Antinuclear

 ….. the IEA will produce a study that predicts more than half the world’s energy needs, and most of its electricity needs, will come from solar energy sources by 2060. The question that Australia needs to ask itself, as it signs yet another multibillion-dollar contract to develop LNG resources, is how it is placed to benefit from a solar future that will dominate future energy sources in the same way as coal and oil has in the past….

Ferguson, like the IEA, has mostly been interested in protecting the supply of fossil fuels for export or use at home, …

Will Australia miss the global solar boom? Crikey.com, 29 Sept 11, by Giles Parkinson of Climate Spectator  “……In the past couple of years, however, the IEA has focused more on different scenarios for the world’s future energy needs —   both in terms of energy security and in reducing emissions. In doing so, it has emerged as one of the world’s most bullish proponents of renewable energy, in particular solar.Federal

Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson next month will have the honour of chairing the biennial meeting of 36 energy ministers hosted by the International Energy Agency. The topic will be the world’s energy future, and the contents are likely to be surprising — so much so that Ferguson may have cause to consider if Australia is well prepared for the energy revolution ahead.Since its establishment in the 1970s, after the oil price shock, the IEA’s principal mandate has been around the protection of oil supplies, and its forecasts for the world’s long-term energy mix were viewed — particularly by those pushing renewables — with some suspicion.

Around the time that Ferguson will host the meeting in Paris, the IEA will produce a study that predicts more than half the world’s energy needs, and most of its electricity needs, will come from solar energy sources by 2060. The question that Australia needs to ask itself, as it signs yet another multibillion-dollar contract to develop LNG resources, is how it is placed to benefit from a solar future that will dominate future energy sources in the same way as coal and oil has in the past.

At a solar summit in Melbourne earlier this month, the Clean Energy Council warned that Australia had a five-year window in which to seize the initiative in large scale solar or miss out on a huge economic opportunity. It warned that Australia, despite obvious expertise, risked being left behind because of the massive rate of deployment overseas of large-scale solar —   PV, solar thermal and with storage — and the rapid fall in costs.

As the world’s biggest energy groups — GE, Alstom, Areva, Abengoa and Siemens (which has abandoned nuclear) — focus more on their solar technologies, and invest billions in new projects, Australia needed to accelerate its deployment and knowledge so that it, too, would have expertise that it could export rather than import…..

If these forecasts are right — even if they are half right — it would present an enormous opportunity for the development of a solar industry in Australia, far greater than seems to be contemplated in current domestic scenarios — Treasury only includes a 5% solar target in its forecasts. But to exploit these scenarios would require policy commitment…..

All this should present some food for thought for Ferguson and his advisers. Ferguson, like the IEA, has mostly been interested in protecting the supply of fossil fuels or export or use at home, …