Written by Catherine Madden Friday, 15 September 2006 17:56
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Professor Olav Hohmeyer, of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told a packed lecture theatre at Murdoch University in Perth this week that Australia's wealth of wind and solar resources could power the country – with the right incentives from government.
Change, he said, couldn't come soon enough.
"The best science tells us that it is 99 per cent certain there will be dramatic climate change as a result of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," he said.
"And that would not be an excuse to sit around and wait until we have better science to be 100 per cent sure....
"Projected temperatures during the 21st century are certainly higher than at any time during the past one thousand years. We expect temperatures in the next 100 years to increase by between 1.5C and 5C, without taking into account regional increases that may be significantly higher. Our system is not really geared to accommodate such change. Unfortunately, the temperature increases we are inducing are not going to stop there. They could take up to a thousand years to stabilise.
"The Greenland ice sheet will melt with an increase in temperatures of 3C. Greenland warms faster than the world average so we are very likely to achieve more than 3C there.
If this happens the sea levels will rise by seven metres. If all the ice caps melt, the sea will rise by 120 metres and if we follow US advice on climate change we may well achieve that."
To stabilise the climate, the Kyoto Protocol has asked governments to reduce the carbon dioxide output of every person in the world to four tonnes a year by 2050 – but developed nations are far exceeding this.
"In Germany we are emitting 12 tonnes of CO2 per capita per year and in Australia and the US it is more than that," he said.
"We are going on as if we could buy planets in the supermarket. On average we are overusing by a factor of at least five – we are five planets short to meet all the energy and resources we are chewing up.
"Ninety-seven per cent of CO2 emissions are due to energy conversion. Our need for energy from carbon fuels drives the CO2 emissions that drive the greenhouse effect.
"We have to get out of coal, oil and gas. This is absolutely mandatory or we will mess up the climate. By 2050 we need to reduce by 20 per cent the level of CO2 emissions."
Prof Hohmeyer ruled out nuclear energy as a viable option, saying nuclear waste was not sustainable and that many parts of the world were still nervous about the safety of nuclear power plants.
"We need to base our energy on renewable sources," he said. "They will be around for another four billion years. It is not a cheap option, it's not easy and it's not connected to big, vested interests but we can supply our entire energy demand with a combination of biomass, solar, thermal, hydro and wind.
"How expensive is all this going to be? It will cost about a third to a quarter more to have all power from renewables, but if we take into account the cost of the environmental damage and the cost of climate change, you will find that although your electricity bill maybe higher, the conventional system actually costs three times more than the sustainable system."
Prof Hohmeyer's homeland, Germany, leads the world in the use of renewable energy.
"In 1990 in Germany there was virtually no wind energy capacity. Within 15 years we have 18 gigawatts (18,000 megawatts) – the equivalent of 13 or 14 nuclear power plants or more than 20 large coal-fired plants. And we have don't have substantial wind resources. Australia has more than 50 times the wind resources of Germany but a fraction of the number of wind turbines.
Within 15 years the country has become the globe's number one producer of energy from renewable sources, generating enough power to meet more than 10 per cent of the nation's electricity needs. This is expected to double by 2020.
He said: "Germany produces more than the entire energy consumption of Western Australia through renewable energy with substantially less solar and wind resources than Western Australia has."
Germany's greenhouse emissions have dropped by 62 million tonnes a year – already meeting 45 per cent of its Kyoto target for 2050.
The change came with the implementation of Germany's renewable energy laws. "In 1990 the German parliament was wondering what to do to enable better use of renewables. They were afraid of the big guns so they decided there would be no pollutant tax on coal, oil and gas. Instead, they decided to ask utility companies to buy part of their power from renewables, but the utilities just laughed at them.
"So in 1991 by unanimous vote – and this is very rare – the parliament passed a law forcing utilities to accept electricity produced by renewable energy sources and to give them a fair price for it. It was based on a fixed payment for a per kilowatt per hour basis.
This caused wind energy to take off. A private investor could say, ‘Yes, This is a serious business' and invest in it."
The revised Renewable Energy Law 2001 set out new up-to-date prices for renewable electricity with reductions for late installation as an incentive for investors to act faster and make technologies cheaper.
In 2004 the German parliament paved the way for off-shore wind energy and gave household subsidies for installing solar or wood-fired hot water and heating and tax exemptions for fuels based on biomass.
"The cost of electricity has increased by 2.5 to 3 euros a month – about the cost of one or two beers," he said.
The employment sector and the country's balance of payments have also benefited. "The wind turbine industry has taken off so well that Germany now exports its technology and installs more abroad than domestically. The local people are involved in the wind industry and make money from having wind turbines on their land. In fact in some areas they have asked for more wind turbines."
He urged Australia to follow Germany's lead. "You can say here in Australia that almost every day you will have guaranteed solar power and you can combine it with biomass from sustainable sources to fill in gaps in supply. With biomass, we have shown you can drive up your energy sources to 100 per cent renewables."
Prof Hohmeyer is an economist who has studied in the US and Germany. He completed his PhD at the University of Bremen in 1989. From 1994 to 1998 he was head of Environmental Economics and Management at the European Centre for Economic Research in Mannheim. Now based at the University of Flensburg, he is an international adviser on renewable energy and climate change.
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