Renewable energy can save the natural world – but if we’re not careful, it will also hurt it
Renewable energy can save the natural world – but if we’re not careful, it will also hurt it https://theconversation.com/renewable-energy-can-save-the-natural-world-but-if-were-not-careful-it-will-also-hurt-it-145166
September 2, 2020 Laura Sonter, Lecturer in Environmental Management, The University of Queensland, James Watson, Professor, The University of Queensland, Richard K Valenta, Director – WH Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre – The Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland
A vast transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is crucial to slowing climate change. But building solar panels, wind turbines and other renewable energy infrastructure requires mining for materials. If not done responsibly, this may damage species and ecosystems.
In our research, published today, we mapped the world’s potential mining areas and assessed how they overlap with biodiversity conservation sites.
We found renewable energy production will exacerbate the threat mining poses to biodiversity – the world’s variety of animals and plants. It’s fair to assume that in some places, the extraction of renewables minerals may cause more damage to nature than the climate change it averts.
Australia is well placed to become a leader in mining of renewable energy materials and drive the push to a low-carbon world. But we must act now to protect our biodiversity from being harmed in the process.
Mining to prevent climate change
Currently, about 17% of current global energy consumption is achieved through renewable energy. To further reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this proportion must rapidly increase.
Building new renewable energy infrastructure will involve mining minerals and metals. Some of these include:
- lithium, graphite and cobalt (mostly used in battery storage)
- zinc and titanium (used mostly for wind and geothermal energy)
- copper, nickle and aluminium (used in a range of renewable energy technologies).
The World Bank estimates the production of such materials could increase by 500% by 2050. It says more than 3 billion tonnes of minerals and metals will be needed to build the wind, solar and geothermal power, and energy storage, needed to keep global warming below 2℃ this century.
However, mining can seriously damage species and places. It destroys natural habitat, and surrounding environments can be harmed by the construction of transport infrastructure such as roads and railways.
What we found
We mapped areas around the world potentially affected by mining. Our analysis involved 62,381 pre-operational, operational, and closed mines targeting 40 different materials.
We found mining may influence about 50 million km² of Earth’s land surface (or 37%, excluding Antarctica). Some 82% of these areas contain materials needed for renewable energy production. Of this, 12% overlaps with protected areas, 7% with “key biodiversity areas”, and 14% with remaining wilderness.
Our results suggest mining of renewable energy materials may increase in currently untouched and “biodiverse” places. These areas are considered critical to helping species overcome the challenges of climate change.
Threats here and abroad
Australia is well positioned to become a leading supplier of materials for renewable energy. We are also one of only 17 nations considered ecologically “megadiverse”.
Yet, many of the minerals needed for renewable energy exist in important conservation areas.
For example, Australia is rich in lithium and already accounts for half of world production. Hard-rock lithium mines operate in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
This area has also been identified as a national biodiversity hotspot and is home to many native species. These include small marsupials such as the little red antechinus and the pebble-mound mouse, and reptiles including gecko and goanna species.
Australia is also ranked sixth in the world for deposits of rare earth elements, many of which are needed to produce magnets for wind turbines. We also have large resources of other renewables materials such as cobalt, manganese, tantalum, tungsten and zirconium.
It’s critical that mining doesn’t damage Australia’s already vulnerable biodiversity, and harm the natural places valued by Indigenous people and other communities.
In many cases, renewables minerals are found in countries where the resource sector is not strongly regulated, posing an even greater environmental threat. For example, the world’s second-largest untouched lithium reserve exists in Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni salt pan. This naturally diverse area is mostly untouched by mining.
The renewables expansion will also require iron and steel. To date, mining for iron in Brazil has almost wiped out an entire plant community, and recent dam failures devastated the environment and communities.
We need proactive planning
Strong planning and conservation action is needed to avoid, manage and prevent the harm mining causes to the environment. However global conservation efforts are often naive to the threats posed by significant growth in renewable energies.
Some protected areas around the world prevent mining, but more than 14% contain metal mines in or near their boundaries. Consequences for biodiversity may extend many kilometres from mining sites.
Meanwhile, other areas increasingly important for conservation are focused on the needs of biodiversity, and don’t consider the distribution of mineral resources and pressures to extract them. Conservation plans for these sites must involve strategies to manage the mining threat.
There is some good news. Our analyses suggest many required materials occur outside protected areas and other conservation priorities. The challenge now is to identify which species are most at risk from current and future mining development, and develop strong policies to avoid their loss.
Murray-Darling River system; mysterious loss of more than 2 trillion litres of water
The mystery of the Murray-Darling’s vanishing flows, ABC By national science, technology and environment reporter Michael Slezak, Mark Doman, Katia Shatoba, Penny Timms and Alex Palmer 3 Sep 2020
It might be the biggest whodunnit — or what-dunnit — in Australia.
More than 2 trillion litres of water — enough to fill Sydney Harbour four and a half times — has gone missing from our largest and most precious river system — the Murray-Darling Basin.
And it’s happened in what was already one of the driest periods the basin has seen.
According to an investigation by some of Australia’s top water scientists, shared exclusively with the ABC, 20 per cent of the water expected to flow down the rivers from 2012-2019 was simply not there. That’s despite almost $7 billion being spent to protect the health of the system’s rivers and ecosystems that rely on them.
Was it stolen? Was it lost? Has climate change made it go up in steam? Or was it simply never there in the first place?
There are clues scattered up and down the rivers but one simple message is clear in the scientists’ findings. For the first time, they provide evidence that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan — the most expensive environmental program in Australia’s history — is delivering much less water than was expected.
And the implications could be huge……. EXCELLENT INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS HERE
…..“It’s a huge discrepancy to be missing a fifth of the water that’s meant to be in the rivers,” said Jamie Pittock from the ANU. He’s an expert in water management and a co-author of the Wentworth Group’s report.
“It means that there are all sorts of things that Australians value that won’t be sustained … like more water for towns … the floodplains, growing grass for sheep and cattle, in terms of biodiversity being conserved, waterbirds, red gum forests and conserving our fish.”…………
there are clues. Lots of them. We’ve seen water go missing up and down the river with clear explanations before. And looking closely at the new report, many of those explanations are consistent with the new data.
Clue one: tampered meters and criminal prosecutions
One possible explanation for the shortfall is that some of the missing water has been stolen.
An investigation by Four Corners in 2017 put water theft in the spotlight — much of it around the Barwon-Darling catchment in the Northern Basin.
Irrigators there, according to official figures, use 3 per cent of all the water taken from the entire Murray-Darling Basin.
But on top of those official figures, there has been significantly more water taken in that area. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority itself estimated that in the Northern Basin, as little as 25 per cent of surface water take has been metered.
Some of the water that went unmetered was stolen.
Peter Harris, who was named in the 2017 Four Corners, was this year found guilty of water theft just upstream from those gauges at Brewarrina.
Anthony Barlow, another person named in the program, was found guilty and fined $190,000, for water theft just upstream again.
Since the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) was formed in NSW in 2018, 15 additional charges have been laid in these locations across the state for water theft and related actions, according to an NRAR spokeswoman.
Emma Carmody, a lawyer at the Environmental Defenders’ Office, said the criminal prosecutions do not represent how widespread water theft has been.
“I’d actually go so far as to say that this situation pre-2018 was catastrophically bad in those northern catchments in relation to compliance and enforcement,” Dr Carmody said………..
Clue two: shadow take
Travel further upstream along the Macquarie River towards Dubbo, and you land in the internationally protected wetlands of the Macquarie Marshes………
In a landscape so flat, structures like roads, engineered channels and small levee banks can divert staggering volumes of floodwater — potentially shepherding it across a farmer’s fields where it is left to soak into the ground, or even pumped into dams.
This water taken by irrigators and graziers from the floodplains — rather than from the rivers — has hardly ever been measured.
Using satellite imagery, flood paths appear guided by seemingly innocuous structures, or completely cut off by others.
Richard Kingsford is a river ecologist at the University of New South Wales who has studied the Macquarie Marshes and the impacts of floodplain harvesting.
He says water that spills over floodplains often drains back into rivers, and interrupting its flow can have big impacts, including contributing to the missing flows.
“There are very few places where we have an accurate estimate of how much water is being taken from the floodplain. And to me, this has been a yawning gap in the policy,” he said…………
Clue Three: The cash splash
If we head all the way to southern NSW, we see a completely different clue.
Billions have been spent subsidising “efficiency measures” to help farmers save water there.
That can be done by upgrading old irrigation systems to deliver water directly to roots, or lining water channels, for example. Then about half of the water saved by the farmers gets handed to the government for the environment.
But according to some experts, the “inefficiencies” prior to the upgrades just meant some of the water used by irrigators flowed back into the rivers. The upgrades mean that “return flow” stops happening………..
In a report published in 2019, Professor Williams estimated that at least 280 billion litres of water per year might have been lost from the rivers — and are unaccounted for — due to this problem.
“That must be a major reason that we’re not getting the flow regimes that we need,” Professor Williams said.
The MDBA commissioned its own analysis of the issue and concluded the loss of return flows was reducing water in the rivers by 121 billion litres a year.……..
Clue Four: Climate change
There is one issue, however, that most experts do agree is a major reason for the missing water in the basin.
“The MDBA considers a changing climate to be the primary contributory factor,” said the MDBA’s Vicki Woodburn.
Since the basin plan was introduced, heat records across the area have been broken in four of the eight years. The last three years have been the hottest ever recorded in the basin.
According to the South Australian royal commission into the Murray-Darling basin plan, the MDBA “completely ignored climate change” when determining how much water needed to be saved.
If true, that means the overall target may have been set too low — that more water needs to be recovered from irrigation to save the river system.
But the same models used to set those targets have also been used to manage the rivers, and now to calculate how much water should be in the rivers. And by inadequately accounting for climate change, those models are likely over-predicting how much water is being recovered.
Climate change means more water is likely being lost between gauges, as it flows along — lost into the dry river beds and the hot air…………..
Clue five: The water was never there
In a twist worthy of any whodunnit, could it be that some of the missing water was simply never there in the first place?
According to the Wentworth Group, the government modelling used to predict how much water we should see in the river has some fundamental flaws which likely exaggerate the volumes.
For example, in 2018, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority found its modelling “has trouble predicting low flows”.
That meant that when water stopped flowing in the river, the model would still show water flowing — something that could have been particularly problematic over the past seven years when low flows were very common………….
What it all means
If there’s less water in the rivers than we ever planned for, what’s to be done about it?……………..
Professor Vertessy, who advises the MDBA, thinks this sort of shortfall could contribute to a rethink of the long-term water recovery targets. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-03/the-mystery-of-the-murray-darlings-vanishing-flows/12612166?nw=0
“We may have to — I think everyone would accept that these sustainable diversion limits aren’t quantities which you ossify for posterity,” he says.
“They’ve got to be adjusted to fit in with the new climate realities and the social preferences of the day.”
And the scientists say whatever the response to the findings, something has to give.
“The current basin plan tries to pretend that we can do everything with a smaller and smaller cake,” says Professor Pittock.
“What this really means is that society is going to have to make some hard choices. How much irrigated agriculture do we want as a society versus how much do we want to retain by way of wetlands and ecosystems [or] of sites of cultural value to Indigenous people?” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-03/the-mystery-of-the-murray-darlings-vanishing-flows/12612166?nw=0
Repower WA with Renewables: 90% by 2030
|
Repower WA with Renewables: 90% by 2030, https://www.cleanstate.org.au/repower_wa Western Australia’s energy sector is one of the best places to start to create thousands of jobs and drive down emissions. With the best sun and wind resources in the world, it’s time to harness the economic benefits and renewable potential of our state. All Australia’s other states & territories are embracing the clean energy transition with renewable energy targets, and WA’s lack of such a plan is a failure to grasp an excellent opportunity.
Repowering WA with renewable energy provides a once in a generation opportunity for infrastructure investment, jobs and value creation that will be a powerful driver for economic activity for decades to come. The proposalPowering WA’s Southwest electricity grid with renewable energy by 2030 is both affordable and achievable. The costs of building and delivering renewable energy solutions are reducing every year, and large scale wind and solar are already able to deliver cheaper electricity than coal and gas. Repowering WA can reduce energy bills for homes and businesses, and support significant growth in manufacturing, minerals processing and other energy-intensive industries that can employ more people here in WA. A report commissioned by Clean State has found the move to 90% renewable electricity on WA’s South West Interconnected System (SWIS) is technologically possible by 2030 and would create over 8600 jobs. The 90% Renewable Energy Roadmap created by expert group Sustainable Energy Now provides a transition blueprint for the SWIS – WA’s main electricity grid covering most of the population and spanning from Geraldton to Kalgoorlie. For this plan, new renewable energy generation capacity totalling 11.7 GW of will be required by 2030. Optimising the mix of technology to take into consideration electricity demand, weather, cost, technology and the design of the SWIS grid, the SEN model suggests that this should be made up of:
This investment would provide a significant number of jobs to build the infrastructure required. Each year, 800MW of new renewable energy capacity would need to be added, which is, roughly equivalent to the sum of the following:
There would also be additional investment and employment opportunities in providing energy storage and grid services to compliment this generation mix. Much of the rooftop solar can be delivered by private investment if WA’s electricity market is reformed to enable rooftop solar and battery systems to link into the grid productively. Increased battery storage would stabilise the network, and with 78,000 houses in WA coming off a 40c feed in-tariff this year, there is a prime opportunity to encourage these households to upgrade and battery. Besides the climate benefits and direct employment gains accompanying these investments and reforms, a timetable for the staged and managed closure of WA’s coal-fired power stations will avoid energy and business uncertainty, both for the state and for those currently working in the industry. Many credible studies have found that the SWIS, WA’s main grid, can transition to 100% Renewable sources by 2030. These include:
|
|
More than $A4 trillion to be invested globally in renewables in “crucial decade” — RenewEconomy
US research predicts $A4 trillion-plus will be invested in global renewable energy sector over what analysts say will be a “crucial” decade for the industry. The post More than $A4 trillion to be invested globally in renewables in “crucial decade” appeared first on RenewEconomy.
More than $A4 trillion to be invested globally in renewables in “crucial decade” — RenewEconomy
September 2 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “What It’s Like To Live In A City That’s Had Three ‘Once In A Lifetime’ Climate Disasters In Twelve Years” • In 2008, Cedar Rapids was completely underwater in a flood considered to be one of the country’s worst natural disasters. But a similar flood came in September, 2016. Last month brought 140 […]
September 2 Energy News — geoharvey
NAIF backs 10MW solar and battery plant in Northern Territory — RenewEconomy
Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility backs 10MW solar and battery power station south of Darwin, and a neighbouring gas plant. The post NAIF backs 10MW solar and battery plant in Northern Territory appeared first on RenewEconomy.
NAIF backs 10MW solar and battery plant in Northern Territory — RenewEconomy
Battle lines drawn over future of CEFC, as Taylor gets wires crossed on gas — RenewEconomy
Labor to oppose efforts by Coalition to push CEFC into fossil fuel projects, as energy minister Angus Taylor gets wires crossed on the corporation’s gas investments. The post Battle lines drawn over future of CEFC, as Taylor gets wires crossed on gas appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Battle lines drawn over future of CEFC, as Taylor gets wires crossed on gas — RenewEconomy
Victoria seeks 600MW wind and solar to power hospitals, schools and trains — RenewEconomy
Victoria kicks off new VRET auction process that will take its own operations to 100% renewable and will seek 600MW of new solar and wind farms. The post Victoria seeks 600MW wind and solar to power hospitals, schools and trains appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Victoria seeks 600MW wind and solar to power hospitals, schools and trains — RenewEconomy
AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT ALLERGIC TO TRANSPARENCY AND A SENATE SHY IN ENFORCING IT
Melting Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica raising seal level
Sea level rise from ice sheets track worst-case climate change scenario, https://www.
sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200831112101.htm August 31, 2020
- Source: University of Leeds
- Summary:
- Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica whose melting rates are rapidly increasing have raised the global sea level by 1.8cm since the 1990s, and are matching the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s worst-case climate warming scenarios.
-
Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica whose melting rates are rapidly increasing have raised the global sea level by 1.8cm since the 1990s, and are matching the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s worst-case climate warming scenarios.
According to a new study from the University of Leeds and the Danish Meteorological Institute, if these rates continue, the ice sheets are expected to raise sea levels by a further 17cm and expose an additional 16 million people to annual coastal flooding by the end of the century.
Since the ice sheets were first monitored by satellite in the 1990s, melting from Antarctica has pushed global sea levels up by 7.2mm, while Greenland has contributed 10.6mm. And the latest measurements show that the world’s oceans are now rising by 4mm each year.
“Although we anticipated the ice sheets would lose increasing amounts of ice in response to the warming of the oceans and atmosphere, the rate at which they are melting has accelerated faster than we could have imagined,” said Dr Tom Slater, lead author of the study and climate researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds.
“The melting is overtaking the climate models we use to guide us, and we are in danger of being unprepared for the risks posed by sea level rise.”
-
The results are published today in a study in the journal Nature Climate Change. It compares the latest results from satellite surveys from the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (IMBIE) with calculations from climate models. The authors warn that the ice sheets are losing ice at a rate predicted by the worst-case climate warming scenarios in the last large IPCC report.
Dr Anna Hogg, study co-author and climate researcher in the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds, said: “If ice sheet losses continue to track our worst-case climate warming scenarios we should expect an additional 17cm of sea level rise from the ice sheets alone. That’s enough to double the frequency of storm-surge flooding in many of the world’s largest coastal cities.”
-
So far, global sea levels have increased in the most part through a mechanism called thermal expansion, which means that volume of seawater expands as it gets warmer. But in the last five years, ice melt from the ice sheets and mountain glaciers has overtaken global warming as the main cause of rising sea levels.
Dr Ruth Mottram, study co-author and climate researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute, said: “It is not only Antarctica and Greenland that are causing the water to rise. In recent years, thousands of smaller glaciers have begun to melt or disappear altogether, as we saw with the glacier Ok in Iceland, which was declared “dead” in 2014. This means that melting of ice has now taken over as the main contributor of sea level rise. ”
PARLIAMENT COVERS UP AUSTRALIA’S TRUE CARBON FOOTPRINT
Parliament Covers Up Australia’s True Carbon Footprint, ByTasmanian Times, August 31, 2020 The House Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy today tabled its report on Andrew Wilkie MP’s National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Amendment (Transparency in Carbon Emissions Accounting) Bill 2020 in Federal Parliament.
“Regrettably the Committee has voted to cover up Australia’s shameful role as one of the world’s biggest contributors to climate change,” Mr Wilkie said. “But the reasoning behind its recommendation for Parliament not to pass this Bill doesn’t stack up.”
Mr Wilkie’s Bill would require the Federal Government to include scope 3 emissions in reports of Australia’s carbon emissions, boosting transparency and accountability. Scope 3 emissions are the potential emissions contained in the gas and coal mined in Australia, which is then exported overseas. The Bill allows Australia to track its impact as one of the largest exporters of fossil fuels in the world, giving the public access to information about Australia’s role in very significantly contributing to global greenhouse gas emissions.
“Australia must have a clear picture of its contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions,” Mr Wilkie said. “This is essential as the world tries to limit warming to 1.5 degrees and halt catastrophic climate change. Keeping track of Australia’s scope 3 emissions is not double counting but gives a true picture of our responsibility for climate change around the globe.
The Committee can hardly argue that tracking scope 3 emissions is ‘too hard’ when the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources has not even conducted an assessment of compliance costs. For goodness sake, the Committee acknowledges that more than a quarter of ASX200 companies already voluntarily report their scope 3 emissions.
“Further, the fact that this kind of tracking is not required by the Paris Agreement is beside the point. The Australian Government should be open and transparent for the sake of the community, rather than claiming that Australia can do little to influence climate change. The truth is that when the carbon in fossil fuel exports is taken into account, Australia accounts for about 5 per cent of the global total for fossil fuels.”
The full House Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy report can be found here.
2. ANALYSIS OF THE BILL………… HTTPS://TASMANIANTIMES.COM/2020/08/PARLIAMENT-COVERS-UP-AUSTRALIAS-TRUE-CARBON-FOOTPRINT/
Climate risks growing for nuclear reactors
Analysis: Nuclear operators face growing climate risks, https://www.michiganradio.org/post/analysis-nuclear-operators-face-growing-climate-risks
In the report, analysts found the Cook, Fermi, and Palisades nuclear power plants in Michigan and the nearby Davis-Besse plant in Ohio fall into the High Risk category (although Palisades is scheduled to close in 2022).
The analysis says that means the nuclear power plants will face relatively high changes in temperature extremes compared to the global average, according to the report.
“If the temperature goes up a little bit too high, the plan would either have to lower its output for a given period or maybe shut down if things are extreme,” said David Kamran one of Moody’s analysts.
The trickiest part for the nuclear power plant operators is reacting to how quickly changes in the climate happen. Recently, some models show the planet is getting warmer faster than previously thought.
“As these entities, the plants, want to have their licenses extended over many years, they may need to make additional investments to keep up with new information regarding climate and temperature and water, that sort of thing,” Kamran said.
The nuclear power plants use massive amounts of water. While the supply is not an issue, the temperature of the water could be an issue in the future depending on how fast the climate changes.
Rooftop solar: W.A. sets new record low for grid demand, two other states set winter lows — RenewEconomy
Grid demand hit a record low in W.A. over the weekend, and set new winter lows in other states as rooftop solar continued to eat into market share. The post Rooftop solar: W.A. sets new record low for grid demand, two other states set winter lows appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Rooftop solar: W.A. sets new record low for grid demand, two other states set winter lows — RenewEconomy
GreenPower seeks to revive interest, launches refreshed brand
|
GreenPower seeks to revive interest, launches refreshed brand, RenewEconomy
Michael Mazengarb1 September 2020 Australia’s only government-backed accreditation program for renewable electricity sales, GreenPower, has unveiled new branding as it seeks to inspire renewed interest from a growing number of business looking to cut their emissions.
The GreenPower program is a voluntary way for households and businesses to purchase renewable electricity through their retailer, with the government-backed program providing a process for verifying that purchases are actually helping to grow Australia’s wind and solar sectors and cut emissions. All power purchased through the GreenPower program is in addition to the federally mandated Renewable Energy Target, ensuring that customer purchases under the voluntary program help to grow Australia’s renewable energy supplies. Around 110,000 households and 17,500 businesses currently opt-in to purchasing renewable electricity through the GreenPower program, with almost 500 wind, solar, hydro and biomass projects accredited as GreenPower generators. In addition to a refreshed logo and brand identity, the GreenPower program has launched an updated website, with new functionality that it hopes will help electricity customers identify a suitable GreenPower product……….https://reneweconomy.com.au/greenpower-seeks-to-revive-interest-launches-refreshed-brand-75246/ |
|
|
Cheaper, cleaner, more reliable: How renewables are winning energy trifecta — RenewEconomy
The switch to renewables is delivering the promised energy trifecta – lower prices, lower emissions, and grid reliability. The post Cheaper, cleaner, more reliable: How renewables are winning energy trifecta appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Cheaper, cleaner, more reliable: How renewables are winning energy trifecta — RenewEconomy
1 This month
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
