Scientists push new energy era

A PLAN to convert the nation's entire energy sector to renewables has been endorsed by a group of influential engineers and scientists, including miner Rio Tinto's former head scientist Robin Batterham.

The 200-page Zero Carbon Australia (ZCA) 2020 report launched last night at Melbourne University was described by Professor Batterham as "much needed" to shift the climate debate "to focus on energy, security, affordability, export and of course opportunity".

A collaboration between the university's Melbourne Energy Institute and the Beyond Zero Emissions group, the plan details how fossil fuelled power plants could be replaced in a decade at a cost of less than 4 per cent of GDP.

An outlay of $370 billion across 10 years would create an infrastructure that gave Australia energy security and yielded fuel savings of $1.6 trillion by 2040 through a reduction in oil imports, according to BZE executive director Matthew Wright.

The lynchpin of the plan would be a reliance on existing technologies that are commercially established in Europe, China and the US.

They would include wind farms and concentrated solar thermal plants with energy storage capacity to dispense power at night.

"With our natural advantage, Australia can and should be positioning itself as a global renewable super power for future prosperity," said Prof Batterham, the nation's one-time chief scientist and president of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

The concept is similar to one that German engineering firm Siemens is preparing to link northern Africa's massive solar resources to mainland Europe's electricity grid, according to Sinclair Knight Merz's power systems executive Keith Frearson.

"From an engineering perspective, there is nothing startling about the technology described in ZCA . . . it's just wind turbines, deflecting mirrors and heat exchangers," Mr Frearson told BusinessDaily.

"I don't believe it is necessarily a perfect product, but the plan shows what could be done and is worthy of people's attention," he said.

Mr Frearson, who reviewed the report's transmission aspects, said the cost of upgrading and building new electricity networks was expensive at $100 billion, but not dissimilar to the estimates of works the Australian Energy Market Operator has said are required over the next few years.

"To put the ZCA cost into context, it is not an extravagant amount of money when you consider the Government's $40 billion national broadband program or that we were going to spend $300 billion over a decade on defence," Mr Frearson said.