22 August 2016, Renew Economy, Gas bubble looms as energy ministers baulk at zero emissions target. State and federal energy ministers hailed progress they made in their COAG Energy Council summit late last week, but they may have condemned Australia to another great big investment bubble – this time in gas infrastructure. The meeting of ministers – brought forward by the apparent energy “crisis” in South Australia – resulted in a couple of promising steps that may help contain price surges of the type seen in recent months, but it seems to have ducked action on the critical issues. On the plus side, there is the creation of two new gas trading hubs that might improve transparency into a notoriously opaque market, and the potential for a new electricity inter-connector linking NSW and South Australia to be bought forward. But elsewhere, not a lot of tangible progress was made. The ministers baulked at calls to write zero net carbon emissions into the electricity market goals, despite that being implicit in the Paris climate goals that Australia has signed up to.And if the energy ministers did avoid turning the meeting into an anti-renewable jihad – as they were lobbied to do and might have been tempted under a previous federal energy minister – they did come face to face with some of the significant barriers to the rapid transition to a low emissions grid that they profess to support. One such example came from the Australian Energy Market Operator, whose chairman Anthony Marxsen stunned the audience on Friday when he suggested during a presentation that battery storage technology could be up to 20 years away from making a commercial contribution. Some dismissed this as garbage and a plug for the gas industry. AEMO is 40 per cent owned by industry “players”. Another is the painfully slow progress from the main policy maker, the Australian Energy Market Commission, which has been dragging out crucial rule changes most people believe are essential to moving to new technologies. Read more here
Category Archives: Fossil Fuel Reduction
2 August 2016, Renew Economy, South Australia takes on networks over soaring grid charges. The South Australia government has decided to take on the monopoly electricity network operator in the state as it continues its campaign against the market dominance of the powerful energy oligopoly, and their ability to pass on huge price increases to consumers that are often blamed on wind and solar. Network costs in South Australia – like most of the country – account for more than half the average household bill. Consumers were hoping to get some relief after the Australian Energy Regulator knocked back some of the planned spending by SA Power Networks, but its ruling is now being challenged in court. Energy minister Tom Koutsantonis says he will send a senior public servant to appear before the Australian Competition Tribunal this week, accusing SAPN of “cherry picking” individual spending decisions from the AER in the hope of boosting its overall spending allowance. It’s a crucial intervention by the state government, and comes amid huge public controversy over its ambitious renewable energy plans, and the already high penetration of wind and solar that could reach 50 per cent by the end of the year. Recent high wholesale electricity prices have been blamed by many in the Coalition, and the Murdoch media, on the state’s reliance on renewables, even though most independent analysts and market regulators blame soaring gas prices, grid constraints, and other factors. South Australia has long had the highest electricity prices in the country, a point underlined by federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg last week, who also pointed out that the recent spikes in wholesale prices used to be a regular event even before the build out of large wind farms and rooftop solar. Read More here
28 July 2016, Renew Economy, Energy minister right on renewables and climate, wrong on gas. The new energy and resources minister Josh Frydenberg has indicated a significant shift in energy policy for the Coalition. He correctly notes that renewables alone are not to blame for recent high electricity prices in South Australia. Unlike the new federal minister for resources, Matthew Canavan, Mr Frydenberg accepts mainstream climate science and the fact that humanities actions are driving global warming. He says that we need a diversified energy mix, that the national Renewable Energy Target (RET) is ‘set in stone’ – which will stabilise the investment environment for renewables, and has ruled out further tax payer subsidies for fossil fuel generation. These moves are all to be welcomed. And while Frydenberg is a long standing supporter of nuclear power, he acknowledges that our country should not move towards domestic use of uranium unless there is ‘bipartisan support’. It is difficult to imagine the majority of Australians would ever support a domestic nuclear reactor. However, Frydenberg is profoundly out of step with the community in calling for an end to the current moratoriums on unconventional gas. In Victoria, 73 regional communities have declared themselves ‘gasfield free’. While these declarations have no legal standing, they indicate deep seated opposition to fracking and drilling by communities. Most of the declared areas are in Coalition held seats and advocacy by the federal minister for state governments to lift the ban will damage the Coalition’s credibility in its core consistency. Further, with a well managed national electricity grid and diversity of renewable sources plus enhanced use of storage technologies (including existing hydro dams) gas is not needed as back up for wind and solar. The argument that gas is a bridging and back-up fuel is out dated. We now have 21st century renewable technology which can meet our electricity needs. Read More here
25 July 2016, IOP SCience: Readily implementable techniques can cut annual CO2 emissions from the production of concrete by over 20%. Due to its prevalence in modern infrastructure, concrete is experiencing the most rapid increase in consumption among globally common structural materials; however, the production of concrete results in approximately 8.6% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Many methods have been developed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of concrete. These methods range from the replacement of inefficient manufacturing equipment to alternative binders and the use of breakthrough technologies; nevertheless, many of these methods have barriers to implementation. In this research, we examine the extent to which the increased use of several currently implemented methods can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in concrete material production without requiring new technologies, changes in production, or novel material use. This research shows that, through increased use of common supplementary cementitious materials, appropriate selection of proportions for cement replacement, and increased concrete design age, 24% of greenhouse gas emissions from global concrete production or 650 million tonnes (Mt) CO2-eq can be eliminated annually. Research Paper: Read More here