PREVIOUS MONTH'S GUEST SPEAKERS:

Ian Dunlop, former head of the Australian Coal Association calls for a rapid transition to renewable energy.

Monday, 1st December 2008

Australian business is often resistant to policies aimed at making serious reductions to greenhouse gas emissions, nowhere more so than in the fossil fuel and emissions intensive industries.

Ian Dunlop, former chair of the Australian Coal Association and the AGO Experts Group on Emissions Trading now writes on climate change and peak oil. His background gives him an in depth understanding of both the damaging consequences of our dependence on fossil fuels, and the path toward transitioning to a clean energy economy. He has called for an "emergency, nation building response plan to place the economy on a low carbon footing", drawing parallels with the Snowy Hydro scheme and the Marshall plan which was used as the blueprint for reconstructing Europe after World War 2.

When a previous head of the Australian Coal Association calls for a rapid transition to renewable energy, we should all listen!

Further reading:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2313512.htm
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20080602-16858.html
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=EC138p9.pdf

Lyn and Maurice Beinat discuss the topic, "Retrofitting Australia's homes for greater energy efficiency".

Wednesday, 5th November 2008

This month the Beyond Zero Emissions discussion group will look at the issue of increasing the energy efficiency of the existing housing stock. Heating and cooling our houses are an enormous user of electricity and hence contributor to our greenhouse gas emissions. Australia has extremely low standards of energy efficiency in our existing housing stock, and so improvements are a great way to reduce our emissions, and save money while we are at it.

Who better to get to discuss these issues than people who are already out there doing it. Lyn and Maurice Beinat are pioneers in retrofitting existing houses for energy efficiency. Through their company ecoMaster, they aim to retrofit Australian homes as sensibly, easily and economically as possible. They will discuss their hands on experience with issues of insulation, draft proofing, double glazing and heating/cooling, in the context of wider housing sector energy efficiency policy opportunities. As an added bonus, we might all get some great ideas reduce our own emissions at home and save some money while we're at it.

Further reading:http://www.ecomaster.com.au

Hugh Outhred, Associate Professor in Energy Systems.

Monday, 6th October 2008

Hugh Outhred spoke about the possibilities for the extensive deployment of wind energy in Australia, addressing issues such as wind variability and forecasting techniques, the potential difficulties in managing voltage and frequency disturbances and the cost of network connections.

Professor Outhred's profile: http://www.ee.unsw.edu.au/staff/outhred/profile.htm

Brendan Mackey, Director of the ANU Wild Country Research and Policy Hub and co-author of the 'Green Carbon' report.

Monday, 1st September 2008

The 'Green Carbon' report says untouched forests store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated by the IPCC and the Kyoto Protocol. This makes forests all the more critical in the fight against climate change. The study has found wild untouched forests store 60% more carbon than plantation forests.

Professor Mackey says, "Protecting the carbon in Australia's and the world's natural forests is no longer an option – it is a necessity. If natural forests continue to be cleared and degraded then the C02 released will significantly increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The carbon stored in natural forests is a larger and more reliable stock than the carbon stored in commercially logged forests and plantations.

Further reading:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/08/05/2324476.htm
http://fennerschool.anu.edu.au/people/academics/mackeyb.php

Phil Hart, member of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO).

Monday, 4th August 2008

Phil explains why peak oil is near at hand and delivers an assessment of alternatives to oil. As global oil production declines and demand continues to rise, there will be dramatic oil price rises. Because oil powers almost all transportation of people and goods, the implications are enormous. Combined with climate change, it adds even more urgency to ending our dependence on fossil fuels.

Peak oil represents both opportunity and danger. We have the opportunity to electrify our transport, powered by renewable energy, to the benefit of our climate and economy. The danger is that we will instead produce liquid fuels from coal, as well as extracting ‘unconventional oils’, thereby ruining our climate.

See Phil on Stateline http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk1HyUnZAgk
More info at http://www.peakoil.org.au/ and http://www.peakoil.net/

Stewart Taggart, Australian administrator of TREC Australia, or "Clean Energy From Deserts".

Monday, 7th July 2008

Stewart gives an overview of European TREC, and talks about how this concept could be adapted to the Australian context to harness our solar resource and supply a large portion of our energy needs. The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) was formed by the Club of Rome and the Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation in 2003. It promotes the idea of supplying renewable energy to Europe via high voltage direct current transmission lines (HVDC) from the immense solar and wind resources of the deserts in North Africa and in the Middle East.

Further reading:
TREC website
Australian TREC website.

Dr. Keith Lovegrove, head of the ANU Solar Thermal Group and world leading solar expert addressing the group via telephone link-up from Canberra.

Monday, 2nd June 2008

Dr. Keith Lovegrove is a senior lecturer in Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the ANU. He heads the ANU Solar Thermal Group which works on a range of projects involving high and low temperature thermal conversion of solar energy. This includes looking at dish and trough concentrators and thermochemical energy storage. He is widely published in scientific journals and has advised the Australian Government on CSP . Dr Lovegrove and his team are at the forefront of International research into concentrated solar power.

Further reading:
http://engnet.anu.edu.au/DEresearch/solarthermal/index.php

Dr. Patrick Moriarty, leading energy and transport researcher and academic.

Monday, 5th May 2008

Dr Patrick Moriarty is a leading academic and researcher in the field of Civil and Mechanical Engineering. He is currently Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Monash University. Over a thirty six year career he has researched and published widely in leading journals in Australia and overseas. His main research interests have included urban land use, transport and energy issues. An important part of his research has been the climate change implications of different fuels/energy sources for transport and electricity generation. He is also particularly interested in the limits of technological changes and efficiencies in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector, as opposed to behavioral changes or social efficiency measures.

Inaugural 'Transition to a Zero Carbon Future' discussion group meeting.

Monday April 7th 2008

Beyond Zero Emissions outlines its "Coal Switch" philosophy in which the state of Victoria's greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 50% in 3 years.

For more information go to:http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/zerocarbonplan