21 February 2017, The Conversation, Labor’s climate policy could remove the need for renewable energy targets. The federal Labor Party has sought to simplify its climate change policy. Any suggestion of expanding the Renewable Energy Target has been dropped. But there is debate over whether the new policy is actually any more straightforward as a result. One thing Labor did confirm is its support for an emissions intensity scheme (EIS) as its central climate change policy for the electricity sector. This adds clarity to the position the party took to the 2016 election and could conceivably remove the need for a prescribed renewable energy target anyway. An EIS effectively gives electricity generators a limit on how much carbon dioxide they can emit for each unit of electricity they produce. Power stations that exceed the baseline have to buy permits for the extra CO₂ they emit. Power stations with emissions intensities below the baseline create permits that they can sell. An EIS increases the cost of producing electricity from emissions-intensive sources such as coal generation, while reducing the relative cost of less polluting energy sources such as renewables. The theory is that this cost differential will help to drive a switch from high-emission to low-emission sources of electricity. The pros and cons of an EIS, compared with other forms of carbon pricing, have been debated for years. But two things are clear. Read More here
Category Archives: Australian Response
20 February 2017, The Guardian, Turnbull says own rooftop solar not inconsistent with ‘clean-coal’ message. Malcolm Turnbull has hit back at suggestions that his house’s large personal rooftop solar and battery system sends a message contrary to the government’s endorsement of “clean coal”. He rejected the idea that he had ever been critical of the renewables sector and dismissed his treasurer’s brandishing of a lump of coal in question time as “theatrics”. “It’s not a question of beliefs, saying ‘Do you believe in renewables?’,” the prime minister said. “It’s like saying ‘Do you believe in tables?’ Renewables are there, they are doing well, they have got certain characteristics and you have to design your grid to take account of that.” As his energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, raised the prospect of changing the mandate of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to accommodate coal, the prime minister said he had always been objective about energy. Asked whether his solar panels were enough to provide power to three average homes, Turnbull agreed that his personal 14.5kW system on the roof of his Point Piper home, with battery storage, was a “large array”. Turnbull went on to explain his position on climate change and his government’s energy policy. “I believe that climate change is a threat that we have to deal with,” Turnbull told ABC Perth. “I believe that we have to reduce our emissions. I believe that we need to ensure that we use all technologies to generate energy.” Read More here
1 February 2017, Renew Economy, Eight reasons why Dr Finkel is great news for Australia’s energy future. Our electricity grid looks likely to progress more systematically to a cleaner more secure future thanks to Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel being brought in – to lead the analysis and policy recommendations. For those who could not make Tuesday night’s 2.5 hour session in Adelaide with him, here are some of the key comments made by him and his team:
1. Dr Finkel and SA’s Chief Scientist Leanna Read both see the grid becoming 100% renewable powered as the end point.
2. Dr Finkel is walking the talk: all electricity at his home is sourced from green power electricity and he is an electric car user.
3. He and his team will travel shortly to other renewable energy leading regions with few grid interconnections to share best practices for SA (Texas and Ireland), to high penetration locations committing to further quick transitions to distributed renewables (California, New York, Denmark, France, UK and Germany) and meeting GE and Siemens who are leading in creating distributed grid systems and controllers and grid storage. Read More here
1 January 2017, The Conversation, Cabinet papers 1992-93: Australia reluctant while world moves towards first climate treaty. Cabinet papers from 1992 and 1993 released today by the National Archives of Australia confirm that Australia was a reluctant player in international discussions about climate change and environmental issues under Prime Minister Paul Keating. Internationally, it was an exciting time for the environment. In June 1992, the UN Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro. Here the world negotiated the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (which last year gave us the Paris Agreement) and opened the Convention on Biological Diversity for signing. So what was Australia doing? Australia stumbles towards climate policy Domestically, the focus was on Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD), a policy process begun by Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Working groups made up of corporate representatives, environmentalists and bureaucrats had beavered away and produced hundreds of recommendations. By the final report in December 1991, the most radical recommendations (gasp – a price on carbon!) had been weeded out. Democrats Senator John Coulter warned of bureaucratic hostility to the final recommendations. Keating replaced Hawke in the same month. The August 1992 meeting, where the ESD policies were meant to be agreed upon, was so disastrous that the environmentalists walked out and even the corporates felt aggrieved. Two interim reports on the ESD process from the cabinet papers fill in some of the detail. The first interim report, in March 1992, said that government departments had not been able to identify which recommendations to take on board. Cabinet moved the process on, but the only policies on the table were those that involved: …little or no additional cost, cause minimal disruption to industry or the community, and which also offer benefits other than greenhouse related. Read More here