United States, Australia Partner to Make Solar Energy Cheap

By Jesse Jenkins, originally at the Breakthrough Institute

The United States and Australia have inked a new partnership to pursue joint solar energy research designed to make solar energy cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement in Melbourne on Sunday, with the Australian government set to commit up to $50 million towards the program.

Ms Gillard said the aim was to make solar power as cheap as conventional energy sources.

"One of the greatest barriers to a broader commercial take up of solar power is its cost and that is specifically what this joint research initiative will address," Ms Gillard told reporters.

"The joint project with the United States is part of an aggressive effort to bring the sales price of solar technology down by two to four times."

Ms Clinton said the program aimed to make solar power competitive with conventional energy sources by 2015.

The price had dropped by 50 per cent in the past three years but there was more work to be done, she said.

"Under this initiative our two governments will share both the costs and the benefits of research and development which will speed up innovation," she said.

Secretary Clinton also pledged a $500,000 grant from the U.S. State Department to support a global survey to identify opportunities to reuse carbon dioxide emitted by power plant and industrial processes, headed up by the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, a recently established research center co-funded by the Australian government.

Solar Powerhouse? Solar irradiation in Australia is among the highest in the world, as this color-coded map from NASA illustrates (darker red areas have the most incoming solar energy). Source: The Age/Reuters

Australia, with perhaps the greatest solar energy potential in the world, has an obvious interest in pursuing affordable, scalable solar power solutions, and has also maintained several long-standing solar research efforts. Can the two new partners accelerate efforts to make solar energy cheap?

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Dealing with the Electoral (Un)Importance of Climate Change

By Leigh Ewbank. Originally published by On Line Opinion.

Julia Gillard's announcement last Friday marked a new low point for Australian climate change policy. If reelected, a Labor government will fill the void created by its decision to defer the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) a collection of low-impact policy measures: miniscule investments in renewable energy; an ill-conceived "cash for clunkers" program; and the much criticised plan for a "citizens' assembly" to establish "community consensus" on climate change. Such measures do not reflect the urgency and scale of the climate change challenge.

In the wake of Gillard's announcement, several climate advocates made the case that community consensus on climate change already exists. Be that as it may, community consensus doesn't tell us whether climate change is a priority issue for Australians. Polling released last week revealed a disturbing truth for Australia's climate change advocates. Contrary to the rhetoric of many, addressing climate change ranks well down the list of the most important issues for voters in the 2010 federal election.

Polling data (PDF 1.51MB) produced by Essential Research shows that "addressing climate change" is a priority issue for just 12 per cent of voters - ranking ninth out of 15 possible issues. This number is dramatically less than the level of support received by the top three priority issues: economic management (63 per cent); health care (55 per cent); and protecting jobs and industries (24 per cent).

This is a shocking outcome. The most important long-term issue facing Australia is not receiving the priority it deserves. With all the money, time and resources invested in climate change advocacy, these results challenge the efficacy of the dominant climate policy proposals and the ways in which the phenomenon is communicated.

Pricing carbon through an emissions-trading scheme is the most important climate policy for many national climate groups. The Australian Conservation Foundation and Climate Institute, among others, have led the charge calling for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) and have undertaken a concerted effort to frame climate change as a pollution problem. Unfortunately, neither the ETS nor pollution framing are election-friendly ideas.

The Labor party will try to keep their proposed emissions-trading scheme off the table during the campaign. The reasons for this are simple. First, the ETS does not appeal to the top concerns of the electorate. Second, and more importantly, an election promise to expedite the implementation of such a scheme would allow opposition leader Tony Abbott to invoke his "great big tax" message.

Cautious Labor strategists won't give Abbott ammunition for a scare campaign on the economic impacts of carbon pricing. Framing the CPRS as a "great big tax" that is bad for our economy and bad for jobs allows the Coalition to appeal to the electorate's concerns while drawing on their strength on economic management to attack Labor's credentials on jobs and industry. Aware of these risks, Gillard will ignore criticism from climate campaigners and stick to her commitment to delay the CPRS and build a "consensus" on the matter.

The limitations of emissions trading are compounded by a problematic communication strategy. Framing climate change as a pollution problem is unlikely to be an effective way of communicating the phenomenon to voters. This is simply because carbon emissions are qualitatively different to the way we experience pollution, which is direct and visible, compared to the indirect and systemic long term impacts of a changing climate. This pollution-centric messaging is of limited value in the context of an election. Admittedly I'm a young writer who hasn't experienced many national elections, but I can't think of an example where pollution was a top concern for the electorate (please let me know if there is a recent example in Australia).

We clearly need an alternative to this flawed approach to climate policy and communication. Instead of waiting for climate change and pollution to become a more significant concern, we must develop ways to fuse the electorate's priorities with the imperative of addressing climate change.

I have argued that a nation-building project for climate change with the scale and vision of the Snowy Mountains Scheme is capable of winning the hearts and minds of Australians. This alternative approach will address climate change while appealing to the concerns of the electorate.

Direct public investments in infrastructure projects will build the foundation of a clean energy economy in Australia. New grid infrastructure can open up renewable energy resources for entrepreneurs and regions for economic development. The construction of large-scale renewable energy projects like concentrated solar thermal power plants can demonstrate the feasibility of the technology and help build new industries. Leadership on renewable energy will help the nation capture a slice of the rapidly expanding global market for renewable energy technology. This will provide valuable export opportunities for Australia, particularly as demand for our coal decreases as the world stops using fossil fuels over the next several decades.

This investment-centred and jobs-friendly strategy would allow Labor to build on its strengths. Director of polling firm EMC Peter Lewis argues that much of Labor's first term success was based on its ability to protect jobs with its stimulus package, and identifies the National Broadband Network as another initiative with excellent job creation and industry building potential. Both the stimulus and NBN meet the electorate's demand for secure Australian jobs and industries. This should be the model for climate policy in the short to medium term, with renewable energy investments matching those allocated for the NBN at a minimum.

So why not just present emissions trading as good for economic management, jobs and industries? Attempts to link them are futile. The carbon pricing reform is too complex and indirect for the public to conceptualise as an economic management or jobs/industry-creation program. Such an approach would be akin to arguing that the GST will create jobs and industries a decade ago. While research reports will be published modelling jobs projections and industry growth, only when Australians experience the benefits of decarbonisation will they support carbon-pricing measures.

When the focus of climate policy is on providing the renewable energy infrastructure projects we need, it is easy to demonstrate the job creation and industry development benefits. This direct approach allows the nation to invest in this critical infrastructure now, rather than waiting for the invisible hand of the market to provide it at some point in the future.

A nation-building approach to climate policy will require Australia's most prominent environment groups to adapt their strategies: to cut their losses and shift their immediate focus away from emissions trading. These groups are capable of adopting an approach that yields are far greater chance of success than business as usual.

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A Snowy Mountain Scheme for the 21st Century

The time has come for an aspirational new nation-building project to spur a prosperous, clean energy economy in Australia

By Leigh Ewbank. Originally published by On Line Opinion - Australia's e-Journal of social and political debate.

Last week marked the 60th anniversary of the momentous Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Power Act - the first step in a 25-year journey to modernise our nation. Unrivaled in its ambition, the Snowy Mountains Scheme would meet the dual objectives of providing reliable electricity for our cities and towns, and water supplies to sustain food production along the Murray River.

Australia's largest-ever engineering project would spur social and economic development and benefit the cities and rural communities of Australia's southeast for generations. Without fanfare or media attention, Australia forgot to acknowledge a significant moment in our nation's history.

Today Australia faces new challenges: our climate is changing. And we must quickly transition to a clean energy economy to avoid the worst-case scenarios predicted by climate scientists. Alongside this comes the continued global economic change that is putting increased pressure on established industries. Our parliament must act to encourage the expansion of new industries and secure jobs for the future.

A new nation-building project on the scale of the Snowy Mountains Scheme is needed.

The backbone of a scheme for the 21st century will rewire the nation, laying the foundations for a clean energy revolution. Australia needs new transmission lines to connect population centres to our abundant renewable energy resources. Currently, our windy southern coast; our vast deserts; and our rich geothermal resources, are untapped. A renewable electricity grid can open up new regions to development, unleash private investment in renewable energy production, and allow for these new energy markets to flourish. It's needless to say that this comes with new jobs, prosperity, and the important benefit of mitigating climate change.

Importantly, such a scheme will overcome the deficiencies of the Rudd Government's so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Emissions trading will not build new electricity grids, particularly to remote places rich with renewable resources. High capital costs and the lack of short-term profitability of building this type of infrastructure is beyond the capacity of the private sector. Furthermore, building new grid infrastructure does not directly reduce emissions and will therefore not benefit from emissions offset markets. Our government must step in to provide the public investment and long-term vision required to carry out such a scheme.

While carbon reductions targets and "market-based" policies might captivate bureaucrats and policy wonks, they have failed to win the hearts and minds of Australian citizens. These policy tools say nothing about Australia's collective aspirations and abilities, and miss the opportunity to generate the public support necessary to build a clean energy economy. Because emissions trading are not directly linked to specific projects it is unable to capture the public's imagination the way that monumental, government-backed projects have in the past. The best examples of which include the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Snowy Mountains Scheme.

I'm not the first Australian to call for a massive nation-building project. In 2006, Professor Tim Flannery attempted to capture public imagination by evoking the spirit of the Snowy Scheme. He proposed the construction of a sustainable city in the heart of Australia called "Geothermia". The city would harness geothermal and solar energy to process mineral resources. New rail lines would connect key mines to the mineral-processing hub, and then to the port of Darwin for export. This was a big vision.

So why didn't Flannery's initiative gain traction? And would a similar proposal work now? Well, apart from Flannery's poor choice of name, I think there are two good reasons that explain the lack of interest, and the context has changed enough for a visionary project to succeed. First, the neo-liberal consensus was still strong in 2006. John Howard was the PM and the prevailing economic orthodoxy prohibited large-scale public investment. The financial crisis of 2008-9 has since undermined the neo-liberal consensus and governments around the world are now implementing massive public investment programs.

Second, climate change and environmental advocates did not support the plan. For too long climate change advocates have focused on technocratic and uninspiring policy proposals - a 20 per cent carbon reduction target by 2020 and the implementation of carbon trading. With several environmental groups now opposing the Rudd Government's CPRS and proposing a "Plan B", there is now a window of opportunity for these advocates to adopt a new campaign that focuses on building the enabling infrastructure of a clean energy economy.

I suspect environmental advocates are reluctant to employ a powerful myth because of the Snowy Scheme's environmental impacts. It's true that the scheme harmed the Snowy River, but this should not disqualify the use of Australia's myths and nation-building projects for responses to climate change. Environmental advocates must also overcome the false perception that "strong" reduction targets guarantee emissions reductions. On the contrary, because an effective response to climate change requires building the infrastructure for a clean energy economy, the Snowy Scheme is a better model than one that emphasises targets and trading.

Is Australia ready for a massive nation-building project to deal with the twin challenges of climate and global economic change? Yes it is. As the Parliament demonstrated 60 years ago, our political leaders must act in Australia's long-term interest to ensure that such a project becomes a reality.

Leigh Ewbank is a graduate of RMIT University's Bachelor of Social Science Environment degree with honours. He is a summer fellow at the Breakthrough Institute, an energy policy think-tank based in Oakland, California.

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Cap and Trade Going Under Down Undah

Originally posted at the Breakthrough Institute

It was with much fanfare and bravado that then-newly-elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia announced at the 2007 Bali climate talks that his nation would abandon opposition to climate action and ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Better late than never, Rudd said and bravely declared, "I can unite the world on climate."

To deliver on that bold promise, Rudd directed his ministers to put together a cap and trade program to limit greenhouse gas emissions and put a price on CO2. The outline of an Australian "Emissions Trading Scheme" was rolled out last week with plans to implement a cap and trade program in June 2010 aimed at cutting emissions 5 to 15 percent below 2000 levels by 2020.

Now, the Australian Prime Minister's efforts to put a price on carbon and cap emissions are under fire from both Right and Left, and cap and trade is going under Down Undah.

The pro-climate action blog SolveClimate has an honest report on the political opposition to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's carbon pricing plans. [Editor's note: keep in mind as you read this that the Australian "Liberal" Party is the nation's major conservative, center-right party and the "Labor" Party is the real liberal, center-left party.]

The battle offers a window into the complexity of making climate laws in a coal-fired country.

Federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull is leading the charge on behalf of his center-right Liberal party, stepping up attacks on a scheme he once favored. He wants to delay ETS until at least 2012, and pile on extra industry hand outs. And he's employing a familiar weapon to win over Australians, the threat of job loss.

It's a particularly cynical ploy on Turnbull's part in a drowning economy. Said Turnbull to Rudd this week:

"Why are you putting people out of work?"

There is no evidence that the ETS will "put people out of work," even in mining towns. But the story caught fire in the Australian media.

And now it's clear that a majority of senators will vote against the ruling government's ETS, complicating all prospects for legislation that has yet to be introduced into Parliament.

Rudd's in trouble. His center-left Labor party doesn't have a majority in the upper-house Senate. If the opposition blocks the bill, then he will need the support of Australia's swing-vote Greens.

But the Greens now say they won't endorse the ETS, unless it is substantially "greened up."

Specifically, they want the industry-friendly legislation to auction 100 percent of the emission permits -- a vital aspect of any effective cap and trade scheme -- rather than giving polluters a free ride, as the bill now does. They also want a strong reduction goal of 40 percent by 2020, not the current 5 percent target, or up to 15 percent in the event of a new global climate pact.

SolveClimate's reporter chocks the failure of the Australian ETS plan up to "lobbying, partisan politics and the usual suspects (i.e., big coal)." The implication being, "Those darned knuckle-dragging champions of the status quo got the best of us again." Of there's truth to that. But it's also all to easy to dismiss the challenges facing Rudd's plans and conclude, "We've just got to battle harder and overcome the industry opposition next time."

But that kind of response dismisses this story without grappling with the real lesson behind it. After all, this is the exact same situation facing cap and trade or carbon pricing plans in Canada, the EU and of course, the good old USofA.

The story is fundamentally the same everywhere carbon pricing programs have been attempted. Carbon pricing plans run smack dab into an unshakable reality of the political economy of climate and energy: the public and policymakers (not to mention industry) are resistant to efforts to significantly increasing the price of dirty energy. That resistance is clearly even stronger in the midst of the worst global economic crisis in decades.

The result: even when shot through with loopholes and industry giveaways, cap and trade and carbon pricing schemes are still not able to pass political muster, especially in coal-heavy economies like Australia (or much of the United States... or Eastern Europe... or China or India... or just about everywhere we need to reduce emissions most!).

Kevin Rudd is thus stuck in a political dilemma that should be familiar by now to champions of carbon pricing proposals everywhere (a dilemma we call the Gordian Knot of climate policy): he must either further weaken the proposal (as the Liberal Party opposition calls for) in order to win passage while ensuring that the carbon price is insufficient to drive the major emissions reductions needed; or he can strengthen the proposal (as Australia's Green Party is calling for) and guarantee the bill's political failure.

SolveClimate's reporter worries, "Any way you slice it, there will be a disappointing end to this cantankerous process," and concludes, "Let's just hope it's not a preview of what's to come in America, in the nation's own congressional battle over global warming legislation." But of course, this is exactly what will happen in the United States if President Obama and his green allies continue to push cap and trade and carbon pricing as the centerpiece of climate action. The Gordian Knot is most certainly not a uniquely Australian phenomenon, and it will inevitably ensnare U.S. carbon pricing plans as well.

But there's a way out of this dilemma, a way to cut free of the Gordian Knot.

If only at least one world leader (*cough*Obama*cough*) was willing to break from the carbon pricing orthodoxy and start leading a new emerging climate consensus, a strategy centered on the critical effort to make clean energy cheap, a strategy driven by innovation and investment, one finally able to overcome the fundamental constraints of the political economy of climate and energy and the powerful resistance to efforts to price our way to a clean energy future... If only...

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