Antinuclear

Australian govt pursues ‘clean coal’, while missing solar opportunity

the Rudd Government’s actions indicate it now aims to keep Australia locked into using coal and gas for the vast bulk of electricity and to protect its coal and gas exports at the expense of new clean energy.

Government neglect turns lights out for solar power industry,  The Courier-Mail, Kerrie Sinclair, February 07, 2010

“……….Australia had a major solution in sight long ago. The sun. Australian researchers, including a world-leading team in Queensland, created a golden age in the ’60s and ’70s for Australian solar innovation.

The Australia-NZ Solar Energy Society was the oldest branch of the International Solar Energy Society…………

What killed Australia’s early solar promise and can the sunburnt country fulfil its potential now?

Australia Solar Energy Society chairman John Grimes says government decisions to keep Australia locked into coal-fired power killed its early potential to build a leading solar industry.

“Our golden opportunity was in the ’70s. We led all solar fields but we squandered it. It’s heartbreaking really.”

He says the Rudd Government’s actions indicate it now aims to keep Australia locked into using coal and gas for the vast bulk of electricity and to protect its coal and gas exports at the expense of new clean energy.

Australia will remain the sleeping goliath of solar energy, he says, unless the Government wakes up. Australia may earn small income from licensing technology to offshore companies, but it won’t build local solar technology companies that can rival the US, German and Chinese firms now making billion-dollar profits, much of it on the back of Australian innovation……….

Grimes says federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson is clearly no fan of solar and is focused on supporting coal by prioritising unproven “clean coal” technology.

The Government has put $1.5 billion in a Solar Flagships Program to jump-start four solar projects. It allocated several billion to clean coal projects.

The clean coal funding is in final stages of being allocated, but the Government has only started the first stage of the process for the solar program……….

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner last year launched an Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering report that estimated sun and geothermal energy costs were competitive against coal, gas and nuclear if the social and environmental costs of mining and burning fossil fuels – on human health, land and water quality and the climate – were accounted for……….

Harvard researchers last year said the cost of producing power from the sun and other renewable sources would be the same as from carbon-capture coal plants. That didn’t include costs from transporting and permanently storing CO2 underground.

Government neglect turns lights out for solar power industry | The Courier-Mail

February 8, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, energy, solar | Australia, climate change, climate change - global warming, energy, solar