Lethal Heating: February 2017

28/02/2017

ANU: Wind, Solar And Hydro Grid Cheapest Option For Australia

Renew Economy - Giles Parkinson

A new study by energy experts from the Australian National University suggests that a 100 per cent renewable energy electricity grid – with 90 per cent of power coming from wind and solar – will be significantly cheaper future option than a coal or gas-fired network in Australia.
The study, led by Andrew Blakers, Bin Lu and Matthew Stocks, suggests that with most of Australia's current fleet of coal generators due to retire before 2030, a mix of solar PV and wind energy, backed up by pumped hydro, will be the cheapest option for Australia, and this includes integration costs.
The report says that wind is currently about $64/MWh and solar $78/MWh, but the costs of both technologies are falling fast, with both expected to cost around $50/MWh when much of the needed capacity is built. With the cost of balancing, this results in a levellised cost of energy (LCOE) of around $75/MWh.
By contrast, the LCOE of coal is $80/MWh, and some estimates – such as those by Bloomberg New Energy Finance which adds in factors such as the cost of finance risk – put it much higher.
Blakers says his team did not need to dial that higher price of coal into the equation: "We don't include a risk premium or carbon pricing or fuel price escalation or threat of premature closure because renewables doesn't need any of this to compete," he says.
Nor do his estimates include any carbon price, which will further tip the balance in favour of renewables. Nor do they include future cost reductions in wind and solar. "There is no end in sight to cost reductions," Blakers says.
"Much of Australia's coal power stations will reach the end of their economic life over the next 15 years. It will be cheaper to replace these with renewable energy." The two key outcomes of this modelling is that the additional cost of balancing renewable energy supply with demand on an hourly basis throughout the year is relatively small: $A25-$A30/MWh (US$19-23/MWh), and that means that the overall cost of a wind and solar dominated grid is much lower than previous estimates.
Indeed, the ANU team suggest that less storage is needed than thought. The optimum amount of pumped hydro is 15-25 GW of power capacity with 15-30 hours of energy storage.

This is based on more wind than solar. If Hwind and PV annual energy generation is constrained to be similar then higher power (25 GW) and lower energy storage (12-21hours) is optimum.
Total storage of 450 GWh +/- 30% is optimum for all the scenarios. This is equivalent to the average electricity consumed in the NEM in 19 hours.
At this stage it should be pointed out that Blakers is a long time proponent of pumped hydro, and this modelling appears designed to support that technology.
For instance, the modelling avoids any "heroic" assumptions about technologies that have not been deployed at scale – meaning battery storage and solar thermal and storage are not included, and neither is geothermal or ocean energy.
Nor does the modelling – which looks at every hour of the year based on data from 2006-2010 – assume other opportunities such as demand management, when consumers agree and sometimes get paid for reducing their load at critical moments on the grid.
The modelling shows that a large fraction of the balancing costs relates to "periods of several successive days of overcast and windless weather that occur once every few years."
Substantial reductions in balancing costs are possible through contractual load shedding (as occurred in Tomago aluminium smelter and BHP's Olympic Dam recently), and the occasional use of legacy coal and gas generators to charge pumped hydro reservoirs if needed.
Another option is managing the charging times of batteries in electric cars.
"Although we have not modelled dynamical stability on a time scale of sub-seconds to minutes we note that pumped hydro) can provide excellent inertial energy, spinning reserve, rapid start, black start capability, voltage regulation and frequency control," the authors write.
Pumped hydro has become a focus of attention in recent weeks, advocated by the Coalition government and others, seemingly in the absence of any consideration about the falling costs of battery storage.
EnergyAustralia last week announced a study into a large 100MW pumped hydro facility on South Australia's Yorke Peninsular. This work includes contributions from the ANU team.
So, how much does all this cost? The ANU team estimates $184 billion, or $152 billion at future prices of wind and solar. But before the Coalition and others start to hyperventilate about the billions to be spent, the ANU team also point out that this means no fuel costs in the future.
That's why the key number is $75/MWh, which is around one third of the price that Queenslanders have been paying so far this year for their coal and gas power, making the investment in a 116MW solar farm by zinc producer Sun Metals, which is looking to expand its facility, as a good idea.
Some other interesting points from the study:

A sensitivity analysis has been performed on the baseline scenario by varying the following cost- components by +/- 25%: PV, wind, PHES, HVDC/HVAC, system lifetimes and discount rate. The effect on LCOE is less than +/- $2/MWh except for system lifetimes, for which the effect is +/- $5/MWh, and wind capital cost and discount rate, for both of which the effect is +/- $10/MWh (about 10%).
Large scale deployment of electric vehicles and heat pumps would increase electricity demand by up to 40%. Importantly these devices have large scale storage in the form of batteries in vehicles and heat/cool in water stores and the building fabric. This storage may substantially reduce LCOB in the future.
The LCOB (levellised cost of balancing) calculated in this work is an upper bound. A large fraction of LCOB relates to periods of several days of overcast and windless weather that occur once every few years. Substantial reductions in LCOB are possible through reduced capital and maintenance costs, contractual load shedding, the occasional.
In most scenarios the modelling meets the NEM reliability standard of no more than 0.002% of unmet load (4 GWh per year) without demand management." However, in other scenarios we assume that demand management is employed during critical periods, which are typically cold wet windless weeks in winter that occur once every few years.

"During these periods the PHES reservoirs run down to zero over a few days because there is insufficient wind and PV generation to recharge them, leading to a shortfall in supply. The amount of PV, wind and PHES storage could be increased to cover this shortfall. However, this substantial extra investment would be utilised only for a few days every few years."
One suggestion is to relax the reliability standards: "A portion of the savings in investment in PV, wind and PHES would be available to compensate certain consumers for partial loss of supply for a few days every few years. For example, reducing the overall cost of electricity supply by $2/MWh by allowing an unmet load of 336 GWh per 5 years would save $2 billion per 5 years, which is equivalent to $6,000 per unmet MWh.
Hmmm, but just imagine the headlines.

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Australia's Summer Heat Hints At Worse To Come

The Guardian - Kate Ravilious

If the third warmest January on record occurred during a La Niña event, scientists are asking what El Niño has in store

A couple shelter from the heat at Sydney's Bondi Beach. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty

Right now south-eastern Australia is having an unbearable summer. Temperatures in Sydney have regularly been in the upper 30s in recent weeks, while inland areas have had several days in the mid-40s.
January was the hottest month on record for Sydney since 1859, and the persistent warmth into February (with many places topping 35C day after day) may topple the New South Wales record of 50 hot days in a row.
Firefighters have been on high-alert, sporting events have had to be cancelled and power stations have struggled to cope with the high demand as air conditioning systems run at full tilt.
But it isn't just Australia that is feeling the heat. Climate scientists have confirmed that January 2017 was the third warmest January in 137 years of record keeping. Which is shocking given that it occurred during a La Niña event. We expect global temperature records to be broken during El Niño events (when central and eastern Pacific waters are warmer than average) but until now El Niño's cooler cousin, La Niña, has usually brought respite from the heat.
Last year we had the extreme "Godzilla" El Niño, contributing to record breaking weather conditions all around the world. Meanwhile, in recent months we've seen weak La Niña conditions. Now the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have confirmed that La Niña has slipped away and some climate models are hinting that El Niño conditions could return as early as this summer.
There is still a fair bit of uncertainty, but if El Niño does roar back this quickly we'd better brace ourselves for yet more record breaking weather.

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'Significant Event': Coral Bleaching Returns To The Great Barrier Reef

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Parts of the Great Barrier Reef are enduring sustained periods of heat stress worse than at the same time during last year's record-breaking coral bleaching event, raising fears the natural wonder may suffer another hammering.
Some 54 checks by the reef's Marine Park Authority off Mission Beach, about midway between Cairns and Townsville, found 60 per cent of sensitive coral species were already bleaching after 12 months of sustained abnormally warm temperatures.

Coral bleaching returns to the Great Barrier Reef: Richard Fitzpatrick surveys the toll near Cairns. Photo: Christian Miller

"There's enough bleaching there to tell us that it is a significant heat-stress event," Russell Reichelt, the authority's chairman, said on Saturday. "There's the risk there of widespread bleaching leading to further mortality."
The World Heritage-listed reef last year suffered its worst bleaching event on record, with northern regions losing as much as 80 per cent of corals.
Many of the big tourist sites were spared the worst of the bleaching or recovered quickly, but this year the heat stress is closer to Cairns and other popular sites, as Fairfax Media reported earlier this month.
"It's the first time we've been getting a big bleaching event two years in a row," said Richard Fitzpatrick, an Emmy Award-winning underwater cameraman, who recently returned from Vlasoff Reef, north-east of Cairns.
The bleaching is evident at places where Mr Fitzpatrick filmed sequences for the Great Barrier Reef series led by David Attenborough, the UK naturalist.
"We've started to see the first mortality," Mr Fitzpatrick said.

Great Barrier Reef's bleached coral up close
Parts of the Great Barrier Reef are enduring sustained periods of heat stress worse than at the same time during last year's record-breaking coral bleaching event, raising fears the natural wonder may suffer another hammering. Vision supplied: Biopixel.

If waters stay too warm for too long, corals expel the zooxanthellae algae living in their tissues that provide as much as 90 per cent of the energy they need to grow and reproduce. . The corals then bleach and face increased risks of disease, and those that survive can take years to recover.

'Alarming'
Dr Reichelt said the authority would survey other parts of the reef to see how far bleaching has spread.

Coral bleaching at Pixie Reef, outside of Cairns, earlier this month. Photo: www.brettmonroegarner.com

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies is also preparing to repeat aerial surveys of last year to monitor changes, Terry Hughes, the Townsville-based centre's director, said.
"The 2017 bleaching is still building as we approach the summer peak temperature," Professor Hughes said. "Hopefully, it won't be nearly as bad as last year."

Richard Fitzpatrick examines bleached corals at Vlasoff Reef, north east of Cairns. Photo: Christian Miller

"It's alarming that the reef is bleaching so soon again, giving no time for recovery from the huge losses of corals in the northern third of the Reef in 2016," he said. "The scary part is that 2017 is not an El Nino year – and the period between these bleaching events is getting shorter, too short for recovery."
Imogen Zethoven, campaign director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said "we are running out of time" to save the reef, particularly from climate change.
Ms Zethoven singled out on-going support for the Adani-owned Carmichael coal mine that, over a projected 60-year life, would result in 4.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, adding to global warming.
"There's an imminent risk of another severe bleaching event," she said. "There is no hint from the federal government that they are responding to this as a national emergency."

'Natural wonder'
Josh Frydenberg, the federal energy and environment minister, dismissed the threat to the reef from the Carmichael mine, highlighting its location rather than the emissions burning its output will produce.
"If you're talking about Adani, that's 300 kilometres inland," Mr Frydenberg told ABC Radio on Friday. "We are concerned about increased heat stress on the reef, but we are making real progress at a state and a federal level to combine our efforts to improve the health of the reef which is a beautiful natural wonder of the world."
He cited Australia signing up to the Paris climate agreement - with the country pledging to slice 2005-levels of pollution 26-28 per cent by 2030 - the 2020 Renewable Energy Target, and the Reef 2050 Plan.
However, Mark Butler, Labor's climate spokesman, said the government's own data showed Australia's carbon emissions "rising as far as projections go to 2030".
"Nothing short of real strong action, both around the reef and nationally to tackle climate change, will do," he said, noting as many as 70,000 jobs relied on tourism in the region. "That is not what we've seen after over three years of Liberal government."

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27/02/2017

Climate Scientists Face Harassment, Threats And Fears Of 'McCarthyist Attacks'

The Guardian - Oliver Milman

Researchers will have to deal with attacks from a range of powerful foes in the coming years – and for many, it has already started

Michael E Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University. ‘Michael has most certainly become a lightning rod,’ said MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel. Photograph: Supplied

A little less than seven years ago, the climate scientist Michael Mann ambled into his office at Penn State University with a wedge of mail tucked under his arm. As he tore into one of the envelopes, which was hand-addressed to him, white powder tumbled from the folds of the letter. Mann recoiled from the grainy plume and rushed to the bathroom to scrub his hands.
Fortunately for Mann, the FBI confirmed the powder was cornstarch rather than anthrax. It was perhaps the nadir of the vituperation hurled at Mann by often anonymous critics who accuse him and others of fabricating or exaggerating the dangers of climate change.
“Michael has most certainly become a lightning rod,” said Kerry Emanuel, an MIT climate scientist, although this doesn’t mean others have been shielded.
Emanuel himself has previously received emails threatening him and his family. The Texas Tech University professor Katharine Hayhoe, who has gathered a healthy following for her Facebook posts that mix climate science with evangelism, has opened her inbox to missives including “Nazi Bitch Whore Climatebecile” and a request that she “stop using Jesus to justify your wacko ideas about global warming”.
Threats and badgering of climate scientists peaked after the theft and release of the “Climategate” emails – a 2009 scandal that was painfully thin on scandal. But the organized effort to pry open cracks in the overwhelming edifice of proof that humans are slowly baking the planet never went away. Scientists are now concerned that the election of Donald Trump has revitalized those who believe climate researchers are cosseted fraudsters.
Mann said climate scientists “fear an era of McCarthyist attacks on our work and our integrity”. The odd unfulfilled threat may be perturbing but a more morale-sapping fear is that the White House and Congress will dig up and parade seemingly unflattering emails, sideline or scrap research and attempt to hush the scientific community.
“I faced all of those things a decade ago, the last time Republicans had full control of our government,” said Mann, who has been pursued on and off since 2010 when Virginia’s then attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, unsuccessfully demanded that the University of Virginia hand over all of Mann’s correspondence to see if he had obtained grants fraudulently. The American Tradition Institute, a free-market thinktank, followed up with a records request for the same correspondence.
After several years fending off these claims, Mann decided to wade into a fight with the National Review, a conservative publication, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, another free-market group. Mann’s lawsuit states that “false and defamatory statements” accused him of academic dishonesty and compared him to a convicted child molester, the former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
“I don’t think Michael is doing this happily, but he views it as vital to stand up to those who undertake personal attacks,” said Peter Fontaine, Mann’s lawyer.
Fontaine expects climate scientists will have to deal with attacks from a range of powerful foes in the coming years. “If you believe climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, as Donald Trump does, you will go after anything that opposes that view,” he said. “A lot of people will be hung out to dry.”
The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which was set up in 2011 and has assisted Mann and other scientists from attempts to access their emails, deals with half a dozen such cases a year, give or take. It expects a busier 2017.
“We are hearing from scientists every week who are worried about what is going to happen,” said Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the fund. “Now Trump is in charge, who knows how the federal agencies will react, if they will understand that they have to protect scientists.
“Trump himself is a bully and has emboldened a whole trove of people who have become bolder and meaner. That includes those who will target climate scientists. I’ve spoken to a scientist who received a death threat and is concerned it will happen again.”
Kurtz and her small team, housed at Columbia University, are currently siding with the University of Arizona against a demand it release more than a decade’s worth of emails from two of its climate scientists, Malcolm Hughes and Jonathan Overpeck.
The records request has come from Mann’s former tormentors the American Tradition Institute, now rebranded as Energy & Environment Legal Institute, a group that promotes “free market environmentalism”. It has previously sued Nasa to reveal the extracurricular income of its former scientist James Hansen, whom E&E calls the “original climate alarmist”.
E&E’s University of Arizona demand includes all of Hughes’ correspondence with Mann over a six-year period. The two were research partners on the famous “hockey stick” research that outlined the steep climb in global temperatures after humankind began belching emissions from mass industrialization.
In an apparent bid to bolster a case that research has been rushed out to artificially prop up the global warming theory, E&E is also seeking all of Overpeck’s emails that include the word “deadline”. This voluminous request will involve digging through hard drives in dusty basements. In June last year, an Arizona trial judge ruled that the emails must be turned over.

‘The administration’s disdain towards climate science has prompted some climatologists to consider leaving the profession.’ Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

The case, and others like it, hinges on the question of how public publicly funded institutions should be. Various conservative groups – as well as news outlets including the Washington Post and AP – have argued scientists should be subject to full freedom of information laws, meaning their emails are fair game. Universities and their researchers insist that academic freedom would be stifled by requests that could quickly morph into witch-hunts.
In his court submission, Overpeck said the time taken to respond to E&E’s request wiped out his sabbatical, accusing the group of wanting “to burden, embarrass, or harass climate researchers such as myself”.
Several climate scientists have reported becoming far more careful about what they say in emails, in case a “smoking gun” be construed from them. Funding applications are light on mentions of climate change, even when it is the research topic. The arrival of an administration considered disdainful of climate science has even prompted some climatologists to consider leaving the profession in fear of funding cuts.
“The uncertainty unsettles the staff, and some are more vulnerable than others,” said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist who has been at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research since 1984. “If graduate students look for careers in other areas, suddenly you have a gap where no good young scientists are replacing ones who are retiring.
“Many people are adopting a wait-and-see strategy with Trump. But those who have to make decisions on their careers are looking more widely than they would have done before.”
Nasa’s satellites are still orbiting the Earth and checking on its fever, while government scientists are still measuring the acidification of its oceans and charting the extent of its glaciers. But reports of a gag order on Environmental Protection Agency scientists and a cabinet dotted with those who dismiss mainstream climate science has made researchers jittery about the future of such research.
Some of the EPA’s climate information has been altered, although an expected purge has yet to materialize. In an internal video message, Catherine McCabe, the interim EPA administrator, said she wanted to “allay fears and rumors” among staff by reassuring them that the modifications were “ordinary housekeeping changes that have been made by EPA career employees”.
Fretful researchers believe more is afoot, assembling a volunteer group that has set about archiving climate data and monitoring federal agencies for deletions. The enterprise, called the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, was set up the day after Trump’s election triumph and is indexing 150 climate-related domains. Archiving events, open to volunteers, will take place every other day over the coming month.
“We are hearing a real sense of despair from people at federal agencies,” said Rebecca Lave, who volunteers for the project aside from her role as associate professor of geography at Indiana University. “There’s a sense that quite drastic things can happen even in democratic societies. The US isn’t immune to that.”
As scientists await the Trump administration’s next move, congressman Lamar Smith has barreled onwards in his personal crusade to uncover nefarious practices by climate scientists. Smith, a Republican from Texas, is so enthused by Trump that he recently advised the American public to get its news directly from the new president as it was “the only way to get the unvarnished truth”.
In February, Smith, chairman of the House science committee, further flattered the new administration by holding a hearing called “Making the EPA great again”. Despite the title of the hearing, Smith’s main target was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which he said had “deceived the American people by falsifying data to justify a partisan agenda”.
In 2015, Smith claimed that “climate alarmists have failed to explain the lack of global warming over the past 15 years” (despite the fact 14 of the 15 warmest years on record at that point had occurred since 2000) and subpoenaed Noaa to produce every single email sent by an agency scientist that included words such as “climate” and “temperature”.
Two days before the “Making the EPA great again” hearing, Smith was blessed with what he believed to be vindication – a Daily Mail story that claimed Noaa manipulated temperature data to hide a warming “hiatus” and rushed out the research in order to help convince countries to sign the Paris climate deal in 2015.
The purported whistleblower rebuffed the central claims of the story, while scientists were quick to point out that several separate studies have shown there has been no real pause in warming. Andrew Light, a chief US negotiator in Paris, said it is “ridiculous” to posit nearly 200 countries were waiting for one crucial study before agreeing to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
But the House committee’s embrace of the Daily Mail story – it devoted nearly a dozen tweets to the allegations – indicates that agencies such as Nasa and Noaa will be under the microscope with uncertain levels of support from the administration that oversees them.
The pursuers contend that climate scientists deserve the scrutiny given the gravity of their findings – the future livability of the planet – and their salaries drawn from the public purse. Judicial Watch, a conservative group, is suing Noaa for thousands of internal communications previously denied to them because they fall under “deliberative process” – discussions that take place before a final decision.
“There has been scandal after scandal involving climate data and we are skeptical of government agencies that won’t tell people what they are up to,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch.
“The gig is up for the left who are hiding behind government obstruction. There has been a politicization of the science. I’m sure scientists are concerned that funding for dubious research will be cut, but the truth will win out in the end.
“We hope we won’t get the same obstruction we got from the Obama administration under this new administration. We’ll see.”
While the legal challenges wind their way through the courts, perhaps the best climate scientists can hope for is that the venom seen after Climategate has seeped into other nooks of public life. The flash points for the Trump administration are coalescing around immigration and the president’s persona. Climate science may become a secondary fight.
“I think the chaos of the transition will settle down and the administration will realize that attempts to muffle scientists usually backfire terribly,” said MIT’s Emanuel, who identified as a Republican until 2006. “The country is polarized on so many things that are much more immediate, like abortions. Climate is down the list of things people want to squabble about.”
“I think we are in a mild state of shock after the election. Politics has been turned upside down and all of these dark forces have erupted. Climate science may well take a back seat to all of that.”

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New UN Climate Chief: 'Action On Warming Unstoppable'

BBC - Roger Harrabin

President Trump's attitude to climate change has drawn protests in many parts of the world. Getty Images

The UN’s new climate chief says she’s worried about President Donald Trump - but confident that action to curb climate change is unstoppable.

President Trump said he’d withdraw from the UN climate deal and stop funding the UN’s clean energy programme.
But former Mexican diplomat Patricia Espinosa told BBC News that the delay in any firm announcement suggests the issue is still unresolved.
She travels to US this weekend to try and meet the new US secretary of state.

'World will carry on'
Ms Espinosa said it would be more damaging for the US to leave the on-going climate talks process altogether than to stop funding the clean energy programme.

New UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa on the left with her immediate predecessor Christiana Figueres. Getty Images

The US pays approximately $4m (£3.2m) towards this programme every year - and often an extra $2m in voluntary funding.
But she said the rest of the world would carry on tackling climate change without the US, if necessary.
She said China’s stated willingness to lead the world in curbing emissions might cause American diplomats to ponder the implications of allowing China a role of global moral leadership.
“We are of course worried about rumours that the possibility of the US pulling out of the Paris agreement and the convention on climate change,” she said.
“It would be very bad if there were a change of position in the US. That’s why I’m looking forwards to engaging with the US as a partner.”
She did not explain how the US would be able to remain within the Paris framework whilst scrapping action on its own emissions strategy that helps underpin that process.

Embracing green action
But she drew hope from the vast number of firms and cities looking towards a low-carbon future - in the US and around the world: "A lot of US businesses are really going into the agenda of sustainability and some are making their own commitments in emissions reductions in their own operations."
“An incredible amount of cities have embarked on ambitious goals; some states like California have been for many years in the forefront of this agenda.
“In International Petroleum Week, I was very encouraged to hear how much some of the oil and gas companies are realising that the future of their industries is in a transformation into clean energy companies - and they have embraced this in their own interest.
“The transformation has started. I think it’s unstoppable.”
Ms Espinosa smiled at the irony of dealing with Mr Trump as a Mexican, a woman, and someone who works in climate change.
She said her trip to the US would include meeting businesses and civil society groups and - hopefully - a senior member of the administration. She is anticipating a meeting with the new secretary of state Rex Tillerson.
The former CEO of the oil giant Exxon Mobil warned recently that climate change is a genuine risk, and said the US should stay at the table of UN talks.
Other nations have responded differently to the new situation presented by Mr Trump. China has offered to lead and India has surprised many with its new level of ambition.
Saudi Arabia has expressed support for a slower rate of decarbonisation and Russia - the fifth largest emitter - has not yet ratified the climate deal from Paris.

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Australian Consortium Launches World-First Digital Energy Marketplace For Rooftop Solar

The Guardian - Bianca Nogrady

Pilot program will allow homeowners to tap into a network of ‘virtual’ power stations made up of smart grids of rooftop solar and batteries

Rooftop solar currently represents around 16% of renewable energy generation in Australia, and is estimated to increase to between 20 and 50%. Photograph: Michael Hall/Getty Images

Australian homeowners with solar panels and batteries could soon trade their electricity in a digital marketplace developed by a consortium of electricity providers, energy tech startups, energy retailers and energy agencies.
The Decentralised Energy Exchange – or deX – was launched on Thursday with the promise to “change the way energy is produced, traded and consumed at a local level in Australia”.
Phil Blythe, founder and CEO of GreenSync – an energy tech startup and partner in deX – says the project reflects a shift in energy production from a centralised model of large-scale power plants to a decentralised model of rooftop solar.
“The uptake of rooftop solar is one of the highest in the world per capita in Australia – around 1.6 million rooftops are fitted with solar – and it’s being rapidly followed by battery storage,” Blythe says.
This has led to a shift away from thinking of households solely as energy consumers towards them being viewed as active participants in the grid.
“If we’re going to have customers that can participate in a grid, then they need to get paid for their participation,” he says. “We needed … a new way of thinking about how these decentralised grids are going to work and fundamentally, how do we do that cost-efficiently.”
With that challenge in mind, in 2016, GreenSync got together with electricity network operators United Energy and ActewAGL, energy tech startup Reposit Power, and energy retailer Mojo under the auspices of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s A-Lab; an initiative that the Arena chief executive, Ivor Frischknecht, describes as an “innovation sandbox”. Arena contributed $450,000 towards the total project cost of $930,000.
What they came up with has yet to be done anywhere in the world: a network of “virtual” power stations made up smart grids of rooftop solar panels and batteries. The aim is to reduce energy costs, drive investment in renewable energy, stabilise the electricity grid and buffer it against surges in demand such as the recent heatwaves.
With power now being generated not only at the centre of the grid but out at the fringes, deX acts like traffic lights controlling the flow of power in all directions according to where the need is, explains Frischknecht.
“For example, a particular line is overloaded at a particular time of the day or it thinks it might be, what the deX exchange does is for the network to effectively post that problem in an automated fashion and for households with batteries and solar to say, yep I’ve got a solution for you,” he says. “DeX allows that exchange to happen in both a technical way and a financial way.”
This communication will be enabled by a system developed by Reposit Power that controls the home-based battery and links it to the exchange. This smart system communicates with the marketplace in real time, looking for incentives that the household’s energy portfolio can participate in.
An individual household’s solar panels and battery might seem like small fry but aggregated together, they became a significant electricity resource. Several thousand households, each with a battery holding around five kilowatts, can operate together as a virtual power plant with a capacity well into the megawatt range.
These virtual power plants represent a huge untapped resource; not least because they require a minuscule fraction of the cost of building a new coal-fired power plant, but also because they can be far more responsive to surges in energy demand.
“If we talk about the need for a blackout this year or next year, there’s no way we can go and build a power plant in that time,” Blythe says. “We need to think about how to use the smarts to harness those assets and bring them together and advertise these contracts that can be fulfilled in three to six months at the longest, and respond to heatwaves or sudden climate events.”
But if so much of the load is being taken up by individual household solar systems, does this take the pressure off governments to invest in energy infrastructure? Are we at risk of decentralising too much?
Frischknecht argues that if anything, we are still too reliant on centralised energy production.
“All of the load is out at the periphery of the network; the load is where this generation and storage is,” he says. “It means that the network will be better supported and ultimately we could end up with cheaper networks, which are the majority of our electricity costs, so this is a pathway to lower electricity costs.”
The federal minister for the environment and energy, Josh Frydenberg, says the project is an important initiative that creates two-way interface between energy consumers and local network operators.
“This holds the potential to deliver on the government’s commitment to increasing the reliability of Australia’s energy system, whilst supporting a more effective and cost-competitive rollout of renewable energy to households,” Frydenberg says.
While rooftop solar currently represents around 16% of renewable energy generation in Australia, Frischknecht says it is estimated to increase its contribution to anywhere between 20 and 50% of all electricity generation.
The consortium is launching two pilot projects in the ACT and on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, each involving around 5,000 households. The projects are also being overseen by a reference group that includes the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Australian Energy Market Commission and Energy Consumers Australia.

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26/02/2017

'Going Gangbusters': Solar Surge Has Only Just Begun And Batteries' Charge Close Behind

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Solar energy's surge is only just getting started in Australia as utilities join the rush to a source of power that is now far cheaper than new coal plants, a report by the Climate Council finds.
The report also comes as the world's biggest supplier of batteries, Warren Buffett-backed China's BYD, marks out Australia as its second market to target consumers anxious to shield themselves from rising electricity prices.

Solar photovoltaic prices have fallen almost 60 per cent in five years and can now supply electricity as low as $78 per megawatt-hour for large-scale plants. That's close to half the cheapest levelised cost of ultra-super critical coal-fired power, the council report said, citing Bloomberg New Energy Finance data.
The cost of solar power is now below the retail prices of all Australian capital cities, with the exception of Canberra, the report says. The average small-scale solar system has a capacity of 5.4 kilowatts.
But while households have led Australia's take-up of solar PV so far, the next push will come from large-scale systems. There are more than 20 projects likely to reach financial close this year alone. (See chart below of 12 of them).
"It's really starting to take off," Andrew Stock, an energy industry veteran and author of the report, said. The current projects have more than 1 gigawatts of capacity, with a total of 3.7 gigawatts in the development pipeline.
"Solar is really going gangbusters globally," Mr Stock said, noting that new PV installations jumped almost 40 per cent to 73 GW in 2016 from the previous year. "These large solar plants can now produce electricity well, well under the costs of conventional [fossil fuel] thermal plants."

CSIRO builds solar partnership with China
The CSIRO will sign a technology licensing agreement with a Chinese solar company that could reap millions of dollars in royalties for the national science and industry organisation. Video of the solar research plant in Newcastle courtesy of CSIRO.

Solar can provide power when demand peaks, which is why EnergyAustralia, AGL and Origin are jumping into the market for utility-scale plants, he said.
While household panels have largely been pointed to face northwards in Australia to maximise midday generation, new large-scale plants are being built to track the sun's trajectory.
"Single-axis tracking will hold up better through to sunset," Mr Stock said.
During the recent record-breaking heatwave in NSW, large-scale solar supplied 132 MW of electricity at the 6pm (AEDT) peak of demand on February 10. Rooftop PV supplied an estimated 291 MW, the Australian Energy Market Operator said in a report released on Wednesday.
At that time, Tomago Aluminium, the largest electricity user in the state, was operating at a reduced load of about 580 MW, as the state struggled to avoid blackouts.
While Australia has world-class solar resources, other nations are so far achieving much lower prices for new solar projects. (See chart below.)
The Climate Council report blames a relative lack of experience in such projects but also higher financing and construction costs.

Whether 2017 can top last year in terms of worldwide solar installations remains unclear, with the Global Solar Council last month saying it expected a tough year before a recovery next year.
Big installers in China and the US were among those likely to curb construction this year.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, though, predicts global PV will rise to 78.4 GW of new capacity this year and 88.3 GW next year, according to Jenny Chase, the group's head of solar analysis.
India will be among the nations expected to take up some of the market slack, with installations likely to more than double this year from 2016 to 9.4 GW, Ms Chase told Fairfax Media.

Australian appeal
BYD, which supplies about 12 per cent of global batteries though its electric car and utility storage businesses, is among the storage companies hoping to grab market share in Australia.
Buffett, the US billionaire investor, holds 10 per cent of the firm.
The company on Wednesday unveiled its range of batteries for households up to larger commercial users, with the smallest size with 2.5 kw-hour capacity likely to start from "under $3000", Julia Chen, a company spokeswoman told Fairfax Media.
BYD is hoping to target households that have lost generous feed-in tariffs that paid as much as 60¢ per KW-hour exported to the grid. Many will now be earning a tenth of that sum or less, and instead will be facing steeply higher electricity bills for any electricity they buy from utilities.
Australia is the second market after Germany that BYD has targeted. Demand for storage is expected to rise to 20,000 to 30,000 units this year, and BYD is aiming to grab 20 per cent of the market, Ms Chen said.
BYD estimates the market opportunity is about 200,000 households already with PV to add batteries as prices continue to fall. That number will swell as more homes add panels.
Technology gains are likely to see energy density levels for lithium batteries continue to fall for another two or three years. After that, cost gains are likely to be driven increasingly by scale savings and other improved manufacturing processes, Ms Chen said.

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Can Australia's Wicked Heat Wave Convince Climate Change Deniers?

Deutsche Welle

Sydney's sweltering recent record high of 47 degrees Celsius has brought the reality of climate change into sharp focus for many Australians. Skepticism in the country is waning - quickly enough?

Thousands of bats fell dead out of the trees as Sydney's parched suburbs reached their hottest temperature on record earlier this month: 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) saw parts of the city receiving the dubious honor of being the hottest place on the planet that day.
That would be considered an unusually hot day, even in the Sahara Desert.
The city's human residents fled to beaches, shops sold out of fans and power cuts hit more than 40,000 homes in southern Australia after the electricity grid struggled to cope with air conditioning demand. A total of 87 fires raged across the state of New South Wales at the heat wave's peak in February.
For Australia, these heat waves are likely to only get worse. Although it is the developed country already most feeling the effects of climate change, heatwaves that are longer, hotter and more frequent are yet to come, according to a 2016 report from the Climate Council.
Professor David Karoly from the University of Melbourne told DW that in the best case scenario, if global greenhouse gas emissions are effectively curbed, Australia would be on course to experience heat waves five times as frequently by the end of this century compared with the latter part of the 20th century.

Sydney's citizens flocked to its beaches to cool down - those living farther inland didn't have that luxury

But if emissions remain high - which Professor Karoly pointed out as the current track in Australia and the rest of the world - then heat waves would increase in frequency by a factor of 10 by the end of this century in the country. Average heat wave temperatures would rise 3 degrees Celsius to an unbearable 50 degrees Celsius in some places, including Sydney.
For Professor Karoly, a member of the Climate Change Authority that advises the Australian government on climate change policies, global warming isn't some far-off scenario.
"It’s very clear: It's not just expected to worsen in the future, it's happening now," he told DW.

Skepticism down - but far from out
In a country revealed as having the highest rates of climate skepticism in the world - at the end of the list of 14 industrialized countries in a study published in 2015, showing nearly one in five Australians didn't believe climate change was happening - the blistering heat is bringing the realities of climate change to the fore. And with this, a seeming shift in attitudes.

Around 60 percent of Australians believe climate change is real and caused by human activity, a 6 percent rise since December 2016, according to a poll carried out by Essential Research and published this week.
The proportion of those believing we may just be witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth's climate fell slightly, by 2 percent to a total of 25 percent over the same period.
An earlier, separate survey for the Climate Institute published in September 2016 put the proportion of Australians saying climate change is happening at 77 percent, up from 70 percent in 2015.
Adrian Enright, policy manager on climate change for WWF Australia, told DW he believes that Australians witnessing whatvthe devastating effects of higher temperatures are is helping turn the tide.
Following a series of smashed heat records, he told DW it's "not surprising that in a recent poll, we saw a jump in people associating global warming with human activities."
"The impacts of the recent heatwave, including off-the-scale bushfire risk warnings, have illustrated to Australians the sorts of risks we are being exposed to if we fail to curb carbon pollution," said Enright.

Sports fans tried to keep cool while watching tennis at the Sydney Olympic Park in January this year

"Climate change skepticism is overall declining, as both the scientific evidence and our first-hand experience of heatwaves and extreme weather events increases."
The devastating coral bleaching suffered by the Great Barrier Reef that reached its peak in 2016 "brought the reality of climate change home for many Australians," added Enright.

Lobbying fueling climate denial flame
But although climate change skepticism may be seeing a decline, Professor Karoly thinks it remains worryingly prevalent - thanks in no small part to a powerful fossil fuel lobby.
"In Australia 40 years ago, there was consensus on climate change," he told DW. "The conservative Australian government of the late 1980s and 1990s was committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
But he said that as soon as there seemed to be serious government plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce growth in fossil fuels, the coal industry and a number of media outlets effectively downplayed signs of climate change.

Stocking up on water to keep dehydration at bay during the deadly heat

Professor Karoly told DW that although heat waves have "had some impact on the population wanting strong action on climate change," this is "being combated by well-funded and well-organized campaigns that have led to a continuing apparent policy debate around what action on climate change is needed."

Australia's poor climate credentials
The current government, headed by the conservative Liberal Party and the rural-based National Party, revoked Australia's carbon trading scheme two years ago, Karoly pointed out.
"Since then, emissions have grown for two years, [although they had] fallen during the previous five years," he said.
Australia is the least-active country among the G20 when it comes to climate protection, according to a report by Climate Transparency in 2016, receiving the worst possible rating of "very poor" for its performance on overall climate policy. And Australians are feeling the repercussions.
Simon Bullock, senior campaigner on climate change at Friends of the Earth, told DW: "Ordinary Australians' health, agriculture and nature are all at increasing risk from drought, heat, flood and fires.
"Sadly, people are now seeing and experiencing climate change in their own lives. No amount of media misinformation from climate deniers can alter that."

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India’s Air Pollution Rivals China’s As World’s Deadliest

New York Times - Geeta Anand

Smog blanketed New Delhi in 2016. About 1.1 million people die prematurely in India every year from the effects of air pollution. Credit Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

NEW DELHI — India’s rapidly worsening air pollution is causing about 1.1 million people to die prematurely each year and is now surpassing China’s as the deadliest in the world, a new study of global air pollution shows.

The number of premature deaths in China caused by dangerous air particles, known as PM2.5, has stabilized globally in recent years but has risen sharply in India, according to the report, issued jointly on Tuesday by the Health Effects Institute, a Boston research institute focused on the health impacts of air pollution, and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, a population health research center in Seattle.

India has registered an alarming increase of nearly 50 percent in premature deaths from particulate matter between 1990 and 2015, the report says.

“You can almost think of this as the perfect storm for India,” said Michael Brauer, a professor of environment and health relationships at the University of British Columbia and an author of the study, in a telephone interview. He cited the confluence of rapid industrialization, population growth and an aging populace in India that is more susceptible to air pollution.

An Indian farmer walked through his field after burning his crops. A court has ruled that farmers can no longer burn their crops near New Delhi, but many still do. Credit Saurabh Das/Associated Press

Pollution levels are worsening in India as it tries to industrialize, but “the idea that policy making should be led by government is lacking,” Bhargav Krishna, manager for environmental health at the Public Health Foundation of India, a health policy research center in New Delhi, said in an interview.

As air pollution worsened in parts of the world, including South Asia, it improved in the United States and Europe, the report said, crediting policies to curb emissions, among other things. The report’s website that provides country-by-country data on pollution levels and the health and mortality effects.

Environmental regulations in the United States and actions by the European Commission have led to substantial progress in reducing fine particulate pollution since 1990, the report said. The United States has experienced a reduction of about 27 percent in the average annual exposure to fine particulate matter, with smaller declines in Europe. Yet, some 88,000 Americans and 258,000 Europeans still face increased risks of premature death because of particulate levels today, the report said.

A fraction of the width of a human hair, these particles can be released from vehicles, particularly those with diesel engines, and by industry, as well as from natural sources like dust. They enter the bloodstream through the lungs, worsening cardiac disease and increasing the risk of stroke and heart failure, in addition to causing severe respiratory problems, like asthma and pneumonia.

The report offers good news globally, in some ways.

Although deaths caused by air pollution grew to 4.2 million in 2015 from 3.5 million in 1990, the rate of increase of about 20 percent was slower than the rate of the population rise during that time. That’s because of improved health care in many parts of the world, as well as public policy initiatives undertaken in the United States, Europe and other regions that reduced emissions from industrialization, the authors of the study said in telephone interviews.

Villagers near a newly built state-owned coal fired power plant in southern China. Credit Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

China also offers an encouraging sign. Premature deaths from particulate matter each year have stabilized at around 1.1 million since 2005, the report said. Still, that is an increase of 17 percent since 1990, when it was a little more than 945,000.

The health effects of the ultrafine particles are still being studied and the full effects are only beginning to be understood, said Majid Ezzati, a global environmental health professor at the Imperial College, London.

“These studies are hard to do, and isolating the effects of air pollution is hard,” Dr. Ezzati said. “The numbers are still dynamic and nobody should claim an exact number of deaths is known.”

The Eiffel Tower seen through a haze of air pollution in Paris last month. The United States and Europe have made good progress in cutting fine particulate air pollution since 1990. Credit Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

But if he were an Indian citizen, he said, “I’d say, ‘Let’s not sit there and do nothing about it. Let’s not be exposed to it today as more research is being done.’”

Although few studies of the health problems brought by air pollution are based in India, Dr. Ezzati said, “it’s hard to imagine air pollution that is bad for people in London is not bad for people in India.”

Neither India’s environment minister nor its environment secretary could be reached for comment Monday evening.

Robert O’Keefe, vice president at the Health Effects Institute, said China’s trajectory on deaths from air pollution had stabilized as a result of the country’s efforts to reduce air pollution.

Emissions from the Kentucky Utilities Ghent Generating Station in Ghent, Ky., in 2014. Credit Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

India, on the other hand, had yet to undertake sustained public policy initiatives to reduce pollution, said Gopal Sankaranarayanan, an advocate at the Supreme Court of India who successfully petitioned it to ban licenses to sell fireworks in the New Delhi metropolitan area last year. Fireworks during the festival of Diwali contributed to hazardous levels of air pollution late last year.

Weak environmental regulation in India, he said, leaves India’s citizens with few alternatives other than to petition the courts to take action to protect the public’s health.

But the courts often lack the power or mechanisms to enforce their actions, he said. India’s environmental court, the National Green Tribunal, ordered farmers to stop burning their crops in the region around New Delhi in 2015, but the practice still continued last year. Smoke from the farm fires contributed about one quarter of the levels of the most dangerous air pollution in the Indian capital, environmental experts said.

“If you can’t enforce the directives of the courts — it becomes a problem,” Mr. Sankaranarayanan said. “We need practical solutions to save lives here in India.”

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25/02/2017

50 Reefs: World-First Global Plan Says Only 10 Pc Of Coral Reefs Can Be Saved From Extinction

ABC News - Greg Hassall | Rebecca Latham

A before and after image of coral bleaching in March 2016 (left) and later dying in May 2016 (right) at Lizard Island. (Supplied: The Ocean Agency/XL Catlin Seaview Survey)

Key points:

New focus on reefs that are least vulnerable to climate change and have best chance of survival once global temperatures have stabilised
List of 50 reefs to be finalised by end of the year
Uncertainty whether entire Great Barrier Reef will make list of reefs to be protected

A new global plan aims to save the meagre 10 per cent of the world's coral reefs predicted to survive beyond 2050.
It is the first worldwide initiative aimed at protecting reefs from extinction and to date funding is coming from philanthropic organisations, not governments.
Scientists estimate 90 per cent of the world's coral reefs will disappear in the next 35 years due to coral bleaching induced by global warming, pollution and over-development.
The grim outlook accounts for the targets set by the Paris Agreement on climate action being met and ocean temperatures stabilising.
The 50 Reefs initiative, launched today at the World Ocean Summit in Bali, is an ambitious plan to identify and protect the world's most critical reefs.
Built on the work of a team led by University of Queensland Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and the Ocean Agency's Richard Vevers, it brings together a coalition of scientific experts and philanthropic innovators from around the world to fund and implement the plan.
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg insisted their approach was realistic, not pessimistic.
"It's based on the best science. It's saying we will only have 10 per cent left but let's make sure those 10 per cent have the best chance of survival."

Coral bleaching is a highly visual direct impact of the ocean absorbing 93 per cent of climate change heat, The Ocean Agency says.

"There's no global plan at the moment to save coral reefs.
"This is the first of its kind. It's a massive plan."
The 50 Reefs initiative is radical in both its scope and approach. Importantly, it shifts the focus from the most critically endangered reefs to those that have the best chance of survival once global temperatures have stabilised.
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg referred to the process as one of "triage".
"We're only going to have 10 per cent of today's reefs there so, knowing that, how can we best provide support for those reefs so they do survive?"
Mr Vevers said the plan was about scientifically identifying the reefs least vulnerable to climate change and also the ones most important as seed centres to allow reefs to repopulate over time.
He said the predictions were a real wake up call that the planet was potentially losing its most biodiverse ecosystems.
"It's not about losing a tiger or a single species; it's an ecosystem of up to a million species. We're not just talking about corals; we're talking about all the species that are dependent on those corals — that's what's so shocking about what's happening right now," he said.

Global plan paints bleak picture for reefs (Image: The Ocean Agency / XL Catlin Seaview Survey) (ABC News)

Which reefs will make the list?
Ground-breaking technology, involving 360-degree virtual reality images, have helped document the state of reefs across the globe and will be used in the 50 Reefs program.
"No-one had ever tried to take 360-degree imagery underwater while motoring along a reef environment," Mr Vevers said.
So far, thousands of images have been taken across 22 countries.
Given the various criteria involved, the job of selecting the 50 reefs will fall to a team of international experts, who are expected to finalise their list by the end of this year.
Whether the Great Barrier Reef is included remains to be seen, although given its size and diversity there is an expectation parts of it would meet the criteria.
"We're going to leave the decision about how we select those 50 sites to the expert group but it's entirely possible that there might be part of the Great Barrier Reef that might be of special importance," Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.

"Certainly the Great Barrier Reef is an important part of the mix," Mr Vevers said.

"So we're expecting the science to show the areas most vulnerable to bleaching and global impacts and the areas which are least vulnerable and hopefully that will help with the management."

Thousands of 360-degree virtual reality images will form part of the research into which reefs will be chosen for the 50 Reefs project. (Supplied: The Ocean Agency / XL Catlin Seaview Survey)

International non-government funding behind plan

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg says it's worth pouring effort into protecting the remaining 10 per cent of reefs expected to survive past 2050. (Australian Story: Rebecca Latham)

"The first phase — to identify those 50 reef systems and to begin to engage with business and governments and so on — is going to cost about a million dollars," Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.
"The second phase, where we intervene and start to make changes on the ground, we're really talking about a much larger project — we're probably taking about $100 million at the very least."
Frustrated by a lack of political leadership with the management of climate change, the team has secured initial funding for the project from a range of non-government organisations including Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Tiffany and Co Foundation and the family foundation of Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen.
It comes after research found the temperatures that caused last year's devastating coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef will occur almost every year by 2050 unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed quickly.

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