ESB modelling confirms NEG designed to shut door on renewables

The latest modelling for the federal Coalition’s proposed National Energy Guarantee confirms the new policy would effectively shut the door on new renewable investment at the national level in the next decade.

The modelling – included in a new 50-page document prepared by the Energy Security Board for the COAG energy ministers meeting on Friday – suggests that the NEG is barely better than doing nothing.

In its low demand scenario, doing nothing would meet the government’s emissions targets just as effectively as the NEG, the modelling shows. Adopting the NEG would add an extra 1 percent of renewable capacity over doing nothing over a whole decade.

“Both BAU and the Guarantee achieve the emissions reduction target under the ‘low demand’ scenario,” it says. And that would mean no need for any new wind or solar.

In its most optimistic scenario (see table below), the NEG would add just 4 percent of additional renewable capacity over business as usual – yet even this modelling appears to underestimate the uptake of rooftop solar. So the incentive for new large-scale investment is largely illusory.

Read the story by Giles Parkinson on RenewEconomy - “ESB modelling confirms NEG designed to shut door on renewables,”

A catastrophic climate feedback loop long feared by scientists is happening

Julie Rodriguez - 'greenhouse
 gases rising out of the ground'.

For years environmental scientists have warned of a catastrophic climate “feedback loop” that could pump a massive underground repository of carbon and methane into the atmosphere, significantly worsening climate change.

A new study published this week confirms that fear is finally coming to pass. Rising temperatures are causing microorganisms in the soil to breathe more quickly, which releases an increased amount of carbon dioxide or methane into the atmosphere. Global warming has become so serious that greenhouse gasses are simply rising out of the ground beneath our feet worldwide.

Most people don’t realize that the planet’s soil is packed with a dense network of trapped carbon, created by plants and roots that have been buried over the eons. These plants pull in carbon from the air to use as fuel, and when they die, the carbon remains within the soil. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem: it serves as a natural carbon sink which helps regulate the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

Read the Inhabitat story by Julie M. Rodriguez - “A catastrophic climate feedback loop long feared by scientists is happening.”