An Answer Is Blowin' In The Wind
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday January 17, 1992
PERHAPS the greatest challenge of the future is to secure a more efficient, less vulnerable, and environmentally sustainable energy source.
The quest for the holy grail of the modern world - a source of clean, cheap, reliable and renewable energy - may be mission impossible.
And, say many researchers, government is paying only lip service to the great need to explore new avenues of energy. Underfunding of research into alternatives is chronic and bureaucracy may yet win the day.
But while the researchers are beavering away at a vast range of alternatives, energy and the dramatic effect it has on everyday life frequently slips the minds of the greater populace.
An event such as the Gulf War last year tends to refocus our minds on our reliance on finite fuels - particularly when they come from someone else's country.
Much of the oil on which Australia and the rest of the world depend is produced in politically volatile areas. The oil fields of the Persian Gulf alone provide one quarter of the oil the world presently consumes, not to mention nearly two-thirds of the world's proved oil reserves. The Gulf War led to oil prices more than doubling in the space of just a few months.
Since Australia's vulnerability to events in other counties cannot be completely eliminated, it is not in this country's interests to adopt measures that reduce imports but impose high economic or environmental costs. Policies should be implemented that balance economic, environmental and energy security objectives.
Australia is hardly at the mercy of the rest of the world, even though at times it may seem so.
The keynote speaker at December's Solar '91 conference in Adelaide, the president of the International Clean Energy Consortium, Mr Gustav Grob, said that Australia could become the "powerhouse of the Pacific by producing and exporting clean, renewable energy in the form of hydrogen".
On a rather less dramatic note, when the Federal Minister for Resources, Mr Griffiths, launched the Government's Issues in Energy policy paper last July, he said that providing sustainable development in the energy sector would include "careful consideration of the relevant roles for taxation, subsidies or regulations and the need for a flexible and delicate balance between them"
The issues identified by the paper were: developing a national approach to energy policy; accounting for environmental costs; increasing energy efficiency; reforming the electricity supply industry; developing a national strategy for gas; providing greater energy security; expanding Australia's energy trade.
The future level and pattern of energy production and consumption are subject to a number of factors - population growth, economic performance, consumer tastes and technological developments. And, of course, government policy.
One area where the Government will have a particular impact relates to fossil fuel-burning and its greenhouse effect. It has adopted an interim planning target of 20 per cent reduction below the 1988 level of emissions of greenhouse gases to be achieved by 2005.
Australia is indeed fortunate that it is well endowed with energy resources. Large industries have been developed, based on direct energy exports and energy-intensive activities such as steel-making.
It is estimated that Australia's production of primary fuels increased 4 per cent to 8,923 petajoules (PJ) in 1989-90. According to a report by the Bureau of Agricultural and Resources Economics (ABARE), total energy consumption in 1989-90 is estimated to have been 3,948 PJ, an increase of 2.8 per cent on the previous year but down on the 5.8 per cent in the year before
Obviously, something has to change. Some advocates of the fossil fuel industries argue that the debate over greenhouse gases and global warming has been distorted by greenie hysteria.
The problem with most alternative fuel sources is their cost. Although"free" in the sense that sun, water and wind are nature's gifts to the earth, harnessing the energy that moves through these elements can be far from cheap
In most cases, the technology to capture that energy and transform it into usable forms is still experimental and therefore expensive.
Advocates of these alternatives argue that development costs are an initial hurdle only; once sufficient funds are spent to get the technology up and running, the energy savings will repay the investment many times over.
At this stage, funding for research into renewable energy is only $2 million - about 12 cents a person.
They also argue that the prices charged for fossil fuels do not reflect their true costs, such as environmental degradation and health problems caused by air pollution.
If these were factored in, alternatives like solar and wind power would seem far more competitive by comparison.
However, alternative energy sources can pose their own dilemmas - for instance, the proposal for tidal power in the Kimberley region in north-west Australia has conservationists perplexed.
The project would avoid air pollution from coal-fired stations but at the same time could threaten a coastline rated among the most beautiful in the world.
The Western Australian Energy Policy and Planning Bureau says that there would be "strong, perhaps decisive, environmental objections" to tidal installations on the Kimberley coast, and argues that there are better prospects for renewable energy from solar and wind power as well as methane from land-fill rubbish sites.
The Kimberley's energy source is the tidal patterns that make it one of the best places in the world for harnessing tidal power. It is estimated that the coastline from La Grange, south of Broome, to Darwin Harbour possesses 300,000 megawatts of energy so far untapped. To put that in perspective, Australia's entire electricity grid capacity now is about 32,000 megawatts.
Researchers have estimated that the resource base for wave energy in Victoria is more than 2,000 megawatts, about the same as for wind energy. A 10-megawatt wind farm is planned for Victoria by 1994.
The WA Government copped some flak at the Solar '91 conference from Mr Tom Crawford of Western Turbines, a wind turbine maker. He wasn't at all happy that the Government was reducing a wind farm planned for the State from 20 megawatts to 2.5 megawatts, but was going ahead with the Collie coal-fired power station.
"The Government plans to lock the State into purchasing power from this coal-fired power station for 30 years but the technology will be obsolete within 10 years," he said.
A consortium including BHP and the electricity commissions of NSW and Victoria are to spend up to $32 million commercialising a power generating technology developed by the CSIRO.
The new venture, Ceramic Fuel Cells Ltd, has joined the international fray in developing solidoxide or ceramic fuel cells which are the possible replacement for all present power sources, including coal-fired power stations, and which eliminate carbon dioxide emissions.
Although several technical problems have yet to be overcome, the consortium believes that local research in this area is further advanced than elsewhere in the world.
© 1992 Sydney Morning Herald