Written by Nic White Tuesday, 13 July 2010 14:16
An ambitious plan to reduce carbon emissions would put WA at the forefront of building a new green energy generation future.
Australia’s growing energy needs would instead be met with a massive rollout of solar-thermal power plants with molten salt heat storage, wind farms and widespread use of electric cars and gas-free appliances.
Two of the 12 solar-thermal plants and four of the 23 wind farms would be built in WA with solar in Carnarvon and Kalgoorlie and wind in Albany, Bunbury, Esperance and Geraldton.
Matthew Wright, director of environment group Beyond Zero Emissions which researched and wrote the report in collaboration with Melbourne University’s Energy Research Institute and engineering firm Sinclair Knight Mertz, says WA would be the first state to build the new green infrastructure because of its high wind and solar yield and comparatively high power costs.
“Early plants would be well positioned in WA because they are more expensive and have to ride the cost reduction curve through scaling of manufacturing and installation so as the cost of power in many regions of WA is higher it would be worthwhile,” he says.
“WA’s wind resource is also pretty good, probably only surpassed by Tasmania.”
Early uptake in WA would also provide useful smaller-scale test cases with its many isolated mining sites that need their own off-grid power generation.
“Some of them are paying real premiums running off diesel generators at the moment so we would start to displace that with solar,” Mr Wright says.
The plan would also connect WA to a national energy grid that would allow the state to export power to the eastern states as its high power yield relative to population would generate an excess of power.
Mr Wright says this would extend the availability of solar power as time differences mean WA would still be in sunlight while those in the more populous eastern states were in their evening peak.
“The evening peak has been growing significantly in recent times with people using their computers and the fact that we’re flipping cooking over to (electric) induction cook-tops instead of gas means there’s likely to be an even bigger evening peak, so WA can help power that,” he says.
Mr Wright concedes scrapping the use of coal, oil and natural gas would affect the operations of WA’s lucrative resources sector and says companies would have either have to increase their export markets or get involved in solar or wind energy.
“If they’re a company that is solely involved in domestic distribution and don’t have any links to international markets they’ll have to get on board with the switch over to solar-thermal and wind or they won’t have a piece of the energy pie in a decade,” he says.
Less than 30 per cent of coal and gas produced in Australia is used for domestic power generation.
Mr Wright argues Australia’s energy security would be secured by switching to renewable resources as production would be wholly domestic and not dependent on increasingly higher international prices.
“We’re locking in our future fuel prices and future energy security with a move to renewable energy,” he says.
Associate Professor Sharon Mascher at the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Mining, Energy and Resources Law says Australia’s abundance of renewable energy resources is beyond question.
“The plan demonstrates that it is both technically feasible and economically affordable for Australia to realise the benefit of these resources and transition to a 100 per cent renewable energy future,” she says.
WA Energy Minister Peter Collier says the State Government is heavily investing in renewable energy, especially wind power, but is concerned about the report’s short time 10-year frame.
“It would involve a significant change in the governance arrangements for the electricity market within Western Australia.
“It would also appear to require significant investment in a very short time to replace existing infrastructure and consequently competition for finite financial resources.”
However, Mr Wright says climate change must be addressed sooner rather than later if the worst of its affects are to be avoided.
“It’s a climate and energy security imperative that really needs to be addressed now.
“10 years is a good planning timeframe, anything beyond that is a bit of a joke… if you talk about 2040 or 2050 that’s really talking about not acting.”
He says early adoption of a zero emission energy economy would make Australia a world leader in green technology and expertise that could be exported internationally.
“We already do that with oil and gas but if you’re not ahead of the curve it will be someone else’s industry, it won’t go to the Australians.”
The report estimates the transition would cost about $370 billion over 10 years, equivalent to one cup of coffee for every Australian each year.
It would also require a small fraction of the concrete, steel and silver production and create 80,000 jobs in construction and 45,000 for maintenance and operation, larger than that of the fossil fuel industry.
Mr Collier says the report’s proposals will be considered as part of the consultation input to WA’s Strategic Energy Initiative process scheduled to be completed later this year.
written by Nigel Marks, July 15, 2010
written by Dr Bill parker, July 15, 2010
written by Jacinta Mayhew, July 16, 2010
written by tonya, July 20, 2010
written by Phil Weickhardt, July 21, 2010
Interesting to see if this is realistic? Infrastructure sharing with fibreoptic cable and electric cable maybe?
written by Michelle C, August 12, 2010
