Hunt vs Garnaut: Doing nothing vs doing something
Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Australian National University Ross Garnaut has outlined a plan for cheaper energy for future generations, and it boils down to one simple term: diversification.
Garnaut addressed a captive Melbourne audience as part of the John Freebairn lecture series (transcript and audio available here) and aligned the country’s best prospects for affordable energy with a decentralised and decarbonised electricity network.
“With solar photovoltaic costs continuing to fall and Australians like other consumers finding ways to use less electricity, demand for power from the centralized system is likely to continue to shrink,” said Garnaut.
Our position of privilege will soon be over, with an over-invested electricity grid, the dominance of too few major retailers and the steadily increasing cost of fossil fuels.
Garnaut recommended maintaining the current renewable energy target to ensure Australia reached its current, legislated target of 41,000 MWh of renewable energy generation and proselytised decentralised energy generation as the key to low energy costs.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt has used radio interviews to criticise the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, aligning it with the previous incarnation as the Solar Flagships Programme and questioning the value of the agency and their real world contribution to Australia’s energy landscape.
“All of the allocated money has been retained. This of course was a Solar Flagships Programme originally. …And five years later Kevin Rudd’s much trumpeted Solar Flagships Programme has produced zero watts of energy… So if after five years it’s produced zero, zack, nothing, diddly-squat, then you might say perhaps this wasn’t the most efficient program.”
Apart from the obvious issue of ARENA handling many different types of energy production besides solar, and that the agency inherited many of the issues created during the Solar Flagships Programme, the agency was established to provide funding for renewable energy research and project development.
ARENA’s website lists the more than 170 current projects and initiatives that it oversees, including the Weipa 6.7MW solar farm which is about to be taken online. Ground will soon be broken on ARENA supported solar farms in Broken Hill and Nyngan that will contribute 144 MHh capacity when completed.
With energies varying from wave harnessing technology in Victoria and Western Australia, solar thermal generation, biomass gasification research, marine microalgae biofuel commercialisation and carbon abatement modelling not only will the environment be in safe hands, Garnaut’s vision of a decentralised energy network could become a reality.
