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38 comments on National Liquid Fuels Vulnerability Assessment

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Big Gav on April 8, 2008 - 8:24am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We've already got a couple of coal to liquids plants lumbering towards us.

Ferguson may not be averse to nukes but he doesn't believe in global warming either - so I doubt he has much of a constituency in his own party.

There were lots of readers of my solar thermal article in Canberra - hopefully they'll see sense :-)

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Big Gav on April 8, 2008 - 9:02am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Martin doesn't seem to have shown much enthusiasm about nukes previously I might add (unless he was just Rodent bashing previously) :

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1793462.htm

MARTIN FERGUSON: In pure economic terms, nuclear power does not stack up in Australia. Why put in place a source of energy which potentially makes Australia less competitive in a tough global community, and will effectively see jobs go offshore. ...

MARTIN FERGUSON: There's no requirement for Australia to actually go down the nuclear power route.

The Government's got to also understand we don't have the scientific or technical capacity to actually embrace nuclear power, even if it was economical.

More importantly, we also have to make baseload power decisions in the next 18 to 24 months, which are going to see us through to 2020, 2025.

These are immediate decisions, not some futuristic debate that the Prime Minister wants to embrace from time to time without any clear position as to where the Howard Government is going.

If the Prime Minister wants to go nuclear, then he shouldn't only be putting out the Switkowski report, he should be nominating what incentives he's going to put into place that will determine what is the nature of his trading system that makes nuclear power stack up, and where he intends building nuclear power plants in Australia.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So, you say under no circumstances would Labor support nuclear power generation?

MARTIN FERGUSON: Labor is not interested in nuclear power, because Australia doesn't need nuclear power.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Or enrichment?

MARTIN FERGUSON: The Labor Party will not be supporting an enrichment capacity in Australia, and nor will be embracing nuclear power.

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Boof on April 8, 2008 - 6:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Ferguson has forgotten the rule never say never. I distinctly recall him disagreeing with Albanese over nuclear. No doubt an understanding was then reached whereby the ALP speaks with one voice. Remember Garrett was vehemently opposed to Gunn's pulp mill then he was told what the official line was going to be. Pragmatism seems to be winning the day, witness our staunch republican Kev visiting HM the Queen.

Are the new government more anchored in reality on energy issues than Howard? If the renewable energy target has been officially increased I don't see a flurry of new projects, if anything a slowdown in the wind farm build compared to the Howard years. I believe they cancelled the $2000 subsidy for LPG car conversion. Tough biscuits for the night shift worker in Sydney who commutes from Gosford or wherever. Now that peak oil has been acknowledged at the highest level doing nothing doesn't seem like an option. However they don't seem to have anything up their sleeve.

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Big Gav on April 9, 2008 - 6:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

From today's Australian :

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23494594-5005200,00.h...

THE Rudd Government's embrace of renewable energy is expected to usher in a second wave of investment in wind power, despite a two-year waiting list for turbines.

Paul Curnow, a partner at law firm Baker & McKenzie, said the outlook was "very good", with investors who had been lying in wait since 2004 now ready to "bring all that potential to market".

The Government's national scheme will include a legislated target of 45,000 gigawatt hours of renewables-based electricity in 2020. This will ensure 20 per cent of Australia's electricity supply will be obtained from renewables by 2020.

The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 currently requires the generation of 9500 gigawatt hours of extra renewable electricity per year by 2010 -- enough power to meet the residential electricity needs of 4million people.

There are about 40 wind farms in Australia, and at a clean energy conference in Sydney later this month, delegates will be told by AGL Energy Ltd carbon and government affairs national manager Tim Nelson that this could turn into 250 over the next decade.

Mr Curnow expects the number to jump when the commonwealth and the states flesh out details relating to the target later this year.

He noted that when the Howard government introduced its Mandatory Renewable Energy Target in 2001, there was a burst of investment which dried up when it was clear the government was not going to extend the scheme.

"All the wind farms you see in Australia came out of that," Mr Curnow said.

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Boof on April 9, 2008 - 7:25am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I guess that answers the question about Rudd and renewables. Since there are nearly 9000 hours in a year that 2020 target approaches 5 Gw continuous average, maybe 10% of all current installed capacity. I surmise that since CSP, geothermal and solar towers can't be sure of their contribution to the 20% target (circa 10 Gw) that investment remains more of a gamble than windpower.

While we're still smitten with Rudd remember so far it's all talk and that the renewables surge is yet to happen. At least Howard had a cycle commuting minister in Tony Abbott. I note on telly tonight that Premier Lennon reneged on his promise to get a hybrid and is now cruising the boulevards in a shiny new Statesman. I have this horrible feeling we are going to be disappointed in the new 'green' ALP.

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Big Gav on April 9, 2008 - 9:42am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I agree most investment seems likely to go into wind initially if the news MRET target is put in place.

Geothermal will have to wait until GeoDynamics proves it is possible - which could be a while.

Hopefully they wake up to the potential of large scale CSP (obviously there are 4 or so plants already underway, but only one reasonably large one).

I'm not smitten by Rudd - just cautiously hopeful. The Tassie ALP is hopeless.

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DaveMart on April 11, 2008 - 8:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

From those figures it seems that Australia needs around 25GW of electricity on average per hour.

I am not familiar with the figures for Australia but using UK figures as a proxy around 40% of electricity use goes to hot-water heating, where that is used instead of gas.
I believe that residential solar thermal is reckoned to be able to save around 15% of that.
In Australia it would do still better, as collectors on the roofs would also reduce the heat load into the house, economising on air-conditioning needs.
Air source heat pumps would greatly reduce heating and cooling needs for the rest.

So out of the needed 5GW per average hour supply of renewables needed residential solar thermal should be able to take care of at least 1.5GW, with additional contributions from heat pumps.

And that is before you start building any wind turbines and so forth, and should be considerably cheaper.

20% of electricity from renewables sounds not only achievable but fairly modest and cost-effective.

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