Over the weekend the global energy debate took an important step forward with significant implications for Australia. Both the Rudd government and Obama administration are pushing their carbon reduction plans via renewable energy. Australia even has a renewable energy target.
While renewables are important (and later this week I will write on some significant developments there) if taken too far using current technology they will boost the cost of power to the point where it will damage the economy, unless we also take advantage of low carbon coal/shale gas (New energy can't wait, July 15).
Like Australia, America has discovered huge reserves of shale gas and, also like Australia, the Obama administration has not yet changed its energy plan to combine renewables with low-carbon gas to slash carbon without unduly affecting our living standards.
In the US the debate has now started. It got underway with an important article last month in the New York Times by Jad Mouawad which set out in logical and clear terms how America’s new gas discoveries had opened up new options to reduce carbon.
But what will catch the eye of Americans is the Kennedy family backing the use of low carbon-emitting gas. Robert Kennedy Jr, who is now aged 55, is the third of the 11 children born to Robert and Ethel Kennedy. He is a nephew of John F Kennedy and his grandfather, John Kennedy, was a huge player in the US oil industry. Robert Kennedy Jr co-hosts 'Ring of Fire', a weekly radio program that focuses on "corporate fat cats, polluters and media spinmeisters".
Robert Kennedy Jr is going for gas and renewables and uses extreme language and makes a few claims that might not stand up. But his basic thrust is correct. Here are a few extracts (the full article can be accessed here):
- "Converting rapidly from coal-generated energy to gas is President Barack Obama's most obvious first step towards saving our planet and jump-starting our economy. A revolution in natural gas production over the past two years has left America awash with natural gas and has made it possible to eliminate most of our dependence on deadly, destructive coal practically overnight – and without the expense of building new power plants."
- "Whatever the slick campaign financed by the powerful coal barons might claim, coal is neither cheap nor clean. Ozone and particulates from coal plants kill tens of thousands of Americans each year and cause widespread illnesses and disease."
- "America's cornucopia of renewables and the recent maturation of solar, geothermal and wind technologies will allow us to meet most of our energy needs with clean, cheap, green power. In the short term, natural gas is an obvious bridge fuel to the 'new' energy economy."
- "Since 2007, the discovery of vast supplies of deep shale gas in the US, along with advanced extraction methods, have created stable supply and predictably low prices for most of the next century."
- "Mothballing or throttling back coal-fired generators would mean huge savings to the public and eliminate the need for more than 350 million tonnes of coal, including all 30 million tonnes harvested through mountain-top removal. Their closure would reduce US mercury emissions by 20-25 per cent, dramatically cut deadly particulate matter and the pollutants that cause acid rain, and slash America's CO2 from power plants by 20 per cent – an amount greater than the entire reduction envisaged in the first years of the pending climate change legislation at a fraction of the cost."
In Australia, the Latrobe valley power crisis (Infrastructure on the cliff edge, July 15) and the wonderful network of pipes means Australia can do the same thing. But like President Obama's administration, the Rudd government has not cottoned on to this amazing development that can enhance renewables.
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