States Leave Federal Government In The Shade When It Comes To Renewables: Report

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

NSW has the most large-scale renewable energy projects under way in Australia, and lifted its share of clean energy markedly in the past year, as states and territories take the lead in decarbonising the electricity sector, a report by the Climate Council has found.
A jump in hydropower helped raise renewable energy share in NSW by 5 percentage points last year to 17 per cent. That was marginally above the national share of 16 per cent, and the second-biggest increase after South Australia.


Which is Australia's most renewable state?
With states taking the lead in the renewable energy push, a report by the Climate Council puts each state's efforts against one another.

The Climate Council, though, rated by the most populous state behind all but Western Australia and the Northern Territory. While NSW has a net-zero economy-wide emissions target for 2050, it has not set a goal for renewables.
By contrast, Victoria gained credit for its efforts to legislate this year a 25 per cent renewable energy share by 2020 and 40 per cent by 2025. Last year, the state's share was 12 per cent, up one percentage point from 2015.

The states are leading the way on renewables, a new report finds. Photo: Jessica Shapiro

How they measure up
Percentage of renewable energy in use by State

SOURCE: CLIMATE COUNCIL

Overall, efforts by states and territories are ahead of the federal government, which continues to dither over whether to set a Clean Energy Target as proposed by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel. The current Renewable Energy Target (RET), to achieve 33,000 gigawatt-hours a year, only runs until 2020.
"Almost all states and territories (except Western Australia) now have higher renewable energy targets or net-zero emissions targets which are stronger than the federal government," according to the council's Renewables Ready: States Leading the Charge report.
The Turnbull government "has not implemented any new policies to support renewable energy investment beyond measures in place before [it] took office" in 2013, it said. The government, though, had taken "some positive steps" to support energy storage schemes, such as the so-called Snowy 2.0 plans to boost capacity of the Snowy Hydro scheme.

Lindsay Anderson is a dairy farmer in Athlone, Victoria. More than one in every five Australian homes has solar panels. Photo: Paul Jeffers

Energy issues remain a hot political issue, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday telling the heads of major electricity and gas firms to help consumers cut their soaring power and gas bills by highlighting the best deals on offer.

About 3 gigawatts of new renewable energy will be under construction in Australia this year.

Big electricity retailers pledged to contact at least 1 million customers currently on default offers to explain how they might get lower tariffs. Longer term cost cuts, though, would depend on "policy certainty and new investment in generation", Matthew Warren, chief executive of the Australian Energy Council, said.
New wind and solar farms, underpinned by the RET, and new rooftop solars are almost the only new capacity being added to the grid.
In terms of large-scale projects, NSW will build eight ventures this year with a 1.018 gigawatts of capacity, roughly a third of the national total, the Climate Council report notes. Queensland is next largest, with 784 megawatts and Victoria third with 687 megawatts.
By comparison, Australia added 265 megawatts of large-scale capacity in 2016 as the sector began its recovery from an investment drought during the Abbott government years.
Among the states, Tasmania last year generated 92 per cent of its electricity from renewables – down from 99 per cent in 2015. South Australia last year lifted its renewable energy share by 7 percentage points to 47 per cent, a ratio lifted in part by the closure of an ageing coal-fired power station.
Rooftop solar, meanwhile, has now reached about 21 per cent of households, or 1.7 million homes, the council's report said.
Queensland appears to be living up to its one-time moniker as the sunshine state, with 31.6 per cent of homes having solar photovoltaics as of April. South Australia trails with 30.5 per cent, and WA 25.4 per cent.
NSW has the second-most installed rooftop panel capacity, at 1.413 gigawatts, behind Queensland's 1.727 gigawatts. Victoria has the third largest capacity at 1.048 gigawatts, the reports said.

Links

• renewables ready: states leading the charge - Climate Council
• States powering ahead on climate targets despite federal inaction, report shows
• SA, Tasmania and ACT leading the renewables race: Climate Council
• EU policy: opening markets for corporate renewable energy buyers
• The false burden of social cost on renewable energy
• Australia now generates enough renewable energy to power 70% of homes
• Energy storage project proposals sought for South Australia's AUS$150m renewables fund
• South Australia calls for “the next generation” of renewable energy and energy storage projects

Coalition Watering Down Finkel Review Climate Ambitions

The Guardian - Michael Slezak

Exclusive: Draft implementation plan lacks electricity emissions trajectory, Paris agreement alignment and low-income subsidies

(L-R) Josh Frydenberg, Barnaby Joyce, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison meeting with energy company heads on 30 August. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

The climate ambitions of the Finkel review appear to be being watered down by the government as it is implemented, according to a draft Coag Energy Council implementation strategy obtained by the Guardian.
The draft implementation plan removes a key recommendation for an agreed emissions trajectory for the electricity system, alignment with the Paris agreement and subsidised solar and batteries for low-income houses.
Sources tell the Guardian the document was prepared by the federal government and distributed to state and territory representatives on the morning of the meeting, leaving little time for state representatives to analyse it.
A final version of the document is expected to be delivered to Coag today.
The federal environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, declined to comment on the document, saying: “It is not appropriate for any government to comment on draft documents of the Council of Australian Governments.”
Described by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, as a “blueprint for the once-in-a-century transformation currently taking placing in Australia’s energy system”, the Finkel review presented 50 recommendations to the Council of Australian Governments (Coag).
Those recommendations were intended to solve the energy “trilemma” – delivering affordable and reliable electricity, while lowering emissions.
The review itself was widely criticised for lacking in ambition when it came to action on climate change, and failing to align with Australia’s commitments made in the Paris climate agreement.
The key recommendation of the review was a clean energy target, which Frydenberg has so far failed to get approved by the joint Coalition party room, which includes a number of climate change deniers.
But the party room agreed to the other 49 recommendations, which the Coag Energy Council is now advising heads of government on how to implement.
At a teleconference on Friday last week, state and territory energy ministers were presented with a draft implementation plan for discussion.
That document, obtained by the Guardian, appears to water down those recommendations in relation to climate change, and removes some altogether.
One key recommendation in the Finkel review that has been severely weakened in the draft implementation document is a change that would force the electricity market to align efforts to meet government emissions reduction commitments made as part of the Paris agreement.
Finkel’s recommendation said Coag leaders should agree to a new Australian Energy Market Agreement, which commits all parties to “a nationally consistent approach to energy policy that recognises Australia’s commitment in Paris to reduce emissions and governments’ commitment to align efforts to meet this target with energy market frameworks.”
But the draft implementation document removes the reference to international emissions reduction commitments, instead saying merely that the agreement will “reaffirm Australian governments’ commitment to the [national electricity market] and a national, integrated approach to energy and emissions reduction policy”.
Among Finkel’s key recommendation for an “orderly transition”, he called for three things: the clean energy target; a three-year notice of closure for existing large generators; and “an agreed emissions reduction trajectory”. All three moves were part of one recommendation, numbered 3.2.
The Coalition has not agreed to adopt the clean energy target but it has agreed to the three-year notice-of-closure rule, which appears in the implementation plan. However, the plan does not contain any mention of an agreed emissions reduction trajectory.
Frydenberg told the Guardian his view is that the Coag Energy Council did not agree to the emissions reduction trajectory because it is part of the clean energy target.
“The Coag Energy Council has agreed to implement the recommendations of the Finkel review except for the clean energy target, which includes the national electricity market emissions trajectory which the federal government is currently considering.”
It is unclear why the emissions trajectory is considered part of the clean energy target, since the Finkel review makes clear that there are a number of mechanisms that could achieve such a trajectory. Finkel modelled several such mechanisms, including an emissions intensity scheme.
Another Finkel recommendation calls for low-income households to be given subsidised access to “energy efficient appliances, rooftop solar photovoltaic and battery storage systems”.
Explicit references to renewable energy has been removed in the draft implementation plan and replaced with “energy efficiency and demand management technologies”.
Sources say representatives of the ACT raised the question of the trajectory being removed, and asked for it to be included. Representatives of Queensland and Victoria also apparently raised concerns about some of the other changes.
Sources said the document, which was prepared by the federal government, was circulated to state energy ministers only hours before the meeting was held, leaving little time for proper scrutiny.
The document is expected to be finalised and sent to heads of government today.

Links

• How Australia's climate policies came to be poisoned by pragmatism
• Analysis 13 ways Frydenberg sold 'climate policy' to coal-loving MPs
• Jay Weatherill renews warning Labor states could go it alone on energy policy
• Energy price rises due to policy uncertainty hurt poor most – report
• 'Too early to say' if Coalition will back clean energy target, Frydenberg says
• Finkel review: renewable energy to face new security and reliability regulations
• BlueScope Steel backs low emissions target as way to achieve energy balance
• Tony Abbott warns against low emissions target ahead of Finkel review
• Renewable energy spike led to sharp drop in emissions in Australia, study shows
• Shorten fails to specify cost of Labor's renewables policy when asked four times

Arctic Sea Ice Outlook At Worst Point In 125,000 Years

Cosmos - Andrew Masterson

Though temperatures were warmer during the last interglacial period, the greenhouse effect of atmospheric C02 is now melting more Arctic sea ice.

Sediment cores reveal that during the last interglacial period atmospheric CO2 levels were about 290 parts per million (ppm). Now the level is about 400 ppm. Peter Orr Photography / Getty Images

The prognosis for summer Arctic sea-ice loss over the next few decades is worse than it was 125,000 years ago during the last interglacial period, despite the fact temperatures were higher then.
That is the sobering conclusion reached by researchers at the Alfred-Wegener Institute in Germany. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.
A team led by paleoclimatologist Rüdiger Stein combined sediment core data and climate models to estimate historical ice levels in the Arctic Ocean, in light of evidence-weighted predictions that such ice may disappear during the northern summer in the next 50 to 100 years.
Even though “the high latitudes were significantly warmer than today” during the interglacial period, the scientists state, “sea ice existed in the central Arctic Ocean during summer”.
The key climatic difference between then and now, they found, was the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Sediment cores revealed that during the interglacial period, atmospheric CO2 levels were about 290 parts per million (ppm). Now the level is about 400 ppm.
Modelling used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts CO2 levels will increase to 500 ppm over the next few decades. Plugging these values into their models, Stein and colleagues predict sea ice in the central zone of the Arctic Ocean will decline rapidly over the next several decades and disappear completely in about 250 years.
Rising CO2 levels add layers of complexity to Arctic climate models because it alters the feedback mechanisms that operate between ice, sunlight and seawater.
Wide, thick ice sheets reduce the biological fecundity of the waters beneath them but also have a strong albedo effect – reflecting sunlight back into atmosphere and thus limiting the energy absorbed by the ocean.
As CO2 levels increase, the ice sheets become less robust, shrinking and thinning. The albedo effect is proportionately reduced, potentially boosting ocean biomass through increasing light and heat.
The researchers write that sea ice, because it is involved in several key climate feedbacks including ice-albedo feedback and cloud-radiation feedback, “plays a substantial role in the global climate system variability, known as polar amplification”.
To assess sea-ice thickness more than 100,000 years ago, Stein and his team used biomarkers – specifically, signatures of a species of algae that exists beneath moderate sea ice sheets.
The absence of algal traces at points in the sediment cores is clear evidence of periods when the ice sheet was too thick for the species to inhabit the location.
The researchers concede their modeling and the ice core evidence contain inconsistencies that limit the predictive power of their findings. However, they term the paper an “important groundtruthing” exercise. They call for more detailed data and more sophisticated models that examine, in particular, “external forcings and related internal feedback mechanisms” to further improve results.

Links

• Arctic Ocean sea ice cover during the penultimate glacial and the last interglacial
• Why is Antarctica's sea ice spreading as the Arctic's shrinks?
• Arctic sea ice hits a record low wintertime maximum
• Thinning Arctic sea ice means wildlife must adapt or die