Why Kevin Rudd is backing the wrong horse
Multi-lateral efforts to promote renewable energy, and overcome the barriers to deployment, have intensified recently, with the establishment of a new global body. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) aims to become “the main driving force in promoting a rapid transition towards the widespread and sustainable use of renewable energy on a global scale”. Sounds great, unfortunately Australia is not one of the signatories.
In a few weeks time however, Prime Minister Rudd will likely announce the opening of Australia’s new Global Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Institute, with funding of $100 million to kick it along, and signs of much more to follow. The Institute’s unambitious, and pointless, efforts will be to accelerate the G20’s goal of 20 global CCS projects operational by 2020. By then however, the fate of humanity will have already been decided, as emissions will need to have significantly dropped well before then.
As long as CCS is on the table, it will allow a polluting business-as-usual approach to tackling climate change - during the most important decade of human civilisation. If emissions aren’t significantly reduced within a decade, we condemn future generations. Kevin Rudd should stop listening to the fossil-fuel lobbyists, and get on board with a sure-bet. Economy stimulating, job creation and emission reduction programs are available now through supporting and fostering renewable industry development.
While we wait for this nation-building leadership, we’ll have to deal with the actual spread of pests and disease, reduced rainfall and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events - all of which were forecast years ago. Just what exactly will it take to get serious about reducing emissions with the urgency that is required?
It is deeds done today, not promises for tomorrow, that prove real intentions. The safest course of climate action, lies with the Rudd Government concentrating federal efforts towards the long term solution of proven zero-emission energy generation - such as is being pursued through IRENA.
March 9th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Let’s start moving towards renewable energy. Look at the expanse of desert Australia has for solar power! Also, I’d rather see thousands of wind turbines than high rise buildings, traffic and a rat race society.Let’s stop putting short-term gain in front of the welfare of our planet. Citizens of the country are under the mercy of large corporations and the government. People only raly together to change things in desperate situations such as serious conflict. Hence unless the government start acting it may be too late for future generations. I’m an engineer but would prefer to sacrifice earning less money if it meant living in a greener, cleaner environment. Let’s stop making the fat cats fatter.
April 19th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
A question, can anyone show where a suitably sized 100% renewable energy grid is operating anywhere in the world? If you wish to voice that ‘clean coal’ is never been proven you cannot offer another unproven solution.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Hi DK,
Well, renewables arn’t exactly an unproven solution. In Germany, renewables employ 250,000 people, providing zero-emission energy into the grid. In the US, wind employs more people than the coal industry. These people arn’t sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
In Spain, wind provides 20% of the energy grid. If we had that much wind installed in Australia, and we have enough wind for that, then we could close down at least 6 coal fired power stations.
Renewable energy is a commercialised technology, CCS isn’t. There is not one commercial CCS plant in operation anywhere.
Even if they can get CCS to work at scale, in Australia, a House of Reps. report said the realistic CCS potential would be equivalent to 15% of our total national emissions. We can do better than that with energy efficiency today.
So the solution, we think, is to more implement existing solutions, including a variety of renewable technologies. Strong renewable policies would have the additional benefit of creating tens of thousands of ‘green jobs’ now, at a time the economy would benefit from such stimulus.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I understand your point, but I still maintain renewables are not all they are cracked up to be. New Zealand in 2007 instead of revoking their no new thermal fuel plants law re-opened the New Plymoth power station because the renewables planned did not meet expectations and were capable of maintaining a constant supply. CCS may not be a long term solution, but it will get emission cuts and i combination with the introduction of other alternative technologies and efficiency measures will achive results allowing growth. With many of the CCS systems, they have all been proven both in seperate items at some scale and together in laboratories. There is very little left not to prove.
I do not have the statistics for spain, but I am always wary about wind power. South Australia has constant power fluctuations going from too much power to not enough in only a few minutes. Denmark has been a great claim on some sites as ‘exporting green energy’ when in fact it is dumping the fluctuations caused by wind farms. Many wind farms can only operate if you have a sufficiant inertia load (6-10 times it appears) to absorb the fluctuations.
But not to sound all bad I think geo-thermal and solar thermal are very good solutions to the current issues and would put support behind them. Though the efficiency and water usage is high, both of these technologies can provide suitable steady supplies without comprimising grid security or injecting harmonics.
I just believe 100% renewable grids are a less realistic goal than some of the current CCS technologies.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:00 pm
dk,
We don’t have much experience of renewables (RE) in Australia. However overseas, there is some serious energy being put into the grids by solar and wind.
Forty years ago, humanity managed to send a man to the moon. Yet we havn’t repeated that since, let alone on a commercial scale. It’s one thing getting one or two CCS pilot-plants up and running. It another to roll-out CCS, economically, to some 5,000 power stations globally.
Every day CCS is touted as a solution some day in the future, governments justify building new coal stations, like the ones going up in Western Australia right now.
As a report highlighted a few weeks ago, there are many other costs around coal. Human health is being impacts by airborne dust and other pollutants from mining and combusting coal. This is currently not being factoring in anyones equations. CCS will never make coal clean.
We need integrated policies, not just drivers for RE deployment. Policies that look at skills training, transitions for affected industries, energy efficiency, smart grids, load balancing, public transport etc.
If success stories of renewables got the run from Government and the media that CCS gets, I think there would be a vastly different public attitude around RE’s viability to relace coal. We’de be flooded with stories on a daily basis.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Simon,
Sorry about the delay, I had to just check some infomation.
As far as experience goes, yes we don’t have alot, but 20% or the registered power on the national electricity market in Australia is renewable. Of this only about 5% power is ever produced from them. The same is true for Germany and many other countries supporting renewables. Also unlike coal and other sources, wind and most small scale solar and do not bid, but generate whenever they can, so this is maximum output not a controlled output.
Reviewing the Energy {R}evolution senario proposed it appears the assumption is a MW of renewables replaces a MW of Coal/Gas/Oil (table 9). Hydro and Geothermal have some credit (trying to get some more data from New Zealand grid), but Solar and wind come in at around the 0.2-0.3MW to 1MW coal/gas. It appears under the ER senario a 10-30% additional allowance has been made in the proposed tables, but based on the infomation above, this would be far from suficient. Translating the figues a 500MW coal plant will reguire close to 2000 1MW wind turbines. Not very economical or realistic. The Electricity grid current supports almost 50GW of electricity generation.
CCS is also a rather interesting subject with confusion over the different styles, I’ve found 5 major projects so far all promoting different solutions. Some solutions are aiming at zero emission plants, others at simply acieving 50% or greater reductions. There is purpose built plants and bolt on additions. Some concerntrate or freeze CO2 to make it simpler to store or transport, others use piping and filering techniques from a standard flue gas. It appears somewhere they all get jumbled together into this one idea and the bad parts are always pulled out relating to timelines, purpose built plant and actual possibility of success. A lowerng emission bolt on project could be proven in as little as 4 years, as full scale trials are occuring in around the world already. Other purpose built plants will take longer to prove and implement.
It should also be noted small scale nuclear plants (400-1000MW) are now package units. ie - a nuclear plant could be built in as little as 3-5 years, not 10-15 as often reported.
So getting back to my original point, I unfortunantly believe, and most facts I find support this, that the transition to a low carbon energy sector within 10-15 years will not be possible without Nuclear, or CCS. Actual figures show renewables are not at a stage where they can supply sufficient quantities reliably.
May 7th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Reviewing the Energy {R}evolution senario proposed it appears the assumption is a MW of renewables replaces a MW of Coal/Gas/Oil (table 9).
The Energy Report does consider the capacity factors of each fuel source and technology.
That report was modeling by Dr Hugh Saddler, a respected energy expert. His bio states that he is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Energy and a member of the International Association for Energy Economics.
So can we move to a low carbon future, without CCS and nuclear? Dr Saddler says we can. We just need policies put in place to allow renewables and energy efficiency to do what they are capable of.