The government has issued a draft direction to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in “emerging” clean energy such as bioenergy. But what are the prospects for bioenergy?
Can the government tell its clean energy finance body what to invest in? Recent news that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation will be banned from investing in wind farms and small-scale solar suggest that the government is trying to do just that.
Most of the energy that fuels our lives comes from plants. Whether it is a fossil fuel that was formed hundreds of millions of years ago or the food we eat, all carbon-borne energy has its ultimate origins…
With the Brisbane G20 Leaders Summit only a matter of weeks away, Australia is increasingly succumbing to G20 fever. Rarely does a self-declared middle power such as Australia get to play host to such…
Governments are notorious for missing targets. Look no further than France or Spain’s recent fiscal calumny, despite the European Union’s excessive deficit procedure. Closer to home, the Association of…
During Chinese premier Li Keqiang’s last visit to the UK, China signed a series of deals on energy and low carbon technology, and a declaration of cooperation on climate change. A few weeks later, similar…
At the heart of the current debate around energy is the question of storage. In cars, how to build batteries that run for hundreds of kilometres; in electricity, storing energy from solar panels for when…
In a surprising announcement last night Clive Palmer promised to abolish Australia’s current carbon price, and block the coalition’s Direct Action policy. But Palmer has said he will vote to retain the…
Do we have enough onshore windfarms, or do we have too many? And who decides what “too many” looks like? The Conservative Party has announced it would end subsidies for new onshore wind farms if it won…
The inhabitants of a frequently cold and windy country like the UK need to heat their homes, even in what is loosely termed “summer”. This is achieved mostly by natural gas-fed boilers – but this dependence…
China is the world’s largest energy consumer, its ferocious industrial expansion and urbanisation driving a demand for electricity that has risen 10% in a single year between September 2012-13. This has…
Geothermal energy is derived from heat produced by the decay of radioactive elements within the Earth’s molten core, where temperatures reach 6000°C around 6000km below the ground. This heat naturally…
Our nuclear reactors have reached the end of their lives, North Sea oil is running out, coal is dirty: Britain faces an energy crisis of rising demand and falling supply. In our Nuclear Futures series…
The long-term future of carbon pricing in Australia’s efforts to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases is bleak if there is no bi-partisan approach. With Coalition likely to win September’s election…
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation y Charis Palmer, The Conversation
Solar thermal energy will halve in cost by 2020, the new director of the CSIRO’s Australian Solar Thermal Research Initiative said today. Solar thermal energy uses the concentrated heat of the sun to create…
Back in July I wrote an article for the The Conversation arguing that wind turbine syndrome was a classic “communicated” disease: it spreads by being talked about, and is therefore a strong candidate for…
At the beginning of this year I started collecting examples of health problems some people were attributing to wind turbine exposure. I had noticed a growing number of such claims on the internet and was…