Renewable energy prescribed

Western Suburbs Weekly
Tuesday 9/1/2007 Page: 9

Dr Bill Castleden is chairman of Doctors for the Environment Australia(DEA), a medical organisation that seeks to educate the public and politicians about the health-damaging effects of global warming.

GLOBAL climate change is now obvious, and yet the rate at which human-produced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are entering the atmosphere is accelerating.

The Australian media awareness of the threat of climate change has increased markedly over the past few months and it is now likely that more than 70 per cent of us would like Australia to become a full part of the global effort to solve the problem and to sign the Kyoto Protocol.

The effects of our exclusiveness are being felt. On a per capita basis, Australians are very nearly the worst greenhouse polluters.

Member states of the European Union are required to submit targets for the proportion of power they propose to generate from renewable energy. Most are aiming for 20 per cent by 2020, 30 per cent by 2030 and on to 60 per cent by 2060. However, when the Australian Mandatory Renewable Energy Target of 3 per cent is achieved in 2010 Australia will have no renewable energy target.

Wind power installation globally is expanding at about 25 per cent a year. Meanwhile Vestas, the Danish wind turbine manufacturer, is closing its Tasmanian plant; hardly a ringing endorsement of Australia's commitment to wind power.

California has passed the Million Solar Roofs Bill that requires a million Californian homes to be equipped with solar panels over the next 10 years. This will have an enormous effect as a million Californian homes will have to be built to take advantage of passive-solar orientation.

Compare this to WA's new developments with their curving, car-dependent roads and cul-de-sacs in which about one house in five can be aligned to take advantage of the optimum solar orientation.

Australian renewable energy company Novera has de-listed from the Australian Stock Exchange and moved to London. Ceramic Fuels Ltd is now substantially European-based because it can more easily raise capital there. Solco Ltd, an Australian manufacturer of solar hot water systems, has been in financial difficulty. All this while the Federal Government assures us they are pursuing robust investment in renewable energy.

In July 2006, Tesla Motors Inc unveiled an all-electric car with sports-car acceleration and a range of 400km per two-hour charge. The Prime Minister promised Australian motorists $1.6 billion to help them install gas conversions to their cars.

Would a $1.6 billion fund to encourage the Australian car industry to improve on Tesla's emission-free car have been more long-sighted? Focus on renewable energy in the sunniest continent would not be the end of the prosperity Australians have come to depend on. Up to $US63 billion will be invested by northern hemisphere venture capitalists in 2007 on renewable energy initiatives.

Sadly, this investment opportunity continues to pass Australia by while we focus on further development of old-style, eventually exhaustible, extractive (coal, gas and uranium) energy development.

Individuals, businesses and politicians alike have fully to recognise the problems we face and work together, as if facing a wartime reality, to reduce the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse pollutants we all emit. With a change in focus it can be done.