Getting real about energy

The global market for renewable energy has the potential to grow at a double digit rate until 2050 and reach the size of today’s fossil fuel industry, with wind and solar markets worth almost $46.5 billion and doubling in size every three years; it is up to decision makers around the world to make this vision a reality.

The political choices of the coming years will determine the world’s environmental and economic situation for many decades to come. Renewable energy can and will have to play a leading role in the world’s energy future. There is no technical barrier - only political barriers are blocking the shift from coal to a clean renewable energy future.

The Energy [R]evolution finds that the potential for reducing energy use in wealthy countries like Australia is enormous, and concludes that the OECD countries will need to cut greenhouse pollution by 80 per cent to allow for increases in energy use in the developing world.

The scenario also demonstrates that renewable energy, in particular solar power, solar thermal, biomass, geothermal and wind power, could supply 70 per cent of the region’s electricity, compensating for a complete phase out of nuclear energy and brown coal. Wind would be the most important single source of electricity generation by 2050.

Yet Australia is lagging far behind the rest of the world when it comes to both energy efficiency and renewable energy. The argument that you can’t run an industrial economy on renewable energy spruiked by the Prime Minister is false and mischievous: the climate sceptics seem to have morphed into renewable energy sceptics.

More and more countries and regions have a wind share of at least 10 per cent: north Germany has wind shares of 15 to 20 per cent and Denmark generates 18 per cent of its national electricity demand from wind. Modern turbines, combined with offshore wind and a good wind forecast system to “dispatch” electricity in the grid, can increase the wind share of 20 to 25 per cent without any problem and without the need for storage technology or fossil fuel power plants as backup.

Concentrated solar power systems (CSP) are already providing baseload power. Several 100MW systems are currently under construction in Spain. Solar PV systems can provide electricity for households and the industry expects to be achieve “grid parity” (competitiveness with end consumer electricity prices) by 2010.

The timing of this report is crucial. Within the coming years, decisions will be made to replace the generating capacity of the existing old power infrastructure in the OECD countries.

Developing countries such as China, India and Brazil are rapidly constructing their energy infrastructure to service their economic growth. When leaders of some of the world's largest economies gather in Sydney for the September 2007 APEC summit, energy issues will top their agenda. APEC member nations use more than half of the world’s energy. So the energy choices APEC leaders make, through trade and other negotiations, impact massively on climate change.

Never was there a better or more crucial time to drive home the need for a clean energy revolution to tackle climate change.

The author was the first witness called for public hearings starting May 31, 2007, for the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry and Resources inquiry into Australia's renewable energy sectors.