Mining firm in talks with government over Clean Energy Finance Corporation oil field funding proposal.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan said carbon
capture and storage can cut emissions and
 retain access to coal-fired power.

The company behind an Australian-first plan to use pollution from power stations to extract oil says taxpayers should help fund the project, despite criticism that it uses an unproven and expensive technology.

The Turnbull government has been in talks with the proponent over the venture, and believes such technologies can lower carbon emissions while keeping coal-fired power stations running.

Read Nicole Hasham’s story from The Age - “Mining firm in talks with government over Clean Energy Finance Corporation oil field funding proposal.”

Coal could get clean-energy subsidy under new Turnbull focus

Malcolm Turnbull has flagged a policy
 switch that is sure to provoke anger
 from anti-coal environmentalists.

Malcolm Turnbull has opened the possibility of using clean-energy subsidies to build new-generation, coal-fired power stations as he branded Labor's heavy focus on renewables "mindless", and a recipe for more expensive, less reliable electricity.

Flagging a policy switch sure to provoke anger from anti-coal environmentalists, but set to please fossil-fuel enthusiasts in the Coalition partyroom, Mr Turnbull said technological advances had made new coal-fired generators viable as a potential foundation in the overall energy mix.

Read Mark Kenny’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Coal could get clean-energy subsidy under new Turnbull focus.”

(Clean coal is a misnomer. However it is framed, coal is simply a dirty form of energy and just this morning on ABC TV, the Environment Minister, Josh Frydenburg, argued that clean coal combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS) would result in a reliable power source for Australia, bringing a reduction of some ninety percent in carbon dioxide emissions – two things, coal is a still a dirty form of energy and the idea that it can be made “clean” is, at base, a lie. CCS has not been scaled-up to a point anywhere near a level to where it would be useful, in any sense – CCS is not tried and tested and is a technology that lags far being the well understood and immediately applicable wind and solar energy sources. The Prime and Environment Ministers are doing nought but misleading the Australian public – Robert McLean)

The Fire Through the Smoke: Working for Transparency in Climate Projections

The government of a low-lying island nation is considering the construction of a seawall to protect its capital and economic hub from the rising seas brought on by climate change. The length and expense of the project depends on how high the wall needs to be — 3 feet? Four?

A group of preeminent climate scientists evaluated
the scientific work and expert judgments behind
the most recent projections from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
 regarding the potential ecological, social,
economic and meteorological repercussions of
climate change.

A wall that’s too high would be needlessly expensive and intrusive. One that is too low would make the effort to protect the soon-to-be inundated city in vain, sapping resources that could have been put toward other preventative measures. Doing nothing could be disastrous.

Policymakers such as those in that island nation have little room for error when it comes to responding to the climate crisis. Yet they must take specific measures based on numerous projections of the Earth‘s future climate that are drawn from the work of thousands of researchers around the world. Political leaders may be left to wonder how all that work was vetted and condensed — and who exactly put in the work, in order to have confidence in the result.

Read the STRN for Stem story - “The Fire Through the Smoke: Working for Transparency in Climate Projections.”

$150 homes revive ancient techniques to fight climate crisis

Masons work with earth bricks to
 construct Nubian vault homes.

Millions of households in the Sahel region of West Africa live under a growing threat.

Deforestation and climate change have decimated the available supply of wood that is used for traditional roof construction, forcing many to use imported sheet metal.

This is both prohibitively expensive and unsuited to the climate, entrenching poverty and making homes that boil in summer and freeze in winter.

One creative enterprise is reaching back over 3,000 years for a solution, borrowing an architectural technique from the ancient Nubian civilization of latter-day Sudan to offer superior homes at minimal cost.

Read the CNN story - “$150 homes revive ancient techniques to fight climate crisis.”