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?
Solar thermal technology is still an outside bet - and not the kind of investment the CEFC was set up to make.
WorleyParsons/AAP Image
Environment minister Greg Hunt wants the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to focus on new technologies, not wind and solar. But that’s not what it was set up to do, and Australia already has an agency for that.
South Africa, which has a shortage of energy, has three options for greater energy efficiency.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Shifting South Africa’s economy from energy intensive sectors to those with lower energy consumption will take more time, and even more funding. But the impact will be more permanent and sustainable.
To get to zero emissions, we’ll have to reform our energy sector away from fossil fuels.
ccdoh1/Flickr
To avoid dangerous climate change there is a finite amount of greenhouse gas emissions, in particular CO2, that we can add to the atmosphere - our global carbon budget. If we use our budget wisely, we have until about 2050 to transition to zero net emissions. But how do we get there?
Digging in: China’s UN climate pledge shows it is serious about doing the heavy lifting in going green.
China’s formal climate target shows that the world’s largest greenhouse emitter is determined to green its economy on an unprecedented scale - and that it can bring the rest of the world along for the ride.
Biomass will help meet Australia’s renewable energy target.
David Cootes
With wind braced for more cutbacks, government backing of nuclear and fracking will end in tears.
Packing heat: concentrating sunlight into a reactor to split H2O and CO2 – a step toward making liquid fuels.
Courtesy of Professor David Hahn, University of Florida
Rooftop solar power is exploding in the US but some scientists are pursuing a radically different route in renewable energy: storing solar energy as a liquid fuel.
Wind energy will not cost Australians billions of dollars.
David Clarke/Flickr
Wind energy is already competitive with fossil fuels, will reduce electricity prices for consumers, and will play a large role in reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Could offshore wind be a solution to onshore wind’s problems?
Statkraft/Flickr
“More research needed” is a familiar cry in science. But in the case of the Senate’s call for yet more scrutiny of wind farms, there are signs that experts are being ushered in a preconceived direction.
Hepburn Wind in Victoria is Australia’s largest community renewable energy project.
Hepburn Wind/Flickr
Nicky Ison, University of Technology Sydney et Ed Langham, University of Technology Sydney
Australia, like much of the rest of the world, is in the midst of an energy transition, driven by falling demand and uptake of renewables. Community energy is one way we can mange this transition to the benefit of all Australians.
Would you please tell me when my light turns green?
stockphoto-graf
Tough Tory manifesto commitments and hatred of wind farms from the right will make it hard for the new government to meet its EU renewables commitments. Scotland might be able to help.
Lots of wind blowing – often at night when there’s little demand for power.
ncbob/flickr
Smoothing out variable wind and solar is a growing problem. Instead of storing energy with batteries, utilities can adjust the power of millions of devices in buildings and homes.
South Australia’s wind farms have coped without baseload power before - they can do it again.
Fairv8/Wikimedia Commons
Coal closures announced this week in South Australia will cause employment pain, but could also help pave the way for the state to go 100% renewable - something that modelling suggests is eminently possible.
Since its launch in 2011, South Africa’s renewable energy programme has brought a diversity of new players and sources of investment to the country.
Reuters
South Africa has won global recognition for its renewable energy programme, but will it succeed in balancing the demands of financial and commercial soundness, and the transformation agenda?
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) is looking to provide his South African counterpart, Jacob Zuma, with nuclear energy.
EPA
G7 leaders have pledged to help end the world’s fossil fuel use by the end of the century. It’s a laudable aim, but decarbonisation can and should be done by the middle, not the end, of this century.