11 October 2024

CLIMATE POLITICS

Labor announces surprise parliamentary inquiry into nuclear power, raising hopes of an 'adult conversation' (ABC News): An energy expert has welcomed Labor's decision to establish a parliamentary inquiry into nuclear power, saying open consideration of the technology is better than the federal government's current position of seeking to "pooh-pooh the whole thing". Labor surprised the Coalition by announcing on Thursday that it will report no later than April 30 on the deployment of nuclear power, including small modular reactors.

‘No reason’ Coalition will give up nuclear (The Australian): Ted O’Brien, the Coalition’s leading nuclear crusader, declares the need for the technology won’t change if Peter Dutton loses the next election.

WALGA conference: Former WA Nationals leader Brendan Grylls warns WA is losing clean energy race (The West Australian): Former WA Nationals leader Brendan Grylls has declared WA “lazy” and too slow to develop new industry projects, warning urgent State Government intervention is needed to avoid missing out on the clean energy revolution.

'Get on with it': renewables rollout too slow out west (The West Australian): Leading developers of clean energy exports have warned the Western Australian government to set targets to speed up renewable energy projects and emissions reduction. Yara Pilbara, which operates one of the world's largest ammonia plants, joined Fortescue Group and union boss Steve McCartney on Thursday in warning that the rollout of renewables is too slow.

Australia commits $9 million to help Pacific neighbours meet climate targets (RenewEconomy): The Australian government announced on Monday that it was contributing $9 million to the Regional Pacific Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) Hub in an effort to further support the country’s Pacific neighbours respond to climate change. The Hub, a Pacific-led initiative representing 14 Pacific Island nations, helps find the data, resources, and expertise that is needed to implement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) required by the Paris Agreement.

Every fraction of a degree counts: Time for governments and business to double down on climate action (World Economic Forum): Governments and the private sector need to enhance collaboration to deliver on the Paris Agreement goals, closing the?~600 Gt emissions reduction ambition gap by 2050?to limit global warming to 1.5°C. The Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders – representing a combined $4 trillion in revenue, 12 million employees and 12 industries – is committed to accelerating corporate climate action at the pace and scale needed and has delivered collectively ~10% emissions reduction from 2019 to 2022, outperforming major economies.

CARBON MARKETS

'It's almost beyond belief': Findings blast Australia's biggest carbon offset scheme (The Age): The scheme under question is the fifth-largest nature-based carbon abatement scheme in the world, making the adverse findings of global significance.

It is time carbon markets got professional, Bezos Earth Fund CEO says (Reuters): It is time to get professional and give governments a role regulating voluntary carbon markets and corporate climate targets, the chief executive of the grant-giving Bezos Earth Fund told the Reuters Impact conference on Monday. Trading in voluntary carbon credits, a relatively new and unregulated instrument generated by projects that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which companies can then buy to off-set their own environmental footprints, has shrunk as studies found some of those projects were not effective.

Don't listen to scaremongers, Atlas Carbon tells Aussie farmers (The Australian): Investing in carbon sequestration projects is an expensive business for farmers and some are being scared off by misinformation, an industry expert says.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Fortescue mulls whether to take $50m carbon free-kick (Australian Financial Review): Fortescue’s plan to cease emitting carbon by 2030 could earn the company at least $50 million a year from a new federal government carbon credit scheme, but chairman Andrew Forrest’s disdain for offsets may prevent the miner from accepting the windfall. Dr Forrest has vowed that Fortescue will not rely on offsets to achieve “real zero” emissions across its iron ore mines by 2030. The billionaire has previously labelled offsets as a “scam”.

GREEN PROJECTS AND INITIATIVES

First units for Collie’s big battery installed (Business News): Premier Roger Cook was in Collie this morning to unveil the 80 units for one of WA’s largest battery systems. Built by Synergy, the $1.6 billion Collie battery system will provide 500 megawatts of power with 2000 megawatt hours of storage when connected to the grid late next year, and will be WA's largest battery.

Gigafactory developer eyes place in Collie’s coal to clean energy jobs transition (PV Magazine): West Australian gigafactory developer Auzvolt has said it has applied for a stake in the $200 million (USD 136 million) Collie Industrial Transition Fund, toward realising its ambition of building a gigafactory in the coal-mining town. The fund is part of the WA government’s $547 million Collie Transition Package, which has already awarded International Graphite $6.5 million to advance its plans for a downstream graphite operations at its site in Collie.

Kal grid potential in Liontown renewables (Business News): A renewable wind and solar system powering Liontown Resources’ Kathleen Valley mine could pave a path to firming Kalgoorlie’s electricity supply, according to the state’s Energy Minister. The $154 million, Zenith Energy built-and-run integrated solar farm, wind farm, battery and LNG plant was formally launched by Energy and Environment Minister Reece Whitby at the eastern Goldfields lithium mine today.

Western Australia gas utility achieves 10% renewable hydrogen blend milestone (PV Magazine): West Australian gas utility ATCO Australia has achieved a test network distribution blend of up to 10% solar powered electrolyser-made renewable hydrogen to 3,000 homes, as part of its Hydrogen Community Blending Project (HCBP).

Acquisition offer for WA solar farm (Energy Magazine): EDP Renewables has made a non-binding offer to acquire Pilot Energy’s 367MW Three Springs solar development that aims to support the delivery of low carbon ammonia from the Mid West Clean Energy Project (MWCEP).

Allied Green taps AFRY to engineer solar and battery storage plant (PV Magazine): Western Australian-based chemical company Allied Green Ammonia (AGA) has appointed Afry as the owner’s engineer for the solar and battery energy storage system that will power its green ammonia production facility that is expected to produce nearly one million tonnes of ammonia per year. AGA said the renewable power plant will include an estimated 4.75 GW of solar power, combined with a “1.6 GWh per day” battery energy storage system, and will power 3 GW of hydrogen electrolyser capacity.

Proposed $9.9 billion deal passes world’s top lithium producer crown to Rio Tinto (PV Magazine): London-headquartered mineral resources company Rio Tinto is set to become the world’s largest lithium producer after announcing a $9.9 billion (USD 6.7 million) move to acquire Ireland-headquartered Arcadium Lithium. Global lithium miner and processor, Arcadium’s current annual lithium production capacity, which includes products such as lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate, is 75,000 tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent, with expansion plans in place to more than double capacity by the end of 2028.

Lightsource bp’s million module solar farm gets federal government green light (PV Magazine): London-headquartered renewable energy developer Lightsource bp Australia has been granted federal government approval for its 450 MW Goulburn River Solar Farm, located in the Upper Hunter region of New South Wales (NSW), 28 kilometres southwest of Merriwa. The proposed project will generate enough energy to the grid to power the equivalent of 191,000 homes.

Major Qld pumped hydro acquired (Energy Magazine): Stanwell has joined forces with a global pumped hydro operator to purchase the Cressbrook Pumped Hydro Energy Storage (PHES) Project. Located at Lake Cressbrook, 64km south of Stanwell’s Tarong power stations and 45km north-east of Toowoomba, the pumped hydro facility will generate 400MW of clean energy for up to ten hours.

First solar panel recycling plant in Queensland opens, expected to recycle 240,000 panels a year (ABC News): A Queensland-first solar panel recycling plant — capable of dismantling panels back to their core materials — has begun operation today. The Pan Pacific plant on Brisbane's southern fringe is expected to take apart 240,000 panels a year, 30,000 of which are part of a Smart Energy Council pilot program funded by the Queensland government.

Emissions tracking tool a winner for super funds and Pathzero (Australian Financial Review): When Carl Prins and Charbel Ayoub met in the Antler accelerator program in 2020, they quickly found enough common ground to get working on the building blocks of what would become the world’s largest data sharing network for private market carbon emissions.

OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST

China to head green energy boom with 60% of new projects in next six years (The Guardian): China is expected to account for almost 60% of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. The IEA’s highly influential renewable energy report found that over the next six years renewable energy projects will roll out at three times the pace of the previous six years, led by the clean energy programmes of China and India.

Australian Security Leaders Climate Group calls for overhaul of federal government's climate threat preparedness strategy (ABC News): A group of former national security leaders says the federal government needs to radically overhaul the way it plans for climate threats, warning that Australia is totally unprepared to deal with the cascading and existential risks that climate change presents to the region and the world. The starkly worded new report by Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG) — which includes former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie — says that climate change presents such a serious security threat that it demands an "emergency mobilisation" in response.

Temporarily overshooting global climate targets could be more damaging than predicted: study (ABC News): Temporarily overshooting the world's current target for limiting global warming could still result in dire climate outcomes, such as rising sea levels, which are irreversible on human timescales, according to new research.

Power prices surge as renewables output flatlines (Australian Financial Review): Australia’s transition to low-carbon energy has been complicated by a third-straight quarterly increase in coal power generation, buffeted by a smaller contribution from large-scale solar farms as they are edged out of the grid by households. The figures from the University of NSW confirm the extent of curtailment at solar farms amid soaring rooftop solar generation, with the drop in output from large-scale solar plants detected despite their increased capacity, measured year-on-year. Wholesale power prices increased over the same time frame.

Australia’s coalmines and gasfields may be emitting twice as much methane as declared, report warns (The Guardian): Australia’s coalmines and gasfields may be emitting twice as much methane as they currently declare, underscoring the need to introduce independent reporting of the potent greenhouse gas, an energy thinktank has warned.

Fitch says decarbonisation of world economy progressing far too slowly (Reuters): Decarbonisation of the global economy is progressing too slowly and while there has been improvement among big developed economies, emerging markets have failed to make reductions, Fitch Ratings warned in a report published on Wednesday.

A smart community battery in right location could earn $250,000 a year, report says (Renew Economy): Community batteries could generate $250,000 a year in revenue for their owners, a new paper claims, as long as they are paired with the right energy management smarts and target the most lucrative grid services value streams. The white paper, called Community Battery 101, sees energy management specialist GridBeyond come into bat for the storage segment that sits somewhere between home batteries and big batteries on modern electricity networks.

Calls for federal grants on home batteries as energy retailers slammed for 'un-Australian' solar payment drops (ABC News): Soaring power bills and plunging incentives for excess solar power sent to the grid are pushing more Australian households into installing home energy storage. Yet these battery systems are still very expensive and don't stack up for many, leading to calls for federal subsidies and agitation from the federal Greens ahead of an election.

Why hydrogen is better than batteries for long-distance trucks (Australian Financial Review): Hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle company H2X Global is confident of getting an initial public listing up next year despite some air coming out of the hydrogen bubble. The company launched a $5.3 million rights issue last month, just days before appointing Toyota innovation doyen Georg Zembacher to its board.

Time for a check-up: hospitals not yet climate ready (The West Australian): Australia's hospitals should switch to safer, cheaper clean energy as part of a nationwide health response to climate change, experts say. An all-electric hospital would use 100 per cent renewable energy - not gas or diesel - for heating, cooking, hot water and sterilising medical tools.

Award-winning architect firm Hassell to investigate how to make WA primary schools carbon neutral (The West Australian): WA’s Department of Education is forking out $87,000 for an architecture firm to investigate ways to create new “carbon neutral” primary schools. Documents on the Tenders WA website show the department sought architectural services for a “carbon neutral school investigation”.