Issues 68, September 2004

Editorial

In July this year an alliance of scientists, business leaders and environmental organisations launched the report Climate Change: Solutions for Australia. Their message was that global warming is a deeply serious threat to Australia, but it is also a problem that can be faced with massive cuts to our emissions of greenhouse gases.

CSIRO climatologist Penny Whetton (p.4) notes that on current emission scenarios, “By 2070, the projected warming is 1-6°C over most of Australia”. The consequences, in loss of natural ecosystems, increased cyclones and storm surges, more intense bushfires and reduced water flows, will be devastating.

However, as Tristy Fairfield of the Western Australian Conservation Council points out (p.8), other countries will suffer far more. The prospect of “150 million environmental refugees by 2050” is frightening, yet this is probably a conservative estimate. Entire South Pacific nations are in danger of being submerged beneath the high-tide line.

Environmentalists doubt that technology alone will save us from such a fate. If we do not change our social attitudes and government priorities we will use up any benefits from better technology by increasing consumption. Nevertheless, technologies that reduce our production of greenhouse gases will certainly be essential if we are to prevent the climate from running out of control.

It’s also unlikely that any one technology will prove to be THE solution. This edition of Issues covers a huge array of technologies, yet many more have been left out for lack of space. We need to nurture a range of options. Not all of them may end up playing a significant role in Australia’s response to greenhouse over the next 50 years, but many will, and at this stage it is not possible to predict with complete confidence which will prove the most important.

Electricity Generation

Carbon dioxide is by far the most important gas in contributing to global warming. Other gases are more potent, in some cases causing thousands of times more warming per molecule, but the vast amounts of CO2 we produce make it the dominant warming gas. Most of the carbon dioxide produced in Australia is released in electricity production, particularly from brown and black coal. Consequently, if we are to make major inroads into our greenhouse emissions we must change the ways we produce electricity, or find ways to make coal a less potent greenhouse emitter.

This issue introduces some of the leading options for electricity generation. The Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Greenhouse Gas Technologies is exploring ways to store emissions underground. “CO2 geosequestration has the advantage of decreasing CO2 emissions (the major cause of climate change) while allowing Australians continued access to low-cost fossil fuel and the associated economic benefits of exporting coal,” writes Gemma Huddle (p.15)

Other CRCs are finding ways to increase the energy from coal relative to CO2 emissions.  Some of this work will also make the separation of carbon dioxide for sequestration easier.

On the other hand, there are many ways of producing energy that (at least during operation) produce no greenhouse gases at all. Production of the equipment required in these cases does involve some CO2 emissions, but these are generally small, sometimes tiny, compared with generating the same amount of power from coal.

Enviromission, which is working to build the world’s first solar tower, describes the processes and prospects for this radical new way of turning sunlight into electricity (p.18) claim: “The solar tower will pay back the carbons produced in the supply chain and construction in as little as 2.6 years”.

One obstacle to the adoption of solar and wind technology is that the power is not produced all the time. Some storage or replacement system is needed for when the Sun does not shine or the wind does not blow. Virginia Graham of Plasmatronics points out that “if you want your panels to do anything practical,” balance-of-system technology “is every bit as important” as the panels or windmills themselves (p.22).

Australia is the world leader in both massive solar towers and small system components. With solar power growing at close to 30% per year worldwide there are economic as well as environmental benefits from maintaining this position. But that is something we are unlikely to be able to do without serious government support. Helen Oakey of Greenpeace questions whether that support is an illusion (p.47).

This edition of Issues also introduces a range of other ways of producing energy without greatly adding to global warming. These range from relatively familiar methods such as wind power, to novel ideas such as hot dry rocks.

Other Aspects

While modifications to the ways we produce electricity are clearly important, there is more to fighting the greenhouse effect than this. For one thing, much of the energy we produce is wasted. Allan Pears of RMIT (p.26) and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Victoria (p.30) suggest some of the ways individuals can reduce our energy consumption, while the Moreland Energy Foundation (p.31) describes ways it is helping people to achieve these goals.

Energy may be by far the largest source of greenhouse emissions, but there are many others that, added together, make an important contribution. Paul Mees of the University of Melbourne (p.33) looks at proposals to cut emissions from transport, and observes: “Most economists can be relied on to support changing the way transport options are priced and to disparage other approaches. Engineers usually advocate technical improvements to vehicle engines to reduce fuel consumption and, consequently, emissions. Urban planners and architects favour increasing urban densities to make our cities more like those of Europe, where greenhouse emissions are lower because people walk more and use public transport at higher rates than in Australia. Many environmentalists argue that we should stop making it easier to drive cars and focus on improvements to public transport, cycling and walking.”

The CRC for Cast Metal Manufacturing (p.24) is confronting a totally different greenhouse gas, sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Its work to replace SF6 in magnesium manufacturing will prevent the release of the equivalent of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide. Moreover, by making magnesium components less expensive it will enable this light metal to replace heavier alternatives in cars and airplanes, saving on the fuel needed to move them around.

The Best Path Forward

Options from new technologies to revamped transport options offer considerable hope, but little will change without government support of one form or another. In June the Prime Minister, John Howard, released his energy statement, saying: “Australia cannot afford to put at risk our existing energy advantage” (p.37). The proposals set out in this document are likely to determine much of Australia’s future response to global warming, particularly if the government is re-elected later this year.

Brad Page of the Energy Supply Association of Australia says (p.41): “The statement correctly recognises that being slavish to only the application of existing renewable energy technology will not meet our greenhouse gas emission reduction responsibilities while energy consumption inevitably continues to increase. But the policy does not set a long-term carbon emission target against which energy asset investment can be made with confidence.”

On the other hand, Julian Birch of the Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy is concerned that “The main direction for the government… was that in terms of greenhouse reductions the key issue… was to make existing fossil fuels (i.e. coal) cleaner”.

However, Helen Oakey of Greenpeace Australia questions whether the government is being honest in its commitments, pointing out that past promises of funding for greenhouse abatement have been pushed off into the never never.

Looking at the staggering array of technologies under development to mitigate the Greenhouse effect there are two major questions that need to be asked about the government’s response.

First, is the amount of money we are spending in this area adequate given the severity of the threat and the range of other calls on Australia’s resources? Certainly our contribution, relative to the size of our economy, is much smaller than many comparable nations.

Second, do we have the balance right between in our support for particular technologies? The Prime Minister argues: “It is not in Australia’s national interest to lock up and leave undeveloped our natural resources”.

However, Adrian Whitehead of Futureenergy.org  says (p.45): “We believe we should be investing research and development dollars in energy efficiency, demand reduction and renewable energy production technologies.”

Even many supporters of fossil fuels admit that in the long run renewable energy is likely to become the dominant method of electricity production. Given the advances taking place in solar and wave power in particular, it seems likely that by 2050, if not before, non-polluting technologies will dominate the energy sector.

Much fossil fuel research is also unlikely to make a significant contribution in the short term either. Geosequestration, for example, is not expected to be widely commercialised for at least a decade.

It is also important to consider the midterm future. Between 2015 and 2040 geosequestration and other technologies to reduce emissions from fossil fuels may play an important part in ensuring we can warm and light our houses without destroying the planet. Nevertheless, the government’s decision to fund three CRCs for improving fossil fuels, while refusing a much smaller application for a single CRC for renewable energy, indicates its priorities clearly.

It is hard to obtain figures on all forms of government funding to different sorts of research, but it appears several specific technologies to improve the way fossil fuels are used are each getting more Commonwealth government support than all forms of renewable energy combined. Australians must consider whether this is a balanced investment.

Stephen Luntz
Editor