The problem is that it needs to make economic sense as well as ecological sense, if a projects like this would be successful. With the level of clearing in this country it makes sense to do this, as while we are rich in mineral riches, we are poor in the amount of ‘liveable land’ we have, so a effort to add to this (as making liveable land is renewable in a way).
The problem is how do you shift the cost of this from the taxpayer (as a loss making enterprise like this would most liekly need ot be propped up by the government as it is in China.) to something that is marketable and makes economic sense to business. As this will drive the project if it has a constant source of investment capital to speed up expansion of a reforestation project.
In this case the simplest answer is to introduce and enforce a price on carbon, or more accurately reintroduce the 2014 repealed portions of the previous Gillard Government’s Clean Energy Act 2011.
Returning a price to carbon in the Australian economy will drive a “carbon economy” boom in Australia as commoditised carbon offsets would have value again in the Australian market. This can result in projects such as these obtain investment money as leasing of barren Australian desert would (in my opinion) would be negligible.
Granted, the Gillard Carbon Pricing did have it’s flaws, but nothing that required a scraping of the entire model. It was working, the net cost to the consumer was negligible (not the blowout suggested by some in the media). I do remember when I received my “Carbon Tax Refund” from my energy company after the repeal it barely cracked into the double digits. ($11 if I remember correctly). See the chart below to see the effect of the carbon pricing (years of scheme highlighted in blue).
The current government has suggested a return to this model. I guess time will tell if they follow through.
About 110,000 households will be able to receive $1bn in low-cost loans for double glazing, solar panels and other energy improvements in changes the Albanese government says will make homes cheaper to run and easier to keep cool and warm.
It’s part of a $1.6bn “energy savings plan” announced in Tuesday’s budget that includes $300m funding to improve social housing and $310m in tax deductions for businesses that invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.
The government also announced $2bn for a “hydrogen headstart” program that it said would help two or three large-scale renewable hydrogen developments bridge the gap to being commercially viable. Experts say “green” hydrogen is likely to be crucial in manufacturing some products currently made using fossil fuels, such as steel and aluminium.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the global shift to clean energy was “Australia’s biggest opportunity for growth and prosperity”, and the government was making the “biggest ever investment in Australia’s energy transformation”.
On the natural environment, the budget included $121m to create an Environment Protection Australia (EPA) as part of an upcoming reform of conservation laws.
Household energy
The household energy savings plan was flagged in December as part of a Labor-Greens deal to pass laws that capped gas prices to limit the rise in electricity bills. The government agreed then there would be a “significant” budget package targeted at low-income people and renters.
It also follows a campaign led by Saul Griffith, a former energy adviser to the US government and now head of Rewiring Australia, who had suggested a $13.5bn package to electrify homes.
The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, said Australia’s housing stock was mostly inefficient, reflected in the country being ranked 58th out of 63 countries for per capita energy use.
He said $1bn in loans and mortgages would be issued through a “household energy upgrades fund” run by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The CEFC would partner with banks to upgrade homes with “battery-ready solar PV, modern appliances and other improvements to keep them warmer in winter and cooler in summer”.
Eligibility criteria had not been decided, but would be worked out by the CEFC and finance providers. The scheme is expected to start next year.
Bowen said Australia’s social housing stock was particularly poor, having mostly been built before minimum building standards were introduced. He estimated upgrades would cut energy consumption by about a third for residents of 60,000 social housing homes.
Hydrogen
The government said the funding for green hydrogen – created using wind and solar energy – would put the country on track to have 1 gigawatt of electrolyser capacity by 2030. The budget promises $2bn in total, but only $156m over the next four years.
Though the extent of its future role remains unclear, green hydrogen has increasingly been backed by national governments, particularly the US through last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which included A$527bn for clean energy – a figure so large it has prompted concern it would draw investment away from other countries.
Bowen said the hydrogen commitment would “position Australia to take advantage of the immense jobs and investment potential of the technology”. Chalmers said backing hydrogen would mean Wollongong, Gladstone and Whyalla could “make and export everything from renewable energy to green steel”.
Environmental protection
In Tanya Plibersek’s environment portfolio, the budget included $121m over four years to establish the EPA, and $51.5m for another new body, Environment Information Australia, to provide data on the threatened species and ecosystems. Plibersek said the EPA would be a “tough cop on the beat”.
There was $7.7m to help implement the government’s “nature repair market” legislation, which is currently before parliament and promises a framework for private investment in biodiversity protection. Guardian Australia reported on Tuesday the Coalition was likely to back the laws, which are an expansion of a pilot it proposed while in government.
Scientists have estimated about $1.7bn a year is needed to fix Australia’s degraded ecosystems and wild places.
Other measures
The budget also includes:
$18m to reform management of Australia’s contentious carbon offsets scheme in line with recommendations from a review headed by Prof Ian Chubb. There is $5.9m to audit forest regeneration projects, which some experts say are not leading to real emissions cuts.
$872.5m in savings from scrapped water projects announced under the former Coalition government. It includes $595m over seven years from axing the controversial Dungowan dam in NSW.
Previously announced measures including a net zero authority to help manage the shift to a clean economy; a capacity investment scheme to underwrite clean, dispatchable electricity generation; and $262.3m for upgrades to degraded national parks.
It was good to see some spending on the environment and climate change in this years federal budget. A stark contrast to federal budgets of past years.
So this is going to sound like a stupid question but hear me out before reaching for judgement.
Why don’t we incinerate our garbage?
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a strong advocate for recycling and reducing the amount of waste we produce but here are a few problems I have come across that makes the whole recycling effort fall on it’s face.
People are lazy. For every person like myself who vehemently recycles as much as possible, I am certain there are 2 to 3 people who don’t. It’s easier to throw it in the one bin and forget it. About 91% of all plastics won’t be recycled.
Plastics are in everything. When you step back and think about it, pretty much all packaging has some sort of plastic in it, wether it is used for waterproofing, durability, transport or for another of multitudes of reasons. It’s even embedded in consumer products like nappies.
A lot of plastics are not recyclable. I’m sure you have seen the brochures and information sheets the councils put out about what can go into the recycling bin. No soft plastics LDPE ♶, No PVC ♵, No Polystyrene ♸, No Mixed Plastics ♹. In some jurisdictions they also won’t accept Polypropylene ♷.
It can be complicated to work out what plastic is what. Manufacturers make it hard on packaging to determine what type of plastic it is, just wether it can go in the recycling bin (which again depends from council to council - See Point 3). Rather than making it a little more simple by using the already common plastic recycling codes, it’s complicated and I suspect this is probably because a lot of these plastics are mixed plastic ♹ anyway. People get frustrated and this leads back to Point 1 (People are generally lazy). This is even before we get into what the actual product is made of.
Plastic is usually the best solution. Since the dawn of the 20th century and the invention of synthetic plastics, they have quickly become the best option for a range of purposes, it has a long life span, it’s strong, it’s pliable. Food can be kept fresher for longer, it’s can keep things sterile, it’s watertight… it has a lot going for it.
So what do we do about these things when it comes to the disposal of them… why do we just burn it all?
I’m not suggesting we set up furnaces and spew the contents into the sky creating a nightmarish hellscape.
Technology already exists where carbon can be captured from the output of carbon emitting enterprises, including incinerators (I believe they already burn medical waste in incinerators). where the emissions are captured and compressed.
Australia has already committed to becoming a world leader in the clean hydrogen production market. Hydrogen Gas can be a more than suitable fuel to be used in the operation of large incinerators.
Having all garbage arrive at a processing plant and sorted on what would be best to be incinerated would ensure all unrecyclable plastics are dealt with and could also assist in the recovery of metals as well.
By no means should this be the only solution, changing the way we do things over time is still important but I feel the 5 points I have stated are a big reason we have such a landfill crisis.
So why isn’t this a thing? The only two reasons I can think of is that either it’s a bad idea and there are reasons (beyond my knowledge) why this doesn’t work or this is being roadblocked by groups who don’t dare scratch the surface on such a concept.
So this is for those of you with some knowledge in the waste management sphere… why don’t we incinerate our garbage.
In my humble opinion the lifecycle options should be in order of preference;
Re-use (find another use)
Recycle (melt down, reform etc if applicable)
Fuel for steam turbine power generation with emission filtering / capture
A long last is put into landfill or incinerate for no benefit.
There was a recent proposal to do such a thing at Wallerawang using the then recently decommissioned (coal) thermal power station.
The fuel to replace the coal was plannned to be railed from Sydney, and fed directly into the furnaces. This avoided the non- recyclable and non- compostable material being sent to landfill at Tarago near Canberra.
Unfortunately “community” opposition, nimby’s followed by politicians led to its non approval. I should say I have no relationship to the project, however speaking to some people from the area the general resident population was in favour, however some FIFO protestors from the North Shore and Eastern Suburbs got the media air time and the political coverage.
That’s the reason these don’t get approved, hover if you actually apply logic instead of an almost religious fervor to the argument, one would realise it is better to use the rubbish as fuel to generate energy, rather than burn coal, and increase landfill.
Thanks SHF, that was the feeling I was getting from doing some research this past week.
I feel that most consumer waste could be used to incinerators (for energy or for carbon capture), and free up land that would otherwise be sued for landfill (perhaps for more carbon capture such as greenspace).
I do find those that oppose such projects are very light on reasons why these projects should not go ahead, except for reason that are not relevant to the project (such as CO2 emissions).
I didn’t get too many details, but a customer I had earlier today is working on offshore wind farms being built around Australia. Apparently they are big in other parts of the world already, but they are only just starting up here. Sounds promising.
Did a bit of digging about offshore wind farms. Found this website, which explains a bit. Not sure if this is the company my customer was working for though.
And the media seems full of Fox (Murdoch) talking heads who continue to spout all kinds of unscientific conspiracy theories, etc. For them it is an evidence-free zone. There needs to be a new, dedicated branch of psychiatric disorder, whereby the eventual demise of humanity is dismissed as a hoax. Pity future generations (and even much of the current population). The big winners (or rather, the least losers) will be Canada, Russia and Scandinavia, the only land masses with a chance on not becoming uninhabitable furnaces. Even now, in places like the SW USA, people seem satisfied that they can survive if the air conditioning is good enough, yet they are quite oblivious to the collapse of all kinds of agriculture and farm animals. One of the problems with our current deluge of crises is that it is akin to the allegory of the frog in a pot of boiling water; people might respond to a clear and sudden threat (like a bushfire), but not for a progressive impact. For much of what we face, by the time that even the mentally challenged are forced to recognises the problem and its cause, it is irreversible (think tipping points, like the Arctic continental shelf methane clathrates).
This one is for the power infrastructure specialists.
While power demand has dropped over the past 20 years, concerns about fossil fuel power plant closures have gained momentum.
The closure of Liddell Power Plant by AGL has caused many to question the governments steadfast roll out of renewable power sources.
The thrust of the argument / complaint is that “what happens when the sun does not shine, and the wind does not blow?”
While they do seem to exaggerate the situation and spread mistruths about renewables affect on Energy Prices (renewables has been proven to have a reducing effect on energy prices not the opposite). But I do feel they may have a point about energy security.
So to my question… is 100% renewables actually possible? Is it important to have a backbone that keeps the supply balanced when shortfalls in renewable power production occurs. There is now doubt that demand graph will not follow that downward trend, as electric vehicle rollout gains intensity, so will the demand for electricity.
So is some sort of backbone / backup needed? and if so, what form should it take? Nuclear Power Plants? Hydrogen Gas Power Plants?
I feel if the government could answer these questions they could dispel a lot of the arguments against renewables.
If you were building the grid from scratch, I think the answer would be obvious (and this gives us an idea what we should aspire to);
Each and every home and business have solar, and a battery 3x the solar size (kw) in kWh.
Each and every neighborhood, street corner etc has another battery, this one around 1mwh capacity.
The grid that connects this all is also fed by wind turbines.
When the sun doesn’t shine, wind doesn’t blow, that’s when we use hydro (it doesn’t waste anything if sitting unused).
If we have a big load 24/7, such as say if you wanted a massive desalination plant and pump to push freshwater inland, then nuclear may come into play.
If I was to cross state borders I’d also connect a huge solar array from Rockhampton to Port Headland, right across the country. Feeding sun power well after dark into NSW.
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