By Adam Morton
AUSTRALIA could move to 100 per cent renewable energy within a decade if it spent heavily on cutting-edge solar thermal and wind technology, according to an analysis released as part of a community bid to redirect the flailing climate policy debate.
The shift would require the annual investment of up to $40 billion - roughly 3.5 per cent of national GDP - with the largest chunk going towards solar thermal power plants that used molten-salt heat storage to allow power generation to continue without sunlight.
The plan by advocacy group Beyond Zero Emissions was outlined at the launch of the Transition Decade, or T10, a grassroots campaign hoping to garner support for dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Pitched as a response to the failure to introduce national and state policies to substantially reduce emissions, T10 won support yesterday from the City of Melbourne, the Australian Greens and Victorian Governor David de Kretser.
In Spain, they don't just talk, but have lots of green technologies to show: Solar, and Transport, too, Matthew reports.
Beyond Zero’s Matthew Wright and Scott Bilby talk to Santiago Arias, Chief Infrastructure Officer of Torresol about a first-of-its-kind commercial 'Power Tower' that supplies electricity 24 hours a day.
Involvement with Solar Thermal electricity from the 1970s on. US$50 was the cost then, the reduction to $10 per watt came in the 80s. Then the goal was $2, and still is.
Solar power with storage is now mainstream, ‘firming’ renewable energy to continuous supply.
