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. The main thrust is that the Chinese Government makes widespread use of cheap loans and land grants to subsidise exports of clean energy equipment.
In an angry reaction to the US probe, Zhang Guobao, head of China's National Energy Administration, implied that the Obama Administration deliberately courts protectionist sentiment in the US, where nearly one in 10 are unemployed.
Chinese President Hu Jintao is due to make a state visit to Washington on January 19. Both sides say they want to repair relations strained over trade, security, human rights and other issues. But clean energy is on the agenda. The US recently took the first step in filing a trade case against China at the WTO, alleging that Beijing has given several hundred million US dollars in wind power grants that exclude foreign-made parts and components.
China is illegally subsidising wind equipment production and the "subsidies effectively operate as a barrier to US exports to China", US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement on December 22. The US and China have 60 days to resolve the disagreement. If negotiations fail, Washington could ask for a VVTO dispute settlement panel to hear the complaint.
The US Government has belatedly recognised the China challenge and last month convened the first meeting of a high-powered private sector advisory committee charged with developing a clean-energy export expansion plan. At the same time, the US Export-Import Bank announced increased financing for "green" exports.
The US is destined to lose this battle for dominance if Congress refuses to pass an energy policy promoting renewables. As part of a compromise on the US tax bill, lawmakers agreed on December 17 to extend a tax-credit scheme for another year, offering clean power producers grants worth up to 30% of development costs.
But America needs a more coordinated approach if it's to compete with China in clean-energy manufacturing and exports. A study published by Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Centre found that, unlike industrialised countries, China and most other emerging economies coordinate and support their energy R&D through government-owned enterprises. The study covered Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa.
By some estimates, investments in renewable-energy assets may total $US2.3 trillion by 2020, yielding increased jobs and exports, as well as reduced greenhouse gas emissions, for countries that harness green technology. China's rise in key sectors of the green-energy business has been breath taking. In 1999, China made around 1% of the photovoltaic cells put into solar panels to generate electricity. A decade later, it's the world's leading producers, with a 40% share of the market.
Firms in China are expected to make more than half of all solar panels manufactured this year and nearly 80% of solar hot-water units. The world's second biggest economy is also on course to produce nearly half the world's wind power turbines, selling them at prices significantly lower than those of manufacturers in the West and preparing for large-scale exports.
If China becomes a green-power export juggernaut, it will consolidate its lead in global high-technology sales, leaving the US well behind. In 1998, the US share of worldwide high-tech exports was nearly 25% while China's was less than 10%. By 2008, China's share was 20%, with America's below 15%. The stakes in the green power race could hardly be higher.
The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.
Carbon leadership
Summaries - Australian Financial Review
7 January 2011, Page: 47
The important conclusion that can be drawn from The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering report on low carbon energy technology and Robin Batterham's elusive power panacea article (January 5) is that a rising carbon price alone will not stimulate investment in zero-carbon baseload energy alternatives such as concentrating solar thermal. Such industry requires support to grow in the short to medium term.
Direct government incentives such as investment tax credits or a feed-in tariff would be more effective than a blanket carbon price which is only useful when technologies are mature. Will the government show leadership or will we be left behind by the clean energy boom?
Patrick Hearps is a research fellow at the Melbourne Energy institute, University of Melbourne.
7 January 2011, Page: 47
The important conclusion that can be drawn from The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering report on low carbon energy technology and Robin Batterham's elusive power panacea article (January 5) is that a rising carbon price alone will not stimulate investment in zero-carbon baseload energy alternatives such as concentrating solar thermal. Such industry requires support to grow in the short to medium term.
Direct government incentives such as investment tax credits or a feed-in tariff would be more effective than a blanket carbon price which is only useful when technologies are mature. Will the government show leadership or will we be left behind by the clean energy boom?
Patrick Hearps is a research fellow at the Melbourne Energy institute, University of Melbourne.
Lobby calls for peak oil plans
Adelaide Advertiser
4 January 2011, Page: 25
THE peak oil lobby has taken its views to Energy Minister Patrick Conlon, who says he will factor the finite nature of fossil fuels into planning. The head of the Global Energy Systems group at Uppsala University in Sweden, Kjell Aleklett, met Mr Conlon during a visit to Australia. Professor Aleklett warns that ongoing business-as-usual growth in oil usage will be impossible because of peak oil - the point at which global production reaches its all-time maximum and trends down.
Many forecasters predict the peak this decade. "Cities and businesses that prepare in advance for the probability of oil shortages will fare far better than those that believe the fairytales that oil production will keep increasing continuously", Prof Aleklett said. Mr Conlon said he met many energy experts, including Prof Aleklett.
"We have for a number of years kept under review the state's energy reserves and supplies and do not believe there is anything to be concerned about", Mr Conlon said. "Obviously in terms of fossil fuels, they aren't making any more, which is why this Government has been so active in implementing renewable and sustainable energy". Last year, the State Government announced a target of one third of energy produced in SA to be from renewable sources by 2020.
4 January 2011, Page: 25
THE peak oil lobby has taken its views to Energy Minister Patrick Conlon, who says he will factor the finite nature of fossil fuels into planning. The head of the Global Energy Systems group at Uppsala University in Sweden, Kjell Aleklett, met Mr Conlon during a visit to Australia. Professor Aleklett warns that ongoing business-as-usual growth in oil usage will be impossible because of peak oil - the point at which global production reaches its all-time maximum and trends down.
Many forecasters predict the peak this decade. "Cities and businesses that prepare in advance for the probability of oil shortages will fare far better than those that believe the fairytales that oil production will keep increasing continuously", Prof Aleklett said. Mr Conlon said he met many energy experts, including Prof Aleklett.
"We have for a number of years kept under review the state's energy reserves and supplies and do not believe there is anything to be concerned about", Mr Conlon said. "Obviously in terms of fossil fuels, they aren't making any more, which is why this Government has been so active in implementing renewable and sustainable energy". Last year, the State Government announced a target of one third of energy produced in SA to be from renewable sources by 2020.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Solar 'thermostats' face gas competition
Weekend Australian
1 January 2011 Page: 26
SOMETHING new is headed for the southwest desert in the United States: solar power plants that can make electricity whether or not the sun is shining. Abengoa Solar expects to start construction in six months' time on a plant in Arizona that will store sun-generated heat to provide six extra hours a day of electric-generating capacity. The heat creates steam that is used to turn power turbines. Abengoa's SUS2 billion ($1.966bn) Solana plant is expected to be the first major stored heat plant in the US when it enters service in 2013. Some already exist in Spain and a few more are on the drawing board for Nevada and California.
On December 21, Abengoa Solar, a unit of Spanish utility company Abengoa, cleared a major hurdle when it announced it received a SUS1.45bn US loan guarantee for the 250-MW Arizona project. The Solana plant will be able to meet winter heating and lighting needs by putting electricity on the grid early in the morning before the sun is shining and help satisfy summer cooling demand by producing power after sunset.
The plant, which can power up to 70,000 houses, has signed a 30-year agreement to sell electricity to utility company Arizona Public Service. Such utility-scale solar plants use mirrors to focus the sun's rays on a liquid, contained in tubes, which can be heated to very hot temperatures.
The liquid is used to boil water and create steam. By using a conventional steam-turbine generator, electricity is produced. But the twist is that the Arizona facility will have two giant salt tanks, each 37 metres in diameter and 10.4m deep, that together can hold and store 40% of the heat created by the plant. Such storage technologies are expected to become more commonplace in the US at solar plants, as officials try to limit the release of CO₂ from fossil fuel power plants and make renewable power production more dependable.
Mark Mehos, a solar program manager for the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, said such molten salt storage systems added about 20% to the construction cost of solar plants, but more than make up for it by boosting a plant's flexibility and productivity. Electricity from solar plants is expensive, especially at a time when natural-gas prices have plunged, making gas-generated electricity cheap by comparison.
Utilities, which are under state mandates to buy more clean power, say solar power may look more economical in the future if fossil fuel prices rise or if a tax is imposed on carbon emissions by power plants. When it comes to renewable energy, solar competes most heavily against wind power. A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, in February 2010 found that utility-scale solar plants with storage capacity were three times as costly to build as wind farms without energy storage.
But the study found that solar electricity was more valuable, because its output was more correlated to peak electricity demand. Still, experts say that unless costs come down, the number of solar projects that get built will be limited. SolarReserve, a power development company in Santa Monica, California, is working on two solar projects in Nevada and California that will have even more heat-storage capacity, relative to their size, than Abengoa's project.
These plants will put out 110MW and150MW in electricity, respectively, and will be able to store enough heat to run eight to 12 hours without additional sunlight. SolarReserve expects to have the two plants in service by 2014. Each will cost SUS650 million to SUS750m.
Don Brandt, chairman and chief executive of Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, parent of Arizona Public Service, said heat storage at the Abengoa project made it "an extremely attractive project for us". By 2015, Arizona Public Service wants to get 10% of its electricity from renewable sources, and Abengoa's plant is expected to contribute a third of that. Arizona's statewide goal is 15% renewable energy by 2025.
Mr Brandt said peak electricity demand for his utility typically hits about 4pm in the summer, but "we remain at elevated levels until around 10 o'clock at night" so getting renewable power later in the evening is valuable. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, part of the Department of Energy, says molten salt storage is "proven technology". "When you put heat into one of these tanks, you get 95% or 96% of the heat back out again", said Mr Mehos, at the federal energy lab. "It's a nice big Thermos".
Another plus of all three plants was they would produce power that could be tailored to a utility's specific needs, the president of Abengoa Solar, Santiago Seage said. That is an asset to electrical grid operators that like to know they can rely on certain amounts of power flowing on to lines.
1 January 2011 Page: 26
SOMETHING new is headed for the southwest desert in the United States: solar power plants that can make electricity whether or not the sun is shining. Abengoa Solar expects to start construction in six months' time on a plant in Arizona that will store sun-generated heat to provide six extra hours a day of electric-generating capacity. The heat creates steam that is used to turn power turbines. Abengoa's SUS2 billion ($1.966bn) Solana plant is expected to be the first major stored heat plant in the US when it enters service in 2013. Some already exist in Spain and a few more are on the drawing board for Nevada and California.On December 21, Abengoa Solar, a unit of Spanish utility company Abengoa, cleared a major hurdle when it announced it received a SUS1.45bn US loan guarantee for the 250-MW Arizona project. The Solana plant will be able to meet winter heating and lighting needs by putting electricity on the grid early in the morning before the sun is shining and help satisfy summer cooling demand by producing power after sunset.
The plant, which can power up to 70,000 houses, has signed a 30-year agreement to sell electricity to utility company Arizona Public Service. Such utility-scale solar plants use mirrors to focus the sun's rays on a liquid, contained in tubes, which can be heated to very hot temperatures.
The liquid is used to boil water and create steam. By using a conventional steam-turbine generator, electricity is produced. But the twist is that the Arizona facility will have two giant salt tanks, each 37 metres in diameter and 10.4m deep, that together can hold and store 40% of the heat created by the plant. Such storage technologies are expected to become more commonplace in the US at solar plants, as officials try to limit the release of CO₂ from fossil fuel power plants and make renewable power production more dependable.
Mark Mehos, a solar program manager for the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, said such molten salt storage systems added about 20% to the construction cost of solar plants, but more than make up for it by boosting a plant's flexibility and productivity. Electricity from solar plants is expensive, especially at a time when natural-gas prices have plunged, making gas-generated electricity cheap by comparison.
Utilities, which are under state mandates to buy more clean power, say solar power may look more economical in the future if fossil fuel prices rise or if a tax is imposed on carbon emissions by power plants. When it comes to renewable energy, solar competes most heavily against wind power. A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, in February 2010 found that utility-scale solar plants with storage capacity were three times as costly to build as wind farms without energy storage.
But the study found that solar electricity was more valuable, because its output was more correlated to peak electricity demand. Still, experts say that unless costs come down, the number of solar projects that get built will be limited. SolarReserve, a power development company in Santa Monica, California, is working on two solar projects in Nevada and California that will have even more heat-storage capacity, relative to their size, than Abengoa's project.
These plants will put out 110MW and150MW in electricity, respectively, and will be able to store enough heat to run eight to 12 hours without additional sunlight. SolarReserve expects to have the two plants in service by 2014. Each will cost SUS650 million to SUS750m.
Don Brandt, chairman and chief executive of Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, parent of Arizona Public Service, said heat storage at the Abengoa project made it "an extremely attractive project for us". By 2015, Arizona Public Service wants to get 10% of its electricity from renewable sources, and Abengoa's plant is expected to contribute a third of that. Arizona's statewide goal is 15% renewable energy by 2025.
Mr Brandt said peak electricity demand for his utility typically hits about 4pm in the summer, but "we remain at elevated levels until around 10 o'clock at night" so getting renewable power later in the evening is valuable. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, part of the Department of Energy, says molten salt storage is "proven technology". "When you put heat into one of these tanks, you get 95% or 96% of the heat back out again", said Mr Mehos, at the federal energy lab. "It's a nice big Thermos".
Another plus of all three plants was they would produce power that could be tailored to a utility's specific needs, the president of Abengoa Solar, Santiago Seage said. That is an asset to electrical grid operators that like to know they can rely on certain amounts of power flowing on to lines.
Bligh's clean coal dream a nightmare
Sunday Mail Brisbane
2 January 2011 Page: 42
WHEN Chris Greig spoke at a clean coal industry forum in Melbourne in June, one of the chiefs of the Bligh Government's ZeroGen business let slip a juicy piece of news that went unnoticed back home in Queensland. "ZeroGen has proven the Denison Trough to be unsuitable for large-scale commercial storage", Greig told the carbon capture and storage World Australia Forum June 22. It didn't look like much but the meaning of the comment would have raised the alarm if anyone had noticed: the state-owned company's prospects were floundering.
After committing $150 million in taxpayer funds to the Bowen Basin project, ZeroGen had discovered the underground reservoirs for CO₂ emissions from its planned $4.3 billion clean coal power plant were not big enough. Yet no one noticed Greig's comment, a startling omission showing how little scrutiny ZeroGen has undergone in its four years as a corporation under state control with little of the accountability mechanisms required of normal government operations.
While the Weller review of government assets in April 2009 described ZeroGen as "speculative" and sparked the first questions about the business, the Sunday Mail today reveals the Government was told it was considered "very high risk" back in 2006. None of this was mentioned at the time while a conga line of ministers described the project as "world-first", a coup for jobs and "groundbreaking".
The Opposition now wants an inquiry into ZeroGen while the Government appears to be adopting the mantra of "moving right along now, nothing to see here". Premier Anna Bligh has quietly slashed her commitment to clean coal in favour of solar power said to be her climate-change bureaucrat husband's favourite area. It is a move that has exposed an administration flipping and flopping on energy policy.
In 2008 at the Coaltrans Australia Conference in Brisbane, Deputy Premier Paul Lucas warned that the failure to develop viable clean coal technologies would have a major impact on the state Budget and the profits of mining companies. Yet Bligh has pinched $100 million from her original $300 million clean coal fund to put into proposed solar power plants, all without announcing the cash raid and only a month after a Commonwealth report found solar cost between $300/MW and $750/MW to generate.
In comparison, the IGCC Black CCS type ZeroGen was dealing with and deemed to be too expensive was found to cost between $150/MW and $275/MW. Worse still, the clean coal fund that bankrolled the ZeroGen gamble is the same state cash from the 2006 privatisation of the state's electricity assets, a bad look when you are promising to use the proceeds from the current privatisation program wisely.
For her part, Bligh now insists the ZeroGen dream is not dead, though she doesn't want to be a part of it. Some insiders say Queensland Treasury chiefs have long been against the ZeroGen idea over its costs to the Budget bottom line and describe the Government's relations with potential Japanese investor in the project, Mitsubishi, as rude.
With its best friend, the state, now leaving the party as an owner and plenty of fuel for critics spouting the clean coal oxymoron line, some wonder what can become of ZeroGen when it returns to the drawing board after canning its major plant. ZeroGen's own financial outlook appears far from rosy. Its Brisbane office has suffered a staff exodus, with insiders saying there are about 15 left after originally hiring as many as 120 people. According to Auditor-General Glenn Poole, the company's ability to keep operating past November 30 last year was dependent on state support.
Not that we would have known because Poole's comments were in ZeroGen's recent financial year report not tabled in State Parliament nor on its website, as he noted was normal practice. Back in Melbourne in June, Greig was well aware of the risks involved with ZeroGen and others, noting that the new technology would bring some undone. We might expect to see some commercial disasters!" he joked at the end of his presentation. He didn't realise how close to home that comment may prove to be.
2 January 2011 Page: 42
WHEN Chris Greig spoke at a clean coal industry forum in Melbourne in June, one of the chiefs of the Bligh Government's ZeroGen business let slip a juicy piece of news that went unnoticed back home in Queensland. "ZeroGen has proven the Denison Trough to be unsuitable for large-scale commercial storage", Greig told the carbon capture and storage World Australia Forum June 22. It didn't look like much but the meaning of the comment would have raised the alarm if anyone had noticed: the state-owned company's prospects were floundering.
After committing $150 million in taxpayer funds to the Bowen Basin project, ZeroGen had discovered the underground reservoirs for CO₂ emissions from its planned $4.3 billion clean coal power plant were not big enough. Yet no one noticed Greig's comment, a startling omission showing how little scrutiny ZeroGen has undergone in its four years as a corporation under state control with little of the accountability mechanisms required of normal government operations.
While the Weller review of government assets in April 2009 described ZeroGen as "speculative" and sparked the first questions about the business, the Sunday Mail today reveals the Government was told it was considered "very high risk" back in 2006. None of this was mentioned at the time while a conga line of ministers described the project as "world-first", a coup for jobs and "groundbreaking".
The Opposition now wants an inquiry into ZeroGen while the Government appears to be adopting the mantra of "moving right along now, nothing to see here". Premier Anna Bligh has quietly slashed her commitment to clean coal in favour of solar power said to be her climate-change bureaucrat husband's favourite area. It is a move that has exposed an administration flipping and flopping on energy policy.
In 2008 at the Coaltrans Australia Conference in Brisbane, Deputy Premier Paul Lucas warned that the failure to develop viable clean coal technologies would have a major impact on the state Budget and the profits of mining companies. Yet Bligh has pinched $100 million from her original $300 million clean coal fund to put into proposed solar power plants, all without announcing the cash raid and only a month after a Commonwealth report found solar cost between $300/MW and $750/MW to generate.
In comparison, the IGCC Black CCS type ZeroGen was dealing with and deemed to be too expensive was found to cost between $150/MW and $275/MW. Worse still, the clean coal fund that bankrolled the ZeroGen gamble is the same state cash from the 2006 privatisation of the state's electricity assets, a bad look when you are promising to use the proceeds from the current privatisation program wisely.
For her part, Bligh now insists the ZeroGen dream is not dead, though she doesn't want to be a part of it. Some insiders say Queensland Treasury chiefs have long been against the ZeroGen idea over its costs to the Budget bottom line and describe the Government's relations with potential Japanese investor in the project, Mitsubishi, as rude.
With its best friend, the state, now leaving the party as an owner and plenty of fuel for critics spouting the clean coal oxymoron line, some wonder what can become of ZeroGen when it returns to the drawing board after canning its major plant. ZeroGen's own financial outlook appears far from rosy. Its Brisbane office has suffered a staff exodus, with insiders saying there are about 15 left after originally hiring as many as 120 people. According to Auditor-General Glenn Poole, the company's ability to keep operating past November 30 last year was dependent on state support.
Not that we would have known because Poole's comments were in ZeroGen's recent financial year report not tabled in State Parliament nor on its website, as he noted was normal practice. Back in Melbourne in June, Greig was well aware of the risks involved with ZeroGen and others, noting that the new technology would bring some undone. We might expect to see some commercial disasters!" he joked at the end of his presentation. He didn't realise how close to home that comment may prove to be.
Electricity-hungry water providers need to get with the power
Age
3 January 2011 Page: 9
AS THE newly installed Baillieu government grappled with what to do with Victoria's money and energy-devouring reverse-osmosis plant at Wonthaggi, Australia's chief scientist, Penny Sackett, was on Lateline talking about her newly released report Challenges at energy-water-carbon intersections. During the interview she expressed doubts as to whether energy, water and carbon budgets were being dealt with holistically around the nation, adding that treating one independently could harm the others.
Sackett has good reason for her concerns. Water and energy have long been linked through the water cooling of power stations on the one hand, and the electrical pumping and treatment systems on the other, even before desalination plants came on the scene as emergency drought response measures.
In Britain, the water industry is the third most energy-intensive sector per unit of product surpassed only by cement and chemicals. In America, electricity is the second biggest budget item in municipal water supply. The link in our region looks set to tighten even more with the national industry body, the Water Services Association of Australia, predicting that water utilities will use four times as much electricity in their reliance on reverse-osmosis desalination.
If and when such a massive increase in energy use comes to pass, water utilities will be well and truly hocked to the fortunes of an electricity sector facing supply shortfalls across most states from about 2014-15 partly due to the carbon pricing hiatus, partly due to inertia in New South Wales and partly due to demand growth.
For some time now, it's been possible to integrate electricity generation and water making in the one facility. The trick is to use the waste heat from a high-efficiency combined cycle gas-fired power station to run a multiple effect distillation plant, which operates by progressively lowering the pressure at which water boils.
Combined cycle stations offer lower emissions, vastly improved efficiencies (typically much above, for example, the Loy Yang Power Station) as well as flexibility with the capacity for remote operation. Such groupings are commonplace in the Middle East, producing electricity during the times that it's most needed and fresh water when electricity demand tails off.
And, there's no chance of the "purified water" being contaminated by marine sewer outfalls, as the CSIRO has warned may happen with the Kurnell reverse-osmosis plant south of Sydney. These innovative packages were passed over in Australia, which has plenty of natural gas at suitable sites, seemingly on account of poor advice and a haste bordering on panic.
It didn't help either that there has been no regular dialogue nor awareness of each other's standpoints between water and electricity network professionals. Only two government agencies in this country ACTEW in the ACT and the Power and Water Corporation of the Northern Territory combine water and electricity, thus allowing an in-house exchange of ideas.
A recent report by Britain's Environment Agency has suggested that water companies merge with energy producers to create more effective partnerships for tackling emissions The local challenge is the mismatch between an electricity supply sector, which is deregulated and operates nationally often with offshore ownership, and a water industry that remains in government hands with a local focus. Still, private-public partnerships have proven that this is not necessarily a barrier.
Unlike south-east Queensland, where the Tugun reverse-osmosis plant has been mothballed (with dams now 99.9% full), Victoria appears to have little scope to vary the contract for, or scale back, its plant, since reducing the output volume requires lowering the number of filtration tubes but keeping the pressure up in order to maintain purity a messy task, according to engineers in the know.
Let's at least put some perspective on the urgency of achieving a greater integration between the water sector and the power industry, whether our judgment is based on cost efficiencies or on global warming scenarios. In a just-published report, World energy outlook, the International Energy Agency says the earth is on course to warm 3.5° by 2100 leading to a planet which NASA says is far from the one upon which civilisation developed and to which life is adapted.
To reach the 2° target, the energy agency found that every signatory at Copenhagen would have to hit the top of its range of commitments a task that would need a global rate of decarbonisation twice as large in the coming decade as in the last. There are several pieces of work which suggest that the job can be done with renewable energies, using gas as the transition measure. In the meantime, bridging the policy abyss between the two infrastructures has to be one of the "big ideas" for administrations to pursue and that is a challenge for the new Baillieu government.
Dr Peter Fisher works on climate change adaptation and water management. He recently jointly presented a ICE WaRM-AusAid short course on this topic for water professionals from five Mekong countries.
3 January 2011 Page: 9
AS THE newly installed Baillieu government grappled with what to do with Victoria's money and energy-devouring reverse-osmosis plant at Wonthaggi, Australia's chief scientist, Penny Sackett, was on Lateline talking about her newly released report Challenges at energy-water-carbon intersections. During the interview she expressed doubts as to whether energy, water and carbon budgets were being dealt with holistically around the nation, adding that treating one independently could harm the others.
Sackett has good reason for her concerns. Water and energy have long been linked through the water cooling of power stations on the one hand, and the electrical pumping and treatment systems on the other, even before desalination plants came on the scene as emergency drought response measures.
In Britain, the water industry is the third most energy-intensive sector per unit of product surpassed only by cement and chemicals. In America, electricity is the second biggest budget item in municipal water supply. The link in our region looks set to tighten even more with the national industry body, the Water Services Association of Australia, predicting that water utilities will use four times as much electricity in their reliance on reverse-osmosis desalination.
If and when such a massive increase in energy use comes to pass, water utilities will be well and truly hocked to the fortunes of an electricity sector facing supply shortfalls across most states from about 2014-15 partly due to the carbon pricing hiatus, partly due to inertia in New South Wales and partly due to demand growth.
For some time now, it's been possible to integrate electricity generation and water making in the one facility. The trick is to use the waste heat from a high-efficiency combined cycle gas-fired power station to run a multiple effect distillation plant, which operates by progressively lowering the pressure at which water boils.
Combined cycle stations offer lower emissions, vastly improved efficiencies (typically much above, for example, the Loy Yang Power Station) as well as flexibility with the capacity for remote operation. Such groupings are commonplace in the Middle East, producing electricity during the times that it's most needed and fresh water when electricity demand tails off.
And, there's no chance of the "purified water" being contaminated by marine sewer outfalls, as the CSIRO has warned may happen with the Kurnell reverse-osmosis plant south of Sydney. These innovative packages were passed over in Australia, which has plenty of natural gas at suitable sites, seemingly on account of poor advice and a haste bordering on panic.
It didn't help either that there has been no regular dialogue nor awareness of each other's standpoints between water and electricity network professionals. Only two government agencies in this country ACTEW in the ACT and the Power and Water Corporation of the Northern Territory combine water and electricity, thus allowing an in-house exchange of ideas.
A recent report by Britain's Environment Agency has suggested that water companies merge with energy producers to create more effective partnerships for tackling emissions The local challenge is the mismatch between an electricity supply sector, which is deregulated and operates nationally often with offshore ownership, and a water industry that remains in government hands with a local focus. Still, private-public partnerships have proven that this is not necessarily a barrier.
Unlike south-east Queensland, where the Tugun reverse-osmosis plant has been mothballed (with dams now 99.9% full), Victoria appears to have little scope to vary the contract for, or scale back, its plant, since reducing the output volume requires lowering the number of filtration tubes but keeping the pressure up in order to maintain purity a messy task, according to engineers in the know.
Let's at least put some perspective on the urgency of achieving a greater integration between the water sector and the power industry, whether our judgment is based on cost efficiencies or on global warming scenarios. In a just-published report, World energy outlook, the International Energy Agency says the earth is on course to warm 3.5° by 2100 leading to a planet which NASA says is far from the one upon which civilisation developed and to which life is adapted.
To reach the 2° target, the energy agency found that every signatory at Copenhagen would have to hit the top of its range of commitments a task that would need a global rate of decarbonisation twice as large in the coming decade as in the last. There are several pieces of work which suggest that the job can be done with renewable energies, using gas as the transition measure. In the meantime, bridging the policy abyss between the two infrastructures has to be one of the "big ideas" for administrations to pursue and that is a challenge for the new Baillieu government.
Dr Peter Fisher works on climate change adaptation and water management. He recently jointly presented a ICE WaRM-AusAid short course on this topic for water professionals from five Mekong countries.
Eucalypts could be part of the greenhouse solution
Sydney Morning Herald
31 December 2010 Page: 5
PLANTING an area almost the size of Sydney with malice eucalypts grown specifically to fire electricity generators could provide up to one-tenth of the nation's energy needs within the next 16 years.
The trees, grown in rows as energy crops on farms, could attract enough revenue to pay for the cost of establishing them within five years and would generate a reliable supply of electricity like coal, but with fewer greenhouse emissions, researchers at the Future Farm Industries Co-operative Research Centre say.
In the first study of the feasibility of an energy tree-crop industry on a national scale, the Western Australian researchers found that if 245 million trees were planted over 163,200 hectares, they could be used to provide significant baseload power to regional areas in Western Australia, NSW and Victoria by 2026, the lead author, Amir Abadi, said.
While there would be a good financial return for farmers and investors when Australia establishes a carbon market, the plantings are potentially viable even without one, his paper, Energy Tree Crops, says. Over the past decade, between 11,000 and 13,000 hectares of trees have been planted in Western Australia specifically to be harvested and burnt for electricity generation, and NSW is just starting, with plantings in lesser numbers, Dr Abadi said.
However, Delta Energy is testing the planting of more than 200,000 trees in central NSW for use as fuel at Wallerawang Power Station, near Lithgow, and the first bioenergy users will probably be in this state because of its higher population and heavy reliance on coal for power.
Wind and solar power provide only intermittent sources of power, but trees and other biomass, such as grasses, can potentially be used like coal to generate a reliable electricity supply, without emitting the same amounts of greenhouse gases, he said.
Research has shown that tree belts create wildlife corridors, attracting animals, birds and insects. They also provide shelter for livestock, increasing the survival rate of lambs and shorn sheep in harsh weather, he said. Dr Abadi, a farming systems economist, has collaborated with John Bartle, a biologist who for 20 years has been seeking a native tree that could be domesticated and provide a crop.
A Forbes grain grower, Matthew Duff, whose 24,000 mallee trees planted as part of the Delta Energy trial are 40 centimetres high, said it was "a bit of a punt". "It hasn't cost us any money at all,.. There's a lot of trees there, but we're not sure if we can make money off them in future. It's just adding value to our property".
31 December 2010 Page: 5
PLANTING an area almost the size of Sydney with malice eucalypts grown specifically to fire electricity generators could provide up to one-tenth of the nation's energy needs within the next 16 years.
The trees, grown in rows as energy crops on farms, could attract enough revenue to pay for the cost of establishing them within five years and would generate a reliable supply of electricity like coal, but with fewer greenhouse emissions, researchers at the Future Farm Industries Co-operative Research Centre say.
In the first study of the feasibility of an energy tree-crop industry on a national scale, the Western Australian researchers found that if 245 million trees were planted over 163,200 hectares, they could be used to provide significant baseload power to regional areas in Western Australia, NSW and Victoria by 2026, the lead author, Amir Abadi, said.
While there would be a good financial return for farmers and investors when Australia establishes a carbon market, the plantings are potentially viable even without one, his paper, Energy Tree Crops, says. Over the past decade, between 11,000 and 13,000 hectares of trees have been planted in Western Australia specifically to be harvested and burnt for electricity generation, and NSW is just starting, with plantings in lesser numbers, Dr Abadi said.
However, Delta Energy is testing the planting of more than 200,000 trees in central NSW for use as fuel at Wallerawang Power Station, near Lithgow, and the first bioenergy users will probably be in this state because of its higher population and heavy reliance on coal for power.
Wind and solar power provide only intermittent sources of power, but trees and other biomass, such as grasses, can potentially be used like coal to generate a reliable electricity supply, without emitting the same amounts of greenhouse gases, he said.
Research has shown that tree belts create wildlife corridors, attracting animals, birds and insects. They also provide shelter for livestock, increasing the survival rate of lambs and shorn sheep in harsh weather, he said. Dr Abadi, a farming systems economist, has collaborated with John Bartle, a biologist who for 20 years has been seeking a native tree that could be domesticated and provide a crop.
A Forbes grain grower, Matthew Duff, whose 24,000 mallee trees planted as part of the Delta Energy trial are 40 centimetres high, said it was "a bit of a punt". "It hasn't cost us any money at all,.. There's a lot of trees there, but we're not sure if we can make money off them in future. It's just adding value to our property".
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