It'd be wonderful if the claims made about carbon capture were true

The International Energy Agency warned this week that, under current energy policies, Australia is unlikely to meet its 2030 climate commitments.

‘The only way CCS on coal will ever be built at scale is with
a carbon price so high it’d kill the rest of the coal sector.’

While the agency had lots to say about the plunging costs of renewables and the need for strong market signals to encourage the retirement of old and inefficient coal generation, Josh Frydenberg, the federal environment and energy minister, seized on the agency’s support for carbon capture and storage (CCS) – despite the technology’s long history of big promises and meagre results.

Last April, Frydenberg visited the newly opened Petra Nova CCS project in Texas. In a video posted to social media the minister, decked out in the obligatory hi-vis vest and hard hat, yells above the noise that the $1bn project is “helping to reduce the carbon footprint by some 40%”.

Read the comment by Simon Holmes à Court on The Guardian - “It'd be wonderful if the claims made about carbon capture were true.”

Formula E could be the only viable motorsport series by 2040

Alejandro Agag, the founder and CEO of Formula E championship has predicted that, given the current climate policies, the electric vehicles racing series will be the motorsport of the future.

Formula E will be the motorsport of the future.

Mr. Agag said that advanced technological developments, the direction of climate policies in restricting carbon emissions and the increasing decline in conventional combustion engine vehicles manufacturing will soon take over the motorsports industry too.

"I think Formula E is going to get really, really big. I believe that in 20, 30, 40 years, we will be the only motorsport out there”, he said.

Read the Climate Action story - “Formula E could be the only viable motorsport series by 2040.”

Climate energy appeasement does not work

The current chaos around climate and energy policy brings to mind George Santayana’s caution that: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. That is exactly what we are witnessing, albeit with far more profound implications even than the advent of the Second World War.

In November 1936, Winston Churchill, concerned at the dangers posed by the Third Reich, warned the House of Commons about the refusal of the British establishment to face up to reality:

“They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent……Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have now entered upon a period of great danger …..  The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close.  In it’s place we are entering a period of consequences….. We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now …..”

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was not to be diverted from the appeasement path, returning from Munich in September 1938 waving his “peace in our time” paper signed with Hitler.  The rest is history; the war started a year later.

Read the RenewEconomy story by Ian Dunlop - “Climate energy appeasement does not work.”

The Energy Innovators: Alan Finkel’s vision for the future

There are few hotter issues in Australia in recent times than the energy system and our current and future energy needs. Alan Finkel is at the centre of just about all of it.

Dr Alan Finkel.

In the second of ARENA WIRE’s Energy Innovators series featuring leading minds in the field of renewables, Australia’s chief scientist, poses the question: Would you rather embrace the future or go backwards in time?

As with all episodes of this nine-part series, you can watch the speaker’s talk and then also separately view the fascinating Q&A session that followed.

Expanding on the key recommendations of his review into the National Electricity Market, which he handed to the Turnbull government in June, Professor Finkel says investors need policy certainty to take the plunge into renewables.

And he points to natural gas, proof-of-concept testing and retail pricing as areas of growing interest.

But just as importantly, he explores how the innovation we hear of today will convert into something real and tangible tomorrow. 

Read the ARENA Wire story and watch the interview with Australia’s chief scientist, Dr Alan Finkel - “The Energy Innovators: Alan Finkel’s vision for the future.”