Energy efficiency policies

Australia is sometimes criticised as having a "small island" mentality; despite spanning over 7 million kilometres and hosting a population of over 22 million people. Australian politics since the Howard era has been characterised by a reluctance to embrace change, a fear of Australia's ever-vulnerable borders being breached and a reluctance to let go of the coal-mining, land-dependent image of the Aussie battler.

Despite students and the unemployed emerging from the Global Financial Crisis with $900 worth of stimulating spending money and the rest of the continent left relatively unscathed, Australia hangs on to the "times are tough" mentality - responding with hysteria to pricing carbon, hysteria to asylum seekers travelling by boat and slowly shifting denial to the realities of climate change.

Globally, Australia is comparatively doing fine. We don't have thousands packed in protest in one of our busiest streets. Nor do we have unemployment at a devastating 9%. We don't have widespread unease and violence, nor do we have an immanent fresh water crisis with no long term solution.

THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW, November 9, 2011:

A proposed restructure of the peak body representing the clean energy industry has revealed a split, and provoked claims it is now biased towards large power companies.

The split comes ahead of the Clean Energy Council's annual general meeting today, at which members will elect board members and change the body's governing constitution.

By Leigh Ewbank

ABC The Drum reports: This week Tony Abbott and the Coalition opened up a new front in their ideological war against climate change action and carbon pricing.

In a move reminiscent of the US Tea Party, renewable energy has become the new target of Australia's conservative party.

Not content with the 'blood pledge' to repeal the carbon price, Abbott lieutenants Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb announced that a Coalition government would scrap the Clean Energy Finance Council (CEFC). If well designed and administered, the body is a potentially useful aid for Australia's transition to a 21st-Century clean economy. The plan to abolish the CEFC threatens $10 billion of investment: $5 billion exclusively for renewable energy and the remainder available for cleantech manufacturing, energy efficiency and enabling infrastructure.*

The announcement confirms suspicions that the Coalition is becoming an anti-renewable energy party. This unwarranted position has implications for the domestic renewable energy industry, decarbonising the economy, and the political landscape.

By Matthew Wright

CLIMATE SPECTATOR reports: Feed-in tariffs were always set to be controversial – they turn the electricity market on its head by opening it for true competition. But they got more controversy than they deserved thanks to the mistake of green groups who only lobbied for feed-in tariffs for small-scale generators, and the incompetence of state government energy departments for managing to draft legislation that didn’t learn from the spectacular success of the German feed-in tariff legislation, the Renewable Energy Sources Act – legislation that has undergone 10 years of tweaking, overhaul and improvement.

There are two ways that a feed-in tariff will turn the market on its head. The first is through guaranteeing to any private investor/generator (be it big or small, private, bank or equity backed) that they can have a connection to the electricity grid and  a guaranteed buyer of their electricity.

Independent power producers are already allowed, in theory, to participate in the “deregulated” Australian Energy market. Some commentators even claim that our market is one of the most liberal markets in the world, but is that really the case?

A proposed solar plant based on out-dated technology for the coal seam gas fields at Chinchilla is the latest in a series of issues confronting locals in the area. While the rest of the world has moved ahead on other more efficient energy systems, it's claimed that this decision is either -1. a lost opportunity or 2. an excuse to justify coal seam gas operations - due its gas backup functionality.

As you'd expect the reasoning behind this latest venture on solar energy has raised big questions with people like the organisation, 'Beyond Zero Emissions'. Executive Director is Matthew Wright...

Click here for the interview
Click read more for the transcript

By Trent Hawkins

Energy efficiency measures for new houses are proven to work and simple to implement. The government should create stricter building standards to achieve quick and easy greenhouse savings.

ONE WOULD IMAGINE THAT the main question being asked at the annual Built Environment Meets Parliament Conference in Canberra this week is: why are we still building low-performance housing?

At a time when the cost of electricity continues to rise, high-performing energy efficient homes offer much needed respite from cost-of-living pressures, while responding to the challenges of the climate crisis.

Our governments need to take the side of working Australians and set clear efficiency standards and reform the incentives for the building industry. Only then will Australians have comfortable and affordable housing that is climate-friendly.

ORGANISERS of this year’s North Coast Energy Forum at Mullumbimby tomorrow (June 3) are hopeful it will kick-start funding for a regional energy strategy. Mark Byrne, one of the organisers, said the challenge set by organisers of this year’s forum was to look at how the North Coast could make more of its own energy.

One of the main speakers will be Professor Stuart White, director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures.
Professor White’s institute has established that local energy options in NSW could save between $1.4 billion and $3.8 billion between now and 2020 and reduce emissions in 2020 by between 2.2 and 8.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Other speakers include NSW Greens MLC and spokesperson on energy John Kaye, and Matthew Wright, founder and executive director of Beyond Zero Emissions.

Interest in an energy strategy has been gathering pace since last year’s forum, according to Mr Byrne, from the Environmental Defenders Office Northern Rivers. Mr Byrne said electricity made up about 40 per cent of national carbon emissions.

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.