Michael,
I was very surprised to hear you on 774 radio on Monday 11/7 advocating the continued burning of Victoria's brown coal as the energy source for our future. We need to transition form coal to renewable energy over the next two decades to reduce our very high carbon emissions associated with stationary energy.
A transition to gas is not desirable either - as it is just another fossil fuel.
Spending public money on CCS is not justified either - the technology is unproven and will be very expensive.
We need to invest in 100% renewable energy technologies that are available now - such as concentrated solar energy with molten salt storage, and wind power.
Regards,
Peter Campbell
1 comment:
Afternoon Peter.
Even the Labor Feds have acknowledged that we will need to burn coal for the next decade or so until we are able cover peak load requirements with some other source (probably Gas at this stage as nuke is on the nose, although Labor Ministers are looking at Nuke to possibly meet Australia's dramatically increasing requirements over the next 20 years}. Even one of the sources you quote in a decade or so if Canberra does not screw up the $10 bil as they have with everything else they have tried over the past few years. Last I read was that Canberra would like to convert Hazelwood (I think) to gas but acknowledge the need for coal for many years to come.
From my point of view, I and a number of our friends are looking at reducing our requirements for heating energy from both gas and electricity by converting to slow combustion wood heaters as these are relative cheap, and there is basically unlimited wood for free within an hours drive. I have even found briquettes (brown coal blocks) for open fires and slow combustion heaters are still manufactured and easily available so may be able to reduce the amount of wood required.
Since thinking about wood heaters I have noticed quite a number obviously around our area (SE Melb) as you can smell the wood burning on cold evenings.
Anyway things are warming up with the Carbon Tax, and it will be interesting to see if the Electorate and Business (large and small) will accept it (if they do not accept it, then it will not survive past the next Federal Election). With the compensation / assistance to impacted industry and the general public (business costs increase, they increase the cost of goods, and Canberra covers the increases in costs), the Carbon Tax may just survive.
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