Energy executives say gas market – not windfarms – to blame for South Australia’s woes
Main problem afflicting country’s grid is the lack of clear policy direction from Canberra, witnesses tell Senate inquiry, Guardian, Katherine Murphy, 7 Mar 17, Senior executives from AGL Energy have given evidence that the main issue causing problems with reliable energy supply in South Australia is “dysfunction” in the gas market – not too many windfarms making the grid unreliable.Executives from AGL told a Senate inquiry in Melbourne on Tuesday they would like to build a new gas-fired power station in South Australia to increase base load capacity in the state, but gas supply was chronically unreliable in the eastern states.
Richard Wrightson, AGL’s general manager of wholesale markets, told Tuesday’s hearing the problem was so dire the company was contemplating building its own LNG hub in Queensland to help secure reliable supply downstream.
“Dysfunction in the gas market is causing most of the systemic problems we are seeing in South Australia,” Wrightson told the Senate select committee into resilience of electricity infrastructure in a warming world.
“We would love to be able to contract more in that marketplace but the main restriction on being able to do that is access to flexible gas contracts that we are able to trade in an out of.”
The Turnbull government has argued that ambitious state-based renewable energy targets are driving too large a share of low-emissions technologies, such as wind power, into the grid, and that is a significant factor behind the unreliable conditions in South Australia.
But a number of witnesses appearing before the Senate committee on Tuesday said the main problem afflicting Australia’s energy grid was not proliferating renewables, but a lack of a clear policy direction from Canberra. The policy vacuum had created a damaging investment strike in new assets at a time when old coal-fired power generators had reached their natural age of retirement.
Ross Garnaut, the economics professor who led the climate change policy review for the Rudd government and was the independent expert adviser to the multi-party climate change committee that developed the carbon pricing scheme subsequently repealed by Tony Abbott, said the political debate about climate and energy policy in Australia was “incoherent”……
The chief scientist, Alan Finkel – the official leading the energy review – has already provided implicit support for an emissions intensity scheme in his preliminary report to the government, saying it would integrate best “with the electricity market’s pricing and risk management framework” and “had the lowest economic costs and the lowest impact on electricity prices”.
SA power: Taxpayers should buy gas-fired electricity generator, top economic advisor says, ABC News 8 Mar 17 By political reporter Nick Harmsen The South Australian Government should consider buying or leasing a gas-fired electricity generator to help stabilise the state’s expensive and unreliable power supply, South Australia’s influential Economic Development Board says.
The recommendation was made to the Government late last month, according to evidence given to the SA Parliament’s Statutory Authorities Review Committee.
Board member Goran Roos told the committee in the absence of progress on energy policy at a national level, South Australia should consider going it alone.
“In the medium term, which is one to two years, the South Australian Government should consider direct control of electrical generation facilities either through acquisition or leasing arrangements coupled with long-term back-to-back take-or-pay contracts with end users,” Professor Roos told the committee.
“A suitable facility could be the second … Pelican Point gas turbine.”
The second unit at Pelican Point was mothballed in 2013, and was seldom used until the second half of last year.
“ENGIE has argued that the second Pelican Point gas turbine cannot compete with cheaper wind energy and it is commercially unviable to occasionally switch on the gas-fired power plant to meet requirements for a few high-demand days across the year,” Professor Roos said.
“As such, the acquisition costs or lease costs for the second gas turbine should be minimal on an NPD basis, should the Government choose to acquire or lease this facility.
This Alliance initiative is directed at ensuring remote and isolated communities are sufficiently catered for in respect to their energy needs …
“Grassroots energy enterprises, which numbered more than 80 people nation-wide formed an alliance to harness the power of communities to increase local energy security, bolster regional development partnerships, enhance community cohesion, reduce carbon emissions and
work towards a just energy transition. … ”
First Nations Renewable Energy Alliance
“Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic said from Melbourne:
““Members from First Nations across the continent successfully participated in the Coalition for Community Energy held in Melbourne Town Hall on 27 – 28 February 2017 …
““This Alliance initiative is directed at ensuring remote and isolated communities are sufficiently catered for in respect to their energy needs. The current Australian corrupt system of energy delivery is controlled at the top level by government officials and politicians, who gain a lot of private funding for their political campaigns, in other words:
‘You scratch our backs and we’ll scratch yours.’ The level of corruption in Australian politics is so entrenched that the equity in engagement in respect of sustainable energy strategies is not possible under the current regime.
“We will direct our energies now and in the future to ensure that this corruption does not continue
and thereby give direction to secure certainly for those who seek to partner with us to provide for the development of sustainable communities.” … ”
The record-breaking heat seen across southeast Australia in the last few months was made 50 times more likely by climate change, according to new analysis that links the heat directly to global warming.
Southeast Australia was struck by three major heatwaves in January and February, with temperatures climbing as high as 113°F (45°C) in some places.
On February 10, Sydney Airport recorded its hottest February day on record, with temperatures hitting 109°F (42°C).
The heat was also uncharacteristically persistent — Observatory Hill in Sydney saw temperatures reach above 95°F (35°C) for nine consecutive days in January, breaking a 120-year old record.
Elsewhere, the consistent heat was even more extreme: in Moore, New South Wales, there were 52 consecutive days with temperatures above 95°F (35°C).
The study, conducted by the World Weather Attribution Program at Climate Central, used climate model simulations and observational data analysis to understand how climate change, caused by an increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, might have made these heat events more likely.
They found that climate change made the average temperatures seen this summer in Australia 50 times more likely, and made the maximum summer temperatures 10 times more likely.
“In the past, a summer as hot as 2016–2017 was a roughly 1 in 500-year event,” the researchers wrote. “Today, climate change has increased the odds to roughly 1 in 50 years — a 10-fold increase in frequency.”
The analysis also warns that heat events like these — both punctuated heatwaves and long stretches of above-average temperatures — are likely to become more frequent as climate change continues.
In the future, according to the study, heat events like the one this summer could happen as frequently as every five years — and will likely be more intense, with temperatures averaging at least 1.8ºF (1°C) warmer than they were in the past.
The connection between heat waves and climate change has strong scientific support. In 2015, eight papers published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society’s attribution report — an annual report that explains extreme weather events from a climate perspective — all linked climate change to heatwaves, showing that climate change clearly made heatwaves either more likely, more intense, or both.
According to data from NASA and NOAA, 2016 was the hottest year on record.
Before that, both 2015 and 2014 held that distinction.
In fact, 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001.
The banks provided a combined $10bn to projects around the world that expanded non-renewable energy, according to finance group Market Forces.
ANZ and the Commonwealth Bank were the worst offenders, investing over $3bn each in fossil fuels. In the same period, ANZ only lent $225m to renewables, giving it a 14:1 ratio. Continue reading →
Renewable power to the people could reap profits in Victoria, The Age, Benjamin Preiss , 6 Mar 17 Electricity bill shock has become a distant problem for residents in Soren Hermansen’s hometown in Denmark. It is far more likely they will receive a cheque in the mail for their power on Samso Island. The island is carbon neutral and runs on renewable energy, with power and profits flowing back into the community.
Now Mr Hermansen travels the world championing community-owned power generation methods. Most recently he was in Victoria discussing with local communities how they can harness the power of the sun, wind and other renewable sources.
Last week Mr Hermansen spent a day in the Latrobe Valley meeting with residents who are concerned about how their communities will cope once the Hazelwood power station and mine close at the end of this month.
On Samso most of the wind turbines are mostly owned by locals. The island is powered by 11 onshore and 10 offshore wind power turbines, a solar plant and three straw-fired plants………..
Mr Hermansen believes Victoria is ripe with opportunities for community renewable energy generation, including the Latrobe Valley.
He suggested the Latrobe Valley could form part of a renewable energy distribution hub, capitalising on existing infrastructure and skills.
Latrobe City mayor Kellie O’Callaghan said Mr Hermansen’s visit was a “natural extension” of discussions already taking place in the community.
She agreed the Latrobe Valley already offered sound energy distribution infrastructure and expertise that could translate well into the community renewable energy projects.
Cr O’Callaghan said an “employee transition centre” set up to deal with the looming closure of Hazelwood had already included a “vision” for community-owned and operated energy generation.
“It is based in a firm belief community ownership means no longer being subject to the commercial whims of a large multinational company,” she said.
Coal mining town Collinsville vies to become Australia’s solar capital, ABC By Ben Millington, 5 Mar 17, While many of Australia’s mining regions have been hit hard by the resources sector downturn, solar is providing rays of hope for the small town of Collinsville in north Queensland.
Three hours south of Townsville, Collinsville has a proud, long history of coal mining, boasting it had the last working pit ponies in Australia — up until 1990.
But this coal-fired town is poised for a rebrand. Solar companies are vying to take advantage of the region’s 300 days a year of perfect sunshine.
In August, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency announced it would provide $9.5 million to both Edify Energy’s 70MW Whitsunday Solar Farm and RATCH Australia Corporation’s 43MW Collinsville Solar Project.
“It’s a very good place for solar because of the radiation levels in north Queensland,” he said. “For example, our site in Collinsville will produce double the amount of power than a project in the UK, and about 5 to 10 per cent more than in New South Wales or Victoria.”
Plan to pump energy into Queensland grid Another advantage in Collinsville is a decommissioned power station that sits on its outskirts. Both projects plan to utilise the infrastructure to pump energy straight into the Queensland grid.
Farmers plant paddocks in smart houses to safeguard against climate change ABC
Landline By Pip Courtney 4 Mar 17 Farmers are predicting a Canadian super house will be a game changer for Australian horticulture, giving growers control over the weather on a scale and at a cost they have never had before.
The house has climate-controlled retractable roof panels and walls which shield vulnerable crops from volatile and destructive weather, or open them up to sun and rain.
Bundaberg agronomist Jack Millbank said crop protection could now be measured in hectares rather than square metres, with the houses providing glass house type protection at nearly half the price.
“I think this is going to be a watershed in the high-value horticultural market, in that suddenly this is not a cost, it’s a necessary investment,” he said.
The structures were originally for small high-value operations like nurseries, but recent advances made them cheaper, making it feasible for larger-scale growers to cover whole paddocks or orchards.
Mr Millbank said a Cravo house turned around the financial fortunes of one of his big Bundaberg clients who was preparing to quit the region after five years of crop-destroying weather……..
While Queensland producers were the first to use the houses, growers as far south as Tasmania are now putting them up.
The new $2.5 million house will protect four hectares of cherries from frost, hail rain and humidity.
“It could nearly pay for itself in a year, certainly in two years of poor crops we could get our money back, but year on year we are going to get improved pack outs so that’s going to contribute to repaying us every year,” he said.
The Australian Conservation Foundation must wait to learn if its latest challenge against the controversial Adani coalmine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has been successful.
The ACF appeared before the Federal Court in Brisbane on Friday to appeal a decision last year that gave the huge Carmichael project the green light.
But the full bench reserved its judgment after it heard submissions from the environmental group, federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg and Adani.
ACF barrister Saul Holt QC argued the original judge had erred when he found in favour of Mr Frydenberg and the Indian mining giant in August.
Mr Holt claimed the environment minister had not applied or misconstrued the law when he claimed if the mine didn’t go ahead, the same amount of coal could still be produced somewhere else in the world.
Mr Holt said the argument failed to address the impact the Adani mine would have on global warming and in particular, warmer water temperatures on the Great Barrier Reef.
“What someone else might do if this action doesn’t go ahead is irrelevant,” he said.
“The harm is still done by the emission of the carbon by Adani’s coal.”
However Richard Lancaster SC, representing Mr Frydenberg, said the original judge was correct when he agreed his client could only be “speculative” when it came to the impact Adani’s possible emissions would have on global warming.
Mr Lancaster said the projection that 4.64 billion tonnes of coal, or one-183rd of total worldwide emissions, could be produced by the Queensland mine was the “worst case scenario”.
Mr Lancaster said neither the original judge nor the environment minister had erred in their interpretation of the relevant acts.
The full bench of the Federal Court will hand down its decision at a later date.
It argues the electricity grid, including physical transmission networks in each state and interconnectors linking them, should instead be publicly owned.
And it says that “renationalised” grid should be responsible for maintaining a secure power supply and moving towards a zero emissions industry.
Quiggin said minor changes to the current national electricity market would not be able to resolve the “energy instability” that was holding Australia back.
“The price increases of the past decades and the series of recent breakdowns reflect systemic design flaws, exacerbated by the failure to take appropriate account of the implications of climate change,” he said in a statement on Friday.
He said some believed a publicly owned power grid was “unthinkable” but recent political upheavals were proof unthinkable ideas should not be dismissed.
“It is the only coherent response to the failure of neoliberal electricity reform, just as the establishment of a publicly owned national broadband network was the only feasible response to the failure of telecommunications reform,” he said.
The director of Flinders University’s Australian industrial transformation institute, which has released the paper, said it laid down a challenge to governments of all persuasions to create a policy in the nation’s interest.
“It is clear that the current system is unreliable and untenable,” Prof John Spoehr said. “This is a discussion we have to have, as a catalyst for genuine, nation building reform.”
In an interview with the Australian Financial Review last year, Dr Guthrie attacked social media activism against fossil fuels, taking aim at “inner-city smashed avocado eaters” for unfairly targeting coal and the minerals industry more broadly…….
Turnbull government ignores advice, appoints Minerals Council boss Vanessa Guthrie to ABC, SMH, Adam Gartrell28 Mar 17
The Turnbull government has overruled an independent selection panel to appoint the chairwoman of the Minerals Council to the ABC board.
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield said Vanessa Guthrie has the “requisite skills” to be on the board, despite not making the final list of recommendations put forward by the Nomination Panel for ABC and SBS Board Appointments.
The five-year appointment comes amid heated political debate about the role of fossil fuels and renewable energy in Australia, and follows government criticism of the public broadcaster’s coverage of coal mining and energy security.
The Perth-based Dr Guthrie has more than 30 years of experience in the mining and resources industries, holding a variety of senior executive roles at Alcoa, Woodside Energy and Goldfields Limited.
She was WA’s first female mine manager and eventually rose to the rank of managing director and chief executive officer of Toro Energy, a job she left last year. She is the first female chair of the Minerals Council, one of the most powerful lobby groups in the land…….
The government has been fiercely critical of the ABC’s coverage of energy, with Resources Minister Matt Canavan accusing it in December of running “fake news” as part of a campaign against the proposed Adani coalmine in Queensland.
The ABC was also accused of bias against the NSW Shenhua coal mine proposal but was cleared by a review.
The Institute of Public Affairs – which has spawned a number of Coalition MPs – claims the ABC has a “systemic bias”, giving the renewable energy industry favourable coverage but showing hostility towards coal and other fossil fuels.
In an interview with the Australian Financial Review last year, Dr Guthrie attacked social media activism against fossil fuels, taking aim at “inner-city smashed avocado eaters” for unfairly targeting coal and the minerals industry more broadly…….
Labor frontbencher Mark Dreyfus said the ABC should be above politics and called on Senator Fifield to explain why the panel’s recommendations were disregarded.
Advertiser reporter Paul Starick apparently wrote this. But pro nuclear lobbyist Ben Heard claimed credit for it tweeting:
“New push for nuclear industry in South Australia: This effort was brought to you by Bright New World “
New push for high-level international nuclear waste dump in South Australia Paul Starick, Chief Reporter, The Advertiser March 2, 2017 FORMER Port Adelaide Football Club chief Brian Cunningham and Economic Development Board chairman Raymond Spencer are among prominent South Australians launching a fresh push to progress a proposed $257 billion international nuclear waste repository.
In a new open letter to state MPs, 42 influential people demand the State Government commits to completing first-stage investigations of the proposed high-level repository.
The group, which also includes Adelaide Football Club chairman Rob Chapman and renowned brewer Tim Cooper, urges modest expenditure to investigate the proposal’s viability.
This would include assessing whether other countries were willing to participate and contribute financially, analysing potential competitors and developing a clear exit strategy……..
Many of the signatories were behind a similar open letter in December last year, which demanded political leaders not block study of the proposed repository, which would involve a purpose-built waste storage and disposal facility for international used nuclear fuel…….
Silence is Complicity in Reef’s Destructuon #auspol , John Pratt, 1 M ar 17 Big tourism must demand action to save the reef – its business depends on it
According to a blog post on the home page of the tourism giant Mantra Group, a “family holiday in Queensland would be incomplete without a visit to the beautiful Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef system in the world”.
Which raises the question, why isn’t the Mantra Group – one of Australia’s largest hotel and resort operators, with more than $8bn in asset management including a string of resorts in north Queensland – vociferous in demanding action to save the reef?
The question could not be more pertinent given the return of the threat of coral bleaching.
Mantra and other huge hospitality companies with interests on the reef, including Marriott and Accor, were conspicuously muted during the great bleaching of 2015-16.
Nor have any of these companies spoken out strongly against the Carmichael coalmine proposal – despite the mortal threat that fossil-fuel expansion poses to the reef their businesses depend on.
As the Queensland Tourism Industry Council boss, Daniel Gschwind, told the Monthly:
“It’s hard to see how the further development or expansion of the coal industry can support or in any way contribute positively to the future of the reef … There is no denying that the further extraction and burning of fossil fuels is a negative for the reef.”
Port Douglas sits at the hinge of the central and northern sectors of the Great Barrier Reef.
Presumably a large number of those who choose to stay in resorts like the Mantra Aqueous – or the Accor-owned Sea Temple or the Marriott-owned Sheraton Mirage, both also in Port Douglas – have been drawn there by the promise of the reef.
And while the vast majority of the reef experienced some damage, it is the northern sector that experienced the worst.
Last November a team of experts from James Cook University led by Prof Terry Hughes estimated that two-thirds of the corals in the reef’s northern part had died.
I snorkelled some of the impacted areas. I’d seen plenty of images and vision but nothing really prepares you for the scale of the carnage when the algae-covered remains spread out beneath you, all around, in every direction, as far as your goggled eyes can see.
Gschwind believes that most tour operators are not just on the reef “to make a buck” but rather “have a deep, almost spiritual, connection to the places they visit and take their visitors to” so “their interest is very much also in conservation”. The 170 tourism operators who wrote an open letter to the prime minister last year opposing the Carmichael coalmine are no doubt in this category.
But in the fight for the reef’s future, the big end of the tourism street has gone missing. The likes of Mantra, Accor and Marriott profit from the astonishing beauty of the fish and the coral – but where is the much-vaunted corporate leadership when the Great Barrier Reef needs defenders?……. https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/17124327/posts/1356978618
Coalition’s “clean coal” plan to power Gina, Clive, Adani in Galilee basin, REneweconomy. By Giles Parkinson on 1 March 2017 The so-called “clean coal” power generator being promoted by the Coalition has been revealed to be a 2009 proposal from businessman Clive Palmer that would be used to help provide electricity to Galilee coal mines planned by Palmer himself, Gina Rinehart, and Indian group Adani.
Waratah Coal, the company owned by Palmer’s Mineralogy, confirmed to the ABC on Tuesday that it had made an application to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation last Friday to finance a proposed 900MW coal generator that proposes to use an unproven technology, carbon capture and storage.
The revived plan was originated in 2009, and the details can be found here. It proposed to bury the emissions from the coal plant under the very same coal province that the three mining groups propose to mine – except that it will be “sequestered” in an “un-mineable” area of coal seams some 1km underground.
The $1.25 billion figure comes from its 2009 estimates, but it is expected that this is well out of the ball-park now. It also does not, the application makes clear, include the cost of carbon capture and sequestration.
No plant in the world has come close to making this a commercially viable proposition and the owners of the most advanced project, Kemper in Georgia, now admit it would be impossible make money from coal generation and CCS.
But that hasn’t stopped the Coalition continuing to push “clean coal” over renewables, despite overwhelming consensus that it would cost at least twice as much – and possibly four times as much with CCS – than wind and solar alternatives.
Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull – who as recently as 2010 supported 100 per cent renewable energy scenarios – has now pitched the Coalition’s energy policy firmly behind the construction of new “ultra supercritical” coal plants.
Resources minister Matt Canavan has been particularly vocal in support of a new coal-fired power station in north Queensland. This proposal, from Palmer, is the only proposal in the pipeline. Most other energy investors in the area are instead looking to solar and wind farms.
This comes as new data shows that Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, jumping another 2.2 per cent in the last financial year and taking the growth since the repeal of the carbon price to more than 7 per cent.
Much of this growth has come from the electricity sector, due to increased coal-fired generation, and from the new LNG export facilities in Queensland, where more coal and gas is being burned to power the liquefaction of coal seam gas, so it can be shipped overseas.
New studies have again questioned whether coal seam gas is any “cleaner” than coal power, given evidence that “rogue methane emissions” which are not measured by the gas companies, are actually making CSG a dirtier power source than coal…..
The proposed coal-fired power station in the Galilee Basin reveals the farcical depths of Australia’s energy policy debate. Even the Energy Supply Council, which represents the country’s fossil fuel generators, admits that new coal power is now “un-investable”.
The Coalition wants such coal plants to be funded by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, but this has been dismissed on several occasions by CEO Oliver Yates, who points out that co-financiers would be impossible to find, and any such investment would require billions of dollars in government guarantees and indemnities against a future carbon price.
Coalition’s “clean coal” plan to power Gina, Clive, Adani in Galilee basin, REneweconomy. By Giles Parkinson on 1 March 2017 “……. the Coalition’s ties with the coal lobby have deepened. Sid Marris, a former analyst with the Minerals Council of Australia, and a 16-year veteran of News Ltd, has joined Turnbull’s staff as an advisor.
This week, the chairman of the Minerals Council of Australia, the most vocal coal lobby group, Vanessa Guthrie, was appointed to the ABC board despite not making the shortlist prepared by an independent panel.
Antinuclear 