Zero Carbon Australia 2020

I have just been sent a remarkable document entitled “Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan.” As the title implies, within its pages is a proposal for how Australia might be run without the use of fossil fuels, including for transportation, by 2020. The ambitious plan, from a nonprofit called Beyond Zero Emissions and researchers at Melbourne University, hinges on developing enough concentrating solar thermal power (CST) capacity, using molten salt storage to provide a constant supply of energy, to provide 60% of the country’s power. The remaining 40% would come from wind farms, along with a smaller element of biomass and hydropower as a back-up. Some 20% of the solar installations would be built by 2014 under the plan and the rest by 2020 to a final generating capacity of 42 GWe.

SYDNEY — Australia has plans to build the biggest wind farm in the southern hemisphere by 2013, part of its scramble to fight climate change and harness its abundance of clean energy sources — wind, solar, waves, geothermal energy and bioenergy.

Renewable energy now supplies just 6 percent of power in Australia because the country has historically lacked the political and commercial will to pursue big renewable energy projects. And the very sources of Australia’s clean energy — its vast outback and nearly 60,000 kilometers, or 37,000 miles, of coast — are major obstacles to linking new, remote power sources into the grid.

AUSTRALIA could switch completely to renewable energy within a decade by building a dozen vast, new solar power stations and about 6500 wind turbines, according to a major new study.

The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan - a collaboration between Melbourne University's Energy Research Institute, the environment group Beyond Zero Emissions and engineers Sinclair Knight Merz, puts the cost at $37 billion in private funding and public investment every year for the next decade.

The price tag may make it sound like a pipedream but the scheme earned the endorsement of the federal Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull who added his support at a forum at Sydney Town Hall last night.

As Crocodile Dundee might say if he took to the stump: "That's not a policy, this is a policy."

The Prime Minister's exercise in small-target politics in Brisbane yesterday confirmed both major parties are missing in action on climate this election.

Julia Gillard's announcement should be measured against the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan released last week by the green group Beyond Zero Emissions and the University of Melbourne's Energy Research Institute.

Its plan tries to answer the question: what would we do if Australia and the world were genuine about cutting emissions quickly enough to give the planet a better-than-even chance of avoiding more than 2 degrees of global warming by 2050?

A PLAN to convert the nation's entire energy sector to renewables has been endorsed by a group of influential engineers and scientists, including miner Rio Tinto's former head scientist Robin Batterham.

The 200-page Zero Carbon Australia (ZCA) 2020 report launched last night at Melbourne University was described by Professor Batterham as "much needed" to shift the climate debate "to focus on energy, security, affordability, export and of course opportunity".

A collaboration between the university's Melbourne Energy Institute and the Beyond Zero Emissions group, the plan details how fossil fuelled power plants could be replaced in a decade at a cost of less than 4 per cent of GDP.

A PLAN to convert the nation's entire energy sector to renewables has been endorsed by a group of influential engineers and scientists, including miner Rio Tinto's former head scientist Robin Batterham.

The 200-page Zero Carbon Australia (ZCA) 2020 report launched last night at Melbourne University was described by Professor Batterham as "much needed" to shift the climate debate "to focus on energy, security, affordability, export and of course opportunity".

A collaboration between the university's Melbourne Energy Institute and the Beyond Zero Emissions group, the plan details how fossil fuelled power plants could be replaced in a decade at a cost of less than 4 per cent of GDP.

This evening at the University of Melbourne, the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 report will be unveiled. Produced through the donated time of Melbourne Uni researchers and a small green group, Beyond Zero Emissions, the report outlines how Australia could realistically move from our current electricity situation, to one which releases no climate changing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Leigh Ewbank, director of public policy for Beyond Zero Emissions has outlined some of the thinking behind the report in a piece for ABC Environment previously (and also more recently on The Drum).

"We need a nation-building project on the scale of the Snowy Mountains Scheme to invest in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure. This is the fresh approach needed to drive Australia's transition towards a clean economy and protect the nation from dangerous climate change," he wrote.

Australia's energy grid could run entirely on renewables such as wind and solar power within 10 years, according to a report to be released tomorrow.

The report outlines a 10-year road map which the authors say is affordable and achievable. Its recommendations have been endorsed by the International Energy Agency (IAEA).

It is known as the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 report and it outlines a plan which its authors say can replace fossil fuel electricity with 100 per cent renewable energy within 10 years.

The report's authors say it only refers to technologies that are proven and commercially available.

Matthew Wright from Beyond Zero Emissions is one of the authors of the report. He says 40 to 60 per cent of the energy mix would be run by wind power and solar thermal.

"Earlier examples are in the Mojave Desert in the United States. Now they didn't have significant storage," he said.