Category: Media Headlines

An article published by the UNSW debunks claims that renewable energy will harm the economy. The article says “A/Prof Diesendorf said their findings were controversial in light of some fossil fuel and nuclear power supporters, as well as some economists, rejecting a transition to large-scale electricity renewables.

“These critics claim the world’s economy would suffer because they argue renewables require too much lifecycle energy to build, to the point of diverting all that energy away from other uses,” he said. 

“Our paper shows that there is no credible scientific evidence to support such claims, many of which are founded upon a study published in 2014 that used data up to 30 years old. 

Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese recently presented an energy plan to the Press Club calling for a shift in the political divide that has persisted in Australian energy debates for far too long. Where there has been bipartisanship for decades has been on nuclear power – an issue Albanese raised in response to the recent push from some members of parliament to re-open the nuclear power debate and remove legislative prohibitions.

The Guardian reports “Albanese says Labor will not support domestic nuclear power. The Morrison government has flagged examining “emerging nuclear technologies” as part of Australia’s energy mix in the future in a new discussion paper kicking off the process of developing its much-vaunted technology investment roadmap.”

June 22nd – The Australian

Small nuclear reactors, advanced battery technology and more gas-fired power generation must be part of the government’s blueprint to lower emissions, according to the nation’s largest miners and resources companies. … “MCA acknowledges the panel has a watching brief on SMRs.

Small nuclear reactors, advanced battery technology and more gas-fired power generation must be part of the government’s blueprint to lower emissions, according to the nation’s largest miners and resources companies.

Australia’s largest employer groups are also calling for greater investment certainty and energy policy stability in a series of submissions to the Morrison government’s technology investment road map panel obtained by The Australian.

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable said small modular nuclear reactors should be given higher ­priority. “There should … be a focus on other firm zero-emission technologies including the potential of small modular reactors (SMRs),” Ms Constable told Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, who heads the technology investment road map reference panel.

“MCA acknowledges the panel has a watching brief on SMRs. Given that they will be commercially available in less than a decade, the MCA recommends the panel make them a priority medium-term technology rather than a technology for consideration post-2030.”

The MCA also supports the development of “more advanced battery technology” and carbon capture use and storage, which has the potential to “substantially reduce the emissions of some ­existing coal plants”.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor said the government was developing the emissions road map from a “technology, not taxes” ­approach to avoid imposing costs on households and businesses.

“As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the government will back new and emerging technologies that will support jobs, strengthen our economy and reduce emissions,” Mr Taylor said.

The draft technology road map, released by Mr Taylor in May, outlined 140 future energy sources that could be developed towards 2050.

A final list of priority technologies is expected ahead of the October 6 budget and will anchor the government’s long-term emissions reduction strategy, which will be released before the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow next year.

In its submission, the Australian Food and Grocery Council told Dr Finkel it was “imperative to recognise the differing cap­acity” of small and medium-sized businesses to implement “emissions reduction strategies”.

The AFGC, representing the $122bn food and grocery sector, said it was “critical that policy settings enable Australian manufacturing to be internationally competitive”.

Its submission says the implementation of the road map must allow “industry time to adapt and remain competitive”.

Andrew McConville, chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, said their submission endorsed the position that natural gas would play an “essential role in reducing emissions”.

“Gas-fired generators can be rapidly started, making them complementary with intermittent renewable energy,” he told The Australian. “Exporting gas as LNG is allowing our Asian trading partners to reduce the emissions from their economies.”

The MCA, which released a three-year climate action plan on Monday, said government policy must “foster continued economic growth and investor confidence” and endorsed offsets for hard-to-abate sectors, warning “Australia’s energy-intensive businesses need a deep and liquid domestic and international offset market”.

The Australian Industry Group said a “suitable vision would be for Australia to achieve both net zero emissions by 2050 and global competitive advantage in a net zero emissions world”.

The AiGroup said the remits of the Australian Renewable ­Energy Agency and Clean Energy Finance Corporation should be expanded to “help accelerate the demonstration, commercialisation and rollout of low, zero and negative-emissions technologies”. “Even for technologies that become competitive without carbon value … the rate of deployment and replacement of existing assets will not be rapid enough to efficiently meet our climate goals unless a value is placed on clean over less clean assets,” the ­AiGroup submission said.

Small nuclear reactors, advanced battery technology and more gas-fired power generation must be part of the government’s blueprint to lower emissions, according to the nation’s largest miners and resources companies. … “MCA acknowledges the panel has a watching brief on SMRs.

The Minerals Council of Australia have released their long awaited Climate Action Plan. The plan has been described as vacuous and vague. The four page plan which is a series of bullet points places mining at the centre of their plan – promoting gas, nuclear and carbon capture and storage. The emphasis is on mining and technological solutions with no mention of phasing out carbon intensive industries like coal mining gas extraction and the burning of fossil fuels. And no mention of the deep and sustained political and community opposition to nuclear, the existing prohibition on nuclear in Australia or the economic barriers for both nuclear power and uranium mining.

What is telling in the plan is what is not mentioned – like Coal! there is but one mention of coal only to mention the value of carbon capture and storage. The report demonstrates the interests of it’s members – coal, gas and uranium companies – not the interests of delivering real and meaningful climate change abatement.

The Australian Financial Review reported that big institutional investors were not drinking the cool aid served up by the MCA. They wrote:

$878 billion UK giant Aberdeen Standard Investment questioned its reliance on carbon capture and storage technology, which it said was a last resort, and criticised the MCA’s failure to include scope 3 emissions in its net zero pledge. “It doesn’t address scope 3, it doesn’t directly address lobbying, and there is quite a lot of talk of net zero, but it doesn’t seem from what I can see to have any steps to encourage members to become net zero carbon emitters,” said an Aberdeen executive, Danielle Welsh-Rose. The criticisms, echoed by the big bank and super-backed Investor Group on Climate Change cast doubt over whether the new climate policy will be enough to silence investor concerns over the lobby group’s stance on global warming.

” Big investors unimpressed by MCA’s climate pledge” James Fernyhough AFR 22/6/2020

Nuclear and coal-fired power along with the Narrabri gas project could all be options to power the future of manufacturing in Tamworth.

The Morrison government has flagged examining “emerging nuclear technologies” as part of Australia’s energy mix in the future in a new discussion paper kicking off the process of developing its much-vaunted technology investment roadmap.

I have to conclude that the Deputy Prime Minister of New South Wales, John Barilaro, is a remarkable clairvoyant. He has announced unequivocally on Australian media that Rolls Royce is set to build up to 15 new small-size nuclear reactors in Britain over the next nine years.

Strange this. Just 18 months ago, according to the Financial Times, Rolls-Royce was preparing to shut down altogether its R&D project to develop small modular nuclear reactors, unless the British government agreed to an outrageous set of demands and subsidies.  

Granted the Johnson government has bunged them a few million to keep the R&D going. But there is as yet no sign of anything being oven-ready to come to the marketplace, let alone 15 up and running.

But there remain some rather disturbing connections between small reactor projects and nuclear weapons proliferation. And Rolls-Royce does offer up one of the most glaring examples.

Part of the company’s current sales pitch to the British government includes the argument that a civil small-reactor industry in the UK “would relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability” for its weapons programme. It may be true. But it is not really Atoms for Peace, is it?

The nuclear industry has been vying for a role as the perfect partner to the surging, but intermittent, renewables sector for years, citing its role as a stable source of emissions-free power. Nations around the world have set tough targets to reduce greenhouse gases with the help of clean energy to meet commitments set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“While I think the technical and most of the economic challenges of SMRs could be solved, I think that solar and wind with storage looks more attractive,” Mr Wood said….

“We have a shortage of time and we have a shortage of money, and nuclear energy is bad for both,” Arjun Makhijani, the head of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research…