Blog - Dan Cass and Company

The Debunking Handbook

2012-02-03T07:13:26Z

I have just downloaded The Debunking Handbook, because I am always keen to learn how to defend renewables from the lies of the coal, oil and gas lobby.

The Handbook is a short guide to the science of defending science from myth.

It was written by John Cook from the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and Stephan Lewandowsky, in the School of Psychology at the University of Western Australia. They have an article on The Conversation today which summarises their work and takes you to a download of the Handbook.

The big polluters, their think tanks and the media echo chamber has shifted away from attacks on climate science to attacks on solar and wind. This renewables skepticism is the new front line in the war to save ourselves from runaway global warming.

Renewables, art, islands and Greens events in 2012

2012-02-01T09:19:01Z

2012 is shaping up to be a very good year. Already I have lots of events in the diary for February and March.

If you work in the solar PV industry and live in Sydney, you should try to get an invitation to the 30th birthday celebrations for SMA. SMA is the world’s leading inverter manufacturer.

Next week I am attending an island conservation conference in Canberra and launch of a new regional conservation organisation, dedicated to protecting the island biodiversity of the South Pacific.

Nat Thomas is opening her show on the media at Melbourne’s CCP and is going to publish the catalogue essays as a zine.

My essay, ‘Calamity Nat’, is about renewable energy, the American West and Shakespeare’s fool.

100% is one of my favorite numbers and one of Australia’s most important renewables sector organisations. I will be presenting the communications workshop at 100%’s Big Solar Boot Camp.

Like all environmentalists, I am a supporter of renewable energy but not a supporter of ecologically destructive dams. 14 March is the International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water, and Life.

Sunny Mildura and the Sunraysia region is a great place for solar power. I will be speaking on community energy at the Sustainable Sunraysia Festival.

2012 is the 40th anniversary of the world’s first green party, the Tasmanian Greens (founded on March 23, 1972).

This globally significant event will be marked with a major speech by Senator Bob Brown.

Medical experts reject dodgy medical science claims of anti-wind lobby

2012-01-24T08:08:47Z

Government documents released under Freedom of Information provisions in NSW have raised serious questions about the credibility of anti-wind activists. Australia’s Climate and Health Alliance has put out a Position Statement confirming the health safety of wind farms.

ABC TV ran a good story on both issues, which included an ill-informed response from the NSW Premier, Barry O'Farrell, who has been criticised for his anti-wind policy.

NSW Government FoI

Cam Walker, spokesperson for Friends of the Earth is quoted in an article by Ben Cubby in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning.

ABC 702 ran the story on the lead NSW radio news bulletin at 745am.

Giles Parkinson has written an analysis piece on Renew Economy.

I’ve known Cam for a long time and consider him ethical and intelligent. Cam put out a statement to explain how he sees the situation:

These documents show that NSW Health has determined that Waubra Foundation activism is a beat-up, lacking scientific credibility and promoting unfounded fear in the community about wind mills.

The Waubra Foundation has been caught out using dodgy science to make a lot of noise about wind, without any sound medical justification.

The scientific consensus is that wind is a safe technology used all over the world.

There is no scientific evidence for any of the Waubra Foundation’s health scares and we call on it to come clean on the revelations in the NSW Health FoI documents.

Health and Wind Turbines paper

The Climate and Health Alliance includes Australia’s leading medical organisations, such as the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) and Royal College of Nursing Australia (RCNA).

CAHA has written a position paper on Health and Wind Turbines and put out a media release.

Adam Morton has covered the story for the Sydney Morning Herald.

The paper makes it clear that wind farms are a healthy energy generation technology. There is clear evidence that the wind industry has been able to coexist with health human communities.

This paper is very significant because the CAHA convenor, Fiona Armstrong, has worked hard to ensure that CAHA represents the science of climate and health issues accurately. The Waubra Foundation, by comparison, lacks credibility.

CAHA’s membership is a highly credible coalition of organisations, in addition to RACP and RCNA:

Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)
Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM)
Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS)
Australian Hospitals and Healthcare Association (AHHA)
Australian Health Promotion Association (AHPA)
Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI)
Australian Research Alliance of Children and Youth (ARACY)
Australian Women’s Health Network (AWHN)
Australian Nursing Federation (ANF)
Australian Psychological Society (APS)
Australian Rural Health Education Network (ARHEN)
CRANAplus
Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA)
Doctors Reform Society
Health Consumers’ Network (Qld)
Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA)
North Yarra Community Health (NYCH)
Services for Australian Rural and Remote
Allied Health (SARRAH)
Women’s Health in the North
World Vision

Great public support for Australian wind industry, shame about the politics and the media

2012-01-18T08:57:00Z

This was also published on Renewable Energy World and Climate Spectator.

Two new reports about the wind industry in Australia provide good news about the facts but bad news about the politics.

The first report is from CSIRO, Australia’s peak scientific research organisation, on community acceptance of rural wind farms.

Dr Nina Hall from the CSIRO Science into Society Group was lead author. Hall and her colleagues used several research tools to create a ‘snapshot of community acceptance levels’ (p.8).

The qualitative interviews with stakeholders revealed that is substantive support for rural wind farms.
An investigation into the community politics revealed that most of the opposition to wind farms is activist-generated, by the global anti-wind group, the Landscape Guardians.
Media coverage was found to over-amplify criticism of wind, out of step with the views of the rural community

The CSIRO report was covered well in at least 9 stories in the Australian media overnight, in particular this excellent radio story by Libby Price on the ABC’s Country Hour.

There was 1 biased press article that took a conspiracy theory approach, attacking the science behind the report and the CSIRO itself, in essence proving the report’s conclusions about journalism.

The second report is from Pacific Hydro, a leading international wind developer based in Australia and owned 100% by Australians. While the CSIRO study was qualitative with regard to community attitudes, the Pacific Hydro report was quantitative and thus complements it perfectly.

The report measured public attitudes in wind regions around Australia. The aim was to get a statistically valid sample of what local communities think about wind farms in their region, both operating and planned.

This study found that 83% of people supported wind, with only 14% opposed. Interestingly, if found the opposite for coal, which is opposed by 65% of people. Gas was intermediate between the two.

My analysis of the situation is only strengthened by these 2 studies; Australians love renewables and the wind industry is only 1 effective national campaign away from guaranteeing itself a very successful future.

There is no reason that the Liberal Party could not be convinced to abandon its anti-scientific hostility to wind, if the right work is done on behalf of the industry.

Likewise, the Australian media is only doing such mediocre reporting – on average – because a handfull of partisan outlets are running an anti-renewables agenda, that the rest of the media do nothing to counter, because there is no pro-renewables industry campaign.

Top Twitter influencers on renewables, climate, greens, with an Australian emphasis

2012-01-16T08:42:30Z

I have used a Twitter analysis tool to find out who the influential Twitter voices are on renewable energy and climate issues, with an Australian emphasis. Twitter is very useful for people interested in renewable energy, because the mainstream media does bad reporting of renewable energy issues.

The analysis tool I have used is PeerIndex.

The selection process was to compile several relevant Twitter lists that I am on, which have been created by people that consider authoritative, such as Beyond Zero Emissions.

This compilation list of about 400 Twitter accounts was then filtered to remove accounts that were not directly relevant, for example general news accounts (such as the BBC).

For the list to be valuable, it will be necessary to keep updating it. For example, today I was followed by Svein Tveitdal @tveitdal who I’ve not heard of but turns out to be an influential UN climate guy from Norway, so I’ve added him to my group list.

After these steps I had almost 300 Twitter users uploaded onto PeerIndex, which uses its own script to produce the ranking. (It is possible to manually adjust a PeerIndex group, but I’ve chosen to leave it ‘objective’.)

Have a look at the Top renewables Twitter influencers <bit.ly/RenewableTweeps>.

I don’t know whether PeerIndex is better than any other analytic tool, such as Klout.

Who is missing from the list?
Is a list this long useful?
How reliable is the ranking?

I am currently looking into the global influence of social media on renewables, because I have been asked to post on the blog of one of China’s biggest renewable energy companies.

New NASA climate study is major blow to coal-seam gas fracking

2012-01-13T13:29:25Z

One of the inconvenient truths that Origin Energy, Shell and other gas companies refuse to accept is the danger of methane, which is a short lived but highly warming greenhouse gas.

The coal, oil and gas industries pollute the atmosphere with methane as a side effect of the mining process. They call them ‘fugitive emissions’ and it turns out that through these fugitives, the gas industry is holding the planet hostage.

A study released today shows the importance of methane and also black carbon, which is another pollutant that stays in the atmosphere for much less time than carbon dioxide, but causes far more warming over that time.

According to the IPCC (2007 AR4 p212), methane has a global warming potential (GWP) far greater than carbon dioxide, which is the reference gas, with a GWP defined as 1. Over the short term of 20 years, methane’s GPW =72. (Over the long term of 500 years, methane’s GWP is 7.6.)

It is vital to cut emissions of the short lived pollutants like methane and black carbon, because we are so close to the tipping point, beyond which global warming becomes a runaway process.

There is an excellent, simple article that explains the study, published in the journal Science today. You can play with the data on the NASA website.

The first time I heard an argument like this about black carbon was from an old colleague from my Greenhouse Action Australia days, John C. Topping, Jr, founder of the Climate Institute in Washington, DC.

How do you think the obstreperous APPEA (Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association) will respond to this study?

International Solar Energy Society & World Wind Energy Association

2012-01-10T16:02:01Z

I have joined up to the 2 leading international solar and wind associations because it is important to support the global development of renewables.

The International Solar Energy Society was founded in 1954 and is based in Freiburg, Germany. It is a UN-accredited NGO. There are members in more than 50 countries. The membership is dominated by Europeans (40%) but closely followed by Asia-Pacific (32%).

Membership includes a membership card and 2 handy pocket sized reference books on solar and wind power.

The World Wind Energy Association is also based in Germany, in Bonn. It was founded in 2001 and has members in about 100 countries. It is also a UN-accredited NGO.

Why India will beat Australia in the long game for solar PV grid parity

2011-12-31T13:13:32Z

This was published yesterday on The Punch.

Watching a Test match is a great teacher of the virtues that make for success in life: determination, strategy and simply keeping your eye on the ball.

Anyone watching India knows that they are beating Australia hands down at all three. India is set to win while the complacent, lucky country seems sure to waste its natural advantages.

Obviously, after the events at the MCG yesterday, I am talking not of cricket, but of energy security.

Australia is blessed with full diversity of energy resources: oil, coal, gas, uranium, solar, wind, waves and river hydro.

But we lack the determination to take any tough decisions. Instead of accepting climate change and the switch away from fossil fuels, Australia is stubbornly praying that a technological quick fix will allow us to avoid changing.

The Indians have set a policy to get solar power cheaper than our beloved exported Australian coal. The policy is not some vague aspiration either. It is to get to “solar grid parity” by 2022. That is a decade from now.

This means that the Indian government and scientists are planning that home-grown solar industries will be generating electricity cheaper than electricity generated by our Australian coal in a decade.

If you are one of these conspiracy theorists who think that sounds like propaganda, suck it up; KPMG said last year that India’s solar power will start to beat coal in domestic markets by 2017.

Meanwhile, back in the Lucky Country, we are stifling solar and wind and sending newcomer coal seam gas out to bat.

Despite our renewable energy riches, we are unable to keep up preventing up with the Indians, Chinese, Americans and Germans. Our politicians have filibustered-away our world-beating lead in solar technology and driven our best solar scientists off shore to work for our competitors.

Despite all the media propaganda about India (and China) being gung-ho for coal and nukes, they are busy building solar and beating us at our own game.

Germany and the US and Australia were solar leaders but India has a game strategy to get ahead in the competition for a clean energy economy. India’s strategy is to capitalise on what is called “late mover advantage” (or “second mover”) to leap ahead.

Poor rural Indians who lack electricity are not going to go to coal, then ‘transition gas’ then renewables. No chance. The fact that most of our commentators can’t take is that solar PV is now a proven, cheap technology.

The poor of Asia will go direct to decentralized, efficient, cheap solar power, without a wasteful detour into coal or gas. That is the advantage of being a late mover in the technology of energy.

The German industry in particular has been the centre of innovation and driven down the price of solar electricity. India now gets the advantage of coming in late, when the prices and risk are low. This is why they can be confident enough of the technological “learning curve” rate to predict that the falling cost of solar will cross over the rising cost of coal by 2022.

If Australia does not wake up, the Indians and Chinese will take all the clean energy wickets. The lucky, sunny country only has a few more innings before the game will be decided. Its time to get our eye back on the ball.

Solar's race to beat conventional electricity

2011-12-16T08:46:13Z

Every day there are good news stories about the speed at which renewable energy is out-competing fossil fuels (and nuclear, it goes without saying).

Here are 3 great solar stories that you probably won’t hear about if you rely on Australia’s media* to tell you what is going on in the world of climate change, renewables and energy efficiency.

Impressive

The global solar PV trade will double in only 4 years according to IDC Energy Insights, growing from 22.7 GW in 2011 to 43.8 GW in 2015.

If you use 1GW as an proxy for a medium-sized coal or nuclear station, then 43 power stations equivalent of solar PV modules will be traded during 2015.

This period will probably see a geopolitical transition in the solar economy, with the Asia-Pacific displacing the EU from its central role in the industry.

According to IDC, the Asia-Pacific will grow from 22.9% of global module shipments in 2011 to 49.3% in 2015

Noteworthy

ABB is a multinational technology company with a turnover of about US31 billion. Its subsidiary, ABB Technology Ventures has bought a large minority share of US firm GreenVolt.

GreenVolt makes concentrating PV (CPV) systems. Low concentration CPV uses mirrors or lenses to focus the sunlight before it reaches the PV chips where the electricity is generated, achieving a concentration of 2-100 suns.

Advocates of CPV believe that it will achieve the lowest LCOE (levelised cost of energy) for utility-scale installations, displacing conventional flat PV modules.

Inspiring

India is investing in local manufacturing and deployment of solar PV and solar thermal power, so that solar will beat coal and gas on price, by 2022.

India’s race to grid parity is the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, launched by the Prime Minister in 2010.

This month sees a teaching programme called ‘Teach a 1000 Teachers’, held simultaneously at 35 locations around India. The purpose is to rapidly train up a cadre of teachers who can then train the significant workforce that India requires in order to achieve grid parity by 2022.

If you are optimistic that human ingenuity can stop climate change, then you too might be annoyed that Australia’s serious media* fails to report on stories like these and is distracted by flim-flam.

There are rare exceptions that prove the rule, notably Climate Spectator, ABC Environment online and a few journalists such as Paddy Manning at the SMH.

Latest on $3.2 billion ARENA funding for wind and solar

2011-12-12T14:35:43Z

One of the big tasks for the renewables industry next year is to get the best outcomes from the establishment of the $3.2 billion Australian Renewable Energy Agency. ARENA was part of the carbon price package that Prime Minister Julia Gillard negotiated with the Greens and independents in 2011.

Today a wind conference in Melbourne heard from Nicola Morris, head of the ARENA establishment team in the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism.

I asked whether ARENA can move beyond the vague ‘innovation’ brief to have a technology price roadmap, like the US DoE’s SunShot programme. The SunShot Initiative will bring solar PV (without storage) and solar thermal (with storage) to below the cost of conventional power by 2020.

A roadmap approach gives the market, consumers and the electorate a clear understanding of where electricity is going. It allows industry and investors to plan for the transition out of fossil fuels and into very high, even 100% renewable energy.

The problem highlighted is that the renewables transition is very politically incorrect for the electricity industry and politics.

Morris indicated that ARENA will have a consultation process in 2012 to determine the funding schema. It is vital that renewable energy firms engage vigorously in this consultation.

The biggest risk for the solar and wind industries is that they will fail to sell their technologies to ARENA and a considerable amount of funding will go to fossil fuels via ‘hybrid’ projects or not be spent.

Consultant Dan Christmas reading list 2011

2011-12-07T16:58:21Z

This week I attended an event to make the Grattan Institute’s annual ‘Summer reading list for the Prime Minister’. Institute Director John Daley led a panel discussion about the books or essays that he thinks would enrich the thinking of our PM and any other Australia’s leaders.

My recommendations for summer reading are aimed at anyone who is Prime Minister of their own holiday time. If you are in charge of choosing the books on your bedside table and the manner in which they arrive there, then this list is for you.

This list is carefully designed to exclude any mention of carbon dioxide, solar panels or anything else that I usually think about. It also reflects the fact that I read widely, mostly digging back beyond the latest releases to find gems, which really deserve to be read and shared.

How to look

The Prospector is a short historical novel by Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, set in the Indian Ocean and the Western Front during the Great War. It is a beautiful book, with a poetic terseness and moral witnessing that brings to mind J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.

One online reviewer describes it as if The Adventures of Tom Sawyer were rewritten by Proust.

As a story, it is a quite simple tale of a boy from Mauritius at the turn of last century called Alexis L’Etang. Alexis and his older sister, Laure, grows up listening to their father’s romantic tales of pirates and explorers. When the misfortune strikes the family and the father dies, Alexis sets off to find lost pirate treasure.

It their attempts to classify Le Clézio, the critics have called him, among other things, an ‘ecological’ writer. I will tease you with the opening lines, to give you a sense of the treasures to be found in his observations:

As far back as I can remember I have listened to the sea: to the sound of it mingling with the wind in the filao needles, the wind that never stopped blowing, even when one left the shore behind and crossed the sugarcane fields.

How to live

My friend David Rock is the founder of the Neuroleadership Institute, where the startling findings of contemporary neuroscience are used to design more effective forms of leadership practice.

Mindsight by Daniel J Siegel is a classic of the new field of neuroplasticity and has application for leaders, doctors and anyone interested in health. Siegel is clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine.

Neuroplasticity is a medical model which says that the adult brain-mind is able to form radically new learnings through changes in the physical connections, or maps, that connect neurons. Neuroscience has previously told us the depressing story that our brains peak in young adulthood, after which no new cells and connections are made. The implication of having a plastic brain-mind is that we can heal physical or emotional injuries at any time in our lives and also switch into a child-like ability to learn new things, even in old age.

Siegel’s particular contribution is the clinical model he has developed, which extends neuroplasticity into the social sphere. He says that well being of an individual is inherently socio-plastic and neuro-plastic. The ‘triangle of well being’ is thus a 3 point field between brain, mind and relationships.

With this model, Siegel claims we can develop more effective ways to improve well being in our social selves, including the actual structure of the neural maps that make up our brains.

What to tell

My first seven years (plus a few more) is Dario Fo’s charming memoir of growing up in Italy during the interbellum. Fo is a Nobel laureate playwright who came from a fascinating family who lived around Lake Maggiore.

Fo remembers a time when Italy still had strong linguistic regionalism and as a boy he had to learn new words in each place he lived. Fo’s father was a railwayman, who undertook strange missions that Fo did not understand, with figures he only later realised were political refugees, fleeing Mussolini.

The first 7 years of the title stretches enough for us to follow Fo into his teenage adventures with the army. What is most memorable however are the observations of rural life and his coming-of age.

How to write

The Elements of Style was self-published by Cornell professor William Strunk Jr. as a guide for students of his English courses. One of the students in his class of 1919 was E.B. White, who adapted The Elements of Style for commercial publication in 1957 and it has since sold millions of copies.

When I established myself in business I resolved to learn how to write. I did this by reading and re-reading the Book of Style and trying to apply its lessons.

Strunk lays down his rules in a strict tone that cannot help be charming, such as Composition Principle #15

Put statements in positive form. Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hestitatinve, noncommital language. Use the word not as a means of denial or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion.

Why to give

The life you can save is an inspiring and challenging book by my former Greens colleague, Peter Singer. Peter is an ethicist and active public intellectual.

The premise of this book is that we have an ethical obligation and the practical ability to save the lives of the billion or so people who live in crushing poverty around the world. Peter’s argument is that in a globalised world it is not sufficient to say that the avoidable suffering and death of people who are not in front of us physically is somebody else’s responsibility.

Peter’s striking philosophical case is matched by the his striking financial evidence which shows that the goal of ending abject poverty is easily within reach. Notwithstanding the current global financial crisis (the book was written in 2009) we would have to divert a tiny proportion of the wealth of the wealthiest people in the world, to have enough resources to repair hundreds of millions of lives.

It is an ultimately inspiring approach to a seemingly tragic issue, from one of the most critical minds of our times.

Americans want renewables

2011-12-07T13:45:59Z

Polls in the US and Australia make it clear that even conservative voters like wind and solar. They want to see Government funds diverted from fossil fuels to renewables.

A poll done for the Civil Society Institute finds that 77% of Americans want the US to invest in renewables, in order to regain leadership from its competitors.

When asked which technologies should receive Government finance, renewables lead with 74%, followed by energy efficiency on 66% and gas on 49% (nuclear gets only 31% and coal 29%).

72% of Americans are concerned that fossil fuel interests ‘have a disproportionate influence on Congress and the White House’.

More Americans say they are ‘very aware’ of fracking than last year (27% up from 19%. When asked, 42% of people say they are ‘very concerned’ about fracking in relation to water quality.

The poll was a telephone survey of 1,049 adults living in the Continental US, done during the period 21-24 October 2011 by ORC International. More information and the original data are available from the Civil Society Institute.

Renewables can save the debate about saving the climate at Durban COP17

2011-12-07T09:57:30Z

This was published today on Renewable Energy World and Climate Spectator.

The UN’s climate negotiations in Durban are stuck in the same morass as the carbon price was in Australia for so many years. Both the Australian and the international climate debates have been focused on abstract carbon price schemes that nobody understands.

A recent poll confirms what I have come to believe after watching the global warming issue for 20 years; renewable energy is the only way to save the debate about saving the planet.

If the UN wants to make progress in the climate negotiations and closer to home, if Julia Gillard wants to win the next election, then the debate should be couched in terms of the tangible benefits of today’s solar and wind technologies.

A poll by Essential Research during Australia’s recent, vexatious carbon price negotiations shows that there’s overwhelming public support for investment in solar and wind, and that this support might just win the politics of a carbon price.

The poll shows that the public loves renewables, but that this sentiment is vulnerable to attacks from the polluters. Solar and wind have been politicised and companies need to step in and vigorously defend their interests.

Renewable energy consensus

The central question of the poll was ‘Does that fact that the carbon pricing scheme includes a $10 billion investment in renewable energy make you more supportive or less supportive of the carbon pricing scheme or does it make no difference?’

43% said the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) makes them more supportive, 10% said more negative and 41% said it made no difference.

If wind and solar firms, along with Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Australian Greens, can shape the national narrative around the progress of renewable energy technologies, then that 41% who said the CEFC $10 billion makes no difference can probably be activated into supporting the package.

The poll also asked whether or not renewable energy appeals to people’s basic values. In answer to the proposition, ‘Investing in renewable energy is good for people and the environment,’ a startling 89% agreed with only 6% in disagreement and 5% were undecided.

45% of Australians strongly agreed with the value proposition and 2% strongly disagreed. That is a level of support that neither fossil fuels nor nuclear power will ever have.

If this isn’t a consensus, then I don’t know what is.

So almost everyone thinks renewables are a good thing, but how many actually want to see money spent on them? It turns out that 87% agree that ‘There should be more investment in renewables like solar and wind.’ If you understand the value of renewable energy, then you want to see more investment.

The polluters know that they cannot easily shift basic values so they have attacked solar and wind at the next level of understanding, around jobs, prices and the electricity industry. In reaction to the statement, ‘Investing in renewable energy is good for the economy by creating jobs’, we again have a consensus, with 80% in agreement and only 10% in disagreement.

After 2 years of campaigning for coal and against renewables, the polluters, the Australian newspaper and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott have done barely any damage to the perceived value of renewables as an industry.

When asked to respond to the statement, ‘Renewable energy can be as reliable as other sources of energy’, 68% are in agreement, and we begin to see where the antis have been effective.

Busting the baseload myth

The next issue to mine is the question of so-called ‘baseload’ electricity. At the Labor national conference on the weekend a disconcerting number of delegates chose to run the furphy that only coal and uranium can power our electricity grid.

In response to the statement, ‘Renewable energy like wind and solar can provide enough energy for all of our needs.’ 56% agreed and 17% said ‘don’t know’.

This question is so important that it was asked in another formulation, ‘If we invest in sufficient renewable energy it will be able to replace coal and other sources of fossil fuel based energy’. This had the same result, with 56% support (and 17% undecided).

Tony Abbott and the Australian say they are concerned with policy but all they are really interested in is creating hip-pocket fears, so the politics largely hangs on the question of prices. This is where people are very confused. 57% agree with the statement ‘With sufficient investment in renewable energy, the costs of power for households would decrease.’

When the question is posed differently, the result shifts. In response to the statement, ‘Renewable energy will increase the costs of households' cost of living through increased power prices.’, 40% agree and 24% are undecided.

This is where the carbon price becomes an electoral liability, with only 44% of people in support of the statement ‘I am prepared to pay a little more for renewable energy.’

Renewables are of course cheaper in the long run than fossil fuels, because they internalise the environmental costs of carbon pollution. That is the whole point of the debate.

Unfortunately however, the false economics of our energy market means that there are up-front costs to be borne in the transition to renewable energy, and people are not yet prepared to pay these costs.

Extremist elements in the Liberal Party have expanded their conspiracy theory from climate change to renewable energy and are convinced that windmills and solar panels are virtually weapons of mass destruction. Electorally, this would appear to be dangerous ground and should be seen as ripe, juicy and low hanging fruit for campaigners to go after.

Simply, it is a moving front in the battle against reason and facts. When asked to consider the proposition, ‘There are legitimate concerns about the safety of renewable energy like wind and solar,’ only 28% of people actually agree with the safety question and almost as many (25%) are undecided.

The renewable energy industry has done almost nothing to defend itself, when compared to the energetic campaigns run by coal, banks, pokies, retailers, CSG, fishermen, tobacco, alcohol retailers, superannuation funds, pornographers and just about anyone else who isn’t already on the dole.

So why is renewable energy held in such high esteem?

Firstly, because people might be grossly misled and apathetic, but they are not idiots. Anyone can see that solar and wind are excellent technologies and the way of the future.

Secondly, it is because of the effort of 2 organisations that I donate my time to: Beyond Zero Emissions and 100% Renewable Campaign. Both organisations have given more constructive momentum to the climate debate in Australia than the Government or its friends in the traditional environmental NGOs.

But more must be done if the CEFC and the Renewable Energy Target are to be protected. It is necessary to present the electorate with the real world choice we face. The constantly dropping costs of renewable energy must be showcased frequently and clearly. With the right campaign effort, killing off renewables will come to be seen as a crazy form of political suicide

Saving the debate

Renewable energy is the technological core of the transition to a healthy, post-carbon economy. This fact has seemingly been forgotten by the thousands of well meaning climate NGOs and experts who have been drawn into the vortex of the UN climate process.

Thanks to Beyond Zero Emissions, 100% Renewable Campaign and the Greens, Australia is moving the conversation away from the carbon fetish and towards renewables, where it should be. The core of the CEF agreement is renewable energy and that is what will power most of the emissions reduction. The carbon price starts at $23, which is not high enough to bring on solar and wind by itself, so it should be seen as a support mechanism. The carbon price provides an small but important economic signal and raises funds for RE acceleration.

This technology-centred approach could save the UNFCCC, which is far too broad, slow and unenforceable. The climate treaty being negotiated in Durban was written in 1992. It is clear that we would have been better spending the last 20 years accelerating the progress of proven solar and wind renewables, rather than the toothless, complex climate agreement we have today.

If we had simply focused on renewables, they would now be cheaper than coal and gas and we could let the market solve the problem. This would free up the UN to address complex issues of industrial production and agriculture and how to protect our forests and oceans.

The opposition in Australia probably won’t wake up to this anytime soon, but it could. A sensible opposition would look to today’s wind and solar technologies for new financial opportunities, cleaner power, innovation and climate security.

A carbon price should not be seen as the only response to the global climate disaster we’re heading for, otherwise the garbage put out by the polluters will crowd out reason and responsible action.

Here are the technology and price results in graph form . These poll questions were asked in the weekly omnibus conducted by Essential Research from 27th to 31st July 2011 and is based on 1,019 respondents. The survey was conducted online.

Labor's national conference decision to sell uranium to India; a personal note

2011-12-04T15:00:31Z

This was published on ABC Online today.

My father, Moss Cass, phoned just now and we talked about the Labor party’s national conference decision to export uranium to India, which is not in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Uranium mining was a big issue in our household when I was growing up and it became the reason that I decided to not to follow Moss into the Labor party.

The context of the 1980s was of course the Cold War. The world had been brought to the brink of an accidental nuclear war, by a combination of US strategic aggressiveness and Soviet technological senescence. NATO had developed and deployed short range nuclear missiles in Western Europe, that could reach targets in the USSR quicker than the Soviet air defences could verify the incoming attack.

This meant that the USSR would be on a hair-trigger for the launch of a nuclear counter strike against the West and might do so on the basis of a false positive alarm. In practical terms, the world might find itself in a nuclear war thanks to a technical glitch. This was the original Dr Strangelove paradox, in real life.

This escalation of danger was recorded on the January 1981 cover of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which moved the hands of the ‘Doomsday Clock’ forward to 4 minutes to nuclear midnight (from 7 minutes).

Germany was still riven between East and West and the epicentre of any European nuclear battle. It was thus home to the greatest anti-nuclear and broader green political movement. Petra Kelly rose to a leadership of this movement and co-founded Die Grünen (The Greens) and was elected to the Bundestag in 1983.

Petra Kelly was a hero for my generation. She showed me that it was possible for a political party to stand unambiguously in defence of life and against nuclear war.

In 1984 the Labor Party national conference adopted the ‘three mines policy’ which sanctioned the the largest uranium mine in the world at Roxby Downs (Olympic Dam) and the Ranger and Nabarlek mines, while preventing any new mines from opening.

I knew then that it would not be possible for me to join Labor, on account of its ‘half-pregnant’ stance on this issue. As a teenager I joined no party and instead participated in the 1980s subcultures that spoke of a meaningful response to the times.

My friends and I organised anti-nuclear protests and dressed in op shop clothes. Lots of our favourite bands sung about the nuclear era: The Smiths, Kraftwerk, Crass, Style Council, Midnight Oil, Legendary Pink Dots and Laurie Anderson.

In 1995 I finished at University and decided to join a political party: The Australian Greens.

Mr Fox and the nuclear industry

My father was Labor’s Minister for Environment and Conservation from 1972 till 1975, and he instituted a major inquiry into a proposed uranium mine by Ranger Uranium Mines. The inquiry was chaired by former Chief Justice Russell Fox and shaped Australia’s nuclear industry policy ever since.

The Fox Inquiry (often referred to as the Ranger inquiry) was comprehensive. It travelled around Australia, to hear evidence from 281 people, recorded in 12,575 pages of transcript.

The specific Fox recommendation that Labor decided to finally reject today was as follows:

“No sales of Australian uranium should take place to any country not party to the N[uclear] N[on]-P[roliferation] T[reaty]. Export should be subject to the fullest and most effective safeguards agreements, and be supported by fully adequate back-up agreements applying to the entire civil nuclear industry in the country supplied.” (Report No 1, 1976, p.186)

The Fox inquiry gave a qualified support to the uranium mining industry, on the basis of proper regulation of the whole nuclear fuel cycle. This proper regulation is yet to happen.

BHP Billiton is the operator of the behemoth Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine and continues to successfully greenwash the mine and mislead over its legitimacy. If the Fox inquiry findings had been fully and honestly implemented, we would not be exporting uranium to any country and perhaps not allowing it to be processed at Olympic Dam, let alone mined at other sites.

The proper interpretation of the Fox recommendations is that until there is a definitively safe way to dispose of long-term nuclear waste and guarantee no nuclear proliferation from our exported uranium, then mining is not OK.

Watching the nuclear debate at the Labor Conference today I was struck by a few things.

Firstly, the anti-nuclear speakers had the facts on their side. After 50 years, the nuclear industry still has no solution to long-term nuclear waste and nuclear proliferation.

Secondly, the pro-nuclear speakers have stopped relying on fibs about nuclear safety and are now winning on the basis of lies about renewable energy and global warming.

They make out that baseload renewable energy is expensive, but omit to mention that US nuclear reactors cost 300-400% more than promised, according to independent analysts, includes Moody’s, Standard & Poor, MIT and McKinsey & Company.

The Prime Minister and her pro Uranium supporters also forgot to mention that the reactor construction industry has been in decline since 1980.

The average age of the reactor fleet is over 25 years, which means that just to replace the old reactors reaching the end of their life by 2025 would mean building 1 every 19 days for a decade. Where are they going to go? Which communities are going to welcome them?

To build replacements for the oldest reactors in the global fleet plus construct enough new reactors to stop climate change, is fanciful. As Fortune Magazine puts it, ‘A nuclear renaissance? Maybe not.’ (22 April 2009)

Nuclear power is also becoming more expensive as the years pass, while solar, wind and other renewables are now cost competitive.

Nuclear power will never become ubiquitous, because it is an economic failure of an industry and renewables are getting cheaper and cheaper.

Thirdly, our media frequently subtracts more value from environmental debates than it adds. The Murdoch media reports pro-nuclear talking points as if they are facts and uses Labor’s uranium stance to play partisan politics in support of the Liberal party.

Lastly, many of the anti-nuclear speeches were intelligent, principled and compelling. Minister Stephen Conroy was the big surprise. His voice broke as he recounted his family’s association with the Windscale (Sellafield) nuclear facility in Cumbria, home of the first reactor to export electricity to the grid (Calder Hall power station).

Minister Anthony Albanese was also excellent, as was delegate Maurice May, who recounted his experience with the McClelland Royal Commission into British nuclear tests.

There are some great people in the Labor party and I wish them all the best; may they prevail, on the side of life and facts.

President Obama's post carbon strategy

2011-11-28T07:51:05Z

This was co-authored with Leigh Ewbank and published by The Punch today.

In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama outlined his vision for an America powered by clean energy, traveling by High Speed Rail, and competing in global clean technology markets. Obama set out a clear principle: “[I]nstead of subsidising yesterday’s energy,” he implored, “let’s invest in tomorrow’s.”

Excellent idea Mr. President.

By choosing the future, not the past, President Obama has opened a fierce technology competition with China and Germany, to bring the cost of renewable energy down below gas, coal and nuclear.

Given that Tony Abbott and the Coalition are following the US Tea Party model and reject clean renewable energy on ideological grounds, it’s up to Prime Minister Gillard to follow Obama’s lead.

Under the guidance of Steven Chu, Obama’s Nobel-laureate Secretary of Energy, the US Department of Energy is investing strategically to turbo-charge US technology in the renewable energy race. Loan guarantees have locked-in the construction of the world’s largest concentrating solar thermal power plant and wind farm.

The 390 MW Ivanpah solar thermal project in California and 845 MW Shepherd’s Flat wind farm in Oregon will provide enough clean electricity to power over 375,000 homes. The 110 MW Tonopah solar thermal plant will use molten salt storage to generate solar electricity 24-hours a day, threatening coal’s monopoly on baseload in Australia.

The crown jewel of America’s renewable energy programs is the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative which is bringing baseload and distributed (rooftop) solar electricity costs down, on track to be cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020. The realization of this goal will reshape the global energy system.

Why has Australia not joined the SunShot-type? We are blessed with world-leading solar scientists, but they are undermined by the lack of support from politicians and capital markets and dogged by ideological attacks from ill-informed sections of the media.

Labor government does have the ticker for nation-building. Labor’s National Broadband Network is ambitious and effective. Why can’t Labor do the same on energy?

Vested interests and the quarry mentality have kept Labor from switching its loyalty from fossil fuels to renewables. Democracy has been deaf to the Australian public, who are overwhelmingly in support of renewable energy (Exhibits A, B, and C). Powerful forces have prevented the Australian government from adopting Obama’s typically American pragmatism; divesting out of yesterday’s energy sources and investing aggressively in tomorrow’s.

Most people are unaware that the Federal government is quietly designing energy sector investments far greater than the $13.2 billion for clean energy in the carbon price package. The Energy White Paper (EWP) consultations will conclude in a few months, setting in train perhaps $40-60 billion of investments in coal, oil and gas-based infrastructure.

Martin Ferguson, Minister for Energy and Resources, started the White Paper consultations in 2008. This was derailed after the last election, when Labor Government negotiated the carbon price and renewables package with the Greens and independents. Ferguson is trying to regain his power and use the White Paper to undermine the legitimate progress of the solar and wind industries.

Minister Ferguson’s handpicked reference group is dominated by yesterday’s technologies. It includes 15 companies including Caltex, Origin, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. The 22 member group has three people with uranium experience, 11 from fossil fuels and plastics, and six from the electricity industry.

Who represents tomorrow’s technologies and future generations? There are no solar or wind companies, and not one single environment or renewable energy group on the group (Former BP executive Greg Bourne was appointed when he was WWF CEO but has since retired from that organisation.)

Most people would be upset to learn that the companies who profit from technologies of the past are dictating our energy future. Former Liberal advisor Guy Pearse turned whistleblower when he revealed in 2006 that a “Greenhouse Mafia” dominated that Australia’s energy politics under John Howard.

Does PM Gillard have the courage to challenge the Greenhouse Mafia, and force Minister Ferguson to balance his White Paper group with renewables interests?

Australia has the world’s best solar resources, but is ceding leadership on solar, to keep our berth on the sinking ship that is fossil fuels. We could be like America, shooting for the sun, not digging holes in the ground. Australians embrace technological progress – we love our mobile phones and computers – and it’s about time the government made a decisive break with the dirty fuels of the past.

Premier Ted Baillieu defends anti-wind policy

2011-11-27T00:13:09Z

Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu answered my question about wind farms in the Sunday Age today.

What exactly is the scientific evidence or public policy justification for making it harder to build a quiet, non-toxic wind turbine than a coal-fired power station, factory, train line or freeway?

IT IS wrong to claim that recent changes to planning controls in Victoria make it harder to build a wind farm than a coal-fired power station, factory, train line or freeway.

The changes guarantee certainty and fairness for people living in rural and regional Victoria in planning decisions about wind farms, giving communities a say about how close a wind farm can be located to houses.

These provisions are significantly less demanding than the level of regulation associated with the development of coal-fired power stations, factories, train lines and freeways. A coal-fired power station requires strict approval from the Environment Protection Authority and is subject to noise, emissions and setback distance (buffer) requirements. Similarly, factories are subject to noise, emissions and buffer requirements and require planning and environmental approvals. Freeways and train lines are subject to various noise standards and guidelines. The development of coal-fired power stations, factories, train lines and freeways are also subject to a number of other requirements. Wind farms are subject only to a planning permit process under the Planning and Environment Act 1987.

Sydney Morning Herald rebrands in a toxic media climate

2011-11-21T12:00:10Z

Peter Fray, Publisher and Editor-in-chief of the Sydney Morning Herald has launched a branding campaign today, updating how the paper delivers its original, core values in the current media context.

If the Herald becomes more powerfully independent, then this is good for the planet because it is almost impossible to have an intelligent debate about climate and energy in Australia, because of The Australian’s truthy, shouty campaigning.

Fray promises that the Herald can deliver ‘journalism without fear or favour’ because it is not the ‘mouthpiece for a media magnate’. Fray does not mention any particular media magnates but a few first names come to mind and one particular surname.

(‘Don’t mention the Murdochs’ could be a Chaser remake of the classic Fawlty Towers ‘don’t mention the war’ gag.)

This is a big promise and some will see it cynically. However, the January 2011 reshuffle replaced Peter Fray with Amanda Wilson in the Editor’s chair, placing him in the new role of editor-in-chief of the Herald and its sister paper, The Sun-Herald.

I think that Wilson, backed by Fray, is a force of nature and if Fairfax management has given her the resources to implement the new brand promise, then the paper will be much stronger as a result.

Strong journalism is necessary if humanity is going to make it though the climate crisis and this is where the Herald’s best efforts may not be enough. Evil think tanks funded with fossil fuel dollars have corrupted the energy debate in the US and Australia.

The Australian and its political wing, the Liberal Party, is running a war against wind and solar. These are the only 2 renewable energy technologies that are proven and ready now to be built at large scale. To hold back the growth of solar and wind, is to do the bidding of the Greenhouse Mafia and flush the Earth down the toilet.

Guy Pearse, who was a policy advisor to Liberal PM John Howard, has revealed that the black energy sector runs Canberra. This means that fossil fuels are able to distort the policies underpinning our national electricity market and sabotage the growth of wind and solar industries under the Clean Energy Future package.

The issue for the media is this; it has to vigorously rebut the anti-renewable energy and anti-climate science propaganda in the Australian, until the paper learns its lesson. The Herald and the ABC occasionally comment on the Australian’s campaign against climate action and renewable energy but that is not good enough.

The message for the Government is, stop subsidising it.

The Australians front page propaganda against wind and solar influences the national debate and often gets picked up by the ABC and Fairfax, as if it is factual news. I hope that the Herald finds an antidote to this toxic information, which has poisoned our national debate for too long.

Will President Obama send Green Marines to Darwin?

2011-11-18T11:55:11Z

This was published today on Renewable Energy World and a shorter version on The Punch.

President Barack Obama was in Australia this week and upset China and Indonesia with the annoucement of an increased miliary presence in this country, including 2500 US Marines to train and provision equipment in Darwin.

When the US Marine Corp establish themselves a new home in Darwin, they will bring some seriously green equipment and ideas to our shores. This is because in the three years of his Presidency, Barack Obama has actively led the US Department of Defense to embrace renewable energy and a strategic awareness of climate change (as I have written previously).

The officer in charge of greening the marines is Colonel Bob ‘Brutus’ Charette, a career soldier. As Director of E2O, the Expeditionary Energy Office, Colonel Charette has been on the road in 2011 with a fascinating presentation that shows how seriously America’s defense force is fighting its fatal addiction to oil. The Colonel jokes that when his commander told him to establish the E2O he said that his only qualification is wasting energy, as a jet pilot and commander.

The Marine Corp has been given the task of reducing its energy intensity 30 percent by 2015 relative to a 2003 baseline (NREL 2011, PDF). Meanwhile in Canberra’s Parliament House, or Planet Quacko as it is affectionately known, there has been intense debate about a miniscule 5 percent carbon emissions cut by 2020. The USMC also has an objective to increase the percentage of renewable electrical energy consumed to 25 percent by 2025.

The impact of these energy goals is to make the marines faster (“Lighten load” as Charette puts it), more frugal (“reduce footprint”) and thus more lethal (“more tooth less tail”).

In some deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, fuel demands account for more than 60 percent of convoys. Minimising these trips can save fuel, energy, carbon emissions and lives. Renewable energy substitutes for conventional batteries can reduce the cost of remote operations. Colonel Charette provides a graphic case study comparing the batteries used in a three-day company patrol in 2001 to 2011. In 2001, 54 batteries, worth $4,000 provided 160 Watts of electricity. In 2001, 754 batteries were needed, providing 1255 Watts, for a cost of $117,000—a price increase of more than 2400 percent. LE: Could be cut to save 66 words.

Over the past year the E2O has run a systems analysis of energy use, started cultural change programs, investigated potential useful technologies and tested equipment at bases in America. The program is designated EXFOB or Experimental Forward Operating Base. One test involved sending a company out on a three-week patrol without any battery resupply. Two patrols were reliant on renewable energy only.

US defense policy follows a rolling 4 year planning cycle, called the Quadrennial Defence Review. The latest review (2010-2014) has integrated climate change into the strategic landscape at all levels, as a ‘threat multiplier’. The idea is that global warming increases the adversity of all scenarios, increasing uncertainty and hence, risk.

The other half of the equation is security of energy supply. The DOD is the largest user of energy in the United States. It makes up 80 percent of the US Government’s total energy consumption. To maintain its ability to project power in an age of declining oil supplies and carbon constraints the DOD has embarked on a service-wide effort to measure and reduce its carbon and energy bootprint.

Systems that pass the muster in training environments graduate to field testing at forward operating bases in Afghanistan. One of these battle-approved systems is SPACES—a solar-powered battery charging kit that is used by Marine forces rotated through Afghanistan.

Marines who took part in the EXFOB exercises gave glowing reviews of SPACES and other technologies such as PowerShades, fabric field shelters embedded with solar PV cells. PowerShades are light, portable structures that provide shade for soldiers during the day, while generating upto 2 kW of energy for ventiliation fans, lights, computers, communications and battery recharging.

Sergeant Gregory Wenzel took part in the Mojave Viper EXFOB exercise that tested the PowerShades said, “As far as disadvantages, I really haven’t seen any… You don’t need any fuel, it’s much quieter than a generator but can still power any electrical asset you need.”

The US military is proving what clean energy advocates have been saying for years: renewables are for winners, fossil fuels are for fools. Australia’s nuclear fan club and fossil fuel lobbyists frequently complain that solar is no good when the sun goes down. Tell that to the marines.

When we argue the case for renewables on the grounds of security and survival, the climate denialists and delay merchants are bombed back to the stone age.

The Centre for a New American Security is the leading think-tank working on climate security issues. In a paper in 2010, ‘Fueling the Future Force’, CNAS proposed that the DOD should ensure that it can operate all of its systems on non-petroleum fuels by 2040 and works actively towards this goal immediately.

To get a clear sense of the urgency of the issue, consider the development lag in a big system, such as the next generation of Ballistic Missile Submarines, the SSBN (X). Scoping for the SSBN (X) began in 2007, yet based on the Navy’s own projections the 1st sub will not begin procurement until 2019 and will not hit the water until 2028.

The last SSBN (X) will be procured around 2040 and will have an service life out to 2080. Do you think our civilisation will still be running on oil like it is now, in 2080? No is the correct answer. If you said yes, then its 20 push up for you, soldier!

If only Australia’s political class were less distracted by Canberra gossip and opinion polls, they might start reporting on the strategic advantages of renewables.

The US military’s cleantech push has spillover benefits for society. On the technological level, US military R&D, field-testing and procurement policies are already driving diverse streams of cleantech innovation. On the political level, the climate security agenda shifts the ‘frame’ in which we understand renewable energy to one of self sufficiency and technological progress.

When the case for renewables is made on the grounds of national security, the arguments of climate denialists and delay merchants are bombed back to the Stone Age. Labor Member for Wakefield Nick Champion has put the climate and security challenge in simple terms:

Climate change sceptics have a profoundly irresponsible approach to our national security because their ideology does not allow them to acknowledge the potential threats we may face, and their denial of the evidence could leave our nation unprepared for a hostile and uncertain future. Make no mistake; if you’re a self-confessed climate sceptic then you’re as soft as butter on Australia’s defence.

In the American and Australian simplistic media-political landscape, ‘green’ is the ultimate soft issue and war is the ultimate hard issue. But as the US Marine Corps demonstrates, energy conservation and renewable energy are now critical national security concerns.

Australia's carbon price should support the new community energy sector

2011-11-13T16:18:01Z

This was also published on Renewable Energy World.

Australia is in the global spotlight for passing its new renewable energy package. A few days before the new measures passed the Senate saw an historic moment for community energy, with the opening of Australia’s first citizen-funded wind farm.

The Hepburn Community Wind Farm sits 10 km south of Daylesford, in Central Victoria and was the perfect venue for a launch festival, with local bands, food and turbine tours.

Our project was declared open when 10 year old Neve Bosher of St Augustine’s School in nearby Creswick cut the ribbon around one of the 2 wind towers. She won this by beating 147 other school children in a competition to choose the best names for our turbines. She chose Gusto and Gale.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard was not able to attend but she sent us a message, ‘As Australia’s first community-owned wind farm, you’ve set a benchmark for other communities around Australia.’

The PM also referred to the benefits of distributed generation, ‘This is how so much of our energy is going to be generated in the future – not in far off power stations but in local communities, capturing the power nature gives us through the wind and the sun.’

We paid tribute to our founder, Per Bernard, who told the crowd of 750 people, ‘In Denmark, where I was born, most wind farms are owned by communities.’

The highlight of the afternoon for me was the disbursement of our first found of community grants. Earlier this year, the Board created the Hepburn Wind Community Fund and appointed a local community stalwart, Vicki Horrigan, to be the inaugural chair.

Vicky announced grants of $15,000 to community groups for diverse causes: an arboreal tree mammal research project in the nearby Wombat Forest, a community arts project by the Bungal Arts Depot in Ballan, welding equipment for the Daylesford Men’s Shed and play equipment for the Clunes Playgroup.

The Fund is a crucial element of Hepburn Wind. Most of our 1900 shareholders come from the local community, so they are keen to put profits back into the local area, as well as getting a financial return for shareholders. Monies for the Fund come from the wind farm’s profits as well as Red Energy, the electricity retailer which Hepburn Wind is selling all its output to.

Our dream is that Australia can build dozens of community wind farms and solar parks over the next several years. One of the key measures in Australia’s new carbon price package is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), which has AU$10 billion for RE and ‘clean’ energy finance. Community energy projects should have access to funds from the CEFC, which will rapidly accelerate the growth of the sector.

Professor David Karoly is one of Australia’s leading climate scientists and he gave the keynote speech at our launch. ‘This project demonstrates that there’s a viable business plan for communities to build wind farms on a small scale all around Australia in rural and regional areas and it will generate income and jobs.’

Simon Holmes à Court, Chairman of Hepburn Wind said, ‘With the passage of the carbon legislation this week, many other regional communities will benefit from the transformation of our energy sector.

However, there was a sad side to the day, because the State Government of Victoria has passed some of the most draconian anti-wind laws in the world. Under these new laws, we would not have been able to build Hepburn Wind.

This is bizarre, because the project is widely supported as an exemplar of sensitive project design. Indeed, it has seed funding from the State Government, through Sustainability Victoria and was awarded the Victorian Premier’s Sustainability Award.

Australia has a Tea Party element who are opposed to anything positive, including solar and wind. Community owned energy is the most powerful way to build the social licence of renewables and counter the extremists. This makes Hepburn Wind an achievement not just for the locals and others who are directly involved, but for the whole country.

UPDATE December 2011.

I have been advising community energy advocates on their submissions to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Expert Review. (Briefing note ).

A more perfect ringtone in honour of President Obama's Australian visit

2011-11-13T15:27:21Z

I am an unashamed fan of President Barack Obama. He has undoubtedly been a force for positive change in the world, since winning the election 3 years ago.

This Tuesday he fly out of Hawaii following the APEC meetings and a fund-raiser, and arrives in Canberra, where he will be welcomed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard (on Wednesday, after he crosses the International Date Line).

If I had my way I would see him speak while he is here, but he’s the President of the US and I’m just the President of my own life. So my little tribute is to make my ringtone the start of the speech of his that I believe to be the most inspiring and important.

Can you guess which speech I mean?

Listen here and see if you remember the oration that had 1.2 million YouTube views in 24 hours.