8 March 2017, Renew Economy, Queensland govt slaps down LNP, Murdoch over renewable scares. The Queensland government has attacked the LNP opposition and the Murdoch media for unfounded, baseless and “lazy” criticism of its plans to source 50 per cent of its electricity needs from renewable energy by 2030. The conservative LNP has been getting a big run in the Murdoch press with a new anti-renewables campaign, which has wound up significantly since the start of the year with a host of new solar projects that will add 1GW of solar power to the state’s grid….. That means that the Queensland government will not be in the same position as South Australia, which has had to watch with growing frustration as the private owners of the biggest gas plants in the state decide not to switch on during high demand periods, claiming they can find no economic incentive to help keep the lights on for their customers. On the subject of South Australia, premier Jay Weatherill said the state had no intention of rowing back on its 2025 target of 50 per cent renewables, saying to do so it would have to effectively “physically prevent” developments in their tracks. That much is true, because the build-out of the Hornsdale wind farm and the Tailem Bend solar project will take the state to 50 per cent wind and solar by the end of this year. Weatherill says the biggest threat to power prices in South Australia is the lack of competition among generators, something that can addressed by having more renewable energy and other technologies such as battery storage. Read More here
Tag Archives: coal
3 January Jeremy Leggett Blog, State of The Transition: As fossil fuel diehards take over The White House, the evidence of a fast-moving global energy transition has never been clearer. As captains of the fossil fuel industries and their lobbyists prepare to take over the White House – appointed by a President elected by a minority, claiming to represent the people on an anti-elite ticket yet possessing by far the highest cumulative wealth of any cabinet ever – they will face evidence breaking out all around them of a fast-moving global energy transition threatening to strand the fossil fuels they seek to boost. “World energy hits a turning point”, a Bloomberg headline read on 16th December. “Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity,” the article marvelled. Analysis of the average cost of new wind and solar in 58 emerging-market economies – including China, India, and Brazil – showed solar at $1.65 million per megawatt and wind at $1.66. Google leads the giant corporations eagerly going with this flow. The largest corporate buyer of renewable energy announced on 6th December that it expects to hit its target of 100% renewable power in, wait for it, 2017. Google is a huge consumer of power, and going solar means deep emissions cuts, especially when solar infrastructure is hooked up with all the digital efficiency-enhancement fandangoes that Silicon Valley giants are zeroing in on in the fast emerging era of artificial intelligence in an internet of things. Read More here
22 December 2016, The Guardian, Adani coalmine ‘covertly funded’ by World Bank, says report. Adani’s Carmichael mine has been “covertly funded” by the World Bank through a private arm that is supposed to back “sustainable development”, according to a US-based human rights organisation. Adani Enterprises acquired exploration rights for Australia’s largest proposed coalmine in 2010 with a US$250m loan from banks including India’s ICICI, which was in turn bankrolled by the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, a report by Inclusive Development International says. The report accuses the World Bank of using “back channels” to conceal its support for a company that “would have little chance of receiving direct assistance from the IFC”, which has a “mandate for sustainable development”. ICICI was among six Indian banks that received US$520m from the IFC between 2005 and 2014. This means the World Bank has exposure to the contentious Carmichael project, from which a growing number of Australian and overseas banks are shying away. Adani acquired the exploration rights from Linc Energy, which has since folded and is facing criminal charges over Queensland’s largest pollution scandal. There is divided public opinion in Australia over the prospect of a taxpayer-funded loan of up to $1.1bn for the rail portion of the Carmichael project. Adani’s loan application to the Australian government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility has conditional approval, but questions persist about its eligibility, and the issue of taxpayers lending to a project held by corporate structures linked to the Cayman Islands tax haven. The Adani group is also embroiled in several Indian criminal investigations into possible fraud and corruption, including the alleged siphoning of money offshore through an invoicing rort and the alleged profiteering on imported coal through inflated valuations. Read More here
11 December 2016, The Guardian, On climate change and the economy, we’re trapped in an idiotic netherworld. The shrieks of horror that follow mentions of pricing carbon show politics remains wedded to the belief that economic growth trumps concerns of climate change. This week was a prime example of how economics and, by extension, politics doesn’t cope very well with the issue of climate change. The news that Australia economy went backwards in the September quarter was greeted with alarm by politicians and then used as a reason to push their policy barrow. And most of the barrows were piled high with coal. The treasurer and the prime minister in their press conferences on Wednesday made great mention of the need to keep electricity prices low for the economy to grow. Malcolm Turnbull especially was in full Tony Abbott 2010 mode out of a desire to cover the silly back flip on the issue of investigating whether or not to introduce an emissions intensity trading scheme. When asked about the prospect of GDP growth going backwards he immediately responded by suggesting the issue was for Bill Shorten to “explain why he is proposing to increase the price of electricity”. Never mind that such a scheme would more efficiently price emissions than does the current system, for now we remained trapped in an idiotic netherworld where any mention of pricing carbon (no matter how oblique) must be greeted with shrieks of horror, with the prime minister leading the chorus. And while you do wonder if Malcolm Turnbull ever looks in the mirror in the morning and asks himself how it all came to this – or whether he first rings Cory Bernardi to ask whether he is allowed to look into the mirror and ask such questions – the broader issue is that this netherworld is one that inherently sees action on climate change as a negative for the economy. And by contrast, the economic impact of anything that will cause climate change is seen as inherently positive. Read More here