Bob's Report

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A DIGEST OF EVENTS AND ISSUES – JANUARY/FEBRUARY

Who Cares about Climate Change?

The Federal Government’s pathetic proposal to reduce carbon pollution, and the Opposition’s contention that even with this Clayton’s plan to tackle climate change “we’ll all be rooned!” both indicate that they are totally ignorant of the catastrophe threatening the planet, and that their first priority is to protect the profits of our worst polluters.

In his foreword to the World Watch Institute’s “State of The World 2009”, R K Pachauri, Director General, The Energy and Resources Institute, and Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), leaves no room for doubt:

“On the basis of strong and robust scientific evidence, the IPCC stated clearly that ‘ warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.’

The scientific evidence is undeniable, but behind the cold statistics the potential they hold for human suffering unless GHG pollution is halted is mind bending. Consider the following examples:

The Rudd government’s targets for emission reductions of 5-15% by 2020 would risk temperature rises of up to 3°C which would destroy the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu and further degrade the Murray/Darling system. Apparently these losses are acceptable to the government.

Increasing global temperatures have accelerated the melting rate of Himalayan glaciers feeding the principal rivers in India and China. In 2007 the IPCC said that it was reasonable to expect that unless GHG emissions were stabilised these glaciers would be gone by the middle of the century. 70% of the water in the Ganges River comes from the rapidly shrinking Gangotri glacier. Once it disappears 40% 0f India’s irrigated cropland and 400 million people will be affected. Half the population of China live in the valleys of its two principal rivers that depend on glacial melt, particularly in the dry season.
In 2005 the eminent climate scientist Dr James Hansen warned that: “We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption”. And Dr Jay Zwally, a glaciologist at NASA, commenting on the near disappearance of the Arctic sea ice in 2008 concluded that “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming…and now as a sign of climate warming the canary has died.” Most climate scientists now think that the permanent loss of Arctic sea ice predicted for 2012 will be the tipping point for a much hotter global climate and dangerous sea-level rises.

Why are these and other similar climate impacts never mentioned by Government or Oppostion politicians when they are arguing about emission targets?

What does Professor Garnaut think of the Rudd Government’s White Paper?

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald (19/12/08) the principal adviser to the government on national climate change policy, Professor Ross Garnaut, has appealed to the government to “keep the 25% option on the table” to avert dangerous climate change.

He argues: “Australia cannot play a strongly positive role in encouraging the global community towards the best possible outcomes if it has ruled out in advance its own participation in strong outcomes”.

He is even more critical of the government’s policy of compensating our biggest polluters: “There is no public policy justification for $3.9 billion in unconditional payments to electricity generators in relation to hypothetical future ‘loss of asset value’ ” and : “Never in the history of Australian public finance has so much been given without public policy purpose, by so many to so few.”

The White Paper’s proposal to issue free carbon permits to the steel, paper, pulp, and chemical industries of up to 45% of all permits issued, he condemns as a form of protectionism that could provoke other countries to retaliate. Fixing this, should be “an urgent matter for the restoration of global prosperity.”

How To Beat Climate Change ? Pay The Polluters !

On the same day they reported Professor Garnaut’s criticisms the SMH also examined the guidelines for subsidies payable to industries under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme up to 2012, According to Ben Cubby, their environmental reporter: “The Federal Government will spend $9 billion cushioning industry against the impact of carbon trading over the next three years.”

33 production processes would be eligible: including cement, steel and iron making, lead, aluminium and zinc smelting, cardboard and newsprint production. Aluminium smelters, steel and cement will have 90% of their carbon emissions covered by free permits. Alumina refining, liquid natural gas and petrol refining could be given free permits for 60% of emissions.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has commissioned a study by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors that lists the top 30 recipients and the amounts of compensation they would receive under the emissions trading scheme. Some of the biggest winners are: Rio Tinto $620 million per year, Alcoa $228 million and Woodside $109 million. (Rio Tinto’ payments over two years amount to more that the Federal Government’s entire renewable energy fund). Our dirtiest power stations have not been forgotten. Over five years Hazelwood (Vic) would receive $990 million, Gladstone (Q) $152 million, and Bayswater (NSW) $131 million.

ACF comments: “This analysis suggests the big polluters got what they wanted from the White Paper”.

Straight from the Horse’s Mouth

If you think that the ACF comment is “only to be expected from a green source”, you might give more weight to findings published in the White Paper. Marian Wilkinson, the SMH’s environmental editor has reported (19/12/08) that modelling in the White Paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme “shows that there will be no significant reductions in carbon pollution from coal-fired power stations by 2020 if the Government sticks to a target of cutting emissions to 5% below 2000 levels.”

Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, maintains that the “assistance measures” to polluting industries “have been designed to provide strong incentives for these industries to reduce their emissions; to adopt emissions-reducing technologies and processes, and to fully factor in the carbon price when considering new investment opportunities.”

What Can We Expect from the Electricity Generators?

The Australian electricity industry does not have an impressive record in investing in research and development. An Australia Institute analysis of figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in October 2008 shows that it spent only $79 million on R&D, including renewable energy, or less than 1% of the total value added by the industry. This contrasts unfavourably with the $3.78 billion, or 3.7% of its output that the manufacturing industry spent on research.

Most people would have expected that the electricity industry, that generates about 45% of Australia’s carbon emissions, would have been at the forefront of exploring lower emission and renewable technologies. After all, the threat of climate change has been looming for more than a decade.

Another Serious Flaw in the Emissions Trading Scheme ?

Richard Denniss, Director of the Australia Institute, has revealed a huge weakness in the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme, that has been acknowledged by a growing number of analysts over the last few weeks. His media release of 25/11/08 states that:

“When emissions trading comes in, every tonne of carbon dioxide saved by households will simply free up a tonne that can be used by industry. Installing solar hot water systems, driving smaller cars, and turning off the lights will not help the environment one bit. The only effect reductions in household energy will have is to free up pollution permits for the big polluting industries.”

The CPRS must be modified so reductions in household emissions benefit the environment instead of making it easier for industries to continue polluting.

(For a detailed explanation of Richard Denniss’s argument go to www.tai.org.au and type in Fixing the Floor in the ETS)

Renewables are Good for the Economy

Whenever politicians of both major parties comment on reducing our GHG emissions they inevitably warn that job losses in the polluting industries would occur if we plan for deep cuts in our emissions. Have they considered the thousands of tourist industry jobs that would be lost if our emission reduction target allows temperatures to increase above 2° C and the Great Barrier Reef is destroyed ?

The Trade Union movement, whose primary concern is the welfare of workers, does not believe that lowering our emissions and increasing our reliance on renewables poses a threat to employment. Quite the contrary. In a media release (30/10/08) publicising the results of a report jointly commissioned by the ACTU and the ACF, The Green Gold Rush: How ambitious environmental policy can make Australia a leader in the global race for green jobs, ACTU president Sharon Burrow says that “…government policy settings and private investment are needed immediately to reach a target of nearly a million green jobs by 2030” and “By establishing a strong domestic market in these sectors, Australia will also develop the skills and expertise necessary to compete in the international green energy market which is currently worth $US 1.4 trillion.” (For the full report go to www.actu.asn.au/climatechange)

Similar conclusions regarding employment have been published locally. Newcastle University’s Centre of Full Employment and Equity issued a report, A Just Transition to a Renewable Energy Economy in the Hunter in June 2008. It demonstrated that major benefits would follow a shift from coal-fired power generation to a renewable energy economy, including “the creation of thousands of new secure, well-paid jobs in the research, design, manufacture, installation, maintenance, and export of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.” Net job increases of between 3,900 and 10,700 were estimated.

This result is not surprising. The renewable industry is very labour intensive, while the fossil fuel industry has been shedding jobs. According to The World Watch Institute US coal production over the last two decades has increased by one third, but employment has been halved.

LMCA Activities

LMCA vice president Gordon Pears attended the Sky Channel information session presented by the Federal Department of Climate Change at Newcastle Panthers on February 26th . Gordon was impressed by the articulate explanation of the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme given by the Department’s Deputy Secretary, Blair Conway, but his explanations were limited to the processes to be used to implement the Department’s ETS. He could not critically examine the policies themselves.

Unfortunately the policies are being supported or opposed by politicians on essentially political, not scientific, grounds. Gordon writes:

“Though politicians might try to dress them up differently…there are three simple questions:

How far and how fast should Australia move in the direction to which the overwhelming scientific evidence is pointing?
How do we distribute the pain that the change required will inevitably impose on the Australian community ?
Should Australia lead or follow in the global response to climate change?
“At present the responses of the Rudd government and the Opposition…are weak, uncertain and often deceitful…I believe the Rudd government is capable of posing the right questions and finding the best answers. But this will only happen when this government recognises that the best way to win the next election is not the traditional method of distributing bribes but by engaging in honest and open dialogue with the Australian people about a threat that is greater than any other in the recorded history of mankind.

“Rudd must also accept that the global economic crisis is not an excuse for timidity in dealing with the global warming crisis, but rather a heaven-sent opportunity to bring about the lifestyle and attitudes that global warming calls for. We will either solve both these crises or neither.”

LMCA president Richard Edmonds was one five LMCA members who inspected some of the projects being conducted at the CSIRO Energy Centre on the Steel River Estate on Wednesday 25 February. Ted Howells, Jo Stojsic, Owen Bailey, and Bob Phillips were also present. Stephen White took us on a tour of the establishment. Here is Richard’s report:

Building Energy Management. We were taken to an office and shown the lighting system which is by natural light supplemented by high-efficiency fluorescent fittings controlled by movement sensors. We also saw the air conditioning system which distributes cooled air from floor vents and out over the top of office walls. The a/c operation can be set to maximum comfort, minimum cost or minimum emissions or a weighted combination of these factors. When ambient conditions allow (approx. 60 days per year) the building is ventilated naturally.

Smart Grid Laboratory. This consisted of a room containing approx 10 small refrigerators. Each one had been fitted with a small chip so that internal temperature and compressor on/off information could be relayed to data processor. It was explained that to maintain temperature all fridges cycle compressor on/off. If load shedding required, intelligent processor can turn off fridges preferentially to minimise temperature impact.

Solar cooling laboratory. The principle of the system is to dehumidify ambient air using rotating desiccant wheels in a moving air stream. This dry air is contacted with warm, moist air which is cooled by evaporation. Solar heat is used to regenerate the desiccant

Solar thermal troughs. This array focuses sunlight on to oil-filled tubes which are heated to ~250oC. The hot oil is used to generate electrical power via a Rankine Cycle system, or used as a coolant via absorption chillers.

Solar thermal tower .This system focuses sunlight from an array of mirrors on to a single point on a tower and produces temperatures of 800-1000oC. Experimental work is ongoing to use this heat to reform natural gas into a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, having a higher calorific value.

Wind Turbines. The various turbines around the site were disabled at the time of the visit due to lightning damage. It was explained
that ultra batteries (a hybrid ultra capacitor/lead-acid battery) were being tested to ‘smooth’ the output from individual turbines.

Matters discussed at the February meeting of LMCA

· Lake Macquarie City Council has invited LMCA to make a submission on their proposed Sustainability and Environmental Levy.

· LMCA president Richard Edmonds has written to the NSW Feed-in Tariff Workforce outlining our group’s support for a gross feed-in tariff as the most efficient way to encourage individual investment in photo voltaics and other forms of renewable energy

· The meeting decided to publish a monthly bulletin and distribute it by post as well as electronically.

· LMCA secretary Kate Hines is compiling a list of references for practical and low cost ways for households to reduce their carbon emissions. This will be posted on our website.

· The media release by Richard Denniss of The Australia Institute, Solar rebate scheme delivers benefits for emitters, not the Environment will be posted on our website and discussed at our March meeting. (See above: Another serious flaw in the Emissions Trading Scheme?)

· Membership fees, based on the calendar year, are now due. Some of our members have also overlooked 2008 fees. ($10 per year)

· Kate Hines will investigate the possibility of LMCA having a regular stall at monthly markets in the Lake Macquarie area. We have also received an invitation from the Morisset Community Festival to have a stall featuring an environmental theme at their fair in May.

· Richard Edmonds will write to the Johnson Property Group which is proposing a huge marine and tourist development at Trinity Point, asking them to estimate its potential carbon emissions, and outline the sustainability features to be incorporated into its construction.

· Richard also will write to Eraring Energy, which is engaging with community on Environmental Strategy, asking them to outline their plans for emissions reduction.

· Bob Phillips and Kate Hines have been assisting the Carey bay community pre-school to lodge an application for an Environmental Education Grant with the Lake Macquarie City Council. The application was submitted on 24 February.

· Ted Howells has, on behalf of LMCA, made a formal request, via Sonia Hornery MP, for a meeting of potential stakeholders to further our lobbying for a government grant for our Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle project. The meeting endorsed TED’s draft letter, which will be sent over our president’s signature.

· DVD’s produced by The Australian Conservation Foundation for its Climate Project Connector Campaign have been given to Bob and Kate for screening with interested people.

Bob Phillips 7th February

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