Lethal Heating: 12/10/16

10/12/2016

Households To Power Up To Half Australia, Zero Emissions Within Reach: CSIRO

Fairfax - Adam Morton

As the Coalition backs away from a pledge to consider a climate change policy that the energy industry says it needs, a new study is projecting a rapidly growing mass electricity generator for Australia in the decades ahead: the public.
Consumers using rooftop solar panels and batteries will produce between a third and half of Australia's electricity by mid-century if the right policies are introduced, according to a roadmap from the CSIRO and power and gas transmission body Energy Networks Australia.

Bernardi fumes over carbon trading scheme
Coalition MPs voice their displeasure on the government's climate review including an emissions intensity scheme for electricity generators. Vision courtesy ABC News 24

The two-year analysis also found an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector - a form of carbon trading that was to be considered by a government climate policy review until that plan was abandoned on Tuesday afternoon - would be the cheapest way to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
It suggests it could save customers $200 a year by 2030, while helping create a reliable electricity grid with zero emissions by 2050.
Energy Networks chief John Bradley said a low-cost shift to zero emissions would depend on a national climate and energy plan with bipartisan support.
"By contrast, carbon policy which could change dramatically at every election, or differs in every state, is a recipe for a high-cost and less secure electricity service," Mr Bradley said.
His call for the Coalition and Labor to come together on climate policy echoes that made by bodies representing energy generators and major industrial companies.
The Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap forecasts that up to 10 million households and small businesses would have solar panels, battery storage, smart homes and electric vehicles if pricing and incentives were changed to better reflect demand. This would "transform the grid into a platform more like the internet, where customers can trade and share energy".

As many as one in five homes now have rooftop solar systems. Photo: Fairfax Media

It recommends an emissions intensity scheme for power stations be introduced by 2020, following a similar call by the Climate Change Authority, now dominated by Coalition-appointed board members.
On Tuesday, Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg backed away from saying the government would consider this sort of scheme as part of a wide-ranging departmental review of climate policy next year. A handful of Coalition backbenchers, including Cory Bernardi and Craig Kelly, had called for any form of carbon pricing to be rejected.

Illustration: Ron Tandberg.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull earlier said he had never supported a carbon tax - which the emissions intensity scheme is not - and stressed the climate review was "business as usual".
"It's part of the policy we took to the election in 2013 and 2016 and, indeed, we took to the election in 2010. This is business as usual," he said.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten said Labor would examine whatever the government proposed, but predicted the Prime Minister would buckle to MPs opposed to action on climate change to avoid "civil war". Labor promised an intensity scheme as part of its climate policies before this year's federal election.
An intensity scheme would set a baseline figure for how much carbon dioxide a power station could emit for every unit of power generated, penalising those that breached their limit and rewarding cleaner models that emitted less with free credits.
The report found thermal plants, including coal and gas fossil fuels, would be critical in balancing intermittent renewable energy in the years ahead, but would eventually be replaced by technologies using battery storage and biomass.
Getting there would present significant technical, economic and regulatory challenges. It would transform the system away from its original design - large centralised power stations - to a much more decentralised network.
It said a coordinated plan for 2050 could:

Make average annual household bills $414 less than they otherwise would have been.
Cut network costs to consumers by 30 per cent.
Avoid $16 billion in spending on poles and wires.
Lead to customers with solar panels, battery storage and electric vehicles earning $2.5 billion a year from network businesses.

The roadmap comes ahead of the Friday release of an interim report into electricity reliability led by chief scientist Alan Finkel, commissioned after South Australia suffered a statewide blackout in September.

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Seven Energy Charts That Will Cheer And Frighten About Australia And The World

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Australia has unmatched renewable energy resources but will meet its climate targets only by intervening to accelerate the retirement of coal-fired power plants, according to Michael Liebreich, founder of global advisory service, Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Mr Liebreich said the Turnbull government should avoid setting renewable energy targets and instead focus on devising market-based methods to phase out coal.

Anita Ho-Baillie, senior research fellow at UNSW, with a record-breaking solar cell. Photo: UNSW

It should also avoid "perverse" subsidies, such as the speculated $1 billion loan being considered for Adani's proposed mega-coal mine in Queensland, he said.
The comments come as debate raged among conservative Coalition MPs about the government's plan to review its climate policies in 2017. Causing angst was the plan to examine an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector that could generate a carbon price - which prompted a rapid retreat by environment and energy minister Josh Frydenberg.
Mr Liebreich told a Sydney audience advances in renewable energy technologies were rapid, with solar photovoltaic prices falling by almost a quarter for each doubling of production. For wind, costs sank 19 per cent with each doubling of turbine output. (See chart below.)
Breakthroughs come regularly, with the University of NSW last week revealing it had achieved record efficiency rates for its perovskite solar cells, with prospects of more to come.

The cost of installed capacity for new solar and wind energy had dropped below $US30 per megawatt (or 3¢ per watt) in recent auctions in Chile, Morocco and elsewhere. In Australia, though, the price remains about double that.

Joggers along Shanghai's famous Bund: China's pollution is on the rise. Photo: Andy Wong

Still, Australia's abundant renewable energy meant the country had potentially the lowest cost for both wind and solar energy. (See chart below.)

Both large-scale wind and solar projects were now cheaper than fossil-fuel energy sources in much of the world, including Australia.
However, their falling costs alone won't see them drop below the existing cost of operating coal plants without some price to reflect the damage of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, Bloomberg said. (See chart below.)

Australia will have to reduce overall emissions if it is to meet its 2030 goals pledged at the Paris climate summit in 2015.
Yet, on the government's own projects, emissions are going to increase – not fall – on current policies, although Bloomberg predicts some levelling off.
Any effort to go beyond the 2015 commitments - now set for a 26-28 per cent cut on 2005 levels by 2030 - would have to be much deeper if a 2-degree warming limit agreed at Paris is to be met, Bloomberg said. (See chart below.)

Mr Liebreich said his greatest concern about the election of Donald Trump to be the next US president was not that he would reverse America's long-term slide in carbon emissions.
Rather, the risk was he would stop the use of "US heft" - deployed by Barack Obama - to discourage the building of more coal-fired power plants in Asia.
On current projections, coal use in power stations is expected to keep rising for decades to come, led by India, China and Japan, exceeding any reductions in the rest of the world, Bloomberg predicts. (See chart below.)

As Bloomberg notes, the promises made in the Paris agreement would need to be tightened significantly - and soon - if the world is to have any hope of limiting global warming to the 2-degree target. (See chart below.)
Warming since the industrial revolution began is about 1 degree, scientists say.

While the rise in Asian coal demand may cheer resource employees and governments hoping for a revenue bonanza - think of those based in Canberra and Brisbane - Australia may not get the export boost some are hoping.
According to Bloomberg, India's plans to boost domestic coal supplies should see the need for imports evaporate by about 2023. (See chart below.)

While Adani may yet line up local buyers of coal it could export from its planned Queensland mine and displace local Indian suppliers, that would not necessary be the most economic outcome for India.
"Lots of things that are not economically optimal still happen," Mr Leibreich said.
For Australia to provide funding to underwrite the rail line to Adani and other Galilee Basin mines, though, would also be a distortion from a climate change point of view, he said.
"Given what we know of the science…it seems a perverse use of public money."

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Malcolm Turnbull And Premiers Clash Over Climate, Topping A Disastrous Week For Coalition

Fairfax - James Massola | Adam Morton

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's disastrous week-long spat over a climate-change policy review has culminated in a showdown with state premiers in Canberra, and criticism from the nation's chief business group.
Infrastructure, competition and family violence policies also provoked fights between the Prime Minister and state premiers at Friday's Council of Australian Government meeting.

Not happy, Mal!
South Australia's Jay Weatherill and PM Malcolm Turnbull continue their dispute over electricity policy at the post-COAG press conference.

But it was climate policy that dominated the COAG wash-up, with Mr Turnbull accused of trotting out "infantile slogans" in place of evidence-based policy by South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill.
WA Premier Colin Barnett argued a market-based carbon price mechanism had some role to play in reducing emissions and Victorian Premier Dan Andrews advocated a "proper" examination of climate policy that did not rule out anything - including an emissions intensity scheme - before the federal review was completed.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during the COAG press conference at Parliament House. Photo: Andrew Meares

The COAG meeting capped an awful week for Mr Turnbull and the Coalition, which saw the government abandon plans following a backbench revolt to examine the use of an emissions intensity scheme as part of its 2017 review of climate policy, and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg - who initially said the review would examine an EIS - thrown under a bus even as he reversed course and said there would be no EIS.
The Business Council of Australia, usually a rusted-on supporter of the Coalition, on Friday slammed it for ruling out any prospect of such a scheme being used to reduce carbon emissions.
"The categorical ruling out of mechanisms to achieve this transition [to a low emissions economy], or imposing arbitrary moratoriums on lower-emissions fuels such as onshore gas, constrains the discussion about how agreement can be achieved," chief executive Jennifer Westacott said.
"Both the preliminary report from the Finkel Review Panel and modelling by the Australian Energy Market Commission highlight clearly the options available to government and the costs of ruling particular policies in or out."
An EIS sets a limit on how much a power station can freely emit for every unit of power generated. Cleaner generators that emit less than the limit earn credits, and sell them to dirtier generators above the baseline.
Presenting an issues paper on the electricity market to COAG, chief scientist Alan Finkel cited evidence from the Australian Electricity Market Commission that it would be cheaper to use an emissions intensity scheme to help reach national climate targets than any other option considered, including doing nothing.
Fairfax Media revealed on Thursday that modelling for the commission found electricity bills for consumers and businesses would be up to $15 billion lower over the decade to 2030 if an emissions intensity scheme was in place than if there was no policy.
The modelling was released on Friday.
Defending his government after the meeting, Mr Turnbull ducked questions about the potential for an emissions intensity scheme to actually reduce prices and vowed their would be no carbon tax or emissions trading scheme under his government.
"Critical to maintaining our international competitiveness is energy prices and energy security. We need to ensure that energy is reliable, we need to ensure that it is affordable. We need, of course, to achieve the emissions target cuts that we have agreed to in the Paris treaty," he said.
"The most striking observation from Dr Finkel this morning was that in the last six years household energy prices have risen by 61 per cent, inflation has been 14 per cent . . . that is a massive increase in the burden on Australian households."
But Mr Weatherill suggested Mr Turnbull had misrepresented what an EIS would do and said it was mischievous to conflate it with a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme.
"It was disappointing to see earlier this week the Prime Minister rule out an emissions intensity scheme, he said, adding that the Mr Turnbull had reverted to the "infantile slogans" he had criticised before becoming Prime Minister.
"The whole point of [chief scientist Alan] Finkel's recommendation is this puts downward pressure on electricity prices," he said.
Dr Finkel told the COAG meeting the electricity grid was undergoing unprecedented change, and leaders had a once-in-a-generation chance to reform it during the inevitable shift to a cleaner supply.
Speaking after the meeting, Dr Finkel told Fairfax Media there was evidence an emissions intensity scheme was compatible with maintaining a reliable grid.
He said benefits included that it would encourage low emissions technology of any kind, whether baseload low-emissions gas or renewable energy.
While Mr Turnbull maintained Australia could meet its climate targets with existing policies, Dr Finkel said they were not consistent the 2030 goal set in Paris. "I don't think it's an impossible target to be achieved [but] we need to be methodical about how we get there," he said.
He stressed that the security of the electricity grid was not as strong as in the past, and investors had lost confidence and wanted a coordinated national approach to energy and climate policies.
And Dr Finkel said electricity prices were high – up almost 50 per cent in six years - partly due to network expansion, but also due to high gas prices. He called for more to be done to increase gas supply.
The big three Labor states - Victoria, Queensland and South Australia - all refused to sign up to competition and productivity reforms after the meeting, citing a lack of federal cash.
NSW Premier Mike Baird nominated infrastructure spending as his key priority for the meeting, citing the "sobering" drop in GDP growth on Wednesday and argued governments needed to set new infrastructure goals to drive new economic growth.
He argued for billions of dollars to be pumped into infrastructure, but Mr Turnbull responded bluntly: "We are not an ATM."
Premier Andrews expressed his disappointment that a national deal on family violence leave had not been reached.
The meeting's put off the issue until a decision by the Fair Work Commission, which is considering an application to include an entitlement of 10 days' leave in all modern awards.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said waiting for the decision was a missed opportunity, and suggested COAG meet in regional Australia, where people were hurting in the two-speed economy.

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On Climate Policy And Power Prices Turnbull Is Talking Rubbish. Here Are Some Facts

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Ruling out carbon pricing is not, to quote Malcolm Turnbull, doing ‘everything that we can to put downward pressure on energy prices’ – it’s a recipe for keeping prices higher. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

"I just want to be very, very clear that energy prices are too high already. We will do everything that we can to put downward pressure on energy prices. We will not impose a carbon tax, or an emissions trading scheme – that is our position."

This is the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, talking to the Melbourne radio host, Neil Mitchell, on Thursday, talking nonsense as it turned out – which is what the government has been doing all week on the subject of climate change.
How do I know he was talking nonsense?
There are any number of reports we can draw on to call out what can only be described as unmitigated, lowest common denominator, political crap emanating from the mouth of the prime minister – but I’ll just pick a couple.
Let me share with you the findings of a report that lobbed into the public domain at the start of the week, sandwiched between the government opening what could have been a rational and productive conversation about climate change and energy policy, and the government melting in a small puddle of panic.
A firm called Jacobs was commissioned by the energy networks industry, in cooperation with the CSIRO, to look very carefully at Australia’s climate policy options. Jacobs is the same economic modelling firm used by the Climate Change Authority to analyse the impact of various policies. The CSIRO signed off on the report.
The firm looked at which policy would allow Australia to meet the emissions reduction obligations the Turnbull government signed up to when it ratified the Paris international climate agreement with the least impact on households.
The answer was very clear. It was an emissions intensity trading scheme.
That would be the scheme the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, very sensibly floated, after he cleverly and carefully set up the Direct Action review with sufficient breadth to be able to consider it – before he ran a mile when Cory Bernardi, Tony Abbott and Craig Kelly started stamping their feet and flaring their nostrils like a triumvirate of bulls in a paddock.
For readers who want more fine print, I’ll quote Jacobs: “The lowest electricity residential bills occur when the existing set of technology-specific policies are extended to all low-emission options and where trading within the generation sector is allowed.
“This is mainly because of the depressing effect on wholesale prices of bringing in and subsidising the dispatch cost of low-emission generation, with the depressing effect of wholesale prices outweighing the scheme liabilities.”
What this means in English is if you set up a technology-neutral emissions trading scheme in the electricity industry, and allow trading to happen, there’s an implicit subsidy for low-emission power generation, and that delivers lower prices for consumers than some of the alternatives.
You might be interested to know that the emissions intensity scheme (now scorned by the Turnbull government as being a source of upward pressure on household energy bills) would deliver an average saving of $216 a year on household electricity bills compared with business as usual.
Let me say that again lest your eyes have glazed over.
A saving.
Lower power bills.
Now what is the “business as usual” example in the Jacob scenario?
That’s the existing policy mix. That would be the Direct Action policy framework, with tighter baselines to drive the reductions required to meet Australia’s Paris commitments of reducing emissions 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030, plus the existing state-based renewable energy targets, which the government in Canberra claims not to like.
The status quo with the tweaks required to hit the Paris target are not the magic formula to lower power prices, they are the opposite. It’s the most expensive option Jacob looked at.
So ruling out carbon pricing is not, to quote Turnbull, doing “everything that we can to put downward pressure on energy prices” – it’s a recipe for keeping power prices higher than they would otherwise be.
And failing the test he’s set for himself is not the only problem Turnbull faces. Lacking the bottle to have a serious conversation about a rational, long-term energy policy framework to govern the electricity industry, and other high emissions players, is a recipe not only for higher power prices, but also for more energy insecurity.
More blackouts. A less efficient grid.
Now how do I know that? Because the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, has produced a report saying so in no uncertain terms.
Finkel has said people can’t invest in new electricity infrastructure in the absence of regulatory certainty, and when investment doesn’t happen, we have a second-rate grid.
So, to recap this tale of woe, Turnbull’s two key political messages since Frydenberg’s unseemly capitulation to conservatives earlier in the week – that we won’t do carbon pricing lest it inflate power bills, and that governments have a fundamental obligation to keep the lights on – are entirely inconsistent with the actions the government is taking.
The government, by digging in, is inflicting a 10th-rate policy on households, on the institutional investors who fund our grid, on the energy industry, on businesses who rely on power supply to generate economic activity.
Voters are being taken for a monumental ride. The government is acting like an outfit that thinks voters are stupid.
Perhaps this is considered smart strategising in our noxious post-truth political times. Perhaps there’s a gamble here that everything will be fine, because voters have had a gutful of experts and their studies, and journalists and their annoying fact-checking and relentless nit-picking. It’s all about the vibe.
Well here’s some vibe in return. Treating voters with contempt isn’t smart. It isn’t clever. It isn’t in the national interest.
It’s just wrong.
For Malcolm Turnbull, who knows better, and has been better, braver, stronger, more committed to evidence and logic and reason, the wrong is magnified.
Over 20 years of political reporting I have applied a consistent test to the governments I’ve watched: are they trying to do some good in the world? Are they trying to make Australia a better place?
On climate policy, apart from pushing through the ratification of the Paris agreement, which was a laudable gesture, and a difficult one to execute given the government’s poisonous internals, the Turnbull government is not trying to do some good in the world.
Right now, it is failing my fundamental test. It’s trying to skate through, and hope no one notices.

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