Cleantech News in Australia and abroad – mid august wrap up

A few cleantech stories you might have missed…

From Australia:

“Big solar’s big potential”, Climate Spectator, 16th Aug

This week, the Australian Solar Energy Society joined the Australian Conservation Foundation in calling for an additional 5 per cent of Australia’s electricity to come from ‘big solar’ by 2020.
That target would see the generation of around 8,500 megawatts of large-scale solar, and the construction of more than 30 big solar plants around the country. It would also cut Australia’s carbon pollution by more than 240 million tonnes over the life of the projects.

“The wind farm that ate the RET” Climate Spectator, 13th Aug

In Australia’s renewable energy market, fortune favours the quick and the big.
The $1 billion Macarthur wind farm to be built in south-western Victoria is being touted as the most significant renewable energy project in Australia since the Snowy Hydro.
But don’t expect another project of similar ambition to follow anytime soon, even though there are a couple on the drawing board – there’s simply no room left in the market.
Macarthur has been a long time in the planning for AGL, it’s just been waiting for the opportunity provided by the passage of the Renewable Energy Target.

“How to be fully renewable in 10 years” Sydney Morning Herald, 13th Aug

AUSTRALIA could switch completely to renewable energy within a decade by building a dozen vast, new solar power stations and about 6500 wind turbines, according to a major new study.
The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan – a collaboration between Melbourne University’s Energy Research Institute, the environment group Beyond Zero Emissions and engineers Sinclair Knight Merz, puts the cost at $37 billion in private funding and public investment every year for the next decade.

“Fossilised approach to power” – The Australian, 11th Aug

BOTH Labor and Coalition policy on carbon trading will damage Australia’s emerging renewable energy industry, leading scientists have warned.
Michael Dopita, co-editor of an Australian Academy of Science report on renewable energy, says Labor’s plan to delay the introduction of an emissions trading scheme and the Coalition’s plan to go without one will send some start-up companies developing renewable energy to the wall.

“Geothermal’s pressure test“, Climate Spectator, 11th Aug

Geodynamics has spent an estimated $300 million over the past decade on the development of its cutting edge hot dry rocks geothermal technology in the Cooper Basin. Some time in the next month or so it might find out if it has all been worth it.
It may seem overly dramatic to label the fracturing tests that will be undertaken at a single well over the next few weeks as a “make or break” for the company.
But that is the way it is being viewed by Geodynamics and its backers. Success will deliver the key to an estimated 6,500MW of clean, base-load power that could be brought to the grid over the next 10 to 15 years; failure will cause the company to undergo a major rethink of its ambitions.

“Ten climate policy ideas Julia or Tony could steal” ABC Environment, 9th Aug

Some might say the government and the opposition are lacking for ideas on climate change policy. ABC Environment has 10 good ones they could consider.
THE GOVERNMENT’S proposed emissions trading scheme never quite got off the ground. And with both major parties being attacked for a lack of strong policies on climate change, it would seem alternative ideas were thin on the ground in the party rooms. However, ABC Environment has scanned the globe for climate policies the next Australian Government could steal.

“Ambitious targets in greenhouse proposal” Sydney Morning Herald, 9th Aug

THE state government is developing a new plan to combat climate change and it says it can make deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions even if a proposal to build two new coal-fired power plants goes ahead.
The state’s old greenhouse gas targets have been thrown out and replaced by a far more ambitious agenda to cut emissions by at least 5 per cent by 2020, instead of just stabilising them by 2025.
This means the average carbon footprint of every person in NSW will have to be reduced by a hefty 27 per cent in the next 10 years, according to federal government estimates. The NSW Department of Climate Change, Environment and Water says the plan is realistic even if there is no national emissions trading scheme by 2013.

“A mighty wind – turbine power growth hit 40 per cent last year” Sydney Morning Herald, 9th Aug

Wind power generation across the eastern states grew by 40 per cent last year as several large farms began operating.
A Climate Group report on electricity generation and its emissions, covering all states except Western Australia, found 83 per cent of power used in 2009 came from greenhouse-intensive coal. Nine per cent was from renewable sources – mainly hydro power – and 8 per cent from gas.

From overseas:

“Ban announces high-level panel to tackle global sustainability issues” – The UN News Centre, 9th August

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today unveiled a new panel on global sustainability that is tasked with finding ways to lift people out of poverty while tackling climate change and ensuring that economic development is environmentally friendly.
“I have asked the Panel to think big,” the Secretary-General told reporters in New York today. “The time for narrow agendas and narrow thinking is over.”
To be co-chaired by Finland’s President Tarja Halonen and South African President Jacob Zuma, the 21-member High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability brings together representatives from government, the private sector and civil society in countries rich and poor.
It is essential, Mr. Ban said, to promote low-carbon growth and enhance resilience to climate change’s impacts, as well as to tackle the intertwined challenges posed by poverty, hunger, water and energy security.
“In short, we need a new blueprint for a more livable, prosperous and sustainable future for all,” he stressed.

“The Necessity of Smart Grids” RenewableEnergyWorld.com, 9th of Aug 2010

You could argue that smart grids are unnecessary and that traditional system reinforcement with copper and steel will do the job. I can’t argue the physics of that, but I can argue on the commercial side. I know of a utility that complains that 30 percent of its copper and steel is idle for 350 days of the year, only getting used during the peak of summer. And its forecast is that this will progressively get more extreme with time. To install more metal infrastructure for progressively shorter periods of peak demand is just not economically feasible.

“Portugal Gives Itself a Clean-Energy Makeover” New York Times, 9th Aug 2010

Five years ago, the leaders of this sun-scorched, wind-swept nation made a bet: To reduce Portugal’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, they embarked on an array of ambitious renewable energy projects — primarily harnessing the country’s wind and hydropower, but also its sunlight and ocean waves.
Today, Lisbon’s trendy bars, Porto’s factories and the Algarve’s glamorous resorts are powered substantially by clean energy. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal’s grid will come from renewable sources this year, up from 17 percent just five years ago.