Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday 15/1/2009 Page: 9
NSW is about to find out whether it will be able to capture greenhouse gas emissions from its coal-fired power stations and store their underground. Drilling began on Monday to see if the rock 800 metres under the Central Coast can handle having thousands of tonnes of liquefied carbon dioxide pumped into it each week. It is yet to be proved that carbon capture and storage, in which carbon dioxide fumes from power stations are compressed and cooled on-site before being buried, will work on a large scale in Australia. Most environmental groups and some in the coal industry think it will not become effective in time to help slow climate change.
But the Government is optimistic that exploratory drilling close to Delta Energy's Munmorah coal-fired power station near Lake Macquarie, and at three other points in the state's north, will show results. By April we'll have an idea whether things are going well," the Minister for Energy, Ian Macdonald, said. We believe that it will work." Last July, a trial carbon capture project at the Munmorah power station was launched by Delta Energy using CSIRO technology. The next step is to bury the captured carbon.
The amount captured and stored at Munmorah is initially to be small - 3000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, a tiny fraction of the power station's emissions. It aims to capture 100,000 tonnes a year by 2013. If the chosen test site at Munmorah proves unsuitable for storing carbon, other sites - such as Mount Piper power station near Lithgow- would be immediately investigated, Mr Macdonald told the Herald.
If no geological sites can be found near existing power stations, the Government would consider contributing funds to build a vast network of pipelines Environmentalists say the expense of carbon capture and storage would take money away from the development of renewable energy. The coal industry is trying to create the appearance that it is doing something about climate change, but all they are really doing is fighting tooth and nail to keep themselves in business," a Greenpeace spokesman said.
Friday, 16 January 2009
Take time to get the climate right
Summaries - Australian Financial Review
Thursday 15/1/2009 Page: 46
While the financial crisis will be the most important policy platform for the Rudd government this year, climate change will be the most important for the next 50 years. The government suggested in a white paper released before Christmas a 5 percent emissions target for 2020 and additional compensation for heavy emitters than recommend by Ross Garnaut. Reserve Bank of Australia board member Warwick McKibbin has argued that emissions trading scheme architecture can only work with significant changes, including a longer term policy. Access Economics co-founder and former Treasury officer Geoff Carmody has argued the focus on emissions permits for production is flawed.
Thursday 15/1/2009 Page: 46
While the financial crisis will be the most important policy platform for the Rudd government this year, climate change will be the most important for the next 50 years. The government suggested in a white paper released before Christmas a 5 percent emissions target for 2020 and additional compensation for heavy emitters than recommend by Ross Garnaut. Reserve Bank of Australia board member Warwick McKibbin has argued that emissions trading scheme architecture can only work with significant changes, including a longer term policy. Access Economics co-founder and former Treasury officer Geoff Carmody has argued the focus on emissions permits for production is flawed.
Fridges store beer, milk ...and energy
Canberra Times
Wednesday 14/1/2009 Page: 3
For most people, talk of "green" fridges might conjure tip images of hygiene disasters in scungy student flats. But Australian researchers have come tip with a green fridge which is not on the nose. They have invented a device which allows household fridges to run more easily off solar or wind energy. This could slash their greenhouse gas emissions - and could make renewable energy more usable as well.
Fridges switch themselves on and off regularly as they keep their temperature between 2 and 4 degrees. The CSIRO invention hooks up all the fridges in an area electronically. They then "talk" to each other, and to renewable energy suppliers, about when is the best time to crank up the compressor and cool themselves down. So when there is plenty of solar energy available, the fridges switch themselves on. And when the clouds roll in, they switch themselves off.
Engineer Sara West, who helped develop the device at CSIRO's research centre in Newcastle, said using the humble fridge to store renewable energy was exciting. "A lot of people are surprised to hear that they can use [their fridge] for this kind of storage, usually they're pretty interested," Mr West said. One of the biggest obstacles to the widespread use of renewable energy is its reliability - it does not provide a baseload supply like coal-fired power stations. Finding ways to store renewable energy would help address the issue, Mr West said.
The "green fridge" was one way of doing it, in the form of thermal energy - or cold. The system was foolproof and would not lead to the milk going off. The CSIRO invention is a small box which can be attached to existing fridges. The organisation hopes to roll out a trial version of the system, and said it was possible that one day all fridges would come equipped with the device.
Wednesday 14/1/2009 Page: 3
For most people, talk of "green" fridges might conjure tip images of hygiene disasters in scungy student flats. But Australian researchers have come tip with a green fridge which is not on the nose. They have invented a device which allows household fridges to run more easily off solar or wind energy. This could slash their greenhouse gas emissions - and could make renewable energy more usable as well.
Fridges switch themselves on and off regularly as they keep their temperature between 2 and 4 degrees. The CSIRO invention hooks up all the fridges in an area electronically. They then "talk" to each other, and to renewable energy suppliers, about when is the best time to crank up the compressor and cool themselves down. So when there is plenty of solar energy available, the fridges switch themselves on. And when the clouds roll in, they switch themselves off.
Engineer Sara West, who helped develop the device at CSIRO's research centre in Newcastle, said using the humble fridge to store renewable energy was exciting. "A lot of people are surprised to hear that they can use [their fridge] for this kind of storage, usually they're pretty interested," Mr West said. One of the biggest obstacles to the widespread use of renewable energy is its reliability - it does not provide a baseload supply like coal-fired power stations. Finding ways to store renewable energy would help address the issue, Mr West said.
The "green fridge" was one way of doing it, in the form of thermal energy - or cold. The system was foolproof and would not lead to the milk going off. The CSIRO invention is a small box which can be attached to existing fridges. The organisation hopes to roll out a trial version of the system, and said it was possible that one day all fridges would come equipped with the device.
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Time out as banks mull sell-off
Summaries - Australian Financial Review
Tuesday 13/1/2009 Page: 38
A two week trading halt will be placed on Babcock and Brown (B&B) stocks as the company's bankers think about selling the company's assets, such as thermal, wind and solar developments, and winding up the business. If approved, the decision to sell assets will end chief executive officer Michael Larkin's plan to turn the finance house into a specialist infrastructure investment business and sell 'non-core assets' like rail and leases. Current management rather than a receiver appointed by the banks will supervise the asset sales.
B&B told the Australian Securities Exchange that it expects the trade suspension will be lifted once the company's lenders including Australia's four major banks - the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, the National Australia Bank and Westpac - make their final responses. The majority of last week's trade was done via CommSec and ETrade indicating retail investors were confident in taking a chance that the company would survive until the February decision on a debt-for-equity swap.
Tuesday 13/1/2009 Page: 38
A two week trading halt will be placed on Babcock and Brown (B&B) stocks as the company's bankers think about selling the company's assets, such as thermal, wind and solar developments, and winding up the business. If approved, the decision to sell assets will end chief executive officer Michael Larkin's plan to turn the finance house into a specialist infrastructure investment business and sell 'non-core assets' like rail and leases. Current management rather than a receiver appointed by the banks will supervise the asset sales.
B&B told the Australian Securities Exchange that it expects the trade suspension will be lifted once the company's lenders including Australia's four major banks - the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, the National Australia Bank and Westpac - make their final responses. The majority of last week's trade was done via CommSec and ETrade indicating retail investors were confident in taking a chance that the company would survive until the February decision on a debt-for-equity swap.
Power demand steady despite global turmoil
Hobart Mercury
Tuesday 13/1/2009 Page: 8
THE factory lights are on and Tasmanian industry is still at home as the global economic crisis drives many overseas manufacturers to the wall. So far, there has been no mass shutdown of industry in Tasmania. But the company that supplies electricity to our big manufacturers is keeping tabs on the situation as it enters what analysts predict will be a tough year.
Hydro Tasmania acting chief executive Lance Balcombe said the electricity generator had not seen a reduction in demand for power. "We are, however, mindful of the situation of some energy users and the impact the downturn may have on those businesses - particularly those with exposure to global markets." Mr Balcombe said. "We'll continue to monitor the situation and keep in contact with our customers."
Mr Balcombe said there were upsides in the current business climate. "The reduction in interest rates is benefiting our business." he said. But there were also negatives. "The falling Australian dollar may have an impact on our capital works program," he said. The cost of imported components rises in line with a devaluation of Australia's currency and this could result in projects being deferred. "However, we consider this to be an unlikely situation." Mr Balcombe said.
Tuesday 13/1/2009 Page: 8
THE factory lights are on and Tasmanian industry is still at home as the global economic crisis drives many overseas manufacturers to the wall. So far, there has been no mass shutdown of industry in Tasmania. But the company that supplies electricity to our big manufacturers is keeping tabs on the situation as it enters what analysts predict will be a tough year.
Hydro Tasmania acting chief executive Lance Balcombe said the electricity generator had not seen a reduction in demand for power. "We are, however, mindful of the situation of some energy users and the impact the downturn may have on those businesses - particularly those with exposure to global markets." Mr Balcombe said. "We'll continue to monitor the situation and keep in contact with our customers."
Mr Balcombe said there were upsides in the current business climate. "The reduction in interest rates is benefiting our business." he said. But there were also negatives. "The falling Australian dollar may have an impact on our capital works program," he said. The cost of imported components rises in line with a devaluation of Australia's currency and this could result in projects being deferred. "However, we consider this to be an unlikely situation." Mr Balcombe said.
State drops its power limits for desal plant - Madden vague on energy demand
Age
Tuesday 13/1/2009 Page: 3
VICTORIA'S desalination plant has been given scope to consume more electricity, after the Brumby Government rewrote the energy efficiency limits on the controversial project. desalination requires significant energy to separate drinking water from salts and other wastes, and the composition of Bass Strait water will make Victoria's plant less energy efficient than plants in other Australian cities such as Perth.
Strict "performance requirements" for energy efficiency at the Wonthaggi plant were set in September's environmental effects statement. It said that annual power consumption at the plant should remain below an average 4.6 kWs for each kilolitre of drinking water produced. However, when approving the EES process on Friday, Planning Minister Justin Madden appeared to water down that requirement, saying the energy efficiency standard should be merely "as low as reasonably practicable and to the satisfaction of the Environment Protection Authority".
Mr Madden rejected suggestions he was relaxing the energy efficiency standards. "It's not a weakening of the standards at all. It's probably indicating a strong advocacy for reducing emissions as much as possible in any possible form," he said. But Environment Victoria director Mark Wakeham said it was concerning that Mr Madden had opted for the generic statement when a numerical limit would suffice. "It's a bit like writing a blank cheque on behalf of Victorian consumers by not requiring a minimum energy performance standard," he said.
The waters off Wonthaggi are colder and more saline than those off Perth, meaning more electricity will be needed to produce each litre of drinking water at the Victorian plant. In his report, Mr Madden conceded the plant would "entail significant greenhouse gas emissions". The Government has promised that plant operators will have to purchase renewable energy credits to offset the electricity used in operating the plant and pumping water 80 kilometres to Cardinia Reservoir.
But the 1.4 million tonnes of emissions produced during construction of the plant will not be offset, nor will the 70,000 tonnes of emissions produced each year by decomposing wastes and deliveries. Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Greg Meyer said the offsets for the desalination project would be in addition to Victoria's existing renewable energy targets. But it remains unclear whether the offsets will be in addition to all renewable energy targets across Australia.
A Government panel hired to review the EES process recently urged the Government to better clarify its offsets program for the project, and to ensure there was no double accounting. Environment Minister Gavin Jennings yesterday defended revelations that Victoria produced 2.2 tonnes more of greenhouse emissions in 2008 than in 2007. NSW reduced its emissions over the same period, according to a report by the climate group.
Despite the report being released annually, Mr Jennings urged Victorians to focus on a period stretching back to 2000, during which emissions growth in Victoria was slower than in NSW and Queensland. He said investment in renewable energy schemes in Victoria had slowed because investors were waiting for the introduction of federal schemes, such as emissions trading in 2010.
Opposition environment spokesman David Davis said the Government had failed to live up to its rhetoric on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Tuesday 13/1/2009 Page: 3
VICTORIA'S desalination plant has been given scope to consume more electricity, after the Brumby Government rewrote the energy efficiency limits on the controversial project. desalination requires significant energy to separate drinking water from salts and other wastes, and the composition of Bass Strait water will make Victoria's plant less energy efficient than plants in other Australian cities such as Perth.
Strict "performance requirements" for energy efficiency at the Wonthaggi plant were set in September's environmental effects statement. It said that annual power consumption at the plant should remain below an average 4.6 kWs for each kilolitre of drinking water produced. However, when approving the EES process on Friday, Planning Minister Justin Madden appeared to water down that requirement, saying the energy efficiency standard should be merely "as low as reasonably practicable and to the satisfaction of the Environment Protection Authority".
Mr Madden rejected suggestions he was relaxing the energy efficiency standards. "It's not a weakening of the standards at all. It's probably indicating a strong advocacy for reducing emissions as much as possible in any possible form," he said. But Environment Victoria director Mark Wakeham said it was concerning that Mr Madden had opted for the generic statement when a numerical limit would suffice. "It's a bit like writing a blank cheque on behalf of Victorian consumers by not requiring a minimum energy performance standard," he said.
The waters off Wonthaggi are colder and more saline than those off Perth, meaning more electricity will be needed to produce each litre of drinking water at the Victorian plant. In his report, Mr Madden conceded the plant would "entail significant greenhouse gas emissions". The Government has promised that plant operators will have to purchase renewable energy credits to offset the electricity used in operating the plant and pumping water 80 kilometres to Cardinia Reservoir.
But the 1.4 million tonnes of emissions produced during construction of the plant will not be offset, nor will the 70,000 tonnes of emissions produced each year by decomposing wastes and deliveries. Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Greg Meyer said the offsets for the desalination project would be in addition to Victoria's existing renewable energy targets. But it remains unclear whether the offsets will be in addition to all renewable energy targets across Australia.
A Government panel hired to review the EES process recently urged the Government to better clarify its offsets program for the project, and to ensure there was no double accounting. Environment Minister Gavin Jennings yesterday defended revelations that Victoria produced 2.2 tonnes more of greenhouse emissions in 2008 than in 2007. NSW reduced its emissions over the same period, according to a report by the climate group.
Despite the report being released annually, Mr Jennings urged Victorians to focus on a period stretching back to 2000, during which emissions growth in Victoria was slower than in NSW and Queensland. He said investment in renewable energy schemes in Victoria had slowed because investors were waiting for the introduction of federal schemes, such as emissions trading in 2010.
Opposition environment spokesman David Davis said the Government had failed to live up to its rhetoric on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
NSW bucks national trend for gas emissions
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday 12/1/2009 Page: 5
THE amount of greenhouse gases pumped out by energy generation and transport fell in NSW last year, bucking the national trend. High petrol prices and a move towards diesel helped the state lower its carbon dioxide emissions by about half a million tonnes in 2008 compared with 2007, although NSW became even more dependent on burning coal to generate electricity. Emissions from energy and transport in Queensland and Victoria, the two other states that make up the east coast electricity grid, still rose.
Last year the east coast released 19% more carbon dioxide - which traps heat in the atmosphere and contributes to climate change - than in 2000. NSW released just over 98 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. Compared with 1990, the year usually used to calculate emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, emissions from NSW have risen 30%. Since 1990 Queensland is up 116% and Victoria 32%, according to The Climate Group, which collated weekly figures from its national greenhouse indicator, based on electricity market data and fuel sales.
The figures mean households, industry and governments have a huge job ahead of them just to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions over the next few years, before meeting even the modest 5% cuts now proposed for 2020. The reason there was a drop in NSW is that there were lower petroleum sales, so in that regard higher petrol prices may have played a small but useful role," said Rupert Posner, the nonprofit group's Australian director. "At the same time there was actually an increase in emissions from coal-fired power stations." In NSW, emissions from coalfired power stations - the backbone of the electricity grid - increased by 1.5 million tonnes on the previous year, a rise of 0.7%.
Electricity production went up by 1.3% in response to public demand and a rising population. Production rose more quickly in Queensland and Victoria, reflecting the higher population growth rates in those states. "We haven't started to see the turnaround we need yet," Mr Posner said. "What's clear from these figures is that Australia's dependence on coal is just not sustainable." Petrol sales fell 9% around the state last year, and sales of the less-polluting diesel fuel rose 2%.
On average, the energy and transport sectors in NSW put 1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide or its equivalent into the atmosphere each week last year. More energy was used during winter, as people turned on heating in their homes, and less power was used during the Christmas lull. The Federal Government plans to introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2010 to wind back emissions by making the nation's 1000 heaviest-polluting industries buy permits equivalent to the amount of greenhouse gas they release, and therefore paying for their emissions.
The Government is committed to reducing national emissions by at least 5% on 2000 levels over the next 12 years. It has said it will aim for deeper cuts if a binding global deal on carbon reduction is agreed to next year, although its proposed cuts for 2020 still fall short of the 25 to 40% recommended by most climate scientists.
Monday 12/1/2009 Page: 5
THE amount of greenhouse gases pumped out by energy generation and transport fell in NSW last year, bucking the national trend. High petrol prices and a move towards diesel helped the state lower its carbon dioxide emissions by about half a million tonnes in 2008 compared with 2007, although NSW became even more dependent on burning coal to generate electricity. Emissions from energy and transport in Queensland and Victoria, the two other states that make up the east coast electricity grid, still rose.
Last year the east coast released 19% more carbon dioxide - which traps heat in the atmosphere and contributes to climate change - than in 2000. NSW released just over 98 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. Compared with 1990, the year usually used to calculate emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, emissions from NSW have risen 30%. Since 1990 Queensland is up 116% and Victoria 32%, according to The Climate Group, which collated weekly figures from its national greenhouse indicator, based on electricity market data and fuel sales.
The figures mean households, industry and governments have a huge job ahead of them just to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions over the next few years, before meeting even the modest 5% cuts now proposed for 2020. The reason there was a drop in NSW is that there were lower petroleum sales, so in that regard higher petrol prices may have played a small but useful role," said Rupert Posner, the nonprofit group's Australian director. "At the same time there was actually an increase in emissions from coal-fired power stations." In NSW, emissions from coalfired power stations - the backbone of the electricity grid - increased by 1.5 million tonnes on the previous year, a rise of 0.7%.
Electricity production went up by 1.3% in response to public demand and a rising population. Production rose more quickly in Queensland and Victoria, reflecting the higher population growth rates in those states. "We haven't started to see the turnaround we need yet," Mr Posner said. "What's clear from these figures is that Australia's dependence on coal is just not sustainable." Petrol sales fell 9% around the state last year, and sales of the less-polluting diesel fuel rose 2%.
On average, the energy and transport sectors in NSW put 1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide or its equivalent into the atmosphere each week last year. More energy was used during winter, as people turned on heating in their homes, and less power was used during the Christmas lull. The Federal Government plans to introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2010 to wind back emissions by making the nation's 1000 heaviest-polluting industries buy permits equivalent to the amount of greenhouse gas they release, and therefore paying for their emissions.
The Government is committed to reducing national emissions by at least 5% on 2000 levels over the next 12 years. It has said it will aim for deeper cuts if a binding global deal on carbon reduction is agreed to next year, although its proposed cuts for 2020 still fall short of the 25 to 40% recommended by most climate scientists.
Pollution skyrockets - Coal and gas for electricity blamed
Courier Mail
Monday 12/1/2009 Page: 11
GREENHOUSE gas emissions from fossil fuels for transport and electricity in Queensland rose by two million tonnes last year, a report has claimed. But last year's sharp spike in oil prices helped cut petroleum emissions across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Rupert Posner, Australian director of charity The Climate Group, which compiled the report, said the paper "clearly demonstrates that our reliance on coal for electricity is our biggest problem when it comes to cutting our greenhouse gas emissions".
On page 2 of The Courier- Mail every Monday readers can track emissions created by Queensland's coal and gas-fired electricity generators and from petroleum use. Published today, The Climate Group's annual report reveals that across Victoria, NSW and Queensland, annual emissions were 3.6 million tonnes higher last year than in 2007 a rise of 1.3% for the year. Compared with 2000 levels, the report said emissions from energy-use were significantly higher across all states, collectively up 19%.
But the increase above equivalent 1990 levels was even higher, with Queensland's emissions more than doubling compared with rises of 30% in NSW and 32% in Victoria. "Most of the increase in emissions in 2008 was from coal-fired generators in Queensland and Victoria, which both produced an extra 1.5 million tonnes each," Mr Posner said. He said Australia needed to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels if emissions were to be cut.
"The Greenhouse Indicator's 2008 results clearly show we all need to start taking action now if we want to reduce our greenhouse pollution," he said. "The window of opportunity open to us to prevent dangerous climate change is becoming smaller but there are lots of things that people can do immediately to start making a difference." Emissions from petroleum, calculated from sales figures in the three eastern states, actually fell by 0.6%. The Climate Group describes itself as an independent not-for- profit coalition of government and business leaders aiming to move to a low emission future.
Monday 12/1/2009 Page: 11
GREENHOUSE gas emissions from fossil fuels for transport and electricity in Queensland rose by two million tonnes last year, a report has claimed. But last year's sharp spike in oil prices helped cut petroleum emissions across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Rupert Posner, Australian director of charity The Climate Group, which compiled the report, said the paper "clearly demonstrates that our reliance on coal for electricity is our biggest problem when it comes to cutting our greenhouse gas emissions".
On page 2 of The Courier- Mail every Monday readers can track emissions created by Queensland's coal and gas-fired electricity generators and from petroleum use. Published today, The Climate Group's annual report reveals that across Victoria, NSW and Queensland, annual emissions were 3.6 million tonnes higher last year than in 2007 a rise of 1.3% for the year. Compared with 2000 levels, the report said emissions from energy-use were significantly higher across all states, collectively up 19%.
But the increase above equivalent 1990 levels was even higher, with Queensland's emissions more than doubling compared with rises of 30% in NSW and 32% in Victoria. "Most of the increase in emissions in 2008 was from coal-fired generators in Queensland and Victoria, which both produced an extra 1.5 million tonnes each," Mr Posner said. He said Australia needed to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels if emissions were to be cut.
"The Greenhouse Indicator's 2008 results clearly show we all need to start taking action now if we want to reduce our greenhouse pollution," he said. "The window of opportunity open to us to prevent dangerous climate change is becoming smaller but there are lots of things that people can do immediately to start making a difference." Emissions from petroleum, calculated from sales figures in the three eastern states, actually fell by 0.6%. The Climate Group describes itself as an independent not-for- profit coalition of government and business leaders aiming to move to a low emission future.
Monday, 12 January 2009
The clean, green potential sizzling far below
Age
Saturday 10/1/2009 Page: 15
WHEN explorer Major Thomas Mitchell meandered across western Victoria in 1836, so enraptured by the vast grasslands that he called the place Australia Felix, meaning lucky or blessed land, he could not have imagined that even greater fortune lay thousands of metres below his feet. Now, as the world grapples with the perplexity of how to produce energy without pouring greater amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere, new explorers are about to try to tap that invisible power, as green as the pastures above.
It is in the form of vast aquifers of ancient brackish water heated up to 145 degrees lying beneath a blanket of sedimentary rock at depths between 2.4 kilometres and more than four kilometres. And as these new explorers have found, it is not limited to western Victoria. Two companies - Greenearth Energy and Hot Rock - are in a race to exploit this previously ignored resource, which is superheated by sitting atop deep beds of granite warmed by the Earth's mantle.
It is a race, however, given little impetus by the Rudd Government's recent decision to reduce carbon emissions by 5% to 15% by 2020. The policy continues to favour coal-fired power stations, which means the old polluting technology retains a significant price advantage - about half the MW price - over geothermal technology, which requires large amounts of start-up money, particularly for drilling.
Between them, Hot Rock and Greenearth Energy have been granted by the Victorian Government geothermal exploration permits covering more than 46,000 square kilometres stretching from the Latrobe Valley in Gippsland, across Geelong and along the entire stretch of the west Victorian coast and its hinterland. Deep beneath those great tracts of land, the companies have ascertained, lies the potential to make Victoria one of the world's greenest baseload energy suppliers - a goal neither wind nor solar energy can achieve.
Greenearth Energy's 18,795-square kilometre tenements are in the Latrobe Valley and the Bellarine Peninsula, Geelong and Daylesford areas. Early last month, it published Victoria's first "inferred geothermal resource", showing that beneath a large area between Geelong and Anglesea lies enough stored heat energy to provide 150 tunes Victoria's energy requirements.
This week it published another such report on discoveries beneath Gippsland, including the Latrobe Valley. The potential, according to Greenearth Energy managing director Mark Miller, is for these areas to produce many hundreds of MWs of "clean, safe, renewable energy at the doorstep of our two great Victorian cities, Melbourne and Geelong". Hot Rock's 27,000-square kilometre exploration area extends from Lorne for 270 kilometres to the South Australian border. Major centres covered by the company's permits include Colac, Terang, Warrnambool, Hamilton and Portland.
While Victoria as a whole has long overlooked its ability to fire up its industries and cities using the free heat sizzling deep in the earth, the potential was hardly unknown. For more than 20 years, Portland was the only city in Australia that used geothermal power to heat many of its larger public buildings and its public swimming pool. Its ageing bore, sunk a relatively shallow 1400 metres beneath the city, produced water at 58 degrees but was dismantled two years ago. Gas is now used as an alternative heating source while the city fathers ponder whether to reopen the geothermal plant.
Hot Rock, basing its venture on an independent review and the discovery of great pools of hot water during previous drilling for oil and gas across western Victoria, believes there is enough geothermal power available within its tenements to generate up to 5000 MWs, or almost Victoria's entire electricity requirement. Essentially, the process involves drilling to the aquifers and pumping the water to a plant at the surface where the heat is extracted to drive turbines. The water is then returned to its aquifer through reinjection wells. There are no toxic emissions and there is no loss of water.
And unlike major geothermal schemes unfolding in South Australia's remote Cooper Basin, the Western District and Gippsland permits lie along major power transmission systems. In monetary terns, this is crucial - new electricity transmission lines cost between $1 million and $2 million a kilometre. In short, the power - in baseload form, which produces electricity 24 hours a day like power from coalfired plants - could be transmitted at minimal cost across a relatively small area populated by 5 million people.
"I have never been involved in an environmental project that ticks every conceivable box, but this one does everything - that is, except serious government support," says Hot Rock's managing director, Dr Mark Elliott. Greenearth Energy and Hot Rock plan to start work on their initial projects in the middle of this year. Hot Rock plans to begin proving its strategy by drilling and testing two wells north-west of the town of Koroit, near Warrnambool, and building a 50-MW power plant in about two years.
Eventually, assuming significant investor support, several other power plants producing about 200 MWs - more than all the wind farms now operating in Victoria - are to be built at the Koroit site. In the long term, Greenearth Energys Mark Miller sees his company moving beyond electricity production to helping the Latrobe Valley's coal-fired plants clean up their act. He believes that heat extracted from its Gippsland tenements could dry the wet sludge known as brown coal, reducing toxic emissions from existing power plants. Even the doughty Major Mitchell may have been impressed.
Saturday 10/1/2009 Page: 15
WHEN explorer Major Thomas Mitchell meandered across western Victoria in 1836, so enraptured by the vast grasslands that he called the place Australia Felix, meaning lucky or blessed land, he could not have imagined that even greater fortune lay thousands of metres below his feet. Now, as the world grapples with the perplexity of how to produce energy without pouring greater amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere, new explorers are about to try to tap that invisible power, as green as the pastures above.It is in the form of vast aquifers of ancient brackish water heated up to 145 degrees lying beneath a blanket of sedimentary rock at depths between 2.4 kilometres and more than four kilometres. And as these new explorers have found, it is not limited to western Victoria. Two companies - Greenearth Energy and Hot Rock - are in a race to exploit this previously ignored resource, which is superheated by sitting atop deep beds of granite warmed by the Earth's mantle.
It is a race, however, given little impetus by the Rudd Government's recent decision to reduce carbon emissions by 5% to 15% by 2020. The policy continues to favour coal-fired power stations, which means the old polluting technology retains a significant price advantage - about half the MW price - over geothermal technology, which requires large amounts of start-up money, particularly for drilling.
Between them, Hot Rock and Greenearth Energy have been granted by the Victorian Government geothermal exploration permits covering more than 46,000 square kilometres stretching from the Latrobe Valley in Gippsland, across Geelong and along the entire stretch of the west Victorian coast and its hinterland. Deep beneath those great tracts of land, the companies have ascertained, lies the potential to make Victoria one of the world's greenest baseload energy suppliers - a goal neither wind nor solar energy can achieve.
Greenearth Energy's 18,795-square kilometre tenements are in the Latrobe Valley and the Bellarine Peninsula, Geelong and Daylesford areas. Early last month, it published Victoria's first "inferred geothermal resource", showing that beneath a large area between Geelong and Anglesea lies enough stored heat energy to provide 150 tunes Victoria's energy requirements.
This week it published another such report on discoveries beneath Gippsland, including the Latrobe Valley. The potential, according to Greenearth Energy managing director Mark Miller, is for these areas to produce many hundreds of MWs of "clean, safe, renewable energy at the doorstep of our two great Victorian cities, Melbourne and Geelong". Hot Rock's 27,000-square kilometre exploration area extends from Lorne for 270 kilometres to the South Australian border. Major centres covered by the company's permits include Colac, Terang, Warrnambool, Hamilton and Portland.
While Victoria as a whole has long overlooked its ability to fire up its industries and cities using the free heat sizzling deep in the earth, the potential was hardly unknown. For more than 20 years, Portland was the only city in Australia that used geothermal power to heat many of its larger public buildings and its public swimming pool. Its ageing bore, sunk a relatively shallow 1400 metres beneath the city, produced water at 58 degrees but was dismantled two years ago. Gas is now used as an alternative heating source while the city fathers ponder whether to reopen the geothermal plant.
Hot Rock, basing its venture on an independent review and the discovery of great pools of hot water during previous drilling for oil and gas across western Victoria, believes there is enough geothermal power available within its tenements to generate up to 5000 MWs, or almost Victoria's entire electricity requirement. Essentially, the process involves drilling to the aquifers and pumping the water to a plant at the surface where the heat is extracted to drive turbines. The water is then returned to its aquifer through reinjection wells. There are no toxic emissions and there is no loss of water.
And unlike major geothermal schemes unfolding in South Australia's remote Cooper Basin, the Western District and Gippsland permits lie along major power transmission systems. In monetary terns, this is crucial - new electricity transmission lines cost between $1 million and $2 million a kilometre. In short, the power - in baseload form, which produces electricity 24 hours a day like power from coalfired plants - could be transmitted at minimal cost across a relatively small area populated by 5 million people.
"I have never been involved in an environmental project that ticks every conceivable box, but this one does everything - that is, except serious government support," says Hot Rock's managing director, Dr Mark Elliott. Greenearth Energy and Hot Rock plan to start work on their initial projects in the middle of this year. Hot Rock plans to begin proving its strategy by drilling and testing two wells north-west of the town of Koroit, near Warrnambool, and building a 50-MW power plant in about two years.
Eventually, assuming significant investor support, several other power plants producing about 200 MWs - more than all the wind farms now operating in Victoria - are to be built at the Koroit site. In the long term, Greenearth Energys Mark Miller sees his company moving beyond electricity production to helping the Latrobe Valley's coal-fired plants clean up their act. He believes that heat extracted from its Gippsland tenements could dry the wet sludge known as brown coal, reducing toxic emissions from existing power plants. Even the doughty Major Mitchell may have been impressed.
Profits before planet
Adelaide Advertiser
Friday 9/1/2009 Page: 11
GOING green has been overtaken by economic concerns at several South Australian businesses. While a growing number of businesses are still inquiring about measuring their carbon footprint, many are deferring audits until they are free of financial constraints. Carbon Planet chairman and chief executive Jim Johnson says while workplaces have stepped up preparations for going green, the global economic downturn is resulting in a delay in action.
"It's a case of people saying, 'We know we have to do this, it's inevitable, but in the face of economic uncertainty most definitely due to the economic climate," Mr Johnson told The Advertiser. "They haven't exactly cut back, it's more a case of in the last three months there have been some deferrals." However, in the wake of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signing the Kyoto Protocol, Mr Johnson said regardless of cost-cutting, being green was coming back. "Now Australia's participation in climate is formal and inevitable - I call it the boy scout syndrome - people are getting prepared," he said.
However, full commitment from Australian businesses is still some time away with a recent survey by online career network LinkMe.com.au revealing only 15.6% of companies have moved to measure the levels of greenhouse gases they emit. Mr Johnson said this level of awareness - including offsetting entire emissions and purchasing carbon credits - has only been adopted by a minority. "It's still a very low number. I think given the current economic condition ... there will be a delay in those sorts of decisions," he said.
However, one business not willing to put off such a decision is Adelaide-based Scan Conversion Services which has achieved carbon neutral status through implementing green policies and purchasing registered carbon offsets. SCS managing director Richard Bates says being green is not only a moral or economic concern, but steps like cutting paper use can also increase productivity in the workplace. "There is a strong, proven link between staff productivity and job satisfaction by reducing boring, repetitive chores like filing, photocopying, mailing and hunting for paper documents." Mr Bates said.
Friday 9/1/2009 Page: 11
GOING green has been overtaken by economic concerns at several South Australian businesses. While a growing number of businesses are still inquiring about measuring their carbon footprint, many are deferring audits until they are free of financial constraints. Carbon Planet chairman and chief executive Jim Johnson says while workplaces have stepped up preparations for going green, the global economic downturn is resulting in a delay in action."It's a case of people saying, 'We know we have to do this, it's inevitable, but in the face of economic uncertainty most definitely due to the economic climate," Mr Johnson told The Advertiser. "They haven't exactly cut back, it's more a case of in the last three months there have been some deferrals." However, in the wake of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signing the Kyoto Protocol, Mr Johnson said regardless of cost-cutting, being green was coming back. "Now Australia's participation in climate is formal and inevitable - I call it the boy scout syndrome - people are getting prepared," he said.
However, full commitment from Australian businesses is still some time away with a recent survey by online career network LinkMe.com.au revealing only 15.6% of companies have moved to measure the levels of greenhouse gases they emit. Mr Johnson said this level of awareness - including offsetting entire emissions and purchasing carbon credits - has only been adopted by a minority. "It's still a very low number. I think given the current economic condition ... there will be a delay in those sorts of decisions," he said.
However, one business not willing to put off such a decision is Adelaide-based Scan Conversion Services which has achieved carbon neutral status through implementing green policies and purchasing registered carbon offsets. SCS managing director Richard Bates says being green is not only a moral or economic concern, but steps like cutting paper use can also increase productivity in the workplace. "There is a strong, proven link between staff productivity and job satisfaction by reducing boring, repetitive chores like filing, photocopying, mailing and hunting for paper documents." Mr Bates said.
Honda stomps on gas
Adelaide Advertiser
Saturday 10/1/2009 Page: 3
Hybrid and fuel-cell cars are not the only thing Honda is doing to reduce CO2 emissions. The Japanese car maker is claiming an Australian media first with billboards, featuring the new Honda Accord Euro, lit by solar energy. Outdoor advertising company APN Outdoor has installed solar panels on several of the billboards around Australia. Honda subsidiary Soltec began production and sales of ultra-thin solar panels throughout Japan in October.
Saturday 10/1/2009 Page: 3
Hybrid and fuel-cell cars are not the only thing Honda is doing to reduce CO2 emissions. The Japanese car maker is claiming an Australian media first with billboards, featuring the new Honda Accord Euro, lit by solar energy. Outdoor advertising company APN Outdoor has installed solar panels on several of the billboards around Australia. Honda subsidiary Soltec began production and sales of ultra-thin solar panels throughout Japan in October.
B&B Power organises a show and-tell tour for suitors
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday 10/1/2009 Page: 31
POTENTIAL purchasers of parts or all of Babcock and Brown Power's business are to be given detailed briefings over the next three weeks of what they may end up buying as the group prepares for break-tip and even a full takeover. Having received a number of what the group described as "non-binding and "indicative" bids just before Christmas, BBP - which is having to consider a complete overhaul of its corporate structure because of a near $3 billion debt burden - will now test its suitors' actual appetite for its assets.
Interested parties - said to include the Australian power providers AGL and Origin Energy and a Bahrain-based energy investment group, Arcapita- are to be taken on site visits of all of BBP's 12 operating power stations and the former Alinta retailing assets. BBP has also opened a data room for purchasers to sift through the confidential management information about the earnings potential of each of its generating interests, which will have to be weighed up against the debt pressures the company is facing.
While BBP is intent on securing an offer for the entire company as opposed to further individual sales of power stations like the disposals it has recently completed, its problem remains the price tag that will be put on its equity if a normal takeover bid is to ensure. With its share price wallowing at just 10c after a dramatic fall in value over the last 12 months, the company is valued in sharemarket terms at just $73 million - well below the net asset value of its mainly gasfired generating plans around Australia and in New Zealand.
However, its hard-pressed security holders know that any offer based on its share price will have to take into account the need for buyers to take on huge chunks of its debt as part of the final transaction. The company was worth $2 billion a year ago but has been crippled by the size of its large borrowings and the cost of refinancing part of the debt. BBP is hoping to be able to make an announcement to its hard-pressed investors on its long-term future by the end of March but that timetable could slip depending on the complexity of the bids involved.
A spokeswoman described as "premature" the prospect of a swift conclusion to the review now being undertaken by BBP's board, saying that the bidding process was still at an early stage. The role of its one-time parent, the equally beleaguered Babcock and Brown, in managing the fund and the fees that it takes as a result would also only be resolved once BBP's directors had made a decision on the offers it had received. Babcock and Brown Wind Partners, which now runs its own operations independently of B&B and is in the process of changing its name, yesterday announced it had completed the $1 billion sale of its Spanish wind farm assets.
Saturday 10/1/2009 Page: 31
POTENTIAL purchasers of parts or all of Babcock and Brown Power's business are to be given detailed briefings over the next three weeks of what they may end up buying as the group prepares for break-tip and even a full takeover. Having received a number of what the group described as "non-binding and "indicative" bids just before Christmas, BBP - which is having to consider a complete overhaul of its corporate structure because of a near $3 billion debt burden - will now test its suitors' actual appetite for its assets.
Interested parties - said to include the Australian power providers AGL and Origin Energy and a Bahrain-based energy investment group, Arcapita- are to be taken on site visits of all of BBP's 12 operating power stations and the former Alinta retailing assets. BBP has also opened a data room for purchasers to sift through the confidential management information about the earnings potential of each of its generating interests, which will have to be weighed up against the debt pressures the company is facing.
While BBP is intent on securing an offer for the entire company as opposed to further individual sales of power stations like the disposals it has recently completed, its problem remains the price tag that will be put on its equity if a normal takeover bid is to ensure. With its share price wallowing at just 10c after a dramatic fall in value over the last 12 months, the company is valued in sharemarket terms at just $73 million - well below the net asset value of its mainly gasfired generating plans around Australia and in New Zealand.
However, its hard-pressed security holders know that any offer based on its share price will have to take into account the need for buyers to take on huge chunks of its debt as part of the final transaction. The company was worth $2 billion a year ago but has been crippled by the size of its large borrowings and the cost of refinancing part of the debt. BBP is hoping to be able to make an announcement to its hard-pressed investors on its long-term future by the end of March but that timetable could slip depending on the complexity of the bids involved.
A spokeswoman described as "premature" the prospect of a swift conclusion to the review now being undertaken by BBP's board, saying that the bidding process was still at an early stage. The role of its one-time parent, the equally beleaguered Babcock and Brown, in managing the fund and the fees that it takes as a result would also only be resolved once BBP's directors had made a decision on the offers it had received. Babcock and Brown Wind Partners, which now runs its own operations independently of B&B and is in the process of changing its name, yesterday announced it had completed the $1 billion sale of its Spanish wind farm assets.
Carbon market value up 84% in 2008 – analyst
www.environmental-finance.com/
Clean Energy Council
London, 8 January:
The carbon market was worth $118 billion last year, up 84% year-on-year, according to a report by analysis firm New Carbon Finance (NCF). But the growth rate this year is set to be slower, with the London-based firm predicting that the market's value, based on transactions, will be $150 billion in 2009, up 27% on 2008. The growth in value last year was driven by a mixture of higher carbon prices and increased transactions, with an estimated 4 billion emissions permits changing hands - 42% more than in 2007.
Trade in EU allowances (EUAs) accounted for $94 billion, or about 80% of the overall total. EUA prices have been higher in Phase II of the EU emissions trading scheme, which began last year, compared with Phase I, as the 2005-07 period was plagued by an oversupply of allowances which led to the collapse of prices. By comparison, the 2008 EUA futures contract on the European Climate Exchange - the most liquid contract last year - peaked at nearly €30 ($40.75) in July, before recessionary pressure brought prices down to around €15 when the contract expired in December.
And, while secondary certified emission reduction (CER) deals grabbed an increasing share of trading, accounting for 13% of transactions, up from 8%, the value of primary CER deals - where the credits are bought directly from the Clean Development Mechanism project - dropped by 20%, said NCF, to $5.8 billion from $7.4 billion, with volumes down an estimated 30%.
This is partly due to a slowdown in the number of projects seeking registration, and partly because most of the projects going forward are small-scale ones, mainly focusing on renewable energy and energy efficiency, said the firm. Growth this year will be driven by increased liquidity in the secondary CER market, NCF said, while the EUA market will post moderate growth.
Clean Energy Council
London, 8 January:
The carbon market was worth $118 billion last year, up 84% year-on-year, according to a report by analysis firm New Carbon Finance (NCF). But the growth rate this year is set to be slower, with the London-based firm predicting that the market's value, based on transactions, will be $150 billion in 2009, up 27% on 2008. The growth in value last year was driven by a mixture of higher carbon prices and increased transactions, with an estimated 4 billion emissions permits changing hands - 42% more than in 2007.
Trade in EU allowances (EUAs) accounted for $94 billion, or about 80% of the overall total. EUA prices have been higher in Phase II of the EU emissions trading scheme, which began last year, compared with Phase I, as the 2005-07 period was plagued by an oversupply of allowances which led to the collapse of prices. By comparison, the 2008 EUA futures contract on the European Climate Exchange - the most liquid contract last year - peaked at nearly €30 ($40.75) in July, before recessionary pressure brought prices down to around €15 when the contract expired in December.
And, while secondary certified emission reduction (CER) deals grabbed an increasing share of trading, accounting for 13% of transactions, up from 8%, the value of primary CER deals - where the credits are bought directly from the Clean Development Mechanism project - dropped by 20%, said NCF, to $5.8 billion from $7.4 billion, with volumes down an estimated 30%.
This is partly due to a slowdown in the number of projects seeking registration, and partly because most of the projects going forward are small-scale ones, mainly focusing on renewable energy and energy efficiency, said the firm. Growth this year will be driven by increased liquidity in the secondary CER market, NCF said, while the EUA market will post moderate growth.
Friday, 9 January 2009
Solar firms optimistic
Adelaide Advertiser
Thursday 8/1/2009 Page: 31
THE solar energy industry is gearing up for a brighter future under proposed changes to the Federal Government's rebate scheme from July, Solar Shop Australia says. Business prospects are also bright with small businesses being eligible for a grid connection rebate for the first time since the scheme was introduced in 2000 and no means testing for householders.
The St Peters-based national company has put in place new strategies to capitalise on the changes and hopes to increase its market share to 50% in two years, managing director Adrian Ferraretto said. "The alternative was zero rebate. We were seriously considering a future without rebates, which would have been disastrous for the industry," Mr Ferraretto said.
Thursday 8/1/2009 Page: 31
THE solar energy industry is gearing up for a brighter future under proposed changes to the Federal Government's rebate scheme from July, Solar Shop Australia says. Business prospects are also bright with small businesses being eligible for a grid connection rebate for the first time since the scheme was introduced in 2000 and no means testing for householders.
The St Peters-based national company has put in place new strategies to capitalise on the changes and hopes to increase its market share to 50% in two years, managing director Adrian Ferraretto said. "The alternative was zero rebate. We were seriously considering a future without rebates, which would have been disastrous for the industry," Mr Ferraretto said.
ETS to cost coal exporters $5bn
Australian
Thursday 8/1/2009 Page: 1
THE export coal sector believes it will face a $5 billion carbon burden in the first five years of the Rudd Government's proposed emissions trading scheme. The Minerals Council of Australia has stepped up its attack on the proposed plan to reduce carbon emissions as the Government revealed it was unaware which 1000 high carbon emitters would be forced to buy permits to cover their emissions. The council's deputy chief executive Brendan Pearson writes in The Australian today there is a misconception there will be "wheelbarrow loads" of free permits to protect the competitiveness of the export sector.
He argues that Australia is being put at a disadvantage in its coal production at a time when Britain is looking to expand coal production. "These policy developments are contributing to some perverse outcomes," Mr Pearson writes. "The Guardian reported last month on proposals to open 58 new coal mines in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Australia - the world's largest coal exporter - production in the coal sector is being scaled back."
Thursday 8/1/2009 Page: 1
THE export coal sector believes it will face a $5 billion carbon burden in the first five years of the Rudd Government's proposed emissions trading scheme. The Minerals Council of Australia has stepped up its attack on the proposed plan to reduce carbon emissions as the Government revealed it was unaware which 1000 high carbon emitters would be forced to buy permits to cover their emissions. The council's deputy chief executive Brendan Pearson writes in The Australian today there is a misconception there will be "wheelbarrow loads" of free permits to protect the competitiveness of the export sector.
He argues that Australia is being put at a disadvantage in its coal production at a time when Britain is looking to expand coal production. "These policy developments are contributing to some perverse outcomes," Mr Pearson writes. "The Guardian reported last month on proposals to open 58 new coal mines in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Australia - the world's largest coal exporter - production in the coal sector is being scaled back."
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Defence warns of climate conflict
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday 7/1/2009 Page: 1
RISING sea levels could lead to failed states across the Pacific and require extra naval deployments to deal with increases in illegal migration and fishing, a Defence Force analysis says. "Environmental stress" has increased the risk of conflicts over resources and food and may demand greater involvement by the military in stabilisation, reconstruction and disaster relief, the analysis, prepared by Defence's strategic policy division, says. It warns there is a risk of a serious global conflict over the Arctic as melting ice caps allow easier access to undersea oil and gas deposits.
In Australia's northern waters, climate change is expected to change the location of south-east Asian fishing grounds, causing an increase in illegal fishing," says a summary of the analysis. This may raise demand for ADF patrols in these regions." The warnings emerged as a leading NASA scientist, James Hanson, used an open letter to the US president-elect, Barack Obama, to single out Australia's coal exports as a significant cause of climate change.
"Australia exports coal and sets atmospheric carbon dioxide goals so large as to guarantee destruction of much of the life on the planet," Dr Hanson said. The Defence analysis, titled Climate Change, The Environment, Resources And Conflict, was completed in November 2007 for the head of strategy, Michael Pezzullo, a deputy secretary who has since been appointed to oversee the preparation of the Defence White Paper. "Environmental changes will reinforce existing concerns regarding land availability, economic development and control over resources," it says. "Rising sea levels will affect states and islands with low-lying coastlines around the world ...
Food sources are also vulnerable to environmental changes." A summary, obtained by the Herald under freedom of information laws, says: "Environmental stress, caused by both climate change and a range of other factors, will act as a threat multiplier in fragile states around the world, increasing the chances of state failure. This is likely to increase demands for the ADF to be deployed on additional stabilisation, post-conflict reconstruction and disaster relief operations in the future." Defence refused to release the full 12-page analysis, saying its publication could damage Australia's defence capability and international relations.
The paper says climate change may lead to increases in refugees from Pacific Islands, but says few are likely to be able to reach Australia. From a defence planning perspective, we don't know how quickly these changes will occur, exactly what their impact will be, or how states and societies will react," it says. "Nevertheless, climate change may affect security by increasing stress on fragile states, state and societal competition for resources, environmental threats to ADF infrastructure and increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events.
"Climate change is unlikely to increase the risk of major conflict, although there is one exception. The Arctic is melting, potentially making the extraction of undersea energy deposits commercially viable. ... Conflict is a remote possibility if these disputes are not resolved peacefully." The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, described climate change as a "fundamental" challenge last month when he released his national security statement.
Dr Hanson, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said Australia was making "honest efforts" to tackle climate change but failing. Carbon trading schemes such as that proposed by the Federal Government would slow the rate of greenhouse emissions too slowly, Dr Hanson said. "This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat," he said. "It could waste another decade, locking in disastrous consequences for our planet and humanity."
Australia is the world's largest exporter of black coal, shipping about 230 million tonnes a year to supply just over a quarter of world export demand, according to the Australian Coal Association. It is the nation's biggest export earner, but when burned overseas Australian coal generates more than half a billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions each year, or more than all emissions generated within Australia.
Wednesday 7/1/2009 Page: 1
RISING sea levels could lead to failed states across the Pacific and require extra naval deployments to deal with increases in illegal migration and fishing, a Defence Force analysis says. "Environmental stress" has increased the risk of conflicts over resources and food and may demand greater involvement by the military in stabilisation, reconstruction and disaster relief, the analysis, prepared by Defence's strategic policy division, says. It warns there is a risk of a serious global conflict over the Arctic as melting ice caps allow easier access to undersea oil and gas deposits.
In Australia's northern waters, climate change is expected to change the location of south-east Asian fishing grounds, causing an increase in illegal fishing," says a summary of the analysis. This may raise demand for ADF patrols in these regions." The warnings emerged as a leading NASA scientist, James Hanson, used an open letter to the US president-elect, Barack Obama, to single out Australia's coal exports as a significant cause of climate change.
"Australia exports coal and sets atmospheric carbon dioxide goals so large as to guarantee destruction of much of the life on the planet," Dr Hanson said. The Defence analysis, titled Climate Change, The Environment, Resources And Conflict, was completed in November 2007 for the head of strategy, Michael Pezzullo, a deputy secretary who has since been appointed to oversee the preparation of the Defence White Paper. "Environmental changes will reinforce existing concerns regarding land availability, economic development and control over resources," it says. "Rising sea levels will affect states and islands with low-lying coastlines around the world ...
Food sources are also vulnerable to environmental changes." A summary, obtained by the Herald under freedom of information laws, says: "Environmental stress, caused by both climate change and a range of other factors, will act as a threat multiplier in fragile states around the world, increasing the chances of state failure. This is likely to increase demands for the ADF to be deployed on additional stabilisation, post-conflict reconstruction and disaster relief operations in the future." Defence refused to release the full 12-page analysis, saying its publication could damage Australia's defence capability and international relations.
The paper says climate change may lead to increases in refugees from Pacific Islands, but says few are likely to be able to reach Australia. From a defence planning perspective, we don't know how quickly these changes will occur, exactly what their impact will be, or how states and societies will react," it says. "Nevertheless, climate change may affect security by increasing stress on fragile states, state and societal competition for resources, environmental threats to ADF infrastructure and increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events.
"Climate change is unlikely to increase the risk of major conflict, although there is one exception. The Arctic is melting, potentially making the extraction of undersea energy deposits commercially viable. ... Conflict is a remote possibility if these disputes are not resolved peacefully." The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, described climate change as a "fundamental" challenge last month when he released his national security statement.
Dr Hanson, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said Australia was making "honest efforts" to tackle climate change but failing. Carbon trading schemes such as that proposed by the Federal Government would slow the rate of greenhouse emissions too slowly, Dr Hanson said. "This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat," he said. "It could waste another decade, locking in disastrous consequences for our planet and humanity."
Australia is the world's largest exporter of black coal, shipping about 230 million tonnes a year to supply just over a quarter of world export demand, according to the Australian Coal Association. It is the nation's biggest export earner, but when burned overseas Australian coal generates more than half a billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions each year, or more than all emissions generated within Australia.
20pc say nuclear will carry the load
Australian
Wednesday 7/1/2009 Page: 4
ONE in five Australians believes nuclear energy will provide most of the nation's electricity in 20 years, according to the Labor Party's pollster. The findings from UMR Research, obtained by The Australian, will rekindle the nuclear energy debate as the Government aims to tackle climate change. Kevin Rudd has ruled out going down the nuclear road, yet the Prime Minister's climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, declared last year that nuclear energy was an important part of the global response to a low emissions economy".
The UMR survey shows that 26% of Australians believe solar energy will supply most of Australia's power and electricity in 2028, while 23% believe it will still come from coal. 10% said most of it would come from wind, 9% favoured gas and 1% chose other sources. Australian Nuclear and Science Technology Organisation chair Ziggy Switkowski who headed up an inquiry into the viability of a domestic nuclear energy industry for the Howard government in 2006 described the 20% finding for nuclear energy as "strikingly strong". "The acceptance of nuclear continues to lift," he said.
Dr Switkowski said growing constraints on fossil fuels as the world sought to cut greenhouse gas emissions meant Australia would be "pushed inexorably to introduce nuclear energy, especially for baseload electricity". He said the case for nuclear energy was being progressively understood. "Our goal at this stage is to have an informed public conversation on nuclear energy," he said. "Every result like this, which shows people thinking about the role of nuclear energy and community interest growing, is a positive.
Dr Switkowski said Australia was "between two and four years" away from a major change of attitudes towards nuclear energy. "I think the political tide will turn when two things happen," he said. "The first will be that reality of the emissions targets, particularly post-2020, reveals that we do not have the means to get the sort of reductions that are required without the introduction of nuclear energy.
The second key development will be that community interest in nuclear energy reflects a better understanding of the technology and will move to well beyond 50% in terms of overall support." Leslie Kemeny from the International Nuclear Energy Academy said climate change concerns were boosting support for nuclear energy. He described Australian uranium exports used in power generation as "a huge carbon offset".
Professor Kemeny said that nuclear energy was becoming more attractive for more than just environmental reasons. "The only baseload energy intensive power load source that will go down in price as the resources for gas and oil and even coal deplete all over the world is the nuclear fuel cycle," he said. "The capital costs may still be high, but if you take the US as an example, the capital costs are amortised and there is no competition.
"They produce energy at about 1.68 US cents per kW hours. There's nothing that can compete with that in the US." Opposition energy and resources spokesman Ian Macfarlane agreed that acceptance of nuclear energy was growing. "In the absence of a 24/7 renewable energy source and the presence of a carbon price, nuclear is really going to be the only answer in the medium term," he said. "The question is not if, but when, the ALP recognises nuclear is part of the solution. "In the inner sanctums they know renewables cannot make the advances in the next decade needed to provide 24/7 energy. "If the Prime Minister claims to be a national leader, he should acknowledge what he already knows."
Wednesday 7/1/2009 Page: 4
ONE in five Australians believes nuclear energy will provide most of the nation's electricity in 20 years, according to the Labor Party's pollster. The findings from UMR Research, obtained by The Australian, will rekindle the nuclear energy debate as the Government aims to tackle climate change. Kevin Rudd has ruled out going down the nuclear road, yet the Prime Minister's climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, declared last year that nuclear energy was an important part of the global response to a low emissions economy".
The UMR survey shows that 26% of Australians believe solar energy will supply most of Australia's power and electricity in 2028, while 23% believe it will still come from coal. 10% said most of it would come from wind, 9% favoured gas and 1% chose other sources. Australian Nuclear and Science Technology Organisation chair Ziggy Switkowski who headed up an inquiry into the viability of a domestic nuclear energy industry for the Howard government in 2006 described the 20% finding for nuclear energy as "strikingly strong". "The acceptance of nuclear continues to lift," he said.
Dr Switkowski said growing constraints on fossil fuels as the world sought to cut greenhouse gas emissions meant Australia would be "pushed inexorably to introduce nuclear energy, especially for baseload electricity". He said the case for nuclear energy was being progressively understood. "Our goal at this stage is to have an informed public conversation on nuclear energy," he said. "Every result like this, which shows people thinking about the role of nuclear energy and community interest growing, is a positive.
Dr Switkowski said Australia was "between two and four years" away from a major change of attitudes towards nuclear energy. "I think the political tide will turn when two things happen," he said. "The first will be that reality of the emissions targets, particularly post-2020, reveals that we do not have the means to get the sort of reductions that are required without the introduction of nuclear energy.
The second key development will be that community interest in nuclear energy reflects a better understanding of the technology and will move to well beyond 50% in terms of overall support." Leslie Kemeny from the International Nuclear Energy Academy said climate change concerns were boosting support for nuclear energy. He described Australian uranium exports used in power generation as "a huge carbon offset".
Professor Kemeny said that nuclear energy was becoming more attractive for more than just environmental reasons. "The only baseload energy intensive power load source that will go down in price as the resources for gas and oil and even coal deplete all over the world is the nuclear fuel cycle," he said. "The capital costs may still be high, but if you take the US as an example, the capital costs are amortised and there is no competition.
"They produce energy at about 1.68 US cents per kW hours. There's nothing that can compete with that in the US." Opposition energy and resources spokesman Ian Macfarlane agreed that acceptance of nuclear energy was growing. "In the absence of a 24/7 renewable energy source and the presence of a carbon price, nuclear is really going to be the only answer in the medium term," he said. "The question is not if, but when, the ALP recognises nuclear is part of the solution. "In the inner sanctums they know renewables cannot make the advances in the next decade needed to provide 24/7 energy. "If the Prime Minister claims to be a national leader, he should acknowledge what he already knows."
EPA green light for $800m Devil Creek gas project
West Australian
Tuesday 6/1/2009 Page: 11
Apache Energy's $800 million Devil Creek gas project, which is tipped to become the State's next major source of domestic gas, has received conditional approval from the Environmental Protection Authority. The EPA released its evaluation yesterday, listing conditions on rehabilitation, fauna management, lighting design, lost habitat and greenhouse gas emissions. Perth-based Apache Energy government and public affairs manager David Parker welcomed the EPAs recommendations and recognised its timely response "in assessing the Devil Creek gas development project as an important WA energy project".
"Apache Energy is pleased to learn that the EPA report recommends approval for the Devil Creek project," he said. "The conditions recommended are acceptable. Today's report and recommendations by the EPA are an important milestone towards the project's approval." The project will see gas piped from the Reindeer field 110km off the coast to the onshore gas plant, where it will be pumped into the Dampier-to-Bunbury gas pipeline.
Tuesday 6/1/2009 Page: 11
Apache Energy's $800 million Devil Creek gas project, which is tipped to become the State's next major source of domestic gas, has received conditional approval from the Environmental Protection Authority. The EPA released its evaluation yesterday, listing conditions on rehabilitation, fauna management, lighting design, lost habitat and greenhouse gas emissions. Perth-based Apache Energy government and public affairs manager David Parker welcomed the EPAs recommendations and recognised its timely response "in assessing the Devil Creek gas development project as an important WA energy project".
"Apache Energy is pleased to learn that the EPA report recommends approval for the Devil Creek project," he said. "The conditions recommended are acceptable. Today's report and recommendations by the EPA are an important milestone towards the project's approval." The project will see gas piped from the Reindeer field 110km off the coast to the onshore gas plant, where it will be pumped into the Dampier-to-Bunbury gas pipeline.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Cheap oil douses enthusiasm for renewables
Canberra Times
Saturday 3/1/2009 Page: 17
Low oil prices and the credit crunch are threatening to stall the green revolution. The value of crude has dropped from a summer high of nearly $US150 a barrel to below $US40, taking the wind out of the sails of turbine manufacturers and others trying to build low-carbon alternatives.
Founder and executive chairman of Solarcentury, Jeremy Leggett, said, "Talk of the death of renewables is premature but clearly big solar farms and wind projects are being cancelled. Everything is suffering in the current climate but it's my contention that the low oil price is a temporary thing and the growth of renewables will resume." The chief executive of information provider New Energy Finance, Michael Liebreich, said his leading index of clean-technology companies had fallen from a high of 450 points 12 months ago to 175 points, hit by a triple whammy of lower oil prices, higher costs of capital and fear of more speculative start-tip businesses.
But he, too, was confident that the sector could bounce back. "There was no doubt that there was a certain amount of irrational exuberance over the low-carbon economy. No industry in history has kept tip the kind of 40% compound growth rates being ascribed to clean tech so share prices had run tip too far and it was time for a correction."
Clean-tech and renewables stocks have been struggling with more than just sentiment. Indian-based wind turbine manufacturer Suzlon Energy, which has seen its share price plunge by 90% this year, has also been hit by malfunctions and the kind of teething problems it says is are inevitable with new types of technology. Wind developers in the US have been cutting back in the face of tough new conditions. FPL Group, the US's largest wind-power operator, is cutting its spending this year by nearly a quarter to $US5.3 billion ($A7.6 billion) and new wind-power generation from 1500 to 1100MW.
Confidence in the sector has also been rattled by T. Boone Pickens, a veteran oil man who delighted environmentalists with a very public conversion when he promised to build the world's largest wind farts in Texas. He slammed on the brakes in November on the basis that lower oil prices had changed the economics of a scheme that would have powered 1.3 million homes.
However, the US wind sector has generally been faring better than the British one, thanks to tax breaks. Shell and BP have made it clear they are no longer interested in pursuing British farms when the investment numbers stack tip match better across the Atlantic. The decision by Shell to pull out of the London Array wind farm was a particular blow to British confidence. The project has been billed as the biggest offshore scheme of its kind in the world but the oil company said the margins were too thin, leaving E.ON of Germany and DONG Energy of Denmark to go it alone.
The chief executive of Q-Cells, the world's largest manufacturer of solar cells, Anton Milner, cut earnings forecasts recently after being hit by what he described as a "flood" of cancellations from developers of solar energy projects struggling to raise finance. The US manufacturer Evergreen Solar has since delayed a $A1.15 billion new factory in Asia that would have manufactured enough solar cells to power a city of 500,000 people.
But most industry figures are convinced that though the threat of global recession is slowing down the industry, the future remains bright enough, especially with a new figure taking over the White House. Mr Liebreich said his clean-tech index had seen an "Obama bounce", rising from a low of 130 to 175 on the back of optimists about the incoming President's policies. A raft of radical political appointments such as Nobel physics laureate Steven Chu as energy secretary has convinced environmentalists that Mr Obama is serious about his stated aim of hastening progress towards a lowcarbon economy with a green New Deal that will reduce his country's dependence on imported oil.
A quarterly review of climate change-related business opportunities just published by analysts at HSBC said governments were increasingly active. "The engagement of governments has grown globally," it said. "Across the political spectrum there is now more recognition that climate change is a genuine long-term global issue with real growth potential." The managing director of Marine Current Turbines, Martin Wright, said no one should expect oil and gas prices to stay low. "Vladimir Putin has already said the era of cheap gas is over and no one knows when peak oil really will come about."
Saturday 3/1/2009 Page: 17
Low oil prices and the credit crunch are threatening to stall the green revolution. The value of crude has dropped from a summer high of nearly $US150 a barrel to below $US40, taking the wind out of the sails of turbine manufacturers and others trying to build low-carbon alternatives.Founder and executive chairman of Solarcentury, Jeremy Leggett, said, "Talk of the death of renewables is premature but clearly big solar farms and wind projects are being cancelled. Everything is suffering in the current climate but it's my contention that the low oil price is a temporary thing and the growth of renewables will resume." The chief executive of information provider New Energy Finance, Michael Liebreich, said his leading index of clean-technology companies had fallen from a high of 450 points 12 months ago to 175 points, hit by a triple whammy of lower oil prices, higher costs of capital and fear of more speculative start-tip businesses.
But he, too, was confident that the sector could bounce back. "There was no doubt that there was a certain amount of irrational exuberance over the low-carbon economy. No industry in history has kept tip the kind of 40% compound growth rates being ascribed to clean tech so share prices had run tip too far and it was time for a correction."
Clean-tech and renewables stocks have been struggling with more than just sentiment. Indian-based wind turbine manufacturer Suzlon Energy, which has seen its share price plunge by 90% this year, has also been hit by malfunctions and the kind of teething problems it says is are inevitable with new types of technology. Wind developers in the US have been cutting back in the face of tough new conditions. FPL Group, the US's largest wind-power operator, is cutting its spending this year by nearly a quarter to $US5.3 billion ($A7.6 billion) and new wind-power generation from 1500 to 1100MW.
Confidence in the sector has also been rattled by T. Boone Pickens, a veteran oil man who delighted environmentalists with a very public conversion when he promised to build the world's largest wind farts in Texas. He slammed on the brakes in November on the basis that lower oil prices had changed the economics of a scheme that would have powered 1.3 million homes.
However, the US wind sector has generally been faring better than the British one, thanks to tax breaks. Shell and BP have made it clear they are no longer interested in pursuing British farms when the investment numbers stack tip match better across the Atlantic. The decision by Shell to pull out of the London Array wind farm was a particular blow to British confidence. The project has been billed as the biggest offshore scheme of its kind in the world but the oil company said the margins were too thin, leaving E.ON of Germany and DONG Energy of Denmark to go it alone.
The chief executive of Q-Cells, the world's largest manufacturer of solar cells, Anton Milner, cut earnings forecasts recently after being hit by what he described as a "flood" of cancellations from developers of solar energy projects struggling to raise finance. The US manufacturer Evergreen Solar has since delayed a $A1.15 billion new factory in Asia that would have manufactured enough solar cells to power a city of 500,000 people.
But most industry figures are convinced that though the threat of global recession is slowing down the industry, the future remains bright enough, especially with a new figure taking over the White House. Mr Liebreich said his clean-tech index had seen an "Obama bounce", rising from a low of 130 to 175 on the back of optimists about the incoming President's policies. A raft of radical political appointments such as Nobel physics laureate Steven Chu as energy secretary has convinced environmentalists that Mr Obama is serious about his stated aim of hastening progress towards a lowcarbon economy with a green New Deal that will reduce his country's dependence on imported oil.
A quarterly review of climate change-related business opportunities just published by analysts at HSBC said governments were increasingly active. "The engagement of governments has grown globally," it said. "Across the political spectrum there is now more recognition that climate change is a genuine long-term global issue with real growth potential." The managing director of Marine Current Turbines, Martin Wright, said no one should expect oil and gas prices to stay low. "Vladimir Putin has already said the era of cheap gas is over and no one knows when peak oil really will come about."
King Island seeks wave power
Hobart Mercury
Monday 5/1/2009 Page: 16
TWO ocean-wave sensors have been deployed off King Island to collect climate information over the next three months. King Island Mayor Charles Arnold said Sydney-based wave energy development company Oceanlinx deployed the sensors off the west coast of the Bass Strait island in mid-December. The sensor placement is another step in the island's push for alternative energy sources. "This development has been driven by King Island residents, local industries and the council, with financial support in place for the project," Cr Arnold said.
Oceanlinx has been developing its wave energy converter over 10 years with the first prototype launched at Port Kembla in 2003. The Hydro has recently completed a grid interconnection study. Earlier this year it was announced that BioPower Systems, also from Sydney, had secured a deal with the Hydro to harness the ocean's energy to generate enough electricity to supply about 500 homes on King and Flinders Islands. It is at the trial stage. Cr Arnold hoped that ocean power could be supplied at a cheaper rate than the 22.5c a kW residents currently pay for diesel power. He said the island wanted to reduce reliance on diesel generators from 50% to 10%.
Monday 5/1/2009 Page: 16
TWO ocean-wave sensors have been deployed off King Island to collect climate information over the next three months. King Island Mayor Charles Arnold said Sydney-based wave energy development company Oceanlinx deployed the sensors off the west coast of the Bass Strait island in mid-December. The sensor placement is another step in the island's push for alternative energy sources. "This development has been driven by King Island residents, local industries and the council, with financial support in place for the project," Cr Arnold said.
Oceanlinx has been developing its wave energy converter over 10 years with the first prototype launched at Port Kembla in 2003. The Hydro has recently completed a grid interconnection study. Earlier this year it was announced that BioPower Systems, also from Sydney, had secured a deal with the Hydro to harness the ocean's energy to generate enough electricity to supply about 500 homes on King and Flinders Islands. It is at the trial stage. Cr Arnold hoped that ocean power could be supplied at a cheaper rate than the 22.5c a kW residents currently pay for diesel power. He said the island wanted to reduce reliance on diesel generators from 50% to 10%.
Wind farm approved
Age
Thursday 1/1/2009 Page: 21
CHINA. Datang Corp, the nation's second-biggest power producer, has received state permission to build a 4.5 billion yuan ($A956 million) wind farm and power plant in the north-eastern province of Jilin as the Government speeds project approvals to spur economic growth. The Government is accelerating project approvals in the energy sector to stimulate the economy, which expanded at the weakest pace in five years in the third quarter. China is also turning to alternative energy such as wind, solar and hydro power to reduce its reliance on polluting coal, which currently generates almost 80% of its electricity.
Thursday 1/1/2009 Page: 21
CHINA. Datang Corp, the nation's second-biggest power producer, has received state permission to build a 4.5 billion yuan ($A956 million) wind farm and power plant in the north-eastern province of Jilin as the Government speeds project approvals to spur economic growth. The Government is accelerating project approvals in the energy sector to stimulate the economy, which expanded at the weakest pace in five years in the third quarter. China is also turning to alternative energy such as wind, solar and hydro power to reduce its reliance on polluting coal, which currently generates almost 80% of its electricity.
Solar car plan
Adelaide Advertiser
Friday 2/1/2009 Page: 2
Toyota is secretly developing a solar energyed vehicle in an effort to turn around its struggling business, a top economic daily reported yesterday. The Nikkei newspaper, however, said it would be years before the planned vehicle was available on the market. According to The Nikkei, the Toyota electric vehicle will get some of its power from solar cells on the vehicle but could also be recharged from solar panels on the roofs of homes. Toyota later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle.
Friday 2/1/2009 Page: 2
Toyota is secretly developing a solar energyed vehicle in an effort to turn around its struggling business, a top economic daily reported yesterday. The Nikkei newspaper, however, said it would be years before the planned vehicle was available on the market. According to The Nikkei, the Toyota electric vehicle will get some of its power from solar cells on the vehicle but could also be recharged from solar panels on the roofs of homes. Toyota later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle.
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Clean future starts now Australia has a choice: join the energy revolution or risk an environmental disaster.
Age
Wednesday 31/12/2008 Page: 11
Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable - environmentally, economically, socially ... What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution." I have said similar things myself, but this quote is from a new "World Energy Outlook" by the International Energy Agency.
The change is as amazing as if the Pope were to support contraception or the Business Council to call for stabilising the population. Until last year, the energy agency was still deep in denial about the problems of climate change and peak oil, and was talking about world energy use doubling and an increasing use of coal. The agency's conversion is only the latest and most dramatic example of a new global attitude. The changes leave the Federal Government suddenly looking out of touch, its recent climate change announcements more like a white flag than a white paper.
The Government's weak emissions trading scheme design is not just a surrender to the big polluters, but appears to give up on saving precious national icons such as the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park and the Murray-Darling river system. It is also bad news for the economy, as Professor Ross Garnaut wrote in these pages recently.
It is dishonest to claim that our per capita pollution reductions are comparable with those of Europe. Increasing population is not being forced on its by Martians, it results from 20th century policies to boost immigration and encourage larger families. The Earth's natural systems don't understand how many Australians there are, only our total impact. As global citizens, we should curb the growth in our numbers and set serious targets to cut pollution. The UN's 2007 Bali conference noted that countries such as Australia need to reduce greenhouse pollution by 25 to 40% to give the Earth a fighting chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.
The latest science is more alarming. Until recently, methane levels in the air had been stable for a decade, but there has been a surge. Unpublished research shows the methane is coming from the Arctic. This is the sign climate scientists have been warning about, a possible tipping point. Temperatures have increased more at the poles than in the tropics. Warming is releasing methane from tundra, increasing warming and causing further methane releases, possibly setting in train an unstoppable surge in temperature. We need an urgent and concerted approach to cut greenhouse pollution.
Global changes have been striking. The World Economic Forum's Dubai summit on the global agenda concluded that responses to the financial crisis need to be integrated with policies that take into account climate change, energy security, food and water. Global think tank the Club of Rome has been warning for 35 years about the inevitable consequences of uncontrolled growth. It convened a conference last month that concluded the climate and financial problems interlock and demand an integrated approach. The IEA recognised the science when it called for an energy revolution.
Now US President-elect Barack Obama has named as his energy secretary a scientist who has called for a super-grid to harness solar and wind energy. This move to "green infrastructure" is at the heart of Obama's plan to repair the US economy. Diplomats are working on talks between Obama and Chinese leaders before the UN's 2009 Copenhagen conference, which must produce a framework to slow climate change. China has shown it is serious by closing 2300 small coalmines, improving energy efficiency by 7% and planning to expand solar and wind energy massively.
What should we be doing? We should join the energy revolution, rather than try to prop up old technologies. Kevin Rudd has set an inadequate target to cut emissions just 5% by 2020, offered billions in subsidies to overseas-owned big polluters and done little to encourage growth of local clean-energy technologies to power our future.
The plan has to go to the Senate, where it faces a rocky road. I expect the Greens to oppose it because it doesn't do enough. The Coalition is hopelessly divided between climate change deniers, Howard-era dinosaurs who don't get it, and a minority who understand the scale of the problem. They may also oppose the scheme. That would force the Government back to the drawing board.
If enough of us make clear to our MPs we want serious action, the Prime Minister could develop a stronger scheme. Next year will be critical. I am not exaggerating in saying the survival of civilisation is at stake. As a scientifically and technologically literate country, we must recognise that a green economy is vital. That makes economic sense as well as being environmentally responsible. We have to go green if we want to get out of the red.
Professor Ian Lowe is president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Wednesday 31/12/2008 Page: 11
Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable - environmentally, economically, socially ... What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution." I have said similar things myself, but this quote is from a new "World Energy Outlook" by the International Energy Agency.The change is as amazing as if the Pope were to support contraception or the Business Council to call for stabilising the population. Until last year, the energy agency was still deep in denial about the problems of climate change and peak oil, and was talking about world energy use doubling and an increasing use of coal. The agency's conversion is only the latest and most dramatic example of a new global attitude. The changes leave the Federal Government suddenly looking out of touch, its recent climate change announcements more like a white flag than a white paper.
The Government's weak emissions trading scheme design is not just a surrender to the big polluters, but appears to give up on saving precious national icons such as the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park and the Murray-Darling river system. It is also bad news for the economy, as Professor Ross Garnaut wrote in these pages recently.
It is dishonest to claim that our per capita pollution reductions are comparable with those of Europe. Increasing population is not being forced on its by Martians, it results from 20th century policies to boost immigration and encourage larger families. The Earth's natural systems don't understand how many Australians there are, only our total impact. As global citizens, we should curb the growth in our numbers and set serious targets to cut pollution. The UN's 2007 Bali conference noted that countries such as Australia need to reduce greenhouse pollution by 25 to 40% to give the Earth a fighting chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.
The latest science is more alarming. Until recently, methane levels in the air had been stable for a decade, but there has been a surge. Unpublished research shows the methane is coming from the Arctic. This is the sign climate scientists have been warning about, a possible tipping point. Temperatures have increased more at the poles than in the tropics. Warming is releasing methane from tundra, increasing warming and causing further methane releases, possibly setting in train an unstoppable surge in temperature. We need an urgent and concerted approach to cut greenhouse pollution.
Global changes have been striking. The World Economic Forum's Dubai summit on the global agenda concluded that responses to the financial crisis need to be integrated with policies that take into account climate change, energy security, food and water. Global think tank the Club of Rome has been warning for 35 years about the inevitable consequences of uncontrolled growth. It convened a conference last month that concluded the climate and financial problems interlock and demand an integrated approach. The IEA recognised the science when it called for an energy revolution.
Now US President-elect Barack Obama has named as his energy secretary a scientist who has called for a super-grid to harness solar and wind energy. This move to "green infrastructure" is at the heart of Obama's plan to repair the US economy. Diplomats are working on talks between Obama and Chinese leaders before the UN's 2009 Copenhagen conference, which must produce a framework to slow climate change. China has shown it is serious by closing 2300 small coalmines, improving energy efficiency by 7% and planning to expand solar and wind energy massively.
What should we be doing? We should join the energy revolution, rather than try to prop up old technologies. Kevin Rudd has set an inadequate target to cut emissions just 5% by 2020, offered billions in subsidies to overseas-owned big polluters and done little to encourage growth of local clean-energy technologies to power our future.
The plan has to go to the Senate, where it faces a rocky road. I expect the Greens to oppose it because it doesn't do enough. The Coalition is hopelessly divided between climate change deniers, Howard-era dinosaurs who don't get it, and a minority who understand the scale of the problem. They may also oppose the scheme. That would force the Government back to the drawing board.
If enough of us make clear to our MPs we want serious action, the Prime Minister could develop a stronger scheme. Next year will be critical. I am not exaggerating in saying the survival of civilisation is at stake. As a scientifically and technologically literate country, we must recognise that a green economy is vital. That makes economic sense as well as being environmentally responsible. We have to go green if we want to get out of the red.
Professor Ian Lowe is president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Keep to emission cuts, say economists
Age
Saturday 3/1/2009 Page: 11
ECONOMISTS have given a lukewarm response to Kevin Rudd's carbon emission reduction targets, but have urged the Federal Government not to be spooked by the global economic downturn. Last month, the Government revealed it would be seeking to reduce carbon emissions by 5% on 2000 levels by 2020 unless an international agreement on carbon trading could be reached. In that case, the reduction target rises to 15%. The 2050 target is a 60% reduction.
"There's never going to be a good time to introduce this, so the current crisis should not be used as an excuse to delay," said Chris Caton from BT Financial Group. So far, the timing of the carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) does not appear to have been affected, with the Government committed to a 2010 start date. University of Queensland academic John Quiggin argued that the pursuit of environmental policies could in fact bolster the economic recovery. "Use green jobs programs as a focus of expansionary policy," he said.
ANZ's Saul Eslake said he would have preferred less compensation for heavy emitters because it would result in clearer "price signals for households and businesses to modify their behaviour. Heather Ridout from the Australian Industry Group called for protection for trade exposed industries. "There should be strong measures for businesses that are exposed to competition from countries that do not impose additional costs similar to those imposed under the Australian CPRS," she said.
Monash University academic Jakob Madsen, said steep price increases on carbon were needed to encourage the development of alternative fuel sources. In Denmark, 40% of the energy will come from renewable resources by 2020. Australia should easily be able to meet that target." The Scandinavian social democracy will be in the spotlight in December when world leaders gather in Copenhagen in an attempt to nut out a global agreement on emission reductions beyond 2012. "The world is watching Australia and we can use this opportunity to help broker an international agreement," said Austrade's Tim Harcourt.
Some economists backed the Government's plan to make deeper emission cuts conditional on agreement at Copenhagen, including former government consultant John Edwards from HSBC, Paul Brennan from Citi and Brad Crofts from the Australian Workers Union. 'Australia should calibrate its response in line with what happens in other countries and in a manner that does not put at risk Australia's ongoing competitiveness and economic prosperity," Scott Thompson from the Business Council of Australia said.
Bill Evans, at Westpac, cautioned against ploughing ahead with pre-slowdown emission reduction plans, saying "disruption will be particularly risky at this stage of the cycle". Siwei Goo, from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, urged the Government to go one step further. "The possibility of delaying the CPRS should be on the table and thorough cost-benefit analysis should be conducted to examine the effect of delaying CPRS for another 12 months."
Saturday 3/1/2009 Page: 11
ECONOMISTS have given a lukewarm response to Kevin Rudd's carbon emission reduction targets, but have urged the Federal Government not to be spooked by the global economic downturn. Last month, the Government revealed it would be seeking to reduce carbon emissions by 5% on 2000 levels by 2020 unless an international agreement on carbon trading could be reached. In that case, the reduction target rises to 15%. The 2050 target is a 60% reduction.
"There's never going to be a good time to introduce this, so the current crisis should not be used as an excuse to delay," said Chris Caton from BT Financial Group. So far, the timing of the carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) does not appear to have been affected, with the Government committed to a 2010 start date. University of Queensland academic John Quiggin argued that the pursuit of environmental policies could in fact bolster the economic recovery. "Use green jobs programs as a focus of expansionary policy," he said.
ANZ's Saul Eslake said he would have preferred less compensation for heavy emitters because it would result in clearer "price signals for households and businesses to modify their behaviour. Heather Ridout from the Australian Industry Group called for protection for trade exposed industries. "There should be strong measures for businesses that are exposed to competition from countries that do not impose additional costs similar to those imposed under the Australian CPRS," she said.
Monash University academic Jakob Madsen, said steep price increases on carbon were needed to encourage the development of alternative fuel sources. In Denmark, 40% of the energy will come from renewable resources by 2020. Australia should easily be able to meet that target." The Scandinavian social democracy will be in the spotlight in December when world leaders gather in Copenhagen in an attempt to nut out a global agreement on emission reductions beyond 2012. "The world is watching Australia and we can use this opportunity to help broker an international agreement," said Austrade's Tim Harcourt.
Some economists backed the Government's plan to make deeper emission cuts conditional on agreement at Copenhagen, including former government consultant John Edwards from HSBC, Paul Brennan from Citi and Brad Crofts from the Australian Workers Union. 'Australia should calibrate its response in line with what happens in other countries and in a manner that does not put at risk Australia's ongoing competitiveness and economic prosperity," Scott Thompson from the Business Council of Australia said.
Bill Evans, at Westpac, cautioned against ploughing ahead with pre-slowdown emission reduction plans, saying "disruption will be particularly risky at this stage of the cycle". Siwei Goo, from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, urged the Government to go one step further. "The possibility of delaying the CPRS should be on the table and thorough cost-benefit analysis should be conducted to examine the effect of delaying CPRS for another 12 months."
Growing reasons for green optimism
Canberra Times
Wednesday 31/12/2008 Page: 17
What do you think about 2009? I asked a friend with whom I often share views on the environment and the meaning of life. "I am hopeful and optimistic," I replied. "Really? In the face of Kevin Rudd's abject failure on climate change?" she said. My friend and I agree that nothing short of a large change in human values and actions will preserve the planet as a home for Homo sapiens.
So why am I optimistic? Although he cannot possibly meet all our expectations, the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States is the most hopeful geopolitical event in many years. Obama has won office, arguing for genuine change, including a serious approach to climate change, and he seems to mean it. Once the US really tackles carbon emissions, the rest of the world will take the issue seriously.
So 2009 is shaping as the pivotal year for climate change, and by the time of the Copenhagen meeting in December we will know whether the countries of the world can get their act together before it is too late. The accelerated melting of Arctic sea ice now has many climate scientists believing that we are observing a phenomenon that could rapidly result in a catastrophic and irreversible flip in the climate system.
I am heartened by what is happening in the ACT as well as what could happen globally with the right leadership from Obama. The new ACT Environment Minister, Simon Corbell, is taking a different stance to his federal counterparts and has publicly repudiated their weak approach. I have read the agreement that Chief Minister Jon Stanhope has signed with the Greens and they have extracted some firm commitments on development of greenhouse gas targets and renewable energy.
Furthermore, our watchdog Commissioner for the Environment, Maxine Cooper, has the power to call the Government to account on agreements such as this, and she is flexing her muscles. Another reason for my optimism is the evidence that people in the ACT are awake to the carbon footprint challenge and are beginning to act on it. People movements are springing up all over the world.
In Canberra, we have been both surprised and delighted at the rapid success of the SEE-Change movement, and similar movements are taking off elsewhere under different names - ranging from Transition Towns to Sustainability Street. SEE-Change groups in four areas of Canberra are bringing people from the neighbourhood together to discuss a reduction in their footprint, through bulk purchases of solar panels, energy retrofits of their homes, modification of their food-purchasing behaviour and altered approaches to car use, car purchase and use of public transport.
A group of 22 Jamison SEE-Change members have been involved in a door-knocking approach - each to 10 randomly identified addresses - to seek from the residents, representative information on what people think and what they are doing about their ecological footprint. The evidence from this random sampling of householders is that 75% of people are convinced of the seriousness of the problem and that many are already taking action on issues, including solar panels, changes in their dietary practices and changing their light bulbs.
I also feel optimistic when I see and hear what is happening in our school system and as the new generation, which includes my own grandchildren, picks tip the sustainability challenge. Young people are becoming both literate about sustainability and ready to act.
Of course everything must come together and the Federal Government will have to change its white paper to enable the contributions of ordinary householders to do more than make up for the licences to pollute that the Federal Government is planning to issue to the coal and aluminium industries. That will happen if real movement comes from both outside and inside Australia.
So, I dare to hope that we are approaching a good tipping point, the point where a critical mass of people accept the need for a radical new approach and adopt it. Their new approach becomes the new received wisdom and a majority of the world follows. Climate change is the biggest challenge we have ever faced as a species. The problem is probably still soluble but the solution depends on a remarkable new political consensus. The good news is that when the people lead with vision, governments will follow.
Wednesday 31/12/2008 Page: 17
What do you think about 2009? I asked a friend with whom I often share views on the environment and the meaning of life. "I am hopeful and optimistic," I replied. "Really? In the face of Kevin Rudd's abject failure on climate change?" she said. My friend and I agree that nothing short of a large change in human values and actions will preserve the planet as a home for Homo sapiens.
So why am I optimistic? Although he cannot possibly meet all our expectations, the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States is the most hopeful geopolitical event in many years. Obama has won office, arguing for genuine change, including a serious approach to climate change, and he seems to mean it. Once the US really tackles carbon emissions, the rest of the world will take the issue seriously.
So 2009 is shaping as the pivotal year for climate change, and by the time of the Copenhagen meeting in December we will know whether the countries of the world can get their act together before it is too late. The accelerated melting of Arctic sea ice now has many climate scientists believing that we are observing a phenomenon that could rapidly result in a catastrophic and irreversible flip in the climate system.
I am heartened by what is happening in the ACT as well as what could happen globally with the right leadership from Obama. The new ACT Environment Minister, Simon Corbell, is taking a different stance to his federal counterparts and has publicly repudiated their weak approach. I have read the agreement that Chief Minister Jon Stanhope has signed with the Greens and they have extracted some firm commitments on development of greenhouse gas targets and renewable energy.
Furthermore, our watchdog Commissioner for the Environment, Maxine Cooper, has the power to call the Government to account on agreements such as this, and she is flexing her muscles. Another reason for my optimism is the evidence that people in the ACT are awake to the carbon footprint challenge and are beginning to act on it. People movements are springing up all over the world.
In Canberra, we have been both surprised and delighted at the rapid success of the SEE-Change movement, and similar movements are taking off elsewhere under different names - ranging from Transition Towns to Sustainability Street. SEE-Change groups in four areas of Canberra are bringing people from the neighbourhood together to discuss a reduction in their footprint, through bulk purchases of solar panels, energy retrofits of their homes, modification of their food-purchasing behaviour and altered approaches to car use, car purchase and use of public transport.
A group of 22 Jamison SEE-Change members have been involved in a door-knocking approach - each to 10 randomly identified addresses - to seek from the residents, representative information on what people think and what they are doing about their ecological footprint. The evidence from this random sampling of householders is that 75% of people are convinced of the seriousness of the problem and that many are already taking action on issues, including solar panels, changes in their dietary practices and changing their light bulbs.
I also feel optimistic when I see and hear what is happening in our school system and as the new generation, which includes my own grandchildren, picks tip the sustainability challenge. Young people are becoming both literate about sustainability and ready to act.
Of course everything must come together and the Federal Government will have to change its white paper to enable the contributions of ordinary householders to do more than make up for the licences to pollute that the Federal Government is planning to issue to the coal and aluminium industries. That will happen if real movement comes from both outside and inside Australia.
So, I dare to hope that we are approaching a good tipping point, the point where a critical mass of people accept the need for a radical new approach and adopt it. Their new approach becomes the new received wisdom and a majority of the world follows. Climate change is the biggest challenge we have ever faced as a species. The problem is probably still soluble but the solution depends on a remarkable new political consensus. The good news is that when the people lead with vision, governments will follow.
Nuclear power has key role in fight against climate change
Age
Wednesday 31/12/2008 Page: 11
THE Rudd Government's white paper on the final design of it's emissions trading scheme has triggered a vigorous debate that will certainly continue into the new year. In defending the 2020 emission reduction target range of 5-15%, Climate Minister Penny Wong said she was "acting in the national interest" and protecting jobs and reducing energy costs on behalf of Australian industry and all energy consumers.
It would appear that the recent Poznan negotiations have achieved very little to further the United Nations' climate change agenda, which is aimed at having developed countries cut their emissions by 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020. Without a sensible energy policy in place, Australia will continue to be challenged by this. By contrast, the nuclear energyed European Union is laughing all the way to the global carbon bank. It is in Australia's national interest to follow the EU's example.
Professor Ross Garnaut's final report - released at the end of September - concedes that nuclear energy could supply more than a quarter of Australia's electricity by 2050 if a proposed policy based on "clean coal" and "renewables" fails. But he questions the technology on economic grounds and restates his earlier convictions that Australia is "not the logical first home of a new nuclear capacity".
In this, he and the Rudd Government are completely at odds with expert world opinion. Of all countries, Australia has the most to gain from domestic nuclear energy and a nuclear industry to serve the world. Last week in Canberra, Australian business leaders met Poland's new ambassador, Andrzej Jaroszynski, to discuss the former communist country's efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Unlike the Australian Government, which at times acts almost like the mouthpiece of the fossil fuel industry, Poland's Government proposes an energy policy revolution that will gradually reduce chemical combustion by introducing nuclear fission.
The Polish ambassador indicated that Poland would be following the example of the European Union and anticipated a significant nuclear energy component in the national energy program by 2025. This has been the strategy followed by many polluting nations - with the exception of Australia - over the past few decades. Indeed, nuclear energy has the pivotal role in any battle against climate change. The Poznan delegates have already had some reassurance from the United States, the world's No. 2 polluter.
President-elect Barack Obama has set a target of reducing US greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by a further 80% by 2050, with nuclear energy playing the major role. In the US there are now 25 applications for new nuclear energy stations to add to the existing 104 that have been brought on line over the past 50 years. And many of these are licensed for another 30 years of operation and produce electricity at half the cost of fossil fuel generators.
In November, the chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Ziggy Switkowski, gave the annual Essington Lewis Memorial Lecture in Adelaide and endorsed domestic nuclear energy for Australia. He said: "I and concerned that the exclusion of nuclear energy from our national conversation and energy debate represents a triumph of political pragmatism over good policy." The Rudd Government should heed the opinions of ambassador Jaroszynski and Dr Switkowski and incorporate them into Australian energy policy without delay.
At the December 2007 Bali climate conference, Yvo De Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "I have never seen a credible scenario for reducing emissions which did not include nuclear energy." Including nuclear energy into an Australian energy policy would transform the token political gesture of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol to the practical and ethical high ground of a real contribution to the global climate change problem.
Leslie Kemeny is the Australian foundation member of the International Nuclear Energy Academy.
Wednesday 31/12/2008 Page: 11
THE Rudd Government's white paper on the final design of it's emissions trading scheme has triggered a vigorous debate that will certainly continue into the new year. In defending the 2020 emission reduction target range of 5-15%, Climate Minister Penny Wong said she was "acting in the national interest" and protecting jobs and reducing energy costs on behalf of Australian industry and all energy consumers.
It would appear that the recent Poznan negotiations have achieved very little to further the United Nations' climate change agenda, which is aimed at having developed countries cut their emissions by 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020. Without a sensible energy policy in place, Australia will continue to be challenged by this. By contrast, the nuclear energyed European Union is laughing all the way to the global carbon bank. It is in Australia's national interest to follow the EU's example.
Professor Ross Garnaut's final report - released at the end of September - concedes that nuclear energy could supply more than a quarter of Australia's electricity by 2050 if a proposed policy based on "clean coal" and "renewables" fails. But he questions the technology on economic grounds and restates his earlier convictions that Australia is "not the logical first home of a new nuclear capacity".
In this, he and the Rudd Government are completely at odds with expert world opinion. Of all countries, Australia has the most to gain from domestic nuclear energy and a nuclear industry to serve the world. Last week in Canberra, Australian business leaders met Poland's new ambassador, Andrzej Jaroszynski, to discuss the former communist country's efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Unlike the Australian Government, which at times acts almost like the mouthpiece of the fossil fuel industry, Poland's Government proposes an energy policy revolution that will gradually reduce chemical combustion by introducing nuclear fission.
The Polish ambassador indicated that Poland would be following the example of the European Union and anticipated a significant nuclear energy component in the national energy program by 2025. This has been the strategy followed by many polluting nations - with the exception of Australia - over the past few decades. Indeed, nuclear energy has the pivotal role in any battle against climate change. The Poznan delegates have already had some reassurance from the United States, the world's No. 2 polluter.
President-elect Barack Obama has set a target of reducing US greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by a further 80% by 2050, with nuclear energy playing the major role. In the US there are now 25 applications for new nuclear energy stations to add to the existing 104 that have been brought on line over the past 50 years. And many of these are licensed for another 30 years of operation and produce electricity at half the cost of fossil fuel generators.
In November, the chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Ziggy Switkowski, gave the annual Essington Lewis Memorial Lecture in Adelaide and endorsed domestic nuclear energy for Australia. He said: "I and concerned that the exclusion of nuclear energy from our national conversation and energy debate represents a triumph of political pragmatism over good policy." The Rudd Government should heed the opinions of ambassador Jaroszynski and Dr Switkowski and incorporate them into Australian energy policy without delay.
At the December 2007 Bali climate conference, Yvo De Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "I have never seen a credible scenario for reducing emissions which did not include nuclear energy." Including nuclear energy into an Australian energy policy would transform the token political gesture of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol to the practical and ethical high ground of a real contribution to the global climate change problem.
Leslie Kemeny is the Australian foundation member of the International Nuclear Energy Academy.
Monday, 5 January 2009
Science's star turn to fix energy shortage for all
West Australian
Monday 29/12/2008 Page: 14
Scientists believe that they are on brink of cracking one of the biggest problems in physics by harnessing the power of nuclear fusion, the reaction that burns at the heart of the Sun. Next year, a team will begin attempts to ignite a tiny artificial star inside a laboratory and trigger a thermonuclear reaction. Its goal is to generate temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Celsius and pressures billions of times higher than those found anywhere else on earth, from a speck of fuel little bigger than a pinhead. If successful, the experiment will mark the first step towards building a practical nuclear fusion power station and a source of almost limitless energy.
At a time when fossil fuel supplies are dwindling and fears about global warming are forcing governments to seek clean energy sources, fusion could provide the answer. Hydrogen, the fuel needed for fusion reactions, is among the most abundant in the universe. Building work on the £1.2 billion ($2.6 billion) experiment is due to be completed next year.
Scientists at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, nestled among the wine-producing vineyards of central California, will use a laser that concentrates 1000 times the electric generating power of the US into a billionth of a second. The result should be an explosion in the 10m-wide reaction chamber which produces at least 10 times the amount of energy used to create it.
"We are creating the conditions that exist inside the Sun," Ed Moses, director of the facility, said. "It is like tapping into the real solar energy as fusion is the source of all energy in the world. It is really exciting physics, but beyond that there are huge social, economic and global problems that it can help to solve. " Inside a structure covering an area the size of three football fields, a single infrared laser will be sent through almost 1.6km of lenses, mirrors and amplifiers to create a beam more than 10 billion times more powerful than a household light bulb.
Housed within a hangar-sized room that has to be pumped clear of dust to prevent impurities getting into the beam, the laser will then be split into 192 separate beams, converted into ultraviolet light and focused into a capsule at the centre of an aluminium-and-concrete-coated target chamber. When the laser beams hit the inside of the capsule, they should generate high-energy X-rays that, within a few billionths of a second, compress the fuel pellet inside until its outer shell blows off. This explosion of the fuel pellet shell produces an equal and opposite reaction that compresses the fuel itself together until nuclear fusion begins, releasing vast energy.
Scientists have been attempting to harness nuclear fusion since Albert Einstein's equation E=Mc2, which he derived in 1905, raised the possibility that fusing atoms could release huge amounts of energy. Under Einstein's theory, the amount of energy locked up in one gram of matter is enough to power 28,500 100-watt lightbulbs for a year. Until now, such fusion has only been possible inside nuclear weapons and highly unstable plasmas created in incredibly strong magnetic fields. The work at Livermore could change all this.
Until now Livermore has had only the dubious honour of being home to the US Government's nuclear weapons research laboratories which are on the same site as the NIF Inside the facility, the scientists are impatient. After 11 years of development work, they want the last of the lenses and mirrors for the laser to be put in place and the tedious task of adjusting and aiming the laser to be over, a process they fear could take up to a year before they can successfully achieve fusion.
Jeff Wisoff, a former astronaut who is deputy principal associate director of science at the NIF, said: "Everyone is keen to get started, but we have to get the targeting right, otherwise it won't work. "We will be firing laser pulses that last just a few billionths of a second but we will be creating conditions that are found in the interior of stars or exploding nuclear weapons.
"I worked on the building of the International Space Station, but this is a far bigger challenge and the implications are huge. When we started the project, a lot of the technology we needed did not exist, so we have had to develop it ourselves," he said. "The next step is looking at how ignition can be used to deliver something of value to the world. It has the potential to be one of the biggest achievements mankind has made. " Although other experiments have attempted to create the conditions needed for nuclear fusion, lasers are seen as the most likely to be able to provide a viable electricity supply.
If all goes well, the NIF will be able to fire its laser and ignite a fusion reaction every five hours, but to create a reliable fusion power plant the laser will need to ignite fusion about 10 times a second. The scientists are already working with British counterparts on the next step towards a fusion power station. A project known as the High Powered Laser Research facility aims to create a laser-powered fusion reactor that can fire once every couple of minutes.
"The National Ignition Facility is going to finally prove fusion can be achieved with a laser," Professor Mike Dunne, director of the central laser facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Oxford, said. "It will start an exciting new period in physics as it will prove what we are trying to achieve is actually be possible."
Monday 29/12/2008 Page: 14
Scientists believe that they are on brink of cracking one of the biggest problems in physics by harnessing the power of nuclear fusion, the reaction that burns at the heart of the Sun. Next year, a team will begin attempts to ignite a tiny artificial star inside a laboratory and trigger a thermonuclear reaction. Its goal is to generate temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Celsius and pressures billions of times higher than those found anywhere else on earth, from a speck of fuel little bigger than a pinhead. If successful, the experiment will mark the first step towards building a practical nuclear fusion power station and a source of almost limitless energy.At a time when fossil fuel supplies are dwindling and fears about global warming are forcing governments to seek clean energy sources, fusion could provide the answer. Hydrogen, the fuel needed for fusion reactions, is among the most abundant in the universe. Building work on the £1.2 billion ($2.6 billion) experiment is due to be completed next year.
Scientists at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, nestled among the wine-producing vineyards of central California, will use a laser that concentrates 1000 times the electric generating power of the US into a billionth of a second. The result should be an explosion in the 10m-wide reaction chamber which produces at least 10 times the amount of energy used to create it.
"We are creating the conditions that exist inside the Sun," Ed Moses, director of the facility, said. "It is like tapping into the real solar energy as fusion is the source of all energy in the world. It is really exciting physics, but beyond that there are huge social, economic and global problems that it can help to solve. " Inside a structure covering an area the size of three football fields, a single infrared laser will be sent through almost 1.6km of lenses, mirrors and amplifiers to create a beam more than 10 billion times more powerful than a household light bulb.
Housed within a hangar-sized room that has to be pumped clear of dust to prevent impurities getting into the beam, the laser will then be split into 192 separate beams, converted into ultraviolet light and focused into a capsule at the centre of an aluminium-and-concrete-coated target chamber. When the laser beams hit the inside of the capsule, they should generate high-energy X-rays that, within a few billionths of a second, compress the fuel pellet inside until its outer shell blows off. This explosion of the fuel pellet shell produces an equal and opposite reaction that compresses the fuel itself together until nuclear fusion begins, releasing vast energy.
Scientists have been attempting to harness nuclear fusion since Albert Einstein's equation E=Mc2, which he derived in 1905, raised the possibility that fusing atoms could release huge amounts of energy. Under Einstein's theory, the amount of energy locked up in one gram of matter is enough to power 28,500 100-watt lightbulbs for a year. Until now, such fusion has only been possible inside nuclear weapons and highly unstable plasmas created in incredibly strong magnetic fields. The work at Livermore could change all this.
Until now Livermore has had only the dubious honour of being home to the US Government's nuclear weapons research laboratories which are on the same site as the NIF Inside the facility, the scientists are impatient. After 11 years of development work, they want the last of the lenses and mirrors for the laser to be put in place and the tedious task of adjusting and aiming the laser to be over, a process they fear could take up to a year before they can successfully achieve fusion.
Jeff Wisoff, a former astronaut who is deputy principal associate director of science at the NIF, said: "Everyone is keen to get started, but we have to get the targeting right, otherwise it won't work. "We will be firing laser pulses that last just a few billionths of a second but we will be creating conditions that are found in the interior of stars or exploding nuclear weapons.
"I worked on the building of the International Space Station, but this is a far bigger challenge and the implications are huge. When we started the project, a lot of the technology we needed did not exist, so we have had to develop it ourselves," he said. "The next step is looking at how ignition can be used to deliver something of value to the world. It has the potential to be one of the biggest achievements mankind has made. " Although other experiments have attempted to create the conditions needed for nuclear fusion, lasers are seen as the most likely to be able to provide a viable electricity supply.
If all goes well, the NIF will be able to fire its laser and ignite a fusion reaction every five hours, but to create a reliable fusion power plant the laser will need to ignite fusion about 10 times a second. The scientists are already working with British counterparts on the next step towards a fusion power station. A project known as the High Powered Laser Research facility aims to create a laser-powered fusion reactor that can fire once every couple of minutes.
"The National Ignition Facility is going to finally prove fusion can be achieved with a laser," Professor Mike Dunne, director of the central laser facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Oxford, said. "It will start an exciting new period in physics as it will prove what we are trying to achieve is actually be possible."
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