HVACR: A Major Source of Emissions Reduction

The National Sustainability in Business Conference will be held in Brisbane from the 23-24 March 2017. The Conference theme ‘Renewables – Markets – Innovation – Opportunities – Capital’ will address the need for sustainable business practices, and what this means in today’s ever-changing world.

Tim Edwards

Mr Tim Edwards, President of the Australian Refrigeration Association joins us in March and will present on the topic HVACR: A Major Source of Emissions Reduction’.

The presentation will explain that the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning industry will add more to global warming than all other sources of carbon emissions combined unless we stop using high GWP HFC refrigerants and if we fail to design and manage for energy efficiency.

We will describe how the industry can reduce the cost of HVACR services by $10B pa and reduce national emissions by 7% from HVACR alone. These opportunities are commercially warranted now. We will describe the barriers to innovation in HVACR and specify the technology and policy solutions. The HVACR industry is a global industry within which Australia has an important leadership role and capability.

2017 Conference Topics Include:

  • Renewable Energy Systems and Sources – Biofuel, Biomass, Hydrogen and Fuel Cells, Hydropower, Solar Energy, Geothermal Energy, Wave Energy, Tidal energy, Energy Storage and Wind Power. This can also include energy transformation from renewable energy system to grid.
  • Think Local First –  development of the local economy and community, urban agriculture, Buy Local.
  • Innovative Business Opportunities – Incubators, Start Ups, Venture Capital / Entrepreneurs.
  • The Energy Market –  Regulators, Wholesale and Supply Chain, Retailers, Consumer Demand, Carbon trading, Emissions.
  • Trends, Policies and Strategies – current and emerging trends, technologies, research, government policies and industry initiatives within the environmental and sustainability sector
  • Financial Impact – social and environmental risk, industry development, operational and managerial impact, market risk and opportunity, stakeholder issues
  • Innovation – energy transition, application and feasibility, social and economic change, research and development opportunities

For more information on the 2017 National Sustainability in Business Conference and to secure your spot today, please visit the conference website.

Move to clean energy requires smart policy

The phrase “sovereign risk” is used liberally in Australian public debate, most often in relation to established industries that may be affected by change in federal and state policy. But few have suffered as much as the still-establishing renewable energy sector, which has had to deal with constant chopping and changing in government thinking since the turn of the century.

This has particularly been the case since the election of the Abbott Coalition government in 2013. With an axe hanging over the renewable energy target and the abolition of the Labor-Greens carbon pricing scheme, there was a 70 per cent decline in clean energy investment.

In a welcome development, this is beginning to change. Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg have strongly backed the existing target, roughly equivalent to 23 per cent of clean energy by 2020, and the long-term growth of the sector. But this should just be the start. Australia’s energy system is badly in need of an overhaul. The decentralised system has served the country well, driving the development of the prosperous economy we have enjoyed for generations and now take for granted. But it is a system designed for the last century, and in recent years its limitations have been exposed.

In terms of electricity, nearly half the amount consumers pay on their inflated quarterly bills covers the costs of extraordinary spending on networks over the past decade. Much of this investment was not needed: the poles and wires of the national electricity grid have been gold-plated far beyond what is required to ensure our lights stay on.

The system is also highly damaging to the planet. Burning cheap, wet brown coal for electricity in Victoria’s power plants comes at a vast indirect cost in the damage caused by the heat-trapping greenhouse gas they emit.

There are valid arguments for the government to intervene to ensure an orderly closure of coal plants, but the biggest shift is likely to be forced by allowing and encouraging the growth of a revamped system that is increasingly decentralised. With the rapidly falling cost of solar power and improvements in battery storage, this is now within grasp. This is a future in which households become “prosumers” – both producers and consumers. It requires changes to the national grid to become a much more fluid market, favouring consumers as much as energy companies. Households and businesses should be able to buy and sell electricity on the national grid at the best prices.

The benefits: the system becomes more efficient, with less energy wasted in transmission; the cost of infrastructure is low; and there is a greater incentive to reduce energy wastage.

There is a role for governments in driving this change. Other nations are far ahead of Australia – witness Denmark where, since the 1980s, public policy has encouraged cogeneration of electricity and heat for apartment buildings and businesses, producing an efficient decentralised system.

Read more.

Naomi Klein says building new nuclear power plants ‘doesn’t make sense’

News.com.au, 1 September 2015.

BUILDING new nuclear power plants to create a carbon-free world “doesn’t make sense” and just serves as a distraction from the risks, Canadian author Naomi Klein says.

The activist and author of This Changes Everything, was asked what she thought about the possibility of building a nuclear power plant in South Australia, which a Royal Commission in the state is currently considering.

Backers of nuclear power often spruik it as an alternative to renewables because it does not produce greenhouse gases, unlike coal-fired power stations.

But Klein said building new nuclear plants did not make any sense to her.

“What’s exciting about this renewables revolution spreading around the world, is that it shows us that we can power our economies without the enormous risk that we have come to accept,” she told media on Thursday.

She said the latest research showed renewables could power 100 per cent of the world’s economies.

“We can do it without those huge risks and costs associated with nuclear so why wouldn’t we?” she said.

 We can achieve a carbon-free world with renewables says Canadian author Naomi Klein. Picture: Cole Bennetts/Getty Images Source: Getty Images

We can achieve a carbon-free world with renewables says Canadian author Naomi Klein. Picture: Cole Bennetts/Getty Images Source: Getty Images

While there was still debate over the timing of when renewables should be introduced, and whether existing nuclear power plants should be taken offline first, Klein said it didn’t make sense to her to build new nuclear facilities.

“People are constantly holding this promise of next generation nuclear which supposedly doesn’t have the risk of our current generation nuclear but at this point it’s notional, that’s not what’s being constructed and I think in large part that serves as a distraction from the risk associated with actual nuclear power.”

Klein said Germany was already getting 30 per cent of its daily electricity from renewables. On sunny days renewables can make up to 80 per cent.

“They’ve created … 400,000 jobs in this transition, they’ve also deepened their democracy because they have taken back control of their energy grids in hundreds of cities and towns in Germany and are able to keep the profits of energy generation and use them to pay for services,” she said.

“So this is not just about flipping the switch from one energy model to another, it’s also about changing our economy to make it fairer.

“It is true that some of the most powerful actors in our current economic system … stand to lose a lot.”

View full article here.

Carbon price to cost trucking industry $500m

The trucking industry wants to stay protected from Australia’s carbon price legislation beyond 2014. Under current plans, fuel used by trucks on Australia’s roads is not subject to the carbon price until middle of next year.

That is when the Labor government’s legislation will reduce the fuel tax credits trucking operators can claim. Australian Trucking Association chairman David Simon has said the planned reduction of about seven cents a litre amounts to a 27 per cent increase in the fuel impost.

To read the full story, click here

US legislature to introduce a market-based mechanism to place a price on carbon?

President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama

13 February 2013 — US President Barack Obama has called on the US legislature to introduce a market-based mechanism to place a price on carbon.

President Obama was delivering his 2013 State of the Union address, delivered to Congress, 13 February, Australian time.

The President called on Congress to pass a bill similar to that proposed by Senator John McCain and former Senator Joe Lieberman a few years ago, which would have introduced a US “cap and trade” emissions trading scheme.

“I urge this Congress to get together to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago,” he said.

“But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will.”

Read the full story here