CSIRO recently announced that energy from the ocean could supply 11% of Australia’s demand by 2050. That is enough to power a city the size of Melbourne. It is a bold claim, but it’s time for Australia…
In the year to June 2012, 26% of SA’s electricity came from wind: how do they do it?
Dave Clarke
The integration of wind energy generation into the electricity grid in South Australia is a success story. The gross statistic often quoted is the total electricity produced as a percentage of the supply…
New research has uncovered significant environmental benefits in converting to a water-based battery.
oakridgelabnews/Flickr
Energy storage will be critically important as we work towards sustainable living. Developing cost-effective ways to store large amounts of electricity from wind turbines and solar farms will be essential…
Placing wind turbines off the east coast of the US could satisfy the peak-time power demand for one third of the country…
Malaysia’s biofuel policies — which will be delivered by large multinational corporations — are contributing to a global food crisis.
Rainforest Action Network/Flikr
According to their 2005 Energy Policy Act, the US was supposed to have reached a 7.5% target for renewable fuel by 2012. While this may be good for the environment, there is growing concern that national…
The internet of the future could consume 10% of the world’s electricity supply.
rachel_titiriga
Despite its new economy sheen, the internet represents a surprisingly large old economy drain on energy resources. Industry and academia must work together to ensure the internet is a positive contributor…
Victoria’s planning laws pose a barrier to achieving national renewable energy goals.
Hepburn Wind
It’s been just over one year since the Baillieu government introduced the second part of its far-reaching planning law reforms to restrict the development of wind farms in Victoria. The results are an…
US development of wind energy is lowering emissions without reducing economic growth.
Sam Beebe
Ninety countries representing 90% of the global economy are committed to reducing their greenhouse emissions and are taking action to do so. This is one of the take-home messages from the Climate Commission’s…
No such thing as a free lunch: nuclear power can do what many renewable energy systems have not yet done on a large scale - deliver.
Flickr/Gretchen Mahan
To paraphrase George Orwell: “All electricity is created equal, but some of its generating technologies are more equal than others”. This is a crucial point – emphasised but typically overlooked – in the…
Solar photovoltaic and onshore wind could be the cheapest sources of electricity by 2030.
SustainableDevelopment
Renewable energy sources such such as solar photovoltaic and onshore wind could generate the lowest electricity costs in Australia by 2030, according to a report released today by the Bureau of Resources…
Sign of things to come: a depleted Lake Hume in 2007, when the big dry still had a couple years to run.
Flickr/Tim J Keegan
Victoria has entered a critical decade in the race to adapt for the stresses of climate change, according to a new report from the Climate Commission. Following the release of Victorian climate impacts…
Green innovation: the upper compression ring of the Olympic Stadium main roof truss is made from 2,600 tonnes of surplus gas pipes.
London 2012
For seven years, the London Olympics Organising Committee has been striving to live up to the sustainability vision it set itself. It’s been a long, honest fight. On the eve of the Games, how well have…
Battery research is improving renewable energy’s ability to provide power around the clock.
Argonne National Laboratory
Storage is one of the highest technological barriers to the spread of renewable energy. When the sun is shining, the tide turning or the wind howling, how do we collect that energy and keep it to use when…
We’re banking on business as usual to solve our environmental problems, but we’re likely to be disappointed.
Tony.../Flickr
Australia will introduce a carbon tax on Sunday at A$23 per tonne of carbon. In 2015, an emissions trading scheme (ETS) will replace the tax. The aim is to cut Australian greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions…
Countries overseas are creating renewable energy funders just like the CEFC.
Walmart Stores
The $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has just passed the Senate and is now law. For all the attention it has received you may not have noticed, but a new industrial revolution is afoot…
A cleaner, more efficient Australia will blend smart grids and meters with renewable power’s growing capacity. Pictured: Spain’s Gemasolar concentrated solar thermal power plant.
Gemasolar
In part 13 of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Mark Diesendorf argues that it is high time we got smart about power: how we generate it and how we deliver it. Global challenge 13: How…
Do you see the light? Solar costs are comparable to fossil fuels, and are falling 45% annually.
Flickr/MyEye85
John Mathews, Macquarie Graduate School of Management
Recent postings to The Conversation have enlivened the debate over the “Great Transition” that is underway all around the world from the fossil-fuelled energy systems of the 20th century to the renewably…
The ones on the left are on their way out.
Richard Brand
In our Conversation article, King Coal dethroned, we suggested that renewable energy investment was now outstripping fossil fuel power investment. Many welcomed the news that the future was arriving sooner…
Lack of political will is holding back Australia’s solar innovation: here, AREVA Solar’s CLFR technology.
Solar Dawn
John Mathews, Macquarie Graduate School of Management
Australia knows how to provide public leadership in the complex coordination of public events. Just look at the recent staging of the opera La Traviata on Sydney Harbour. It was a one-off event that required…
Australia is trying to decarbonise by 2050. The technology is there, but we need an economic revolution.
Owen James
The recent announcement that Australia is on track to meet its Kyoto Protocol target for greenhouse gas emissions is an indication of satisfactory performance, not an exemplary outcome. The target is 108…