Wind haters control Abbott government policy – poor prospects for future wind energy development
This may be as good as it gets for Australian wind energy http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/may-good-gets-australian-wind-energy-72276 By Giles Parkinson on 6 May 2014 New data released on Monday suggested that Australia in the month of April had reached its record level of output for wind energy – 4.6 per cent of total generation from the National Electricity Market.
Accurately measuring the solar energy potential for South West Australia
South-west Australia’s potential solar output measured with accuracy Phys Org 7 May by Rebecca Graham Researchers have developed an algorithm that can be used to simulate the hour-by-hour power output of both photovoltaic and concentrated solar thermal power systems for any location in the south-west corner of Australia. The model is simple enough to run inside a web-browser by the general public and could be tailored to other regions around the world.
Led by Murdoch University’s Dean Laslett, an engineering PhD candidate, the research forms part of a series of studies originated by Sustainable Energy Now aimed at developing an accessible and interactive computer simulation of renewable energy power systems for the South-West Interconnected System (SWIS); WA’s main electricity grid.
As clouds affect how the three main components of solar radiation – direct, diffuse and reflected – reach the earth’s surface, the algorithm was developed through a series of calculations using seasonal rainfall patterns and the three solar radiation components; leading to estimates of daily and hourly cloudiness across the region.
“The seasonal rainfall pattern across WA generally decreases with distance from the coast, with a zone of high rainfall in the south-west corner and the Kimberley,” Mr Laslett says.
“Seasonal cloudiness follows the same pattern. Hence if the longitude and latitude of a location is converted into a distance along the coast-line and a distance inland, estimation of seasonal cloudiness can be simplified.
“An estimate of all three solar radiation components is [also] needed…………”Because the model can be used to estimate all three components of solar irradiance, it’s possible to change the location of one or several photovoltaic or concentrated solar thermal systems and get an idea of how overall energy generation might change.”
“Also because our model can run inside a web-browser, this ability becomes widely accessible to the general public … they can play around and see for themselves what a solar energy power system for the SWIS might look like.” : http://phys.org/news/2014-05-south-west-australia-potential-solar-output.html#jCp
Queensland uranium mining not to happen any time soon (perhaps never?)
Uranium mining to face delays North West Star By CHRIS BURNS May 5, 2014,
QUEENSLAND Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche says he does not expect a rush of uranium mine development in the North West when Queensland regulations are approved later this year.
Unsatisfactory answers on coal seam gas radiation leak
More questions on CSG uranium scare #agchatoz http://coalseamgasnews.org/news/world/australia/nsw/more-questions-on-csg-uranium-scare-agchatoz/ May 5, 2014 Mike Foley A RANGE of unanswered questions have emerged over Santos’ Pilliga uranium aquifer contamination , as the environmental watchdog’s investigation report comes to light.
In March 26, 2013, Santos advised the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) its monitoring measures had detected aquifer contamination was caused by a leaking storage pond at the Bibblewindi site, which contained salty water which had been sucked up from underground during coal seam gas (CSG) activates.
Nearly a year after Santos was fined, in March 2014, the EPA finalised its report on the contamination.
But the EPA investigation leaves key questions unanswered concerning remediation of the Pilliga’s groundwater, the reliance of the authority on companies for information and public health risks. It confirmed a groundwater system beneath the Bibblewindi storage pond contained heavy metals and other elements, including elevating uranium levels to 20 times the safe drinking limits. Santos was fined $1500 by the EPA for causing the contamination.
The investigation report details correspondence between the EPA and other government agencies, highlighting areas requiring further information, including:
Can the contaminated groundwater be repaired? Santos advised the EPA in October its trial efforts to remove contaminated water had failed.
“The results of the trial concluded that recovering the perched water by abstraction in the surrounding shallow perched bores is impractical,” Santos said. Further remediation plans are not discussed.
Have all potential health concerns been laid to rest?
The NSW Office of Health was consulted on potential impacts on drinking water. Its advice, reproduced in the EPA’s report, noted the “nearest public drinking water supply is 27 kilometres away (Narrabri) and does not appear to be affected by the Bibblewindi site.
NSW Health said it “would be appropriate” for the NSW Office of Water to independently review the technical information Santos’ provided to the EPA to establish its accuracy. “This is considered somewhat justified given that the report has some comprehensive limitation attached,” NSW Health said.
Does the EPA have enough resources to monitor effectively?
The data on which the EPA’s report is based has been provided by Santos. The Land does not suggest impropriety on either Santos or the EPA’s behalf, but this does highlight the limitations of the government regulator and the significant role the gas proponent plays in monitoring its environmental impacts.
Wilderness Society Newcastle campaign manager Naomi Hogan said: “Santos said it would never threaten groundwater, but it has polluted an aquifer with uranium and other toxic heavy metals and the EPA report says Santos can’t fully clean up the mess”.
A Santos spokeswoman said “rehabilitation works are continuing”, noting the contamination poses no health risk. The water from the storage pond will be transferred to a treatment facility, she said. “Monitoring will continue to ensure the isolated groundwater underlying the pond is rehabilitated. There remains no risk to people or livestock.”
Marshall Islands deplores Australia’s backward steps on climate change
Australia risks ‘going backwards’ on climate change and straining Pacific ties Marshall Islands foreign minister says ‘it is as if our big brother doesn’t understand us’ theguardian.com, Monday 5 May 2014 17 John Vidal Australia risks going “backwards” on climate change, straining relations with small Pacific island states that are being hit by unusually powerful storms, floods, droughts and massive tides, according to the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands.
“Australia has always been our friend but the change in their government last year has resulted in problems,” said Tony de Brum on a visit to London to address British and other countries’ economic and political leaders about the physical plight that Pacific states such as the Marshall Islands find themselves in.
“We are having difficulty understanding Australia’s climate change policies and their new environmental regime. We don’t understand what they are thinking. We worry that the change in their policy may result in movement backwards.”
Australia’s Coalition government is trying to repeal carbon pricing in favour of a grants system for businesses to lower their emissions. Repeated independent analysis has shown its Direct Action plan is unlikely to achieve its target of a 5% cut on emissions by 2020, based on 2000 levels.
The Coalition has also set about abolishing climate change agencies, slashed staff numbers at the Department of the Environment and declined to send a minister to international climate talks.
Small island states around the Pacific are sending Australia the same message about climate change, according to De Brum. “Australia has always been generous,” he said. “But it is as if our big brother doesn’t understand us. The same message is going to Australia from other countries in the Pacific forum. Little brother is saying, ‘Big brother should get up and smell the flowers.’ ”
Scattered across 2m square kilometres of ocean, the Marshalls have all experienced extremes linked to climate change in the past year, he said. “We have had major drought in the north, floods in the south, seawater intrusion of groundwater, and thousands of people displaced by a king tide. That is the reality. What does Australia not understand?”
Pacific states including Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshalls are suffering at the present level of emissions, he said, making the prospect of future sea level rises and more powerful cyclones frightening.
“Some islands and atolls are already disappearing. One, called Enebok … is now underwater. Yet 20 years ago it had coconut palms and houses. At the moment we are [able to move] people around the islands. But any prudent leader would always have evacuation at the back of their mind.”
Climate change and the lack of cash to invest in renewable energy technologies, such as ocean thermal energy conversion, is now putting a brake on development, he said…… http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/05/australia-risks-going-backwards-on-climate-change-and-straining-pacific-ties
USA urges Australia to join in real action against climate change
US urges closer ties on climate change http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/us-urges-closer-ties-on-climate-change/story-fni0xqi4-1226906292654 NICK PERRY MAY 05, 2014 UNITED States ambassador John Berry has urged Australia to work closely with its ally in Washington on climate change, pointing to the major economic opportunities available in tackling the global challenge.
The US is one of the world’s largest polluters, but has made significant progress reducing its emissions since climate change was made a top-priority issue by the Obama administration.
Data in April showed the US had slashed greenhouse gas emissions 10 per cent below 2005 levels, meaning it’s more than halfway to achieving its target of a 17 per cent reduction by 2020.
Ambassador Berry said the US had managed to cut pollution while maintaining economic growth, defying the argument that achieving green outcomes was too expensive and hard on business.
The US would lead by example and be challenging world leaders to do their part by adopting “aggressive” pollution goals of their own.
“The issue is serious, it deserves everyone’s attention,” Ambassador Berry told a climate summit attended by Environment Minister Greg Hunt on Monday. “We know you will continue to work with us – both bilaterally and in multilateral organisations – on the tremendous challenges climate change presents in the region.”
The federal government has promised to reduce emissions by five per cent of 2000 levels by 2020, but will review this target in 2015 as world leaders prepare to hammer out a new binding climate deal.
The US has forged agreements with other major polluters like India and China in the lead up to the 2015 summit, and wants to see climate change on the G20 agenda in Brisbane in November.
Ambassador Berry said the US should work closer with Australia to chase the huge economic benefits posed by the growth of renewable energy. “It’s not only good environmental policy, it’s also good business,” he said.
As Australia’s coal industry winds down, wind energy surges ahead
Wind energy surges to record share as coal ebbs May 5, 2014 Peter Hannam Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald Wind energy’s share of Australia’s main electricity market jumped to a record last month, helping to curb emissions from the power sector even as hydro output shrank, according to energy consultancy Pitt & Sherry.
Wind farms, derided last week by Treasurer Joe Hockey as “utterly offensive” blights on the landscape, increased their share of the market to a record 4.6 per cent, up one percentage point from a year earlier, the company said in its monthly CEDEX report.
With major black-coal fired plants such as Liddell and Bayswater in NSW continuing to operate well short of capacity, greenhouse gas emissions from the National Electricity Market for the month were 5.8 million tonnes lower than a year earlier, or down 3.5 per cent.
Coal’s share of the market remained near its record low of 73.8 per cent.
However, the shift away from coal may soon be reversed as politics and markets combine to alter the economics of energy.
The Abbott government remains steadfast in its plans to remove the carbon tax – now at $24.15 a tonne – which has helped make black coal-fired plants, in particular, relatively expensive.
Senior members, including Prime Minister Tony Abbott, have also signalled their intent to weaken the Renewable Energy Target, a move likely to freeze new investments in wind farms………
Broken promise in the offing?
Mark Butler, the opposition’s climate change spokesman, said the Abbott government was “crab-walking” away from its pre-election promise to leave the Renewable Energy Target unchanged at 41,000 gigawatt-hours by 2020.
The government has set up a review of the target, led by climate change sceptic Dick Warburton, with many in the clean energy industry fearing the panel will recommend a delay and or weakening of the goals.
“This is a just another broken promise driven by ideology in face of the clear evidence that this has been a major policy success,” Mr Butler said.
While falling energy demand has contributed to falling emissions, “the big driver” for the industry has been the rise of renewables, he said.
Two-thirds of the emissions drop has been “because renewable energy increased its market share by 25 per cent in the first 12 months” of the carbon tax’s start, he said. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/wind-energy-surges-to-record-share-as-coal-ebbs-20140505-zr4rg.html#ixzz30zIKSJIQ
Australia’s coal mining in decline as India and China turn to renewable energy
Australian coalmining is entering ‘structural decline’, reports says. Oliver Milman, The Guardian 6 May 14 Demand from India and China predicted to falter due to higher uptake of renewables and make huge projects commercially unattractive Coalmining in Australia is entering a “structural decline”, with projects set to become unviable due to unrealistic expectations over the potential to export the fossil fuels to China and India, according to a new report.
The study, by the US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, suggests that two huge coalmining projects in central Queensland, backed by Indian cash, “are likely to prove uncommercial” due to unfavourable market conditions.
The projects, backed by Adani and GVK, which bought its coal assets from Gina Rinehart in 2011, will attempt to open up vast deposits of coal buried in the Galilee Basin region. Clive Palmer’s China First mine is also slated for completion by 2017, removing a projected 40m tonnes of coal a year for export.
But the IEEFA analysis shows that the wholesale cost of electricity in India, a key export market, is half that of Galilee coal-fired power, making it financially unattractive for the Indian government.
That, coupled with a new focus on renewable energy such as solar and wind, and a falling coal price due to the flood of new resource from the Galilee Basin, will cause significant problems for Australian projects, the study found.
“Renewables are a lower cost, cleaner solution, particularly when the deflationary impact of wind and solar is incorporated,” the study state The price of coal has dropped sharply in the past three years. The mining industry has claimed this is part of a cyclical reverse in fortunes as the resources boom cools.
However, several high-profile projects have been cancelled recently, including the departure of BHP, Anglo American and Lend Lease from the vast mine, rail and port operation required to mine and ship coal from the Galilee Basin.
Tim Buckley, director of IEEFA, told Guardian Australia that India is likely to follow China in looking more to renewable energy than coal-fired power.
“People think India will just follow the same growth of China, but India’s economy has choked on coal energy and it doesn’t need more expensive coal imports,” he said…..
Buckley said China’s huge investment in renewable energy will be replicated, albeit on a smaller scale, by India, influenced by the pro-solar policies of prime ministerial front-runner Narendra Modi. The cost of electricity generation from solar in India has fallen 65% in the last three years.
“The last thing Australia should do is flood the market with extra coal, there’s no way it can handle the number of projects currently in train,” Buckley said…….http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/05/australian-coal-mining-is-entering-structural-decline-reports-claims
Greg Hunt gets his ‘do nothing’ climate policy from Bjorn Lomborg
Lomborg’s particular brand of environmentalism – which says yes, the world is warming but it is nothing to worry about – is particularly appealing to the Coalition government. It is an approach that doesn’t have to get tangled up with opposing the science and also public opinion, while it is able to take a purely economic approach to doing nothing.
Or better yet, do something, but not at the expense of big business.
In fact, it is better to pay big business not to pollute, which makes the debt levy being flagged for the upcoming budget all the more comedic. The A$2.4 billion per year fuel tax credit scheme, which managed to escape the Commission of Audit, are simply handouts that go directly to the immense profits of mining companies.
The Direct Action path to poverty, The Conversation,5 May 14 David Holmes The current gallery of columnists at The Australian are always interesting to read. There is a core of them that display the views of Coalition politicians only with more colour and erudition, and often more transparently than Canberra soundbites and doorstops would allow.
Where government ministers might be seen attacking an institution or a policy, these columnists are adept at rallying to such an attack, be it on the ABC, human rights, education, health, foreign affairs, the public service and, of course, climate.
One such occasional columnist who chimes in over climate change is the Danish “sceptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg is well-known for subordinating the importance of climate change to other global issues such as health and development. His work effectively focuses on short-term solutions to “immediate” problems, arguing that global warming will actually provide a net benefit to the globe up until 2065 by reducing cold-related deaths and improving crop production, after which, he tells us, heat will take over as a health and food security problem.
Lomborg’s disregard for the plight of subsequent generations might appeal to politicians whose sense of time is tightly bound to electoral cycles. But it does not sit well with anyone who has even the smallest appreciation of telos.
In his column last week, Renewables pave path to poverty, Lomborg went all-out attacking renewables, just as the Renewable Energy Target (RET) and Direct Action was beginning to spike in news cycles across the country.
Lomborg is unusual. He is not your regular climate change denier and says, as government ministers do, that climate change is real and that we have to tackle it.
But also like the government, Lomborg’s suggestions for tackling climate change are so riddled with doublethink as to render his claims to have accepted the science as implausible and disingenuous.
Critics of Lomborg’s work on the economics of addressing climate change describe him as a dangerous propagandist working on behalf of vested interests (namely the fossil fuel industry); that he “advocates what he does not believe in”; and that “all he cares about is how he can make the general public react the way that he wants”.
Does this sound familiar? Continue reading
Radiation exposure to workers at Ranger uranium mine – sloppy controls
Running amok at Ranger Mining Australia, 5 May, 2014 Ben Hagemann“…….The job was to clean out one of the CCD (Counter-Current Decantation) tanks, ready for inspecting and repairing the rubber lining, and to change pump impellers underneath the tank.
A CCD tank is like an enormous, open-topped butter churn, but rather than mastitus-ridden, bovine squeezings, the tank is filled with a mixture of milled ore, water, some kind of flocculant (guar gum, maybe) and of course, sulphuric acid.
If I remember correctly, the acid comes from the leach tanks where the ore sits for a while so that the uranium can dissolve into solution, then that solution is decanted in the CCD tank where the flocculant is frothed up so that it can bond with the uranium and float to the surface, turning the whole lot into one big, bubbly, radioactive milkshake.
Of all the tanks only one of them was shut down so that we could do maintenance, and judging by the look of them, we were the first guys to take on this job in a very long time.
Once drained, the tank was one or two feet deep in the extremely heavy ore slurry and the arms were piled with sulphur sediment, hard as sandstone. We needed to disconnect the pumps below and hose all the sludge down the drainhole in the middle, a task that we were instructed to do with process water.
Now, process water… little did I know that’s the water that was used to “process” the ore… duh.
This means the water contained traces of the uranium in solution, fully dissolved and ready to soak into porous, human skin. Although we wore gumboots, long gloves and faceshields, naturally we wound up completely soaked after a few minutes of waving a two inch fire hose on high pressure, trying in vain to get the dense rock sediment to lift up and go down the drain.
It took four weeks to clean one tank, and that included digging out the gutter around the top of the tank from a scissor lift, as well as smashing all the piled up sulphur residue off the enormous arms of the churn (crawling around the lattice structure with a gympie hammer, bashing our way through and getting covered in the yellow muck).
If this sounds like a horrifying degree of physical contact with some very noxious material, you’d be right. It was about two weeks into the job that management finally got around to giving us our radiation inductions.
There I learned that the water with which I’d been soaking myself was actually radioactive, and you shouldn’t let it get on your skin!
We couldn’t know the degree of radiation we faced, as we weren’t issued with personal radiation monitors (not necessary for shutdown crews, we were told) but workers would reassure us that it wasn’t much.
The next week I took myself to the radiation lab during lunch, where the radiation officers expressed bemusement, then horror when I told them that the grey material all over my shirt was ore.
A quick sweep with the scintillometer revealed slow ticking over my body, which was reassuring, but my leather boots crackled like static on a black and white TV.
They were, as they say in the uranium game, “hot”, and were promptly discarded and replaced with a fresh pair from the stores, along with a full complement of new socks……..
Leaving alone the forgetfulness of management when it came to educating a shutdown crew about the full extent of radioactive hazards, Ranger’s production plant was in pretty bad shape, even to my uneducated eye – It was like the mine that time forgot. There was gridmesh rusted out, full of holes in some spots, so you really had to watch your step on the stairs and catwalks, not to mention the rotted-out, RSJ beams, steel nearly two inches thick you could push a screwdriver through.
I guess that’s what happens when you have sulphuric acid fumes mixing with the sultry, jungle atmosphere- It rots the steel away from under you.
I don’t know whether the site was under-maintained or not, but the fact that a leach tank actually busted open and spilled a full load of radioactive acid slurry last year is a pretty bad sign.
It’s good that ERA is replacing the baffle supports in all the leach tanks, but that kind of corrosion incident points to the prospect that the Ranger plant will be up for a lot more maintenance than that.
It makes me wonder what could happen if ERA were allowed to start a new mine expansion?
Would they look after it? Or would it simply rot away over the years, mismanaged and scraping by on the barest minimum of maintenance?
What do I know? I’m just a simple rigger.
South Australian State govt aiming for uranium enrichment !
South Australia digs deep on future of uranium http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/south-australia-digs-deep-on-future-of-uranium/story-fnii5yv7-1226905247217 SHERADYN HOLDERHEAD MILES KEMP THE ADVERTISER MAY 04, 2014
THE State Government’s mining department has continued to explore uranium enrichment, despite the minister saying there is no business case for it. Documents released under Freedom of Information also show the State Government wants to ship the uranium ore already mined in SA through eastern ports to make it more cost effective.
Emails between Manufacturing, Innovation, Trade, Resources and Energy Department executives shows they planned a meeting in December with a University College London Master’s graduate whose thesis showed the State Government should invest in uranium enrichment.
The emails suggested the graduate give a talk to the Olympic Dam Task Force and attached a summary of the paper, which stated that the SA Government should invest in uranium enrichment company URENCO.
The summary states a strategic investment would provide access to profits without the risk of developing a new technology and leaving options open for Australia to construct a future uranium enrichment facility.
Another report prepared for the State Government into how to make the state’s uranium industry more profitable and allow new mines to open suggests eastern states be lobbied to allow shipment from higher-traffic ports such as Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Its report says found government should take a leadership role in lobbying for improvement which included a “discussion document around options for addressing access to east coast shipping ports”. Adelaide and Darwin are the only ports from which uranium shipping is now permitted.
A spokeswoman for Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said there were no plans to export uranium from Queensland ports. A Victorian Government spokesman said that “the proposal is not something that has been considered … Any proposal would need to be assessed to consider environmental implications, port handling and also transport arrangements’’.
In 2011, Mining Minister Tom Koutsantonis, publicly backed by then treasurer Kevin Foley, called for change from the traditional approach of simply mining uranium and sending it offshore.
“We’ve got to value add here in SA. Down the track, I would like to see some form of enrichment, some sort of value add. We have to go out and passionately support the uranium industry,’’ he said at the time.
But in April last year, he said there was no case for it “any time in the near future” because it was not commercially viable.
Mr Koutsantonis said the department was not “investigating” uranium enrichment but that it was “keen to foster relationships between universities” and was often approached to discuss a range of policy issues.
He said that SA Government has not been presented with a viable business case for enrichment, and had not approached the eastern states to use their ports.
Family First MLC Robert Brokenshire said the government needed to “come clean” with their plans for uranium. “They’ve tricked their way back into office and it’s no longer acceptable for them to sidestep important issues on alternative energy sources,” he said.
“Why are they doing secret work, what are their intentions? And if they’re not considering it, then why allow the department to look at options?”
Some Australians are finding Joe Hockey’s opinion on wind energy offensive and silly
Joe Hockey’s turbine huff stokes coals of discontent WA Today, 4 May 14 Simeon Glasson Mr Hockey is right. As a lover of nature I agree with him 100 per cent. Wind farms are an offensive blight on nature’s beauty. As are open-cut coal mines, gold mines, uranium mines, and iron ore mines. The buildings around Sydney Harbour including the Opera House and Harbour Bridge surely spoil the sublime beauty of what must have been a pristine environment before white man arrived. LNG terminals on the (no longer so) Great Barrier Reef? Say no more. I suggest we do away with human civilisation altogether – leave the planet in all its original glory. Hmmm – maybe it’s too late for that.
So unless Mr Hockey wants to live in the Dark Ages let’s keep the wind farms – they look at least as good as some of the alternative sources of energy without the enormous environmental cost.
Andy Royal Joe Hockey is entitled to dislike wind turbines and hold other foolish opinions but he should not try to ram his “ideas” down other people’s throats or, worse, threaten to withdraw government support for green power initiatives designed to help secure a safe and secure future for our children.
Kevin Atkins Joe Hockey, of North Sydney, the epicentre of ugly concrete and steel monstrosities, is offended by a few scattered wind turbines in country Australia which are a “blight on the landscape”. Astonishing.
Doug Steley Joe Hockey says wind farms are “utterly offensive” and “a blight on the landscape”. I did not see him in Morewell when it was covered in toxic choking smoke and ash from the brown-coal-fired power station mine fire recently.
If he thinks a coal-fired power station is more attractive than wind turbines then I would suggest he moves and chooses to live closer to one of them.
Mona Finley Mr Hockey’s opinion of wind farms as ‘‘a blight on the landscape’’ could well go down as one of those ‘‘silly chump’’ statements that will have future generations spluttering with disbelief. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, and every time I have caught sight of wind turbines, whether in Europe, New Zealand, or Australia, they appeared to me like art installations or sculpture – gleaming white, so tall and graceful, vanes turning in a meditative manner – and on top of all that, they’re producing lovely pollution-free energy. What’s not to like?
Anne Cooper I see the wind farms on the road to Canberra and am transfixed by their clean lines and simple efficiency. Conversely, a drive through the blighted Hunter Valley coal region is truly offensive. Get some perspective, Mr Hockey. Wind turbines are just big versions of the iconic Aussie windmills.
Thos Puckett Given his tilt at “utterly offensive” wind farms is the Treasurer the Joe Quixote of the 21st century?…….http://www.watoday.com.au/comment/smh-letters/joe-hockeys-turbine-huff-stokes-coals-of-discontent-20140504-zr4ae.html#ixzz30sXmyRE3
Australia’s Treasurer Joe Hockey on the attack against wind energy
What hope green energy? Hockey says turbines “utterly offensive” http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/hope-green-energy-hockey-says-turbines-utterly-offensive-72824 By Giles Parkinson on 2 May 2014 The prospects of a re-start of large scale renewable energy projects in Australia dimmed further on Friday when Treasurer Joe Hockey described the sight of wind turbines as “utterly offensive.” Hockey, speaking to ultra-conservative shock-jock Alan Jones on radio 2GB, said wind turbines were a “blight on the landscape” and vowed to axe “the vast number” of environmental agencies
Hockey’s comments were made after Jones asked him about the “nonsense” of climate change, and renewable energy policies, and asked why – when the government had rejected support for SPC Admona and car makers – was it “chasing” Thai and Chinese-made wind turbines.
This is the conversation from there:
Hockey: “If I can be a little indulgent, I drive to Canberra to go to parliament and I must say I find those wind turbines around Lake George to be utterly offensive.”
Jones: “Correct.”
Hockey: “I think they’re just a blight on the landscape.”
Jones: “Correct. The people you are talking to are paying for them. When are you going to knock them off?”
Hockey: (chuckling) “Well, we can’t knock those ones off, they are into locked into a scheme. There is a certain contractual obligation, I’m told, associated with those things. But you will see in the budget we will address the massive duplication that you have talked about, the vast number of agencies involved in the same thing. We have considered that very carefully. When I say we’ve seen the age of entitlement, that applies to business as much as it applies to the rest of us.”
Hockey also told Jones that the government would cut a swathe through environmental agencies, including, he said, the Clean Energy Regulator, which environment minister Greg Hunt says we need to manage and operate the emissions reduction fund in the ludicrous Direct Action scheme.
Hockey probably meant the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Attention to detail has not been the government’s strong point, and it has been determined to dismantle any authority or scheme with the words “clean” or “climate” or “carbon” in front of it – the carbon price, the Climate Commission, the Climate Change Authority – even the Cleantech awards had to be renamed.
The CEFC, along with the Export Finance Investment Corporation, attracts private funds, and delivers a positive return to the government. But even EFIC has been slated for closure in what the AFR’s Chanticleer columnist described as one of a series of “brain explosions” from the Far Right revealed in the National Audit Commission.
The wind turbines around Lake George that Hockey finds so offensive are part of Infigen Energy’s Capital wind farm (pictured). Neighbouring regions areas are a hot-bed of anti-wind farm activitism, particularly from business leaders such as Maurice Newman, Abbott’s hand-picked head of his business advisory body.
Local state MP Pru Goward, the newly appointed minister of planning for NSW, has described wind turbines as “hideous”, and federal MP Angus Taylor is one of the many fierce opponents of wind farms in the Coalition. Amid all this, the ACT government is trying to commission 200MW of wind capacity as part of its plans to go 90 per cent renewable.
The federal government, on the other hand, appears comfortable with 90 per cent fossil fuels. It has commissioned a review panel to assess the renewable energy target, and has chosen a team led by climate change denier Dick Warburton, who has said that nuclear energy is the only viable alternative to coal, to make a judgement on the scheme that is designed to bring in more wind and solar energy to the energy system.
The constant uncertainty about green energy policy has meant that no new large scale wind farms have been committed in Australia since 2012 – apart from some solar farms supported by other schemes, and the massive investment by Australian households in rooftop solar. The emergence of solar, and soon enough storage, as a cost competitive alternative to energy delivered through expensive networks, is causing Australia’s major utilities to reassess their business models, and the way they deliver electricity. However, they lament that politicians and regulators are looking to the past, rather than the future.
They have argued, as has Tony Abbott, that the renewables scheme is very expensive, even though regulators note that it adds only about 3 per cent to consumer bills.
The Clean Energy Council this week produced a report that suggested that the fall in wholesale prices caused by the influx of renewables would offset the cost of certificates and actually lead to cheaper bills for consumers in the medium to long term.
This assessment was rejected by Hunt this week. And in a further sign of the government’s, and the panel’s hard-line attitude to renewables, Warburton said a complete dismantling of the renewable energy target could not be ruled out, even though this would lead to billions of dollars in losses, and to the removal of the “contractual obligation” that Hockey appeared to lament.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency is also in danger of having its funding stripped and of being absorbed back into a government department.
As solar energy storage comes in, electricity costs will become a whole new ball game
Storing solar power is the key to cutting energy bills, CSIRO says May 2, 2014 Peter Hannam Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald :”…………From the roofs of 1.3 million Australian homes – with about 50,000 added in the first three months of this year – PV panels are already hurting baseload fossil-fuel generators by flattening the peak demand periods that used to deliver windfall profits.
The real disruption, though, will come if batteries linked to solar PV and other renewable energy sources such as wind become affordable.
“The whole system is built on the fact that you can’t store energy,” Dr Graham said. “If electrical storage could actually become a reality that really turns the whole system on its head.”
“If you’ve got that, (consumers) can potentially disconnect from the grid.”……….
Don’t pull the plug just yet, said Damien Moyse, research director at the Alternative Technology Association.
“You have to pay $15,000 to $20,000 now for batteries” that would enable most families to exit the grid,” Moyse said, so making the move economic “is a fair way off at the moment”.
Entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, though, plan to bring that day a lot closer. The US billionaire is close to picking a location for a $US5 billion ($5.4 billion) “gigafactory” to mass produce batteries for his Tesla electric cars, aiming to drive down costs by 30 per cent.
“Storage is where PV was five or 10 years ago,” Tom Werner, SunPower’s chief executive said during his first visit to Australia this week. “Consumers will go from being essentially passive to having total control of your energy bill within five to 10 years.”
SunPower, which last month joined Google to lease out PV to about 18,000 US households, will soon start a pilot in Australia to finance PV and storage with plans to broaden the offering “in a small number of years”, Werner said.
However, big incumbent generators, such as Origin Energy and EnergyAustralia, have made it clear they plan to resist further erosion of their business models………
The clean energy industry fears the review panel, led by businessman and climate change sceptic Dick Warburton, will recommend the target be delayed or cut.
For the solar PV industry, though, the worry is the hammer will fall hardest on the small-scale renewable energy scheme that gives an upfront credit for up to 15 years on power their panels will produce.
Ric Brazzale, president of industry group REC Agents Association, said the sale of the small-scale technology certificates brought the cost of a typical 3.5-kilowatt capacity PV panel down about a third from $9500 to $7000.
“People are very concerned about the future of the (solar PV) support,” said John Grimes, chief executive of the Australian Solar Council.
The industry is on course to install 800 megawatts of PV this year, nudging the total towards 4 gigawatts, a rate that would probably halve next year without the aid, Grimes said.
Technology advances, though, will eventually catch up with incumbents. The CSIRO unit has moved on, and among other things, is working on flexible “organic” solar cells.
“They can be less efficient (than silicon-based PV) but they can be more ubiquitous,” Dr Graham said. “It’s the whole roof, not just what you have to attach to it.”…….http://www.theage.com.au/environment/energy-smart/storing-solar-power-is-the-key-to-cutting-energy-bills-csiro-says-20140502-zr2zw.html
Uranium industry not economic for Mt Isa, and fraught with environmental problems for Queensland
Uranium debate heats up in Mount Isa Queensland labour senator Jan McLucas says the state’s uranium deposits are too small to warrant developing the industry. ABC Rural By Virginia Tapp, 1 May 14
“These mines at Valhalla and Westmoreland are not huge deposits, they will not employ large numbers of people like Mount Isa, Cloncurry and Century have done.
“These are small mines and I don’t think they are the answer to the question of employment in the Mount Isa region.”…….Senator McLucas also claims there is not enough information about managing uranium mines in areas that experience intermittent periods of very high rain fall and flooding.
She says parts of the abandoned Mary Kathleen uranium mine, situation between Mount Isa and Cloncurry, are still radioactive.
“The residents of Mount Isa are still living with the results of that mine and the inadequate capping of the spoil and the contamination of the land that even graziers today won’t go near.”…….
[Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines and the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection joint statement] ……”We are still assessing the condition of the Mary Kathleen site and looking at whether it could be mined again in the future.
“Contamination issues at the site may not have been properly addressed in the past.”…..http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-01/uranium-debate-queensland/5423232
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