23 August 2024

CLIMATE POLITICS

WA urges Albanese to back carbon storage (AFR): West Australian business wants the Albanese government to give carbon capture technology the same attention as green hydrogen, warning a lack of political will is jeopardising development of an industry critical to the state’s downstream processing ambitions. The Cook Labor government?wants to market WA as “the perfect place” for Asia?to store its carbon emissions, but local industry is frustrated that?Canberra reluctance to champion the technology?is stifling an opportunity worth billions of dollars to the state.

“Gas Trojan horse:” Coalition nuclear push slammed as fossil wedge aimed at renewables (Renew Economy) : The chair of Australia’s largest group of clean energy investors has described the federal Coalition’s push for nuclear power as a “gas Trojan horse,” and a political wedge intended to douse investment in renewables and prolong the use of fossil fuels. John Martin, CEO of renewables developer Windlab and chair of the Clean Energy Investor Group, on Monday named wedge politics as one of biggest issues holding back the shift to renewables in Australia, describing the current industry status quo as “really, really challenging.”

Yes, it’s difficult for governments to pick green industry winners –?but it’s essential Australia?tries (The Conversation): Since the 1990s, the economic agenda of governments across much of the world has been dominated by the Washington Consensus. This is a series of?policy recommendations?centred on privatisation of state businesses, deregulation of industries, liberalisation of trade, and opening economies to foreign direct investment. As a result, industrial policies – where governments actively shaped the structure of economic activities towards a?public purpose?– fell into disuse in many parts of the world.

For decades, governments have subsidised fossil fuels. But?why? (The Conversation): Even now, decades after we first began trying to avert the worst of global warming,?more than 80% ?of the world’s total energy comes from fossil fuels. You might think this would make fossil fuel production extremely profitable. But it’s not always the case. Much of the most accessible oil has already been extracted and burned. Many countries want to shore up domestic sources of fossil fuels to boost energy security. Energy price fluctuations and competition from new energy sources such as solar, wind and fossil gas have made it harder for some fossil fuel companies to make money, especially in coal.

PM issues Greens challenge on solar and battery manufacturing plan (Renew Economy): The prime minister has laid down a challenge to the Greens to back the government’s multi-billion dollar manufacturing strategy, as negotiations on the proposal continue. As Labor looks to pass its Future Made in Australia strategy through the lower house, Greens leader Adam Bandt said the party would only lend support if the government agrees to not fund coal and gas projects. Under the manufacturing strategy, the government wants to spend more than $22 billion over the next decade in areas such as renewable energy and critical materials to safeguard the nation’s resources.

Australian Senate Passes Mandatory Climate Reporting Bill ( bloombergtax.com ) : Australia’s senate voted to introduce mandatory climate change financial reporting with large companies’ first reports due on Jan. 1, 2025. Senators voted 34-25 on Thursday to support the landmark?bill, ?which creates a national framework for companies to report climate-related financial risks based on international standards.

CARBON MARKETS

Industry push to earn carbon credits from Australia’s native forests would be a blow for nature and the?climate (The Conversation) Australia’s forestry industry raised eyebrows this month when it?released plans?to remove trees from native forests, potentially including national parks, and claim carbon credits in the process. Forestry Australia, the industry body behind the plan, claims it would make ecosystems more resilient and help tackle climate change. But decades of research findings clearly suggest the proposal, if accepted, will have the opposite effect.

Updated NDCs could see Australia’s big emitters reach net zero early, says consultancy (Carbon Pulse): Australia’s heavy emitters could reach net zero before 2050, a date adopted by the country as well as many large companies, should baseline emissions reductions covered under the Safeguard Mechanism bump up.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Commonwealth Bank stops lending to fossil fuel companies without genuine emissions plan (ABC News): The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), the country's largest mortgage lender, is the first major Australian bank to start walking away from funding fossil fuel companies without genuine emissions plans. In its latest climate report,?released on the same day it posted close to $10 billion in full-year net profit,?the bank stated that it had already been ditching clients not aligned with the Paris Agreement.

APA Group faces activist action over Beetaloo pipeline (AFR): Activist investors are taking aim at APA Group in the first shareholder resolution filed in Australia targeting an oil or gas pipeline company over climate disclosure. Market Forces, an affiliate of Friends of the Earth, has lodged a resolution that will go to shareholders at APA’s annual general meeting calling on the company to report on how its plans for pipelines to transport gas from?the huge Beetaloo Basin resource in the Northern Territory?aligns with its climate commitments.

ACF ditches legal challenge to Woodside’s Scarborough gas project (AFR): The Australian Conservation Foundation has dropped its two-year-old Federal Court challenge to the environmental approval for Woodside Energy’s Scarborough gas project in Western Australia, removing the final legal hurdle to the development of the $US12.5 billion ($18.7 billion) venture. Woodside and the ACF, which is represented by the Environmental Defenders Office, “agreed to dismiss” the challenge, the Perth-based oil and gas producer said on Monday.

David Pocock, Greens call for investigation into $1.5 billion Middle Arm investment 'shrouded in secrecy' (ABC News): The Greens and crossbencher David Pocock have called for an investigation into the federal government's $1.5 billion commitment to the Middle Arm Industrial Precinct on Darwin's harbour and for the funds to be directed away from supporting fossil fuel projects, after a senate inquiry into the project failed to reach a unanimous agreement. ?Initially branded as a "sustainable development precinct", in April NT Chief Minister Eva Lawler told the inquiry that Middle Arm would host gas production, carbon capture and storage, minerals processing and hydrogen production.

Australians want to work for firms that take climate change seriously, but few know if that is the case (Renew Economy): Australians want their workplaces to become more sustainable, but a lack of awareness of what their companies are doing to decarbonise their operations and combat global warming highlights a worrying gap for the climate transition.? Companies that have sustainability or climate policies have an edge over those which don’t in the race for talent, says the Zen Energy?This is Transition?report. More than two-thirds of the 1140 people surveyed say they are proud to work for a company which takes climate change seriously.?

GREEN PROJECTS

Ramelius taps PWR for power station ( businessnews.com.au ) : Renewable energy developer PWR Hybrid has been contracted by Ramelius Resources to build and operate a hybrid power station at its Mt Magnet mine.? Under the 15-year power purchase deal, PWR will build and operate a 32-megawatt hybrid power station consisting of 14MW gas generation, 3MW diesel generation and 6.7MW solar PV and an 8MW/10MWh battery energy storage system.

Horizon Power signs first Indigenous land use agreement for future energy project (PV Magazine): Western Australia?(WA) energy provider Horizon Power has signed its first Indigenous land use agreement (ILUA) with the Nyul Nyul people of?Beagle Bay?in the Kimberley, for the development of a future energy system. A?Horizon Power?spokesperson told pv magazine the company will continue to engage with the local community to best understand their energy needs, but the solution is likely to be a combination of solar and battery, with diesel for the balance of the energy needs, to ensure ongoing, secure and safe supply.

Sun Cable targeting green customers as approval secured (AFR): Customers are starting to fall into place in Darwin for Mike Cannon-Brookes’ $35 billion Sun Cable project, while clean electricity buyers in Singapore are also giving “positive feedback”, according to the head of the project in Australia. Speaking after Sun Cable locked in federal environmental clearance for the Australian part of the renewables mega-venture, Sun Cable Australia managing director Cameron Garnsworthy said several letters of intent had been signed with industrial-scale green electricity buyers in Darwin ahead of a final investment decision targeted in 2027.

Owner of W.A.'s biggest wind farm eyes another 1.7 GW across five new projects (RenewEconomy ): Collgar Renewables, which owns operates the largest wind farm in Western Australia, has unveiled plans for up to five new wind projects with a potential combined capacity of 1.7GW. Originally named after the 222MW Collgar Wind Farm before rebranding to Collgar Renewables, the Perth headquartered clean energy developer and operator announced plans for several new wind energy projects aimed to meet expected demand growth over the next 20 years.

Top End microgrid developer eyes large-scale plans with Indian steelmaker (PV Magazine): Broome-born Generators and Off Grid Energy (GenOffGrid) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with India conglomerate Hira Steel to jointly build, own and operate large-scale solar and battery energy storage systems in the northern Australia Kimberley region. With offices in Broome, Darwin, Kununurra and Papua New Guinea (PNG), GenOffGrid has built a client base around its core mission to reduce reliance on diesel fuel for the energy needs of remote locations, such as cattle stations,?eco-tourism, agricultural projects and?Indigenous communities.

Evie Networks puts foot down on EV chargers (AFR): Since queues of up to 90 minutes began?appearing at electric vehicle charging stations in December?2022, Australia’s largest charger operator has tripled the size of its east coast network. It plans to keep expanding. Evie Networks – owned by energy investor Trevor St Baker and staff – had 182 chargers at 96 sites stretching from Tasmania to Townsville at the time, and the sites experienced their busiest four days on record from Boxing Day to December 29.

Solar above, batteries below: here’s how warehouses and shopping centres could produce 25% of Australia’s?power (The Conversation): Imagine if Australian cities became major producers of clean energy, rather than relying on far-flung solar and wind farms. Far fetched? Hardly. Our cities and towns are full of warehouses, commercial areas, shopping centres and factories. These types of buildings have one very important underutilised resource – large expanses of unoccupied rooftops, perfect for solar and battery power stations.

Tiny town in Victoria hits go on edgy community energy concept (Renew Economy): It’s only taken 16 years but Newstead, a tiny town in the bougie triangle of central Victoria’s spa district, finally has its community solar and battery.?“We were only teenagers when we started and now we’re old people,” says Newstead Renewables convenor and birdwatcher, Geoff Park. “Back in 2008 we had a community summit where people in our community were keen to do something in the renewable energy space. At the time they didn’t know what that was or what it looked like, but it sparked a discussion that it would be really good to do something.”

NSW says an extra 2 GW of wind, solar and storage could be hosted in first renewable energy zone (Green Projects): EnergyCo, the NSW government body in charge of the rollout of its renewable infrastructure plan, says a new study indicates that the country’s first renewable energy zone in the central west of the state could host an extra 2 gigawatts (GW) of wind, solar and storage capacity. The revelation is included in a newly published, but little publicised,?“headroom” study?that looks at the capacity than can be accommodated in the Central West Orana zone, based around Dubbo and Dunedoo, which has just received its?federal environmental approvals.

OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST

BNEF says $2.4 trillion needed for Australia’s net zero target, but window to safe climate closing fast (Renew Economy): Bloomberg NEF has warned that Australia’s window to achieving its 2050 net zero targets is closing fast, and the “heavy lifting” in investment in new wind, solar and storage must be done this decade. Coal, and unabated fossil gas generation, must also end by 2035. The latest version of BNEF’s New Energy Outlook for Australia quantifies the cost of the transition to net zero over the next two and a half decades out to 2050 at $2.4 trillion, which sounds a lot.

ARENA to showcase renewable energy startups (Energy Magazine): The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and Innovation Bay have invited early-stage founders in the renewables, clean tech and climate tech sectors to apply to be featured at the ARENA Renewables Startup Showcase, which is returning for a fifth year in 2024. The event aims to connect Australia’s most promising startups with Australia’s elite investment community, including leading angel investors, and the Venture Capital (VC), private equity and corporate VC community. The objective of the showcase is to create the connections needed to supercharge future growth in the sector.

The EV boom will drive electricity demand and big batteries are a risk, but also opportunity for the power grid (ABC News): Peter Petrovsky would be the first to admit he's not your ordinary consumer. He is, as the economists would tell you, an early adopter of all things tech. It's one of the reasons he bought his first electric vehicle – or EV – a full 10 years ago when the industry in Australia was in its very infancy. But there are others besides, as the Perth-based father-of-two explains. "The torque that you get instantly from an electric motor, there is no Bugatti, there is no Lamborghini, there is no Ferrari that can match that," Mr Petrovsky?says, in reference to some of the fastest petrol-powered cars in the world.

Dug up in Australia, burned around the world – exporting fossil fuels undermines climate?targets (The Conversation): Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of fossil fuels. While this coal and gas is burned beyond our borders, the climate-warming carbon dioxide (CO?) emissions affect us all. My colleagues and I at global research and policy institute Climate Analytics were commissioned to find out just how big Australia’s carbon footprint really is. Our detailed analysis of the nation’s fossil fuel exports and associated emissions is the most comprehensive to date. The?report , released today, clearly shows Australia plays a major role in climate change.

A renewable energy transition that doesn’t harm nature? It’s not just possible, it’s?essential (The Conversation): Earth is facing a human-driven climate crisis, which demands a rapid transition to low-carbon energy sources such as wind and solar power. But we’re also living through a mass extinction?event. Never before in human history have there been such high such rates of?species loss and ecosystem collapse.

ICJ hearings to focus on countries' climate obligations (The West Australian): The International Court of Justice says it will hold public hearings in December in an advisory opinion case that may become a reference point in defining countries' legal obligations to fight climate change. The ICJ, known as the World Court, is the United Nations' highest court for resolving international disputes. In 2023, the UN General Assembly asked it for a formal opinion on questions including whether large states that contribute to greenhouse-gas emissions may be liable for damages caused to small island countries.

Energy focus in new McGowan role (Business News): Former premier Mark McGowan has landed another post-political role, taking on the non-executive chairman position at Perth-based renewables aspirant Frontier Energy.