Ann: Presentation, page-22

Looks like my hunch was right, Abbott and Hunt will use Obama's new policy to promote the fact they are on the right track with DA/ERF/DICE -


"Australia’s Environment Minister Greg Hunt says the Obama plan opens exciting possibilities for breakthrough technologies to emerge for coal, which will continue to dominate global power generation.

“The world is now looking very seriously at clean coal technologies,’’ Hunt says.

“This includes coal gasification and carbon capture and reuse.’’

He says direct injection technology is being developed in Australia that has the potential to reduce emission from Victoria’s brown coal by between 30 to 50 per cent."


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...bama-goes-green/story-e6frgd0x-1226953765284#


IMAGINE if Tony Abbott were to announce a new climate policy to fast-track “fracking” for gas, speed up the rollout of new-generation nuclear power and promote investment to extend the life of coal.

It is difficult to imagine him getting the sort of fawning reception that has greeted US President Barak Obama from climate change campaigners worldwide.

Yet these initiatives are the core of Obama’s emissions reduction plan, which has been used to underpin claims of division between Australia and the US on climate.

This week’s meeting between the President and the Prime Minister, dominated as it was by discussion of military ties and longstanding loyalties, shows how off the mark so much of the recent commentary has been.

Serious analysis suggests Obama’s climate plan will promote investment and add to efforts to bring the countries that matter — the US, China and India — to the table on global negotiations. But there is plenty of work still to be done.

Abbott, meanwhile, has put Australia right where he wants it to be in climate talks that, like all UN negotiations, are doomed to end in last-minute compromise in Paris next year.

The hot air that has this week swamped sensible discussion about what is actually happening is a sure sign that a bubble of false expectation, like the one that cursed the Copenhagen talks in 2009, is rapidly inflating.

Chances of a global agreement may have been enhanced slightly by Obama’s plan to legislate for a 30 per cent cut in emissions from US power stations, but it is not the “moment” that many have claimed.

China is still working on a response and this week let it be known that a cap on total carbon dioxide emissions might not be what it seems. Sun Cuihua, deputy director of China’s climate change office at the National Development and Reform Commission told Reuters it would be a “simplification” to suggest China would impose an absolute cap on greenhouse gas emissions from 2016.

“Our understanding of the word cap is different from developed countries,’’ Sun reportedly told a conference. A cap in China can be “incremental”, or one that increases over time.

Another sticking point is demands for the establishment of a legally binding $100 billion-a-year global climate fund to which developed countries must contribute to fund climate programs in the developing world.

History shows these issues can trump political good intentions when it comes time to sign.

Abbott’s position has been to deflate Labor’s pretence of global leadership from Australia on the issue and allow the major players, US, China and India, to work things out. Any concerns about whether climate change should be on the agenda at the G20 meeting in Brisbane in November should be seen in the context that much of the diplomatic work on climate is taking place within the major economies forum.

In fact, Obama’s Clean Power Plan fits neatly with the original framework of Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate established by former prime minister John Howard and president George W. Bush in 2006, but was subsequently renamed and expanded to 17 by Obama in March 2009.

The Major Economies Forum includes Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Britain and the US.

Rather than making him a global pariah, Abbott’s comments that any action taken by Australia must not harm the economy puts him in step with all major world leaders. In Obama’s own words, “the old rules may say we can’t protect our environment and promote economic growth at the same time, but in America we’ve always used new technology to break the old rules’’.

Obama has been careful not to penalise coal-rich states in his Environmental Protection Agency plan, which involves varying emissions targets for different states depending on the carbon intensity of their power generation.

The Clean Power Plan aims by 2030 to cut carbon emissions from the power sector by 30 per cent from 2005 levels, while starting to make progress towards meaningful reductions in 2020.

Gas from fracking, new-generation nuclear energy and renewables — in that order — are the major beneficiaries from Obama’s plan to impose greater emission standards for power generation through the EPA. The EPA is calling for a heat rate improvement of 6 per cent for coal steam electric generating units. But the mandate is directed at states overall rather than individual power plants. This allows scope for other measures, such as demand management at a business and consumer level, and the establishment of trading schemes within and between states.

As such, the EPA is not directing states what to do, but as an example it has singled out gas.

The EPA has recommended dispatch to existing and under-construction natural gas combined cycle units to up to 70 per cent of capacity factor.

The boom in unconventional gas production across the US has already kick-started a fall in carbon dioxide emissions. And unconventional gas is undoubtedly the big winner under the Obama plan. This throws up a big challenge for environmental groups, which have campaigned to reject the use of gas as a transitional fuel.

Obama has clearly not been swayed by arguments by green groups that gas is as greenhousegas intensive as coal due to the high level of fugitive methane emissions. Methane is considered a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide but there is virtually no mention of it in the Obama plan.

The real objection from green groups is that investment in gas has the potential to crowd out investment in more expensive renewables.

The US will continue to invest in wind and solar but renewables do not fare particularly well in Obama’s vision.

For zero-emitting sources the EPA plan has called for “dispatch to new clean generation, including new nuclear generation under construction, moderate deployment of new renewable generation and continued use of existing nuclear generation’’.

Australia’s Environment Minister Greg Hunt says the Obama plan opens exciting possibilities for breakthrough technologies to emerge for coal, which will continue to dominate global power generation.

“The world is now looking very seriously at clean coal technologies,’’ Hunt says.

“This includes coal gasification and carbon capture and reuse.’’

He says direct injection technology is being developed in Australia that has the potential to reduce emission from Victoria’s brown coal by between 30 to 50 per cent.

The Obama plan is expected to give added impetus to research now under way to grow algae as a green fuel replacement, using carbon dioxide emissions from power stations as a feedstock.

Billions of dollars in research funding has been spent by major investors including Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto and the US government.

Author and venture capitalist Mehrdad Baghai says algae could be one of the things to reduce the carbon footprint and prolong the use of coal.

While most research is being undertaken in the US and Middle East, Australia would rank as one of the top three locations for algae fuel production, he says.

“If the technology hits economically viable thresholds, northern Australia between Queensland and Western Australia has the potential to produce five to six million barrels a day of green crude,’’ he says.

“If you put these next to coal-fired plants you are helping to both reduce carbon dioxide emissions and produce a clean transport fuel,’’ he says.

The jury is still out, however.

“It is looking very promising, it is interesting but by no means a sure thing,’’ Baghai says.

Obama’s plan will help drive investment and certainly adds to efforts for a workable global arrangement to price carbon, but it is at no risk of disrupting good relations with Australia.

ends.....



Now, if only management could show that Mantle through our large brown coal holdings and Exergen JVA are likely to benefit from the fact that World leaders/multinational corporations etc... are all on the same page when it comes to techs like CHTD MRC and DICE????????


B Rubes