Renewable Energy Target

By Matthew Wright

Climate Spectator reports:Comparing China’s wind and nuclear power sectors reveal much about the fortunes of new and old energy technologies.

Wind power in China is growing at a blinding pace. China commenced construction of its first wind turbines in 2005 and in just six years has installed 58GW worth of wind power, which now contributes 128TWh to its grid. This is enough renewable electricity to power Australia’s most populous states – NSW and Victoria combined. 

What’s remarkable about China’s wind sector is the speed and scale of its expansion. Wind generators are up and operating within nine months of breaking ground. This has resulted in the dramatic upward revision of the country’s wind deployment targets. Three years ago China’s 2020 target was set at 30GW, today it’s a massive 200GW.

Last month, the National Development Reform Commission Energy Research Institute released China’s first wind development plan to 2050. A whopping 1000GW – enough to provide 17 per cent of China’s electricity needs – will be built and operating by mid Century.

 This decade will mark the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.

Countries that are taking rapid action on climate change are reshaping the global commodities market. Coal is now among Australia's largest exports but demand for the commodity will drop as the global economy shifts to renewable energy. This represents a risk and an opportunity for Australia and its miners.

The largest importers of Australian coal, Japan, Korea, and China, have ambitious plans to decarbonise their economies. Japan, our single biggest importer of coal, has a 25 per cent emission reduction target by 2020. South Korea is investing about $85 billion over five years (2 per cent of GDP per year) in renewable energy and other clean technologies in its ''green new deal''. And China, while increasing its consumption of Australian coal over the last few years, aims to source 15 per cent of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2020.

FOSSIL fuel pirates and other opportunists have commandeered Energy Minister Martin Ferguson's Solar Flagship program.

The short-listed bidders for a slice of the $1.5 billion booty, courtesy of the Federal Government, was buried in a press release issued on Budget night.

It's not that the Solar Flagship concept is wrong. It's just that the companies that have been selected for the shortlist are second-tier, or worse, in terms of global solar energy.

The shortlist demonstrates an audacious tilt by gas, oil, coal and wind specialists, who should stick to their knitting and leave the large-scale solar sector to the large-scale solar sector.

THE federal government has the opportunity to switch the nation's power to renewable energy but favours attempts to make "dirty coal clean", according to the Australian Academy of Science.

Next month the academy will call on the government to give priority support to geothermal and solar thermal energy to make them major national energy sources, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.