Where is the Coalition on clean energy?
The legislation of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation next year is looming as a test of how genuinely Tony Abbott and the Coalition support renewable energy.
Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, recently promised to promised to tear down the CEFC should the Coalition win government, and shadow finance spokesperson, Andrew Robb, launched an extraordinary attack on the renewables industry, describing it as being made up of "vested interests" and "white shoe salesmen."
But support for ambitious renewable energy policies can sit comfortably within a framework of conservative values, as conservative governments in Britain and German have shown.
It is even something that appeals to the climate deniers within the Coalition. Senator Ian McDonald told the Senate last month that “the coalition is a great supporter… of renewable energies," pointing out that it was John Howard who introduced the Renewable Energy Target. In 2009 the Coalition was instrumental in negotiating the RET’s expansion and Tony Abbott recently reiterated the Coalition’s support for it. The Coalition also supported the creation of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), negotiated by the government, Greens and Independents.
If the CEFC is done properly (and there are still crucial decisions yet to be made) it could start to deliver the new renewable investment the Australian public tells us in poll after poll it wants to see. The big solar plants that are proven and commercially available in the US and Europe could become a reality in the sunniest continent on earth, Australia.
It could bring to an end the years of ineffective grant programs that have seen only 18c in every dollar of promised investment in renewables being delivered. Creating the CEFC as an independent body in the style of the Reserve Bank also promises a way out of the seemingly endless government policy vacillations that have plagued the industry for so long.
The strong financial credentials of the newly appointed head of the CEFC, Jillian Broadbent, should serve as reassurance that it will be designed to avoid the flaws of some of the government’s recent green programs.
A similar program run by the US Department of Energy has succeeded in generating investment of $US35.9 billion to deliver 64,000 jobs. It currently supports the construction of over a dozen solar power plants, including the 392MW Ivanpah solar thermal plant in California. The largest solar installation at construction phase in Australia is currently 10MW.
The CEFC should make just as good policy sense for the opposition as for the government.
The concept of a government-funded body to leverage private investment shouldn’t present an ideological challenge, as it has been embraced successfully by both federal and state Coalition governments in the form of the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation and Public Private Partnerships.
So why the Opposition’s animus towards the CEFC? The answer is more likely to lie in politics than policy.
Tony Abbott has hit a rich vein with the “big spending government” meme, and we can expect he’ll mine it all the way to the next election, painting government spending on the CEFC as wasteful and trying to score political points on cost-of-living issues.
By contrast, a responsible Opposition should be emphasising the role that wind and solar play in keeping wholesale electricity prices down by providing electricity free of fuel costs. They should also be highlighting the significant potential for jobs in their own rural and regional seats.
The 100% Renewable campaign will be calling on the Coalition to acknowledge the uncertainty they are causing with their stance on the CEFC and to become a more constructive voice in the debate.
We met last week with Greg Hunt to argue that, rather than simply block the passage of the CEFC, they work in parliament to ensure the CEFC is well designed, with strong independent oversight.
We also questioned him publically at a recent gathering of solar industry professionals about how he can credibly claim to care about energy prices, when his party's current policy risks locking in expensive coal and gas investments. If the Coalition truly wants to manage rising energy prices, they have to get serious about renewable energy – the only source of power that gets cheaper the more we install.
We will continue to pursue the Coalition to take a more constructive approach.
Further delay in renewable energy investment in Australia is too high a price for the Australian public to pay to allow the Coalition a handful of political points.
Andrew Bray is an organiser for 100% Renewable Energy, a campaign comprising more than 100 community groups nationally
Comments on this article
Agriculture and horticulture
Agriculture and horticulture seek to optimize the capture of solar energy in order to optimize the productivity of plants. Techniques such as timed planting cycles, tailored row orientation, staggered heights between rows and the mixing of plant varieties can improve crop yields. Thanks.
Regards,
cell phone lookup
Check out your maths first
In response to David Le Comte
David, you state a canopy area of 38 square kilometres. Enviromission quotes 5500 acres, or 22 square kilometres. That's a big difference. Other figures I have seen quoted are for three kilometres diameter. That's even less. You can get an idea of the area from the ratio of the height of the stack to to the width of the canopy, about three to one. The stack is about 800 metres high. Less than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
Quote from Gizmag:
"Currently undergoing site-specific engineering and land acquisition, EnviroMission estimates the tower will cost around US$750 million to build. It will generate a peak of 200 megawatts, and run at an efficiency of around 60% - vastly more efficient and reliable than other renewable energy sources."
http://www.gizmag.com/enviromission-solar-tower-arizona-clean-energy-renewable/19287/
Arup Engineers in Australia is doing the design. Not the sort of company which would be involved in a scam...
Also check out http://www.enviromission.com.au/IRM/Company/ShowPage.aspx/PDFs/1324-89012753/TallVisionary for some of the latest figures.
Where is the coalition?
Tony Abbott will have to win government if he is to retain his leadership. So far, he has done very well by arguing that everything done by the current government is bad.
I see no reason why he should change.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of coalition supporters believe that atmospheric carbon is driving climate-change. While I am sure that it is substantial, why risk annoying the others?
Get into government first, keep quiet about climate change until you are forced to do something.
After all, what if action was taken that, against all odds, averted massive change? There would always be a substantial vote to be won by claiming that it had been a colossal beat-up.
If on the other hand, dangerous climate change ocurrs, its effects will almost certainly be felt well after this generation of politicians retires. Why take the risk?
To convince a majority that action is needed now to avert warming when none of us can feel it yet is about as hard as convincing people that action is needed to avert a war. Invariably, we wait till the last minute and then raise an army, usually invoking emergency powers and suspending such civil rights as prove pesky.
I am not convinced that our political system is up to the challenge of climate change.
Lets see construction start first
In response to Donald Cooper:
1) They havent even started construction yet.
2) I'd like to know where you got the figure of $750 million dollars. I have looked through EnviroMission's media releases and cannot find any definitive costing.
3) 200MW(peak), ie 100MW average (but still intermittent) for something that is supposed to occupy 38 sq kilometres and require a 1km high tower that is 130m in diameter. Those figures just seem mind-boggling to me. I would like to see some estimates for the amount of concrete and steel required. (Note EnviroMission only quote a 50% capacity factor)
Well I hope it works, and is cost-effective, but I just cant help think that the whole thing is a scam.
As for the Coalition - well the climate deniers would be even more scheptical than me, and most of the rest seem to think that giving money to farmers to plant trees, and money to coal power generators to invest in CSG technology is all that one will need to do. You aren't likely to get any takers there.
I suggest you try the "fairies at the bottom of the garden". (Greens & Democrats)
Coalition is responsible?
The Solar Updraft Tower will not be unreliable.
It has a 60% capacity factor, costs around $750 million for a 200 MW plant, but uses no fuel over its life, has an 80 year design life, requires minimal maintenance, and needs 40 staff to run it. It has been estimated to pay off its greenhouse footprint in three years. Enviromission says it will pay for itself in eleven years.
As against that, a coal plant of the same size would cost in the region of $260 million (at least), at $120/tonne uses around $8.4 billion worth of coal over eighty years (it couldn't last half that long), maintenance and operations costs are high.
Now I would've thought the Coalition should consider those figures?
Well said
Well said Andrew. The focus on green-house danger has taken the spotlight of comparative costs (the "it's good for the environment, therefore it must be a losser" approach), as well as the the health and pollution dangers of the current alternative.
A good response from Barry too.
Not Really Alan
The IEA in their 2010 outlook reported on a study of all oil fields and reported that the world needs to find a Saudi Arabia every two years just to keep up with depletion.
There are no likely prospects of such finds. Each year the IEA has been reducing the expected maximium production levels. Even the IEA figures are considered to be optimistic by such experts as the Global Energy Group at Uppsala University.
Natural gas will help to lessen the steepness of the depletion slope, provided we don't export it all.
Coalition is more responsible than to support unreliables
Hopefully the Coalition will have more sense than to give any more handouts to the totally uneconomic unreliables.
Alternative energy is urgent
Barry there is sufficient knowledge of vast reserves of oil and gas to take a steady as you go approach to 'Alternative Energy' much as it will be a factor down the line and a sensible way to proceed....but not urgent as we understand urgent to be.
Alternative Energy is Urgent
The general opinion is that the need for alternative energy is tied to CO2 reduction.
The real need for alternative energy is more urgent than that. The peaking of oil and coal needs urgent attention. We are not in the case of oil speaking of the future but history.
Oil production peaked according to the International Energy Authority in 2006. Oil production has not increased since 2004 and shortages have only been avoided because Europe and the US have reduced their demand. The capacity for reduction is now almost exhausted.
World Coal is still expected to peak in 2025 which in terms of replacing it is not all that far away. While Australia would have more than 100 years available that only applies if we stop exporting it in such quantities.
Oil production is on a bumpy plateau at present and the estimates for the inevitable down slide to start varies from two years to eight years. Both parties are not facing this timetable and are working on a much more relaxed time scale that suits CO2 reduction expectations.