Energy Efficiency

In late February, the federal government press release was that they had made changes to the renewable energy target scheme, saying that, by doing so, it will enable it to exceed a 20 % target by 2020.

Market demand for the scheme from new large-scale projects, such as wind farms and solar energy plants, has stalled partly because the government used it to reward households installing rooftop solar panels with an $8000 rebate; however, the government intends, from January 2011 to split the scheme into two parts: one for large-scale projects and a second for small-scale technologies such as solar panels and solar hot water systems.

‘We anticipate under these changes we will exceed our 20 % target by 2020′ Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told reporters in Canberra today. But she was reluctant to nominate by how much the target would be exceeded, saying that depended on (1) the take-up by households.

Large-scale projects will deliver about 41,000 kilowatt hours, the “vast majority” of the 2020 target [45,850 kilowatt hours]; ‘what that will deliver is certainty to the large-scale market,” Senator Wong said, adding the change aimed to drive investment. Small-scale projects will be covered by an uncapped fixed price – $40 per megawatt hour of electricity produced – scheme.

The changes mean the average household will pay $3 to -$4 more a year in electricity charges, Senator Wong said, but Parliament will need to approve the changes. And while the Australian Greens have welcomed the decision, questions remain unanswered about how it will operate. The Greens – Senator Christine Milne – said the changes meant thousands of Australians employed in building and running renewable energy power stations could breathe a sigh of relief that their jobs were secure, but with the details still to be clarified, important questions remained about how the scheme would now operate.

‘While the fixed price removes some uncertainty for solar investors, we need to know what long-term certainty the government will offer the industry, given that the solar multiplier will phase out over the coming few years’ she said. The Greens are calling for a gross national feed-in for all forms of renewable energy and a parallel energy efficiency scheme.

Australia’s largest electricity retailer AGL Energy managing director Michael Fraser said today the changes could see construction begin on new wind farm projects “sooner rather than later”. AGL had put a hold on any investment in its proposed Macarthur wind farm, about 300 kilometres west of Melbourne. [The Macarthur project is a joint venture with New Zealand's Meridian Energy] But Mr Fraser said the changes to the scheme could spark investment in new renewable energy projects. ‘We’d like to congratulate them on being decisive in trying to address that issue’ he told analysts at the company’s half-year results presentation. ‘We obviously need to work through the detail of what is being proposed … we’ll work through the detail, get that legislation worked out; I’d like to think that once we understand the detail and see that legislation in place we’ll see projects like Macarthur begin construction much sooner rather than later’.

But really is it still just smoke and mirrors ? The Green Loan program – that could have seen thousands of Australians led by the hand in making changes in energy consumption reductions as well as energy production via solar power – has been neutered.

But the last word comes from someone far smarter and with simple logic, Albert Bartlett.
The now world famous professor of Physics, Al Bartlett, took Australia’s Climate Change Minister Penny Wong’s figures apart on climate change emissions and population numbers, showing that Ms Wong is wrong.

He said ‘to accommodate the projected population growth AND to reduce overall annual emissions by 60% would require an annual rate of decrease of per capita emissions of polluting greenhouse gases of 3.543 % per year over the next forty years; the per capita annual emissions would have to be cut in half every 19.6 years !’

Bartlett went on to say that at its present rate of growth, Australia’s population will double by 2050, so thats not 35 million as touted by the federal government, thats almost 45 million people … and we have to import much of our food now; and despite the heavy rainfall and some billions spent of water infrastructure, we’ve had probelms getting water to half the projected national population in 2050.

In Australia we use the Rule of 72 to calculate the effects of growth and reduction; so we can apply this Rule to anything … numbers of patients per doctor; average waiting time patients per doctor then injecting (pun intended) additional patients, you can calculate the new wait time … road / traffic density, add additional users and we could see what I saw in Argentina in Buenos Aires; imagine Queen street 20 lanes wide.

Why local, state and federal governments don’t seem to want to acknowledge this simple calculation is anyone guess … but one thing is for sure, if you educate the population in ways to reduce GHG emissions, not only will they have more disposable income (to pay fat bankers) but it will reduce massive infrastructure costs associated with the soon to be required power stations to supply electricity to 40+ million Aussies and have cut our emissions in half … yer right …