'Clean' energy target's rubbery figures
Blog Post | Blog of Christine Milne
Monday 24th September 2007, 12:35pm
by TimHollo in
Christine writes in today's Crikey's daily email:
It's pleasing to see some critiques in today's media of Team Howard's decision to water down the MRET by including so-called 'clean coal' into a new 'Clean Energy Target'. But, as has been pointed out, even if it can be proven to work, 'clean coal' is too far away from commercialisation to make any real difference on a 2020 timeline. A more pressing issue which hasn't as yet been noted is the rubberiness of the figures that the PM and Mr Turnbull have been bandying about.
Yesterday's Prime Ministerial media release suggests strongly that the 30,000 GWh target is intended as a total figure. But this would amount to only 9% of the government's official energy demand projections of 342,000 GWh in 2019-20 [at p29 of this ABARE report]. That's a long way off 15-20%. Now, we could give the government the benefit of the doubt and add the original MRET baseline to the 30,000 GWh figure - on our estimates, around 16,000 GWh. But this still only adds up to 13% of projected energy demand.
The only way we can get to over 15% is by double counting the existing MRET of 9,500 GWh. It would seem extremely unlikely that the Government would continue the MRET bureaucracy through to 2020 and add an extra CET on top when the whole idea is to streamline the process. Either the government is including in their calculations significant, and as-yet unannounced, energy efficiency measures reducing total projected demand, or they are deliberately using rubbery figures and hoping nobody examines them closely.
Calls from my office to the Minister's office this morning have so far yielded no extra information on this vital question. Malcolm Turnbull has done exactly what he accused others of doing this morning, and presented a slogan with no substance.
Meanwhile, the Greens are looking at international experience, and the urgent climate imperative, and calling for a truly ambitious, but achievable, renewables target of 15% by 2012 and 25% by 2020. The latter, depending on efficiency gains, we estimate would be in the order of 70,000 GWh.
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Comments
It's good to see that people
It's good to see that people are waking up to John Howard and no longer simply accept his announcements as fact. Here is another example of a Howard "political solution" to an issue he just doesn't want to confront. Unfortunately for him, the climate doesn't recognise political solutions and fortunately, now a lot of people aren't swallowing them either. This was a blatant attempt by Howard and Turnbull to mislead the public by appearing to be seriously dealing with climate change when in fact they are purposely avoiding doing much at all. The quicker these people are kicked out the better we and the planet will be.
To throw Howard's cynicism back in his face you will recall how only two months ago Howard claimed a cut of 20% in greenhouse emissions by 2020 would result in having to take "all the cars in Australia off the roads"...why doesn't someone ask him why that's suddenly no longer a problem? This man might be a good politician but is a disgrace as a prime minister in that he does not lead but prefers to confuse and distort and to deceive the Australian public for his own political survival. He and his government must go.
Are you the Peter Meloy who
Are you the Peter Meloy who attended Hughes Primary School ACT in the early 1980's?
Hello
Hi Wayne,
just saw this post and regrettably, no, I am not that Peter Meloy. Best of luck with your search,
cheers, Peter
Looks like this is the
Looks like this is the "never, ever" hard and fast target. Howard's strategy with climate change has been to first dismiss the argument as ludicrous and claim that his opponents are going to destroy the economy then to claim that he will do something "sensible and measured" and then say that his "aspirational" policy is far and above any other proposal that anyone else has come up with and that clearly he is the one with the leadership and vision to take Australia in to the future.
This sort of behaviour doesn't help clarify what sort of action is needed and certainly does nothing to help the environment. This is designed to win back some of the "green" vote from the ALP.
Including hypothetically
Including hypothetically non-carbon emitting technologies in the targets is a sham. I have the Greenpeace Report on Global Warming (printed in 1986!!) that shows that even then a substantial amount of residential and industrial energy needs could be covered by existing efficiency and renewable energy technologies. This hedging around with clean coal and nuclear is just dishonest.
You should have listened to
You should have listened to Turnbull on ABC's Lateline, where he explained the whole thing.
There is already 9.3 TW.h of clean hydro, so this 30 TW.h will make 39.3 TW.h.
He said the target was the 30 TW.h, NOT a percentage of total, because there are moves afoot that will change the 2020 total consumption from its currently predicted value to something less, but he couldn't say what exactly yet.
But as an example, if total electrical consumption in 2020 is the same as now, (257.8 TW.h in 2006 according to BP-2007) then the percentage will be 15%.
You have gone off the deep end without stopping to find out what the facts are.
I have written to the Prime
I have written to the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) regarding Renewable energy and the lack of government investment and partcipation in Australia. While Mr Howard did write back, he wouldn't committ to a MRET target but instead said that Australia is doing everything it can to comply with carbon emissions.
I also wrote many e-mails to Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett which I also received replies. And the stance the labor party is taking is that Clean Coal is really the only alternative and that renewable energy sources will only make a small contribution in the future. Its true that Kevin Rudd believes in the siging of the Kyoto protocol and that the Federal labor party have a no Nuclear policy but they really have not taking up the significant options available for reneable energy even in light of recent technology break throughs in Solar Energy.
The evidence is there for all to see. While our leading academics in Universities across Australia are working on renewable energy technologies such as Solar Thermal, PV, Wind and Geothermal the Howard government is still pushing for a Nuclear future for Australia. And the Rudd labor opposition is pushing for a Clean Coal future with renewable energy only playing a minor part in the overall contribution.
Our 2 major parties are not looking beyond the up comming federal election but instead looking to grab as many votes as possible. This is why more people should listen to the Green party to force our 2 major parties to re-think their strategic plan for climate change and future energy direction in Australia.
Dave, Turnbull has since
Dave, Turnbull has since made it clear that the 30GWh is intended as additional to the pre-MRET hydro, but at the time of writing he had not yet done so.
However, the point remains that, given the Government is doing little of any scale to address dramatically increasing energy usage, your assumption that energy consumption in 2020 would be the same as now is a heroic one. As the piece makes clear, current official government projections are that energy demand in 2020 will be 342GWh, far above today's level. As against that, this target will be 13%.
Unless the Government is assuming a massive energy efficiency drive (which we have developed policies to achieve, but the Government has not), they are not being entirely honest with their numbers.
Congratulations on the
Congratulations on the development of this site.
We must reduce energy loss
Use energy efficiently
Generate energy effectively thru' renewable sources and
Change our energy consumption behaviour dramatically.
I am continually astounded at how far the Northern Europeans, particularly the Germans are ahead of us, along with the Chinese who are manufacturing the vacuum tube technology originally developed in this country.
The figures are so far out and the policy approach of the Liberals and Labor are just so complacent. We have to seriously embrace change and there seems to be great fear about advocating the extent of such a program.
Christine congratulations on your Energy Policy Initiative at the Federal level. Your role is vital.
Tim, it wasn't MY assumption
Tim, it wasn't MY assumption that the 2020 demand would be the same as now, it was Turnbull's, and he was at pains to point out that he wasn't committing to a percentage.
The average annual growth in electricity generation over 1990-2006 was 3.2%, and if that continues until 2020, the figure would be 400 TW.h, which is even worse.
What Turnbull hasn't taken into account is that the energy needed to build a new generating capacity of 30 TW.h is itself a gigantic amount of energy. The exact figure can only be calculated if you know the energy budget of the technology to be used. This is related to the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (ERoEI) of the technology, but is also dependent on the proportion of EI that has to be spent up front (EIUF).
That energy to build the new technology has to come from somewhere, so if it is not to be from burning more fossil fuels, it is going to have to be diverted from existing consumption. This would be on top of the cuts to consumption needed to meet greenhouse targets.
Have you calculated the average annual reduction in consumption needed to meet the target of 20% of 1990 level by 2050 ? This will be even worse if you try and produce 70 TW.h of new capacity by 2020.
For flat panel PV solar, the ERoEI is 3 (according to Uni of Sydney) and the EIUF is 100% of EI. As a consequence, the amount of energy needed to build the solution with solar is MUCH BIGGER than that needed to build a wind system (ERoEI = 16 in good location).
Have you factored this into your calculations ? If so, why is solar still being pushed as a Green solution ?
And while I am at it, why is geothermal being pushed as a solution when it has not been proven, and likely never will ?
The sad fact is that it is now too late to switch to alternative sources of energy, and too damaging to stick with the ones we have got. In an energy-rich environment, all things are possible, but in an energy-scarce environment none of these ideas will come to pass.
Cutting demand for energy is the only solution. Building new stuff only makes things worse.
Thanks for the
Thanks for the clarification, Dave. If Turnbull did indeed say that, he was being extraordinarily dishonest, and deliberately so as he certainly understands this issue.
As for your comments on ERoEI and ElUF, you are, of course, right. Which is why we are promoting energy efficiency as the first and most obvious solution. However, while PV does have a longer payback period, the payback for many other renewable energy technologies is far shorter than that for new coal plants, particularly with the unproven geosequestration technology, or for nuclear. ERoEI is a large part of our argument against nuclear, although safety, intergenerational equity and disarmament will always be primary.
Regarding geothermal, the technology is in fact at a much later stage of development than so-called 'clean coal' with geosequestration, and far ahead of "generation 4" nuclear, both of which are being spruiked by governments around the world. The potential of geothermal is tremendous, and may begin to be achieved within the next few years.
I am saddened that you seem to feel a solution is not viable. In truth, we hope and believe it is viable, and that, with a combination of efficiency, new renewables, stopping logging, and shifting to alternative transport, we can prevent runaway climate change.
Tim, you seem to have
Tim, you seem to have misunderstood my first comment. It is true that Turnbull used a figure of approximately the current figure for his 2020 example calculation, but he was very specific that he was not committing to that figure. He was saying that if you must put the 30 TW.h into context as a percentage of the 2020 figure, then you COULD use the current figure, in which case the percentage works out to be 15%. But he was not committing to that figure.
I labour the point because every time you come out with an interpretation of what was said that is wrong, it effectively gives him a get-out-of-jail-free card by simply pointing out that he didn't say that. If the Greens' comments were always accurate, then he couldn't wriggle out of the situation so easily.
Geothermal comes in two flavours. "Hot wet rocks" is where a steam vent of volcanic origin is trapped and fed into a turbine-generator. This is working in New Zealand and Iceland and a few other places that have volcanic activity. Australia doesn't have any of these resources.
"Hot dry rocks" is where very deep granite rocks contain larger than normal amounts of radioactive decay, producing heat. This heat can be brought to the surface by drilling two deep bores and using cracks in the granite to form a circulating loop with a heat exchanger on the surface.
This has been tried in the US and the UK and abandoned. Australia has some hot dry rocks about 5,000 metres below Oodnadatta, in the South Australia desert. Geodynamics has been trying to get a demonstration working there for several years. The Federal Government gave them a grant to assist with Stage 1 - "proof of principle", and lined them up with a grant for Stage 2 - "pilot plant". An application for Stage 3 - "Demonstration plant", was rejected on the grounds that they were getting ahead of themselves.
Unfortunately they ran into problems drilling the second hole and this has held them up for years. Stage 1 remains uncompleted.
The one thing Geodynamics are really good at is selling their idea to gullible punters. They are all "blue sky" and are unwilling to put any kind of solid data on the table.
Again ERoEI should be absolutely critical to the assessment of the technology. Do you have the ERoEI ? No, because they don't even know themselves what it is.
The ERoEI will depend to a very large extent on the degree of cracking and volume of cracks, way down there 5 kilometres below the surface. Only one hole has ever been drilled, so there is absolutely no way they could know what the circulation profile is likely to be. So everything they say about the potential of the process is total bullshit.
The potential is, of course, tremendous. But so is the potential of solar and wind. The trouble is the ERoEI could turn out to be worse than for solar, which is worse than useless.
The Greens leadership need to take a seriously sceptical view of these unproven technologies, because there are a lot of sharks out there willing to get a government grant and spend it on their bloated salaries, while the project goes nowhere. Geothermal hot dry rocks is one of these.
I didn't say a solution is not viable. I said :
Cutting demand for energy is the only solution. Building new stuff only makes things worse.
I'm sorry, Dave, but that is
I'm sorry, Dave, but that is a very shallow view of possible outcomes. The most probable future involves a mixture of technologies. Top of the list is a rapid expansion of the ethanol fuel programme, currently set at E2 with a cap of E10. Australia is doing very well with ethanol production. Sadly some of those companies that have set up in the southern states, basing their production on grain feed stock, may have to relocate northwards. By far the greatest successes are coming from sugar cane. The yields that have been communicated to me from cane growers are for yields of 9,500 litres per hectare to 12,000 litres in the Birdekin area. This yield gives farmers twice the return per tonne of cane ($45 per tonne) from an ethanol yield to that achieved from a sugar yield ($25 per tonne) at a per litre market price for ethanol of 70 cents. The latter being little above cost. Further growth of the per hectare yields are expected once the Dedini (or some other process) cellulosic conversion process is implemented. This addition will push Australia's per hectare yields of ethanol from sugar cane to 20,000 litres. At this level with all of the ord river producing (440,000 hectares) cane for ethanol along with 300,000 hectares in the eastern states will take Australia over half way to achieving E85. In the process Australia's trade balances will be shifted much closer to the black. Implementing this programme requires very little physical hardware relative to the CO2 absorbing benefits. For reference, these yields should be compared to the US's corn ethanol returns of 760 litres per hectare.
The second main thrust for Australia should be the immediate commitment to 6 gigawatts of concentrating solar thermal power. This energy system costs around 2 billion dollars per gigawatte of nominal peak output. These figures can be verified by talking to both Dr Franz Trieb of the European programme and Professor David Mills (now) of the Californian programme. Such a commitment would kick off the largest solar thermal currently underway in the world and be at the most efficient cost structure. This would see a mirror plant built near the main solar sights. It should be noted that the main advantages of solar thermal over solar photovoltaic apart from the the per square meter cost are the rollout rate and the system life. PHV are said to have a 25 year life, solar themal has a mirror replacemnt rate of 1 percent per year, giving it a replacement life of over 50 years, but a total system life of much longer.
Such a commitment would set the tone for the future and ensure that the oldest of Australia's aging (and failing) coal turbine plants are replaced on time at a very realistic price. It would take 8 years before all of the 6 gigawatt capacity was fully operational as it would be 3 years before the first gigawatt was connected with a gigawatt added each year after that. Such a programme would require as little a 3 billion dollars funding as each plant would be support its capital finance once operational.
The total picture would see 1.2 million hectares of cane production (of Australia's 760 million hectares) supplying ethanol for a national E85 fuel self sufficiency (Brazil currently has 4 million hectares producing cane ethanol). A further 100,000 hectares of desert commited to concentrating solar thermal would be producing 50 gigawatts of baseload power which coupled with 20 gigawatts of geothermal would provide most of Australia's electricity needs well into the future.
Along the way PHV's are very likely to become much more efficient (especially taking account of recent advances which suggest that 2 electrons per photon up form 1 electron per photon are possible) and could very well merge to be a significant part of the total solar package.
The problem with counting on energy efficiencies as a GW solution is simply that for every efficiency there are 2 new uses for power in the pipeline. For instance mains charged electric vehicles, and more air conditioning to compensate for the projected increase in temperatures.
Australia's energy future is very bright (pun) once we have dropped all of the black herrings.
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