CPRS: Carbon Politics Renders Squat

The whole point of introducing an emissions trading scheme is to make sure that polluting industries phase out and are replaced with cleaner alternatives, renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes. [1]

While the Australian Federal opposition dithers on passing the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) legislation which would enable carbon trading, Australia’s weather gets hotter and hotter.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s Annual Australian Climate Statement for 2009 noted last year was Australia’s second warmest year since high-quality records began in 1910 and the past decade was the warmest on record.

What the world needs now is a Revolution

I’m trying to only blog on the weekend (so I will actually write my thesis) but today is such an auspicious date, so I had to post before the weekend.

All balance is being destroyed. The Gulf Stream is dying and climate change will spread deserts over the face of the Earth. In just fifty years the age of oil will be over and the industrial machine will cease. Its death throes will be agonising. Without oil, modern agriculture will fail. In the coming decades we face endless war, disease and starvation – a terrible and unavoidable apocalypse.
– The Amethyst Child by Sarah Singleton

I feel like this has morphed into a book review site. I’m about to blog about another book I just read. The Amethyst Child by Sarah Singleton (Simon and Schuster, 2008) is a teenage book, pretty much an adult book, but with teenage protagonists. I feel passionately about the need for everyone to understand and listen to teenagers because they are our future. And if we do, they’re more likely to listen to and thus understand us. This includes reading the books they might read (although my research highlights what we all knew, that the majority of teenagers don’t read “YA” books, unless they’re forced to at school).

Ockham's Razor and Slime

A while ago I came across the transcript of Robyn Williams’ 2005 interview with Dr Geoffrey Chia. Robyn Williams presents a science program Ockham’s Razor on ABC’s Radio National in Australia. When I was a kid my dad listened to this and I got to know the term Ockham’s Razor. Throughout my childhood I never knew what it meant (I doubt there’s many children that do, perhaps Einstein when he was a little one). It was only a couple of years ago that I came to a vague understanding of what it meant, thanks to a friend who I’d always thought was pretty brainless – good thing I kept that opinion to myself. It was when I decided to call this blog Ockham’s Razor that I found out its exact meaning. It must have been the radio show that led to my liking of the words Ockham’s Razor. And I still don’t know why it’s a razor and not Ockham’s Idea/Theory/etc.

Enough of reminiscing. Dr Geoffrey Chia talked about renewable fuels that are greenhouse gas neutral. The first part of the interview is Science versus Pseudoscience, Truth versus Lies and the second part is There’s no fuel like an old fuel.

Why aren’t there Big Solar Projects in Australia?

Businesses developing renewable and energy efficient technologies search in vain for a sympathetic ear in Canberra. (p.66)

Matt from The Coffee House asked,

Are there not any big solar building projects going on in Oz?

My original answer to Matt was,

The University of NSW and Australian National University are internationally recognised in solar technology development, but research ideas are often commercialised overseas because the venture capital can’t be found in Australia. eg. UNSW’s recent $1.7m licensing agreement with Taiwanese solar cell manufacturer E-Ton Solar Tech Co. Ltd.

I also thought Australia’s government is not very helpful because our Mandatory Renewable Energy Target is set at 9,500GWh by 2010. This target will only increase Australia’s renewable energy market by about 1-2 percent. I didn’t think, Why is this so?

GreenPower

Many electricity companies sell power from renewable sources, but depending on where you live, different options are available. Western Australia doesn’t have as many electricity companies as the eastern states of Australia because the industry was only recently deregulated and until a few years ago electricity was provided by a state government owned company.

Perth has only one company which provides electricity. Until I install my own solar panels to generate electricity, I have to use their electricity. I purchase it through their NaturalPower product, which provides energy generated from renewable sources. Synergy Energy says,

When you switch to NaturalPower you will still receive a mix of energy types [coal-fuelled, solar, wind, hydro,etc], as it is not practical to install additional power lines just to carry NaturalPower. However, we guarantee the amount of energy you use will be sourced from renewable sources and will increase the overall amount of renewable energy in the grid.

NaturalPower costs 3c per unit more than ordinary electricity. I’m a student and so I don’t have a lot of money, but the increase in my electricity bill after switching to NaturalPower hasn’t been onerous.

NaturalPower is accredited by the National GreenPower Accreditation Program and Green Electricity Watch rates it as “good,” the highest rating for WA energy providers.

But NaturalPower isn’t all good. I don’t like the fact that if more people sign up for it, this doesn’t necessarily mean the electricity provider will buy more energy from renewable sources. I guess if enough people sign up, they will have to because they

guarantee the amount of energy you use will be sourced from renewable sources.

A quicker way to increase the amount of renewable energy would be to increase Australia’s Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, which is set at 9,500GWh by 2010. This current target will only increase Australia’s renewable energy market by about 1-2 percent. The Australian Conservation Foundation suggests a better target would be 25 percent.

Synergy Energy has another product called Earth Friendly where they offset the emissions created in the production of the coal generated electricity by contributing to greenhouse gas reduction programs. These include: sequestration (planting trees), methane flaring, landfill diversion, and fuel substitution (converting coal or oil to gas). Green Electricity Watch recommends this be avoided.

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Electricity from the Sun

I have a long term plan to build my own sustainably designed house. When I build this house I want to install solar panels to generate my own electricity. The house would still be connected to grid electricity. At times when the sun was shining I might produce more electricity than I use and sell surplus back to the power grid. At times when the sun wasn’t shining I would have to buy electricity from the grid. The sun shines a lot in Perth, so solar power is an ideal form of electricity generation. Perth is also a very windy city, so wind power would work well too.

It is expensive to purchase and install photovoltaic cells, but cheaper than it has been in the past and the price is decreasing. Many governments, including Australia’s, give rebates for installation of photovoltaic cells. Matthew Warren in The Australian newspaper[1] said that, despite this rebate,

It is still some of the most expensive electricity in the market with the full cost of the cells often not recovered over their entire 30-year-plus lifetime. Critics of this [rebate] scheme argue it is great for retailers and some manufacturers, but it is still largely symbolic stimulating imports of PV cells more than a dynamic solar industry in Australia.

Robert Silvey disagrees with Matthew Warren’s assessment of the cost and discusses the installation of photovoltaic cells in his house in California (which provides rebates) and why it will increase his home equity.

Australian has been a world leader in solar technology since the 1970s and the University of NSW and Australian National University are internationally recognised in solar technology development. Unfortunately most of their ideas are commercialised overseas[1]. This happens a lot in Australia

because of a lack of government support at critical stages of the research and development cycle coupled with weak venture capital markets in Australia compared with many countries overseas.

Another Australian government scheme, the Renewable Remote Power Generation Program (RRPGP) provides a 50% rebate to offset the capital costs of establishing a renewable energy system for remote communities or households. Remote areas are not connected to the electricity grid and thier electricity was previously provided through diesel generators. Now diesel generators can just be used as backup to variable renewable sources[2]. Denis Smedley, director of the Renewable Energy Deployment Team in the Australian Greenhouse Office which administers the program, said,

The most common form of renewable energy used in remote communities is solar power.

Rottnest Island off the coast of Perth received a grant from RRPGP for a 600 kW wind turbine to supply up to 40% of the island’s energy. This will save about 430 000 litres of diesel a year and approximately 1100 tonnes of greenhouse gases.

Some pictures of houses with multiple solar panels are here. And Ma Yanjun, of Qiqiao village, Shaanxi province, China rigged up his own solar water heater using beer bottles.

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Offline Sources

1. Warren, Matthew (2007) “Politics of carbon” The Australian, 9 June, p.1 of Clean Energy section.
2. Parker, Derek (2007) “Wind, sun switch on the isolated” The Australian, 9 June, p.6 of Clean Energy section.

More Desalination?

The Western Australian government is so happy with its water desalination plant in Kwinana, an outer suburb of Perth, that they are planning more plants. This week plans for a second desalination plant were announced at Binningup in the Shire of Harvey, 155km south of Perth and near the regional city Bunbury. This is after WA Premier Alan Carpenter

announced that he had shelved the Water Corporation’s plans to tap the massive Yarragadee aquifer in the state’s southwest.

The scraping of plans to tap the Yarragadee aquifer is welcome news, but I believe desalination is a wasteful use of resources. I discussed this in a comment at The Coffee House and I hope Matt doesn’t mind me repeating what I said, with some additions.

Perth has a dry climate and we can’t rely on rainfall for all our water needs. Thus, Mundaring Weir east of Perth collects rainwater, but other sources include: groundwater mounds and now desalination. The former is dependent on rainfall and so is not sustainable at the levels we extract it. Desalination is resource intensive (the second plant is expected to cost almost $1 billion to build). The WA government is proud that the desalination plants use renewable sources of energy, but these sources could be better used replacing current coal-generated electricity and then managing our water supply, rather than finding more and more sources of water supply.

While other states in Australia have total sprinkler bans, the Western Australian Water Corporation boasts that we don’t have total bans on sprinkler use. This is not something to gloat over, but rather a sign of people living in the past when a pristine lawn in the suburbs was an aspiration for all. Today we should be aspiring toward more efficient water use and recycling the water we do use.

Sydney, on the other side of Australia, has problems with water supply and desalination plants have been discussed as a solution. Patrick Troy, Darren Holloway & Bill Randolph believe desalination is unnecessary and wrote about practical measures to make households water-independent in their article “Saving Sydney’s Water” in the Summer 2005/06 issue of Dissent magazine. They believe households should collect their own rainfall (although this is not as reliable in Perth as it is in Sydney), but more importantly water should be recycled within the household. Recycling water does not mean drinking sewerage (black water). It means re-using grey water (from kitchen, laundry and bathroom) for flushing of toilets, laundry and use in gardens or landscaping. Black water from toilets may be treated on-site in composting toilets, etc (although this is not always feasible).

While household recycling of water is helpful, this only makes up 11% of total water consumption, as determined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Water Account, Australia, 2004-05. Industry is the main user of water and the agriculture industry uses 65% of Australia’s water.

The ideas discussed by Troy, Holloway & Randolph can be scaled up for use by industry. Grey water would be used for different things and may need in-house treatment. The main point is that every company, factory, farm, etc, as well as every household, is responsible for their own water use and re-use. They may be connected to scheme water (particularly for drinking and washing), but making the best use of water will ensure water, and money, is not wasted. Users of large amounts of water, such as irrigators in agriculture, could be charged higher prices for their use of this precious resource. Some industries, such as rice and cotton, are so water-intensive that they might be better carried out in places with higher rainfall.

Government interventions through integrating water re-use into building codes, incentives for installing the necessary infrastructure, etc could make these ideas a reality. Already the WA Water Corporation provides cash rebates for the purchase of certain water efficient products and rainwater tanks.

The proposed [desalination] project will be subject to a stringent environmental assessment with significant opportunities for public comment.

Community or environmental groups can register their details with the Water Corporation to be advised when publicly available documents are released. And the general public will also be able to comment when these draft environmental scoping documents are available.

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Not more advice on how to Green my Life!

I used to have no knowledge of current affairs, but Michael moved in and turned my world upside down. He sabotaged my innocent little tv (that only ever knew DVDs) with a coat-hanger aerial (we don’t waste money on materialistic goods, we make our own!). Now I get sucked into the almighty box every night. I still have a book open in my lap, but those stupid soapies buzz at my ear. The other night some evil “news” program informed me of

the new study [that] shows rainwater tanks are a cost-effective solution to the urban water problems plaguing Melbourne, Sydney and South-East Queensland.

I guess its not always drivel about who shot who today. I looked at the ACF website to read the report prepared by economists Marsden Jacobs Associates for the Australian Conservation Foundation, Environment Victoria and the Nature Conservation Council of NSW. I knew it wasn’t really relevant to WA because we have a dryer climate than the eastern states of Australia, but I still wanted to find out more. But I found something even better! – the Western Australia GreenHome Guide. I considered printing it out, but luckily noticed the 63 pages before I pressed the print button (it was going to be double sided, but I decided to save one tree). There are also guides for three other Australian states, with more to follow, and guides to water and energy saving renovations, at the moment only for NSW.

I’ve been an ACF member for years, but I never got around to going online and signing up for their GreenHome challenge. Maybe one day I will.

I skimmed bits of the WA guide and lots of the suggestions I already do, but I’m sure to find things I didn’t know about or more likely – things that I haven’t yet done because I’m too lazy. The main thing I have to do is have SHORTER SHOWERS! This is a big thing for me because I think I’m genetically programmed to stand under a stream of hot water for a very long time. Will power may not be enough. I think the only way I could overcome this problem is to go on a game show which involves the person taking the shortest shower winning a million dollars. I’m still trying to decide whether it would be on after 9:30pm (sans clothes) or not.

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Kyoto in 2010

The Australian Greenhouse Office of the Federal government projects Australia’s greenhouse emissions trends. Tracking to the Kyoto Target was released last year just before Christmas (so no one would notice it). Even though Australia never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, a government department has still found Australia will not meet its Kyoto target of 108 per cent above 1990 levels by 2010. The report tried to paint a rosy picture, and I wish I could believe that

Australia remains committed to meeting its target.

I was having a hard time working out what the report actually said because they kept swapping between percentages and millions of tonnes of greenhouse emissions per year. But the graph on p.1 helps to clarify things (the report is downloadable as a pdf). If we keep going just as we are now (no “greenhouse measures”),

emissions growth would have reached 125% of the 1990 level by 2010

But…

The Australian Government along with State, Territory and Local governments have implemented a range of policies and programs, and actions have been taken by business and the community.

The government says these policies, programs and actions will mean

the current analysis projects Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions at 109% of the 1990 emissions level over the period 2008–12, which is slightly above the 108% Kyoto target.

And to make it sound even better,

The Australian Government is addressing further measures to help meet the Kyoto target.

The government likes to harp on about how necessary nuclear power is and I get the impression they think it could be a big part of their “measures.” Nuclear power is so far from being cost effective (see Davidson, K. 2006, “Editorial” Dissent, no.21, pp.2-4), even if you get over the problem of what to do with nuclear waste (John Howard hasn’t offered to put it in his back shed). Nuclear waste might not lead to climate change but it certainly could lead to worse things. Our government also thinks geosequestration is the way to go, but this is unproven technology and detracts from the real problem of excessive carbon emissions.

Risks to achieving our Kyoto target exist around the central overall projection. One upside risk relates to recent strong growth in electricity generation.

If we’re not careful this strong growth in electricity generation will continue. In order to keep using the electricity we want to use (and it’s industry that uses the most electricity) we need to use renewable sources of generation. Nuclear power is not renewable – the sun and the wind are, and they are especially plentiful in various parts of Australia. And because solar and wind power are variable (see Diesendorf, M. 2006, “In defence of renewable energy and its variability” Dissent, no.21, pp.5-8) they can be supplemented with bioenergy, gas turbines and other methods. Diesendorf writes,

Clean energy futures, based on efficient energy use, renewable energies and natural gas (while it lasts) are technologically and economically feasible. The main barriers are institutional and the political power of the fossil fuel industries.

There’s always hope if you’re not in league with your business cronies in the coal and nuclear industries.

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Addendum on govt cronyism

Serendipity rears her pretty head again. I don’t take in much mass media and so I’m a bit slow when it comes to current affairs (most of its just the same old stories. Don’t they get bored?). Get up sent me this email on Thursday:

The last thing most Australians want is to follow our American allies down the path to Big Money democracy, where too often wealthy special interests and cashed up lobbyists decide what’s best for everyone else. Problem is, that’s increasingly what we’re up against, and nowhere is this more obvious – or dangerous – than Canberra’s approach to climate change.
Last week, the Prime Minister [Little Johnny Howard] made headlines for admitting he launched his national nuclear inquiry with knowledge that a major Liberal party donor was setting up his own private nuclear company…
Despite all the hot air coming out from Canberra about lobbyists, cronyism and cracking down on big money interests, influence inside the people’s house is increasingly up for sale.

Businessman Ron Walker and John Howard were recently talking about

Walker’s plans to register the business Australian Nuclear Energy…Howard says there is nothing unusual about speaking to a businessman.

In another news story about this, Australia’s Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said,

Labor’s [the opposition party] opposition to nuclear energy casts doubt over its commitment to addressing the impact of climate change. You cannot run a modern economy on wind farms and solar panels. It’s a pity that you can’t, but you can’t.

I weep for our environment with such clueless politicians running around.

Read about the inquiry of the prime ministerial taskforce reviewing nuclear energy and uranium mining and processing in Australia. Before the inquiry, Ziggy Switkowski was on the board of Australia’s nuclear advisory and research organisation, ANSTO, since the beginning of 2006. When first appointed to the head of the taskforce, he denied this was in conflict with his position on the board. He said,

I am on this, or will chair this review panel, and do not do so as a representative of a particular organisation.

He subsequently stepped aside from the board of ANSTO.

Ah, the joys of democracy. Long live anarchy!

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