Antinuclear

AUDIO: Tim Flannery on Australia’s renewable energy future

I think they like them [solar panels] for a number of reasons. One is solar gives you some independence. You are not beholden to a system that just puts the costs up every year; you’re in control of your own future that way.

Climate Commission says alternative energies under utilised  http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3640530.htm Tony Eastley reported this story , November 26, 2012 

TONY EASTLEY: Australia’s Climate Commission has released its first major report on renewable energy and it concludes Australia is doing well but could do so much more. Some of the key findings of the report are that Australia’s huge potential for renewable energy is under-utilised.

It does say that momentum in Australia for renewable energy is building and Australia has benefited from the drop in cost of solar panels. It predicts that solar and wind power could be the cheapest forms of power in Australia for retail users by 2030.

Professor Tim Flannery co-authored the report.

Tim Flannery, welcome to AM. What’s the purpose of this latest report?

TIM FLANNERY: The purpose really is to highlight two things. One is
Australia’s potential in terms of renewable energy; two is the speed
at which this is happening. And what we can now see as the emerging
inevitability that renewables are going to be running the economy at
some point in the future.

TONY EASTLEY: But we sort of knew that didn’t we?

TIM FLANNERY: I don’t think it’s been widely appreciated. You talk to
people in government and industry and many people on the street, those
facts really haven’t started to sink in.

TONY EASTLEY: What, so it’s a slow burner. Initially people took up
solar and they had great grants from different governments around the
country but it’s still a burning issue?

TIM FLANNERY: Absolutely. And you look at the report and see how
quickly this is being installed. The graph is going up like a rocket.

TONY EASTLEY: And what’s driving that graph – is it domestic or commercial use?

TIM FLANNERY: Domestic. We installed more solar panels last year than
any other country. The great majority of those installations were
domestic.

TONY EASTLEY: The report notes that solar photovoltaic and wind could
be the cheapest forms of power in Australia for retail users by 2030.
That’s 18 years away. Why not cheaper now? What’s holding it up?

TIM FLANNERY: Solar has declined – the cost of production has declined
75 per cent in just four years. No-one ever predicted that. So when we
say 2030, that’s a fairly safe outline, you know, fairly safe date.

I think we’ll see some significant increases in those uses of
renewables well before that.

TONY EASTLEY: Are Australians liking renewable energy or just the lure
of the government subsidies that accompany them?

TIM FLANNERY: Look I think they like them for a number of reasons. One is solar gives you some independence. You are not beholden to a system that just puts the costs up every year; you’re in control of your own future that way.

And in regional communities wherever we go we see you know the
arguments put to us that those regional communities spend millions of
dollars every year which – money that just goes out of the economy for
energy, electricity and so forth.

If they had some local infrastructure they’d be creating jobs and
keeping the money in the community, which would benefit those local
communities tremendously.

TONY EASTLEY: Is one of the problems of getting people to take up a
renewable energy that they’re paying so much for electricity prices at
the moment, they really are feeling that, that they don’t have the
outlay to actually change over to renewable energy, they’re hurting so
much that they have no spare cash?

TIM FLANNERY: It’s interesting, you know, that a lot of up-take for
solar for example is in lower to middle income groups who are making
that investment because they’re feeling the pinch. They feel it more
than some wealthy people.

In places like Tasmania, it’s interesting, the State Government there
is pursuing solar for social housing, for you know community housing
and trying to spread the benefit over all the people in that very
lowest socio-economic group.

TONY EASTLEY: Professor Tim Flannery, co-author of the report The
Critical Decade: Generating a Renewable Australia. And there’ll be a
longer version of that interview on our website a little later in the
morning.

November 26, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Audiovisual