A new dawn

A new dawn

October 14, 2007 12:00am

Utilising Australia's abundant renewable energy options will help us to a cleaner, safer future.

Sun, wind and water are the key components needed to generate renewable energy and Australia is naturally blessed with an abundance of all three.

This is good news with fossil-fuel supplies diminishing at the same time as our power consumption increases.

“Our energy use in Australia is increasing by about 2 per cent per annum,” says Ken Guthrie, manager renewable and distributed energies at Sustainability Victoria.

“We are all using more and more. We have to get more efficient and stop using so much power. We have to get more renewables into the supply so we don’t have to rely on fossil fuels.

“Over time we have to squeeze fossil fuels out. We need to replace coal-fired energy with renewable energies that can provide what we need in the forms of electricity and heat — the two basic uses of energy.

“But renewables are having an impact. The growth rate of the whole sector is quite high, and the growth in energy consumption is meeting the renewable supply.”

The beauty of renewable energy, as well as having minimal environmental impact, in particular greenhouse gas emissions, is that it comes in many forms.

“I don’t think that there will be one source of renewable energy that dominates in the future. It will be a mix of options. There will not be a silver bullet that we can use, it will be a range.”

The range includes: solar or photovoltaic power whereby panels or collectors convert sunlight into electricity; wind power using giant turbines; wave power; hydro or fast-flowing water energy; geothermal power that uses naturally heated water from beneath the earth’s surface; and bioelectricity, which is energy harnessed from plant and animal waste, known as biomass.

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At our peak

October 14, 2007 12:00am

It's time to leave fossil fuels behind and support the growth in renewable energy sources.

BP publishes the Statistical Review of World Energy, which gives an annual snapshot of the world fossil fuel industry.

The latest review, for 2006, shows world consumption of the big three fossil fuels — oil, coal and natural gas — has gone up. This is in line with population increases, greater affluence (everybody wants an energy-sucking plasma television) and the fast pace of development in China and India.

Australia, the so-called land of plenty, is a big user of fossil fuels. For decades we’ve churned through oil, coal and gas, not to mention water, like there was no tomorrow. Australians have among the highest carbon emissions per capita in the world, which is a measure of how much coal we use.

Well, tomorrow has come. Climate change, caused by excessive and unchecked carbon emissions, has brought the ailing environment into sharp focus and now there is a greater realisation than ever before, inside and outside the energy industry, that there are finite amounts of oil, gas and coal; and supply will, one day soon, be exhausted.

“It (oil) is going to run out,” says BP’s Australasian business manager for integrated supply and trading, Mark Sturgess. “Given everything we know now, from a global point of view we’ve probably got 40 to 50 years left.

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