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The Forum > Article Comments > Australia’s energy policy options: a realist perspective > Comments

Australia’s energy policy options: a realist perspective : Comments

By Chris Lewis, published 1/2/2010

Australia will talk the talk, but fail to walk the walk, as its reliance upon coal exports alone quashes any environmental bid at the domestic level.

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Australia's coal exports show the staggering hypocrisy of pretending to seek reduced global emissions. I believe Australian coal be it brown, black or exported contributes about a billion tonnes a year to global CO2 emissions of about 30 bn tonnes. We have .3% of world population yet our coal creates 3% of emissions. Australia not only aids and abets high emissions but shows off an enviable lifestyle making us doubly guilty. The good news is that Australian exports cannot possibly make up for China's looming coal shortage. They burn 2.5 billion tonnes a year which will be unsustainable past 2015 or so. A world coal peak is expected around 2030.

I also agree that wind and solar are too expensive and intermittent to make any significant dent in coal burning. Natural gas fired electricity could increase but we will want a lot of that gas to fuel trucks when diesel gets expensive in a few years. That leaves nuclear. To put the 1986 Chernobyl accident in perspective only 56 people died directly and that reactor design would not be built today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster I believe nuclear power and efficiency are the realistic alternatives to coal. The longer we kid ourselves otherwise the harder the eventual adjustment will be.
Posted by Taswegian, Monday, 1 February 2010 8:36:47 AM
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At the current consumption rate for uranium there is about 85 years supply from known resources. if we all "jump on the band wagon" and go nuclear we may well be back in exactly the oil situation...peak uranium in 20-30 years (or less)!

Hard to see much of a future for mankind, less someone invents a new energy source :)
Posted by Peter King, Monday, 1 February 2010 9:20:44 AM
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'even coal is not an inexhaustible industry' That would have to be the understatement of the year! I think current estimates are that coal, uranium and oil will all be in very short supply by the end of this century, so we really need to be looking at solar, wind, geothermal and tide power, as these are the only sources of energy which are likely to outlast the human race. I'm sure we have the ingenuity to make them work effectively. One of the reasons I am against Rudd's ETS is because it will pour billions of dollars into a dinosaur industry like coal, when we should just be leaving it to burn itself out while we invest in new energy.
Posted by Candide, Monday, 1 February 2010 10:05:49 AM
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Chris has provided a useful starting point for a thorough-going discussion on this important topic. I hope it will be more instructive than the Monckton saga still being played out on OLO (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9906).

My first contribution is to point out that the costings used on renewable systems do not reflect the likely long-term costings. For example, prices for photovoltaic (PV) systems have been tracked for many years. Using highly reliable "learning curve" analyses (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curves), the US Department of Energy has predicted PV prices to be competitive with fossil fuels by 2015 (http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar/solar_america/). By that date, about 100GW of PV systems will have been installed world wide (present total electric generating capacity is about 2000GW). There is no reason, given economies of scale and inexorable technological improvements, that PV prices will not continue to fall and become even more competitive. Windpower installations already amount to over 130GW and rising quickly and are subject to similar learning curve effects. China intends to install this amount itself in six large wind farms now starting construction.

Obviously wind and PV solar, in their present for can't meet all of our electricity needs- this is a straw argument. As Peter King has pointed out- neither can nuclear. The grim nuclear data of about 85 years of supply that he presents- and that I have previously presented on OLO- is usually countered by blythe comments about the future installation of nuclear reactors of a kind that have yet to be proven. Maybe so- but why not accord solar the same degree of optimism?

Renewables don't need "major breakthroughs"- they only require "general progress". I doubt that nuclear will get there just with "private development".
Posted by Jedimaster, Monday, 1 February 2010 10:23:24 AM
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The article appears to conclude that nuclear power generation is the only option for meeting Australia’s electricity needs, while accepting that coal fired power generation and increasing greenhouse gas emissions are likely, at least in the medium term.

I do not agree. An option Mr Lewis does not examine is use of geothermal energy to generate base load electricity. Australia has better access than any other country to this energy source and over 30 companies are now engaged in heat mining. Electricity can be generated from this source for the same cost as nuclear with the added attraction that it produces no residual waste requiring lengthy storage.

What makes coal generated electricity cheaper are on-going public subsidies paid to its producers and users, as well as future subsidies promised by government in the form of free emission permits. This protectionism is prompted by a desire to safeguard a valuable source of revenue – royalties to the states and other taxes levied by federal government. Vested interests find these arrangements quite satisfactory but how long will they last?

Once a price is put on carbon, on-going use of coal to meet our future electricity needs becomes more problematic, as does implementation of public policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Governments of either political persuasion are confronted with a choice: Increase subsidies for production and use of fossil fuels to maintain the status quo or use scarce resources to fund competing demands such as social welfare, defence, etc.

Political expediency will force withdrawal of assistance currently provided to coal production and use in favour of cheaper, temporary assistance to generating electricity from geothermal and other clean energy sources, such as tidal, to stimulate advances in solar technology and assist in establishment of new industries in these areas.

And as an afterthought? Oh yes! Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Not even Australia can afford the consequences of global warming or to maintain its proud record of being the worlds’ largest coal exporter and its highest per capita greenhouse gas emitter
Posted by Agnostic of Mittagong, Monday, 1 February 2010 11:18:46 AM
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I rarely post comments but I must congratulate Chris on a well balanced article.

I would like to correct some misconceptions about uranium resources and the ability of wind and solar PV to make big inroads into replacing fossil fuels.

First uranium. In my opinion piece published in December on nuclear power joinly authored with Barry Brook,

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9824

we pointed out that if current technology nuclear plants were the only ones build over the rest of this century then indeed we would be facing a uranium shortage by century's end. But the next generation of reactors (fast reactors) will use only a small fraction of the uranium ore and there will be enough proven deposits to supply the entire world for many thousands of years.

Nuclear power is not resource constrained. It is politically strangled.

I can accept that both wind and solar power will get less expensive as the technologies develop. The problem is not one of cost but variable resources. We need a big proportion of our electricty generators (both big and small) to generate power when we need them to, not just when nature chooses. We can handle a small proportion of variable generators (may be 10-20% only) in the network but the rest must be reliable. Energy storage could provide the answer but will add significantly to the cost.

We have some very reliable renewable energy generators in Australia - hydro, biomass, and may be in the future concentrated solar thermal and geothermal. Hydro growth is limited by water resource. Biomass growth is limited by land - although we could use more municipal waste. CSP is expensive and will need to be installed well away from the major cities with long transmission lines which will make it even more expensive. And geothermal is in a similar boat to CCS. Technically feasible but as yet unproven commercially. Geothermal will also suffer the high transmission cost.

We can either wait and see if energy storage, CSP and/or geothermal can deliver at a cost we can live with or we can take out a nuclear insurance policy.
Posted by Martin N, Monday, 1 February 2010 1:42:07 PM
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A friend of mine who was before retirement an expert in nuclear power
stations confirmed to me what Martin said.
The recycling processes now available will extend the availability of
nuclear fuels many times over and leave a residue that is no where
near as radio active as current waste.

Peak coal will occur in 2025 at current usage.
It is actually worse than that because the BTU output per Kg is
falling due to the lowest fruit being picked already.
However the 2025 date is the world peak. I just do not know what the
Australian peak coal date is at present.
However I remind you of the Chinese premiers comment;
"We will burn all our coal and then burn all yours !"

We should build a uranium precessing plant and instead of selling
yellow cake, lease the enriched fuel for use and if not returned then
no further supply.
That will fix the proliferation problem and give a supply for reprocessing.

However I agree that we need to know very quickly if geothermal from
the great depths being tested in SA will work. It is urgent.

The recent cold weather in the UK resulted in extended days of dead calm.
Not much wind power there, not much solar either I imagine.
Anyone who thinks we can just shut down the coal fired stations is
away with the faries.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 1 February 2010 3:05:51 PM
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The author paints a bleak picture where Australia and the world fail utterly to deal with the challenges of global emissions and climate change. What Chris fails to mention is the likely cost and consequences of such failure. When pricing energy options he fails to mention the 'subsidised' costs inherent in fossil fuel energy, those deferred, external costs that are being billed against our future climatic security - initial payments of which are only just beginning to come due. How much is SE Australian agriculture worth? What's a Great Barrier Reef valued at? With more up-front accounting the costs of continued fossil fuel use don't look so economically attractive and the costs of renewables (or nuclear) don't look that prohibitive.
Posted by Ken Fabos, Monday, 1 February 2010 4:33:45 PM
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If Australia is to have any domestic and international environmental integrity, it's time Rudd and Abbott changed their parties' energy policies to ending every kind of public subsidy paid to coal producers and scrapping all the proposed free emission permits to the coal industry.

Sure, there will be withdrawal symptoms, and adjustment does involve short term pain to many. Our addiction to coal has escallated over the decades. Winding down, decommissioning coal power stations requires tough decisions. We also need to get our heads around the idea that being the world's biggest pusher of this pollutant is not the way to a sustainable future. Winding back coal exports needs to start now.

We can become a world leader in renewable technologies if the government just has the wisdom to skillfully manage the transition of enegy technology and reap the medium to long term benefits of being a clever country.
Posted by Quick response, Monday, 1 February 2010 4:37:21 PM
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Ken Fabos and others

I am not necessarily against any energy option (nuclear or rewewable), but main point of article is to point out likely Aust policy trends and contradictions based on recent trends.

I also agree (as stated) we need to reduce our carbon footprint, although just how we do so is certainly not straight forward and may be costly (although doing nothing may be more costly in terms of environmental damage)
Posted by Chris Lewis, Monday, 1 February 2010 5:49:03 PM
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I guess Chris Lewis for at least be given a guernsey for persistence in pushing his nuclear power band wagon. Surely no one has much to add over the last few times we have had this debate.

But yes, Martin N and for the matter Chris in earlier articles are absolutely right in saying that next generation nuclear fission reactors would solve our energy problems, and be relatively clean and safe. Nuclear proliferation is still a worry, but then it has been a worry for 50 years now and we are still here.

They are also absolutely right in saying that the competitors to nuclear at their current state of development could not complete with these next generation reactions when and if they appear in 10 or 40 years time, or whatever it takes to get these next generation reactors working.

The only fly in ointment in the wonderful vision is that 10 to 40 years, those competitors won't have stood still. That one off 25% price drop in photo voltaics is misleading Chris said. It just restored PV prices to the trend they have been on since 1997 or so - a 5% drop per year. If they continue on that trend then in 2050 they will be 1/10 of their current price. And therein lies the rub - nuclear can't complete with solar if it is 10% of its current price.

This is of course all just crystal ball gazing. No one can really be sure what is going to become reality, and what will turn out to be just hopes and fancies of wide eyed entrepreneurs.
Posted by rstuart, Monday, 1 February 2010 6:15:40 PM
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Agnostic of Mittagong, Australia’s proud record of being the <<highest per capita greenhouse gas emitter>>

I keep seeing this one repeated. Just to be factual, this is not true; Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are ahead of us. In any event it’s a statistical anomaly as Australia’s only significant factual measure is 1.4% of global emissions.

When shown in an historical context, that of the industrialization, Australia doesn’t even register.

Leave the “Over egging the pudding” to the IPCC, they such a good job.

Chris Lewis’s article is balanced however, Martin N hits the nail on the head, we are still having these debates because Nuclear Power has been and still is, “politically strangled”
Posted by spindoc, Monday, 1 February 2010 8:10:43 PM
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There are no alternative electricity generation systems that can
anywhere near supply our needs except nuclear and hopefully geothermal.

Face it, no one is going to permit the shutdown of one single station
unless an alternative is available.
Our food production system relies on refrigeration.
Want your food to go bad ?
Live in a block of units ? want to walk up 10 floors ?
Sit on the floor of the lift and wait for the power to come back on ?
Lie on the operating table just as the surgeon starts cutting and the
power goes off, and the backup failed to start ?
Going to work on the train, and it stops.

That and many other failures is what you are facing if you just shutdown.

It is no where near certain that the cost of mitigating problems as
they occur is greater than all the proposed prevention solutions
which don't look like working anyway.

BTW, the Barrier Reef is doing fine thank you ! Stop panicking.
When the Kyoto treaty was planned China was an exporter of coal and
oil and the producer of exports has the emissions counted against them.
Now China is importing large amounts of coal from Australia the
emissions are counted against us. Do we divide by 2 our petroleum
emissions as we import 50%. The suppliers should have it put on their
carbon account.

Solar cells will come down in price but only marginally as there is
a significant overhead in just handling them. In anycase they still
need the base load power unless by some miracle of chemistry a form
of battery is developed that can store enormous amounts of power
per cubic metre. That is the real challenge but it might be
chemically impossible.
Posted by Bazz, Tuesday, 2 February 2010 9:29:40 AM
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Bazz: "BTW, the Barrier Reef is doing fine thank you ! Stop panicking."

You made a similar comment once before, and I guess as you would expect I went looking. The opinion from scientists working in the area range from the positive: "its OK now, but we if hit the Copenhagen limit of 2 degrees C its doomed" to "its doomed no matter what we do". I guess the former could be loosely translated into "the Barrier Reef is doing fine" if you added "for now".

As for your advice to "Stop panicking", perhaps you should send it to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. They have whipped themselves into a right proper panic as a result of this report: http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/about_us/great_barrier_reef_outlook_report

From the summary: "[at] atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide between current levels and about 400ppm ... habitats of the Great Barrier Reef have low or moderate vulnerability to climate change. ... If the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide increases beyond these levels then there will be serious consequences for the Great Barrier Reef. At a concentration of 500ppm ... hard corals would likely become functionally extinct and coral reefs would be eroding rapidly."

Bazz: "That is the real challenge but it might be chemically impossible."

Very unlikely, as in effect coal and oil are just chemical ways of storing energy. They are efficient because one the reactants, oxygen, comes from the atmosphere. The same thing is being looked at for batteries: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22780/

Bazz: "There are no alternative electricity generation systems that can anywhere near supply our needs except nuclear"

No, this is wrong. Nuclear as it exists now can't do it. If we swapped over to nuclear generation for power using current technology there is but a few decades of available fuel. If nuclear is going to solve our energy problems we need plants literally 10,000% more efficient that the current ones. Theoretically, this isn't hard. But commercially no one has made it work, and each "experiment" in trying to find something that does work costs billions of dollars.
Posted by rstuart, Tuesday, 2 February 2010 10:24:31 AM
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Bazz: Interesting comments but PRChina has never been a net oil exporter or a significant importer of Australian coal. Our largest coal customers are Japan and Korea.

Australian industry doesn’t care how its electricity is generated as long as it is available 24/7 and is relatively cheap. Bazz rightly suggests that the only alternatives to coal are nuclear and/or geothermal. Neither is likely to make a useful contribution to our electricity needs much before 2020 and even then may do little more than supply the difference between our present and increased future energy needs.

Wind and solar can make a useful contribution to reducing, rather than replacing coal burning and power generators always have the option of converting their stations to burning gas rather than coal. That would certainly be more efficient and reduce our CO2 emissions. But would coal-burning power station owners be prepared to invest in converting to gas? I don’t think so.

Jedimaster and others note that technology is not going to stagnate and over the next 15 years. Very true Technology will make advances in important areas such as ability to more efficiently convert sunlight to electricity and store solar energy and electricity. These developments will see the demise of coal, both for domestic use and as one of our major exports.

My prediction is that over the next 10 years coal use will diminish as the international community increasingly makes a choice between solar, geothermal and nuclear, the latter 2 being able to produce electricity at similar prices. Irrational policies block the nuclear path in Australia which, in the medium term leaves us with the new start-up industry, geothermal.

Australia has the advantage of being endowed with the hottest (250-300C) most accessible (4,000m) rocks in the world and is well placed to meet all its energy needs from that one source, though cheaper wind will always play a supplementary role. The Rudd government is providing geothermal with financial assistance and my bet is that we shall see the first small power (50MW) station up and running by 2015, quickly followed by others.
Posted by Agnostic of Mittagong, Tuesday, 2 February 2010 11:00:33 AM
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Chris, I'm not sure we can afford another decade or two of indecision of how to get effective emissions reductions; so far all we've gotten is ineffective policy proposals that have mostly failed even to make it past proposal stage. The latest from Abbott is to give funding to the biggest polluters merely to keep from increasing emissions - no use of price incentives. The real, externalised, accumulating costs of AGW continue to be left out of the opposition's (as well as your own) economic equations - Abbott's most likely because he prefers to dismiss what CSIRO, Chief Scientist and all the worlds scientific institutions have to say about the impacts of emissions on climate as "crap". And of course the impacts of continued expansion of coal and gas exports continue to be counted only on the plus side of virtually every ledger; that it will feed emissions growth far greater than the most optimistic estimates of Australian emissions reductions is passed over completely.
Posted by Ken Fabos, Tuesday, 2 February 2010 9:33:09 PM
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Ken Fabos,

I agree, but even more important than what we do at the national level is what happens at the international level. The rise of global emissions needs to slow and hopefully stop.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Wednesday, 3 February 2010 6:47:31 AM
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What it comes down to is simple we are energy gluttons

If we as a nation choose to stop using our cars for two days per week we could almost double our energy use everywhere else and still meet our CO2 targets.

It is simple drive less now, pay less for power in future
Drive more now pay more for power forever.

Smarter use of limited resources is the answer, to make small changes in the biggest problem area is better than making large changes to a lesser problem areas.
Posted by beefyboy, Wednesday, 3 February 2010 10:34:38 AM
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