It’s not too late to act on climate change, The Age, Paul Gilding 11 Sept 18, People engaged in the climate debate are often bewildered by society’s lack of response. How can we ignore such overwhelming evidence of an existential threat to social and economic stability?
………. What is relatively new is that scientists and experts are increasingly acknowledging that nothing less than a massive global mobilisation on a WWII scale is required to address the catastrophic risks posed.
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and a senior advisor to Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union recently argued that “Climate change is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences.”
All around us examples of what these consequences might be are increasingly tangible. Whether it be wild fires in northern Sweden, refugee crises, extreme ice melt in the Arctic, submerged airports in Japan or severe droughts, people are feeling climate change live……………
Darebin in Melbourne. This local council looked rationally at what the science told them – that we face a crisis and the only logical response is to declare a climate emergency. And so they did. In consultation with their community, they then developed the Darebin Climate Emergency Plan.
Why is this significant? Because this is how systems change. Ideas take hold and spread. Darebin has since been followed in the US with a small but growing list of elected bodies in regions and cities also declaring a climate emergency. First came Montgomery County, Maryland , since joined by Richmond, Berkeley and Los Angeles in California, and Hoboken, New Jersey. This is not emerging spontaneously, but through active organising by groups dedicated to the task like The Climate Mobilisation.
Yes, it’s frustrating that these things take time. Therefore, knowing we can still “win” is key. Towards this end I co-wrote nearly 10 years ago a journal paper, The One Degree War Plan, with Professor Jorgen Randers, showing how achieving 1 degree of warming was surprisingly realistic with a WWII style mobilisation. Recently along the same lines, The Climate Mobilisation developed a “Victory Plan” to show what a WWII style economic mobilisation across the USA could look like.
So on the surface, Darebin Council inviting a group of experts like myself to suburban Melbourne to discuss what a climate emergency means might not seem much. But it is a crucial part of a process whereby we first normalise the idea that we face an existential crisis. Next we will come to accept that the only rational response is a WWII-like economic mobilisation to eliminate global net carbon dioxide emissions within a decade or so.
Find this hard to imagine? It is. But as we learnt from Churchill in 1940, when we shift our thinking to “what is necessary”, what we can achieve is quite extraordinary. Or as Nelson Mandela said: “It always seems impossible, until it’s done.”
Victorian Labor offers a $4838 battery bonanza for homes with solar panels , The Age ,By Noel Towell & Benjamin Preiss, 10 September 2018Victorian homeowners will be paid nearly $5000 towards the cost of household solar batteries by a re-elected Andrews government in the latest move aimed at making the state Australia’s leader in domestic-scale renewable energy.
The latest promise of subsidies for small-scale renewable energy will see households who already have solar panels able to claim half the cost – up to $4838 – of batteries that can store energy generated on their rooftops.
The announcement comes as the Andrews government commits to building six new renewable energy plants across regional Victoria, generating enough power for 640,000 homes.
The three solar and three wind farms, producing 928 megawatts of power, will be built by private companies.
Labor has been encouraged by more than 9000 registrations of interest in its subsidised solar program in the three weeks since it began its announcements. The new batteries policy will cost an estimated $40 million, with 10,000 households expected to take part, lured by the chance of cutting up to $650 from their annual power bills with the rapidly improving battery storage technology.
The announcement is part of a suite of subsidies and payments aimed at putting solar technology in 720,000 Victorian homes. The centrepiece of the government energy renewable election pitch, a $1.2 billion subsidies scheme offering free solar panels to 650,0000 households, was announced in August.
It was followed by a $60 million promise to pay $1000 toward the installation of solar hot water systems in homes that are not suitable for rooftop solar panels.
The latest announcement will open up subsidies to even more households – those already using solar panels to generate power – as Labor looks to build a strong cost-of-living policy platform heading into November’s election………
The government says technology is in development that will allow neighbourhoods to link their batteries, creating “micro-grids” of shared stored power to lower electricity prices even further.
Euroa’s grassroots solar microgrid plan to avoid summer blackouts ABC Goulburn Murray
By Rhiannon Tuffield 6 Sept 18A small town in north-east Victoria is driving a renewable energy strategy that will generate power off the grid, give the town greater reliability in its power supply, and reduce local demand for electricity in times of flux.
The Euroa Environment Group is behind the $6 million grassroots project to install 589 kilowatts of new solar photovolatic (PV) panels, and up to 400 kilowatts of new batteries.
It will work with Mondo Power and Globird Energy as well as 14 businesses within Euroa which will install the technology.
The project may eventually extend to the residential community of Euroa and to other towns as it will demonstrate how a microgrid can operate.
The town has endured countless blackouts and it is hoped the microgrid will address the issue in the lead-up to summer.
The closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired power station in Victoria last year drove up energy power prices in southern states and put pressure on the market operator to deliver enough power to meet demand on summer’s hottest days.
Shirley Saywell, who is a business owner in Euroa and president of the group, said power options had been limited.
“This microgrid within another microgrid will give us the opportunity to generate power locally, store power locally and share power locally. It’s the town making itself more resilient in these times of uncertainty.
“There’s been stories about how complicated renewables are, and I see my role as showing people that it shouldn’t be as complicated as it’s made out to be.”
The intention of the project is to give the town greater reliability in its power supply as well as decrease the price of energy.
Charities and not for profits need to show leadership to address the issue of white supremacy in the NGO sector, a prominent Aboriginal writer and activist believes.
Nayuka Gorrie is a Kurnai/Gunai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta writer and activist who spoke on a panel at the Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) 2018 Summit on Wednesday.
She was joined by Victorian ombudsman Deborah Glass OAM, Will Stracke from the Victorian Trades Hall Council, Reason Party leader Fiona Patten, and Centre for Social Impact CEO Kristy Muir.
The panel discussed the “shifting nature of leadership and the role of citizens to shape their own prosperous and inclusive society”.
One of the topics discussed was the need for greater diversity in leadership, particularly around race and gender.
Stracke admitted during the panel discussion that leadership in the trade union movement was “too white”.
“One of our values that we say is ‘diversity is our strength and solidarity is our power’,” Stracke said.
“And that’s about the diversity of our movement and our movement is very diverse… but I think we as a union movement [still] need more voices.
“We’ve very white in terms of our leadership and we need to get better at that.”………
“Leadership needs to be much more representative of the people,” Glass said.
“It’s not just gender, it’s race, it’s disability, it’s everything we all stand for. We can’t have leaders speaking for us who don’t represent us, who don’t look like us or don’t speak like us.”………
Gorrie has organised an event to discuss “dismantling white supremacy in the NGO sector” at Victorian Trades Hall on 27 June.
She told Pro Bono News why she decided to create the event.
“I decided to put on that event after chatting to a number of different people that work in the not-for-profit sector,” she said.
“And [people of colour] are doing twice as much work just to survive I think.”
Gorrie said while white supremacy was found across all sections of society, it was especially disappointing to see it in the not-for-profit sector, considering the sector’s purpose to make the world a better place.
……..“I think a lot of not for profits make a lot of money and the Indigenous Advancement Strategy was a really good example of that. Most of the money in the strategy went to non-black organisations.“So there is a lot of money to be made in perceived black dysfunction and I don’t know if it’s possible for them to do the work they’ve set out to do if they haven’t examined and [removed] the white supremacy within themselves.”https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2018/06/need-leadership-address-white-supremacy-ngo-sector/
‘Bill creates framework for Indigenous body to represent Aboriginal Victorians and advance treaty process‘Calla Wahlquist@callapilla 7 Jun 2018
‘The legislation passed with the support of the Greens after
the Aboriginal affairs minister, Natalie Hutchins, proposed amendments
that went some way towards addressing concerns raised
by Gunnai-Gunditjmara woman and Northcote MP Lidia Thorpe.
‘Thorpe proposed additional amendments on the floor of parliament,
particularly demanding an acknowledgement of Aboriginal sovereignty
by the state of Victoria, but they were not adopted. …
‘The amendments to the Victorian legislation were moved
in response to concerns raised by Thorpe, the only Aboriginal person in Victorian parliament, who said she was
concerned about a lack of engagement with elders;
a potential sidelining of Victorian traditional owners in favour of
government-appointed people on the representative body; and
the failure of the legislation to explicitly acknowledge the sovereignty of Aboriginal clans in Victoria.
‘The latter remains a significant concern for Thorpe,
who said in parliament on Thursday that she was disappointed the government
had decided against including a firm acknowledgement in the legislation
that traditional owners in Victoria retained sovereignty over their lands.
‘“Treaties are between two sovereigns, and to talk about treaty
or to go ahead with treaty negotiations and not actually recognise
that Aboriginal people are the sovereign people of this land,
then I think that’s one of the major failures of this legislation,”
Thorpe told Guardian Australia.
“If we can’t start by addressing sovereignty, then that’s a joke.” … ‘
SMH, By Cole Latimer, Dairy farmers in the heart of Victorian coal country will soon be able to trade solar power using blockchain processes.
A virtual microgrid will be created in the the Latrobe Valley, exchanging energy generated from 200 Gippsland dairy farmers, 20 businesses and 150 households, powered by a decentralised, peer-to-peer blockchain energy trading platform called Exergy.
Ivor Frischknecht, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s chief executive, said the trial was the first step in transitioning the agricultural region – near the state’s coal-fired power stations – to renewable power. It would be the first major trial of a blockchain-based virtual microgrid in Australia.
“The ‘virtual microgrid’ concept brings an alternative approach to energy where the control remains with the customers, rather than retailers, who can choose to opt in depending on the current prices and energy types, or their willingness to provide demand response,” Mr Frischknecht said.
The project will be built by LO3 Energy, a New York-based company that created the world’s first local energy marketplace, in Brooklyn, which allowed participants to trade energy using blockchain technology.
…….. The Victorian virtual microgrid will comprise solar installations, battery storage, and demand response and enabling technologies combined with LO3’s Exergy peer-to-peer trading mechanism, which uses blockchain processes to allow those within the market to buy and sell locally generated renewable energy.
With the energy-hungry farming industry still recovering from the 2016 milk crisis, it promises a cost-effective and resilient solution for farmers to create and manage their own energy and profit from trading their excess generation,” LO3 Energy founder Lawrence Orsini said.
“Engaging with farms is a key part of the project as they have the capacity to install large solar generation and storage. Exergy makes it possible for them to become mini-power plants and gain revenue for energy they don’t use.”
The farms will be given loans to build solar installations by the Sustainable Melbourne Fund, which will be repaid through council fees.
ARENA will also provide $370,000 in funding for the $775,000 project.
“The local Latrobe Valley marketplace would allow Gippsland farmers to take greater control of their energy use, providing the opportunity to sell their power back to the grid,” the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) said, “consumers will also be paid for choosing to conserve energy at peak times.”
Australia’s first lithium battery recycling plant has been officially anointed in Victoria, in conjunction with the launch of $16.5 million state government e-waste processing plan.
The plant, established in New Gisbourne by Victorian company Envirostream Australia, is the first in the nation to recycle lithium batteries – the now ubiquitous power source for mobile phones, tablets, electric cars and home energy storage systems.
But while batteries – and in particular lithium batteries – are playing a central role in facilitating the world’s digital and clean energy revolutions, only 3 per cent of Australian batteries are currently recovered – the lowest rate in the OECD.
Envirostream’s $2 million recycling facility, which began operations last year, is trying to change that. In 2017 alone, the plant recycled 240,000 kilograms of batteries that would otherwise have gone to landfill, or been shipped to China for processing
Electronic waste – or e-waste – is defined as anything with a plug or battery that has come to the end of its useful life; including old mobile phones, computers, audio devices, refrigerators and other white goods, hair driers, TVs, heaters and air-conditioners.
The amount of e-waste generated in Victoria is projected to increase from 109,000 tonnes in 2015 to approximately 256,000 tonnes in 2035.
The plan, which is being rolled out by Sustainability Victoria, comes ahead of the impending state ban on sending e-waste to landfill, which takes effect on 1 July 2019.
It includes $15 million in grants to help Victorian councils and state government entities upgrade infrastructure to collect e-waste at more than 130 sites.
This will ensure that 98 per cent of Melburnians are within a 20-minute drive of an e-waste disposal point, and 98 per cent of regional Victorians are within a 30-minute drive of one.
It will also include a $1.5 million awareness campaign to educate Victorians on recognising e-waste, how it should be managed, and the environmental and economic benefits of reusing, donating, repairing or recycling it.
To Envirostream, Sustainability Victoria has extended a grant of $40,000 to go towards boosting the company’s recovery of valuable materials in lithium batteries.
“As one of the country’s trailblazers in reprocessing electronic waste, it’s helping to keep valuable resources out of landfills,” said Sustainability Victoria CEO Stan Krpan.
“Envirostream is showing how opportunities can be developed in Australia’s resource recovery sector, create jobs in regional communities and capture valuable chemicals, copper, steel, nickel, lithium, other metals and graphene captured so they can be sent to South Korea to be used in new batteries.”
Envirostream Director, Andrew McKenzie, said recycling batteries at New Gisborne would create five new jobs over the next year and help build Victoria’s recycling capacity.
“We have a nationally coordinated partnership to increase Australia’s low recovery rates of batteries and mobile phones and want to make sure these recoverable resources are not just thrown away or sent offshore for recycling.”
“We’re in an increasingly mobile world. Lithium batteries are now the dominant mode of energy storage for domestic and industrial uses, and like other e-waste, their use is growing fast,” he said.
“One of our members tried to get more information from Kalbar. All he was told was that the new project area was 1675 hectares (an increase of more 200 hectares) and that there would be a revised project description on their website in a few days,” Pat Williams said.
“So the only information we have to go on is the interview with Kalbar spokesman Martin Richardson.”
Mine-Free Glenaladale believes rather than being “refinements”, the extra processing plant for rare earths, as well as zircon and titanium, and the new mine path, are significant and substantial changes to the original proposal that was put to the referral for the environmental effects statement.
“It is unfathomable that as an effectively different project, they shouldn’t be required put in a new referral to allow for public comment,” Pat Williams said.
“Rare earth mining and processing has very bad press around the world.
“We understand there are only a handful of rare earth mines in Australia, and none in areas where there are so many conflicting land uses and such potential damage to the environment.”
Mine-Free Glenaladale also disputes Mr Richardson’s description of the mine tailings as sand, quartz and clay, claiming tailings from mineral sands mines contain large amounts of concentrated heavy metals and radioactive elements.
Concerns are also held about the possibility of high levels of radioactive elements thorium and uranium.
The intervention of the mining warden with some affected landowners to effect mediation with Kalbar has also been viewed by the group as intimidatory.
Mine-Free Glenaladale has called on Kalbar to hold a “whole of community” meeting so people can hear the same information at the same time and get the opportunity to ask questions.
A packed meeting in Bairnsdale in eastern Victoria on March 21 was horrified as the implications of a planned mineral sands mine in the area were revealed.
The Kalbar Resources mine has been in the planning stage for several years and is due to start next year. The site is at Glenaladale, about 20 kilometres from Bairnsdale in grazing country, but only 350 metres from the $200 million a year vegetable growing industry in the Mitchell River Valley.
The mine will be open-cut, with up to five holes operating at any one time, each 1 kilometre long, 500 metres wide and up to 40 metres deep. It will be the biggest mineral sands mine in Australia and will mine zircon, rutile, titanium and ilmenite. Mining is planned to last 20 years, processing 800 tonnes an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
There are many serious concerns.
Kalbar declares mining will cease on windy days to prevent dust laden with radioactive and or/carcinogenic chromium, vanadium pentoxide, thorium and titanium dioxide from blowing across the farmland and urban areas. However, this was not the experience of people in the Victorian Wimmera who were promised the same; it never happened. One farmer who challenged the mine owners (Iluka in that case) was told he would be charged $70,000 a day for lost production!
The mine requires about the same amount of water as used by the 29,000 households supplied by the Mitchell River. This water is not available locally. It is planned to be piped from the Sale aquifer, but that aquifer is fully committed and can only be released by purchasing existing water rights.
There will be an extra 40 B-double 72 tonne trucks a day, with road maintenance costs to be met by the East Gippsland Shire.
Run-off and siltation of the Mitchell River and Gippsland Lakes is inevitable in heavy rain, further damaging the world-renowned Silk Jetties, the Ramsar-listed wetlands and the tourist industry based on recreational fishing. There will be six tailings storage dams, each 10 hectares in size, at the head of the Perry River, which also flows into the Gippsland Lakes.
Speakers from the Wimmera talked about their experience of the Iluka Douglas mineral sands mine in their area. All promises of consultation, employment, compensation, monitoring, dust control and rehabilitation were reneged. Conditions imposed on the mine operation were not enforced. Radioactive materials were not buried as promised. The community was destroyed. Several people developed brain tumours. There were several Workplan Variations, which bypassed environmental regulations. Dust monitoring stations were placed upwind of the mine and only checked every seven days.
The Victorian Labor Government in 1990 legislated the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act to give mining priority over all other land uses. Farmers are forced by regulation to accommodate mining. This has not been changed by subsequent governments.
Promised rehabilitation does not occur. Of the 150 mines operating in Victoria, 122 are in care and maintenance mode, which can continue indefinitely, and only one has been classified as fully rehabilitated.
Communities receive no benefit from mines but suffer the costs of pollution, falling land values, impaired health and community destruction. Local councils lose revenue because mines do not pay rates.
While East Gippsland is a strong National Party area, people have fought and won major victories against governments before and will do so again. The battle against the proposed Very Fast Train land speculation proposal was successful in the early 1990s, the closure of the railway line was reversed, the Tambo Upper School closure was prevented, and more recently community action defeated coal seam gas mining.
The opposition to the mine is led by the East Gippsland Community Action Group and Mine-Free Glenaladale, which screened The Bentley Effect two weeks before the mineral sands meeting, increasing people’s determination to fight and win.
Peat fires burning near Cobden could smoulder for months, cause further evacuations ABC South West Vic By Matt Neal 24 Mar 18
Peat fires that have forced residents in Victoria’s south-west to evacuate their houses could continue smouldering for months, farmers say.
About 100 houses have been evacuated due to the fires burning near Cobrico over the last two days, with locals urged to leave the area until wind conditions change.
Cobrico farmer John Errey had to leave his home for a night on Thursday — and will probably have to do so again.
One of the blazes that tore through the region on St Patrick’s Day burnt three-quarters of his pasture, yet miraculously spared his house, dairy and livestock.
But the fires continue to smoulder in the peat swamp at the bottom of his farm.
Neighbours’ fury as man builds bunker for nuclear war, news.com.au, By Luke Mortimer • A Current Affair Producer Mar 20, 2018 He’s a former Yugoslavian who spent years guarding plutonium stockpiles and he refuses to be a sitting duck the day they may go off, preparing for all out nuclear war.
Jakov Loncarevic migrated to Australia in 1979 but in 1996 he fled Melbourne for Minyip, a tiny town 337 kilometres west. He purchased a block of land that he’s spent the past two decades making “nuclear proof” with a four-metre deep bunker in which he plans to wait out a nuclear winter.
Mr Loncarevic took A Current Affair reporter Martin King down into the bunker in which he claims he built by digging out 40,000 buckets of soil and constructing with 2500 bags of concrete, 40 tonnes of recycled steel and 20 tonnes of wood.
“(It’s my) emergency survival place,” he told King.“In case of unforeseen events … I will survive.“When the conditions become unbearable at floor level … I’m down here.
Mr Loncarevic says he has the supplies to wait out two years once a nuclear winter sets in, with a staggering 900 kilograms of sugar stored in industrial fridges, 200 kilograms of rice and dried beans, 6000 litres of water, 40 kilograms of washing detergent, 200 pairs of socks, 200 pairs of under wear, 100 t-shirts, and 120 kilograms of honey.
But despite being prepared for nuclear war, Mr Loncarevic is losing the war with his neighbours after council issued him with an order to stop building.
Neigbours fed up with living next door to the military-compound-style structure have told King of their embarrassment living next to it.
Mother Bec, a nurse who works in the nearby regional centre of Horsham, said her property’s value is in decline as no-one would want to buy in next to Mr Loncarevic’s house.
Her parents-in-law, Joe and Rae, lifelong Minyip residents who live another two doors up, told A Current Affair of how the house had transformed from a “lovely, little” weatherboard home owned by an elderly lady into a Soviet-style military compound. And Mr Loncarevic is losing popularity with his neighbours by the day.………..https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/03/20/19/05/neighbours-fury-as-man-builds-bunker-for-nuclear-war
The Age , Cole Latimer, 6 Dec 17, Australia’s first offshore wind farm, an $8 billion 2000 megawatt project, has secured financial backing from a major international green energy investment fund.
Offshore Energy has joined with Danish fund management group Copenhagen Infrastructure Partnership to develop the renewable energy project.
The offshore wind farm, dubbed the Star of the South, will be built 10 to 25 kilometres off the coast of Victoria’s Gippsland region, in the Bass Strait, and could provide one and a half times the energy of the now-closed Victorian Hazelwood coal-fired power station.
Offshore Energy managing director Andy Evans told Fairfax Media the partnership would transform the company and lift the viability of offshore wind for Australia………
Star of the South is currently Australia’s only offshore wind project.
“The industry doesn’t really exist at the moment,” Mr Evans told Fairfax Media.
He said there is currently a greater focus on solar and onshore wind projects in Australia, as they are currently cheaper than offshore wind, however, “the cost of offshore will come down, and has already seen falling costs in Europe.”
However, it is not Australia’s only offshore renewable energy project in development.
There are a number of wave energy projects currently underway around the nation’s coast. Wave Swell Energy is one wave energy generator that is also using the Bass Strait as its testing grounds.
The group is carrying out commercial validation of its technology off King Island, in the Bass Strait.
Australia is home to a global hot spot for sea-surface temperatures, with a record burst of prolonged heat in the country’s south-east helping to make conditions several degrees warmer than average.
Daily weather charts generated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show the unusual warmth is almost unmatched around the world, compared with normal temperatures.
Only patches off Greenland and New York in the US are as abnormally warm compared with long-run averages. (See chart below.)
“It’s clear sea-surface temperatures around south-eastern Australia, and Tasmania in particular, are well above average,” Blair Trewin, senior climatologist for the Bureau of Meteorology, told Fairfax Media.
New technology will provide free power to King Island as it aims to prove low-cost energy generation claims.
Wave Swell Energy, a group developing ocean wave energy generation technology, is carrying out commercial validation trials off Tasmania’s King Island ahead of a potential listing.
The group has built what Wave Swell chief executive Tom Denniss described as “big concrete caverns”, which use the constant back and forth flow of the ocean to generate energy.
“As waves pass into the inside of the cavern the water level rises, this causes pressure on the air, which blows open valves at the top of the unit and turns a uni-directional turbine; as the water recedes it causes negative pressure which closes the valves, creating a cyclical process. The air opening and closing the valves turns a turbine, generating a consistent flow of power.
“What sets this apart from other wave generation technology is its lack of moving parts,” Mr Denniss said. “It sits just below the water line, it’s like an iceberg, but with only two-thirds underwater.”
The blocks are located in water depths of around 10 metres, and typically found up to 500 metres offshore. They connect to the mainland via undersea cables and provide energy to the onshore grid via a transformer unit.
A single, one-megawatt generation offshore unit weighs about 4500 tonnes. It is built onshore and moved into place using semisubmersible barges.
The group is carrying out commercial validation of its technology on King Island, and has signed an offtake agreement with Hydro Tasmania for an initial 200-kilowatt trial unit, and will operate during 2018 after its initial funding goals are reached.
Denniss said all energy generated will initially be provided to the King Island grid and Hydro Tasmania for free.
Current tests put generation costs at $100 per megawatt hour, or 10¢ a kilowatt hour.
“This is really about ensuring independent verification, and Hydro Tasmania verifying that we can produce at the low cost of 10¢ per kilowatt hour,” Mr Denniss said.
Typical solar systems cost around 13¢ per kilowatt-hour and wind about 7¢ per kilowatt-hour, not including grid costs.
Mr Denniss added that the units can also be used as breakwaters or as an artificial reef, with trials demonstrating an increase in marine life where they are installed.
Wave Swell is still looking to investors to raise $8.3 million over the coming months, having secured $2 million in investment to date, and has set a goal of raising $10 million in total funding, Mr Denniss told Fairfax Media.
“We are targeting anyone for funding, from energy companies, construction companies, or individuals who see upside in investing.”
It has used RFC Ambrian to arrange a private placement of 1.73 million shares at a value of $4.80, and anticipates having a total of 6.9 million shares on issue, putting a potential value of $33 million on the company.
The group plans to list after the successful commercial viability trials of the technology on King Island.
Mr Denniss said it will most likely carry out an initial public offering on London’s AIM exchange, although it will not rule out a listing on the ASX.
Victoria Renewable Energy Target written into law, without support of LNP, REneweconomy, By Sophie Vorrath on 23 October 2017 Victoria has become the first state in Australia to have its renewable energy target written into law, after the Labor Andrews government’s Renewable Energy (Jobs & Investment) Bill was passed by Parliament on Friday.
State energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio said on Friday the governments’ VRET of 25 per cent renewable energy by 2020, and 40 per cent by 2025, had passed the Legislative Council with 20 votes to 18, and despite not winning a single vote from the opposition Coalition party.
The “historic” vote comes amid growing confusion and concern about what the federal Coaltion’s National Energy Guarantee means for Australia’s energy sector, and particularly for the renewable energy industry, with no national renewable energy target in place beyond 2020, and the suggestion development could go backwards under the new plan, resulting in just 28-36 per cent renewables by 2030.
The state governments, in particular, have reacted with frustration to the NEG, which – as Giles Parkinson pointed out here on Friday – is a decision by the Turnbull government to essentially rely on the same state-based renewables targets it has so often derided as reckless.
All of Australia’s Labor states and territories have their own renewable energy targets, each of them more ambitious than the federal government’s goal of 20 per cent by 2020.
Queensland and the Northern Territory are aiming for 50 per cent by 2030; South Australia is already there but looking to add more; while the ACT has already signed contracts with wind and solar farms to take it to 100 per cent renewables by 2020.
Victoria’s own target, now legislated, is expected to cut the average cost of power for households by around $30 a year; $2,500 a year for medium businesses and $140,000 a year for large companies. It is also forecast to drive a 16 per cent reduction in the state’s electricity sector emissions by 2034-35, and create up to 11,000 jobs.
Despite these projected benefits, the state targets have been used regularly by the federal government as scapegoats for rising electricity prices and the closure of ageing coal plants – an irony that is not lost on the states, particularly considering the federal Coalition needs their approval for the NEG to be put into place, because it requires significant changes to the National Electricity Market rules…….http://reneweconomy.com.au/victoria-renewable-energy-target-written-law-without-support-lnp-31448/
To have your voice heard about Flinders Ranges nuclear waste dump plan, make a submission to Federal Minister for Resources Senator Matt Canavan via email at radioactivewaste@industry.gov.au by 24 September.
Read summaries of submissions to the Senate, re the Selection process for a national radioactive waste management facility in South Australia. Each summary has a link to the full submission. Obviously the Department of Industry Innovation and Science (DIIS) was not happy with the majority of submissions opposing the process, so now are trying to get a better (for them) result
Read the brief summaries of submissions – 55 anti-nuclear, 41 pro nuclear (13 confidential) , with links to each full submission published on this Antinuclear website.
See our page: Submissions on Radioactive Waste Code 2018/ Submissions published by ARPANSA are overwhelmingly critical, and in opposition to the Federal nuclear dump plan for rural South Australia. [not to be confused with the current SENATE INQUIRY Selection process for a national radioactive waste management facility in South Australia.]
