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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
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  • Government urged to keep renewables target

    Mr Wilkins recently told The Australian he believed the Government should not pursue market-distorting forms of industry assistance such as the target.

    But a report for WWF by consultants Climate Risk found that, without an MRET, which requires electricity providers to obtain 20 per cent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, the Government would have no hope of meeting its target to cut greenhouse emissions by 60 per cent by its 2050 deadline, because the price signals to develop the necessary technologies would not be sent in time for those technologies to be commercially ready.

    Climate Risk director Karl Mallon said: “Without an MRET, Australia would run a very high risk of not meeting its emissions targets because industries would leave their run too late and then they would simply not be able to get up and running in time. They wouldn’t be able to get the staff, or the investment.

    “An MRET does make the emissions reduction task more expensive, but without it we can’t meet the deadline.”

    Dr Mallon said the Government also needed to enhance its MRET scheme by keeping aside some of the permits for later-developing technologies such as geothermal, rather than allowing all the permits to be issued to cheaper wind power providers in the early years, as wind power would only ever supply a proportion of Australia’s energy needs.

    Mr Hunt said the Coalition agreed with this view, but believed the renewable energy target should include so-called clean coal technologies.

    “There is strong support within the Coalition for a 20 per cent target, but inclusive of carbon capture and storage,” he said.

    The Productivity Commission said an MRET operating in conjunction with an emissions trading scheme would not encourage any additional greenhouse abatement, but would impose significant additional costs.

  • Farmers say ACCC missed the point

    Farmers had hoped efficiency problems and market breakdown could be pinpointed along the supply chain.

    “There is no across-the-board evidence to suggest that retail prices for fresh products are going up by a greater percentage than farm-gate prices,” the report stated.

    At the same time the ACCC’s investigation into skyrocketing fertiliser prices concluded prices in Australia reflect international costs of crop boosters.

    But when it came to the seemingly disproportionate price between the farm-gate price and packaged groceries on supermarket shelves, the report said this reflected other costs along the supply chain such as processing and advertising.

    “At most, roughly one-twentieth of the increases in food prices over the past five years could be directly attributable to the increases in gross margins achieved by the major grocery players,” the report stated.

    The NFF has, however, welcomed recommendations made for the horticulture industry, including the introduction of penalties and infringement notices for breaches of the Horticulture Code of Conduct as well as audits to check compliance.

    The ACCC also put forward the possibility of changing the code to regulate transactions between growers and retailers, exporters and processors.

  • Marine climate heading south

    From the ABC 

    Marine scientists have found that Australia’s east coast climate zones have moved south by 200 kilometres over the past 60 years.

    Australian Institute of Marine Science researcher Janice Lough analysed ocean temperature records back to the 1950s, and found that tropical ocean climates have changed and that may be one of the causes of coral bleaching.

    Dr Lough says the speed of the change makes it very unlikely coral reef systems will be able to adapt and survive.

    “One of the reasons we have coral reefs is they need a certain amount of light, they need certain water temperatures, but they also need suitable substrate to form on and really there’s not that much of that shallow water substrate south of the Great Barrier Reef,” Dr Lough said.

  • Government buys cotton farm to save marshes

    In a very rare event for the marshes, it was welcomed by all sides of the ferocious water debate that has raged there for decades.

    The federal Water Minister, Penny Wong, said the marshes were in poor shape due to a lack of flood water and she was determined to help rescue them “after 12 years of inaction under the previous government”.

    The NSW Environment Minister, Verity Firth, said, “The Iemma Government has already purchased 15,000 megalitres of general security water entitlement for the Macquarie Marshes and expects to hold at least 30,000 megalitres by the end of this year.

    “These entitlements allow us to orchestrate flood events in the marshes that provide a lifeline to the wetland ecosystem.”

    Richard Kingsford, a wetlands expert with the University of NSW, said the buy was “fantastic”, helping bridge a gap between the north and south marsh nature reserves, established in 1900.

    “It was always a worry that there was a major irrigation area in the middle of the marshes,” he said.

    However, restoring the land to its natural state would be a “major challenge”.

    In the Macquarie, 24pc of surface water has been diverted and the CSIRO has found the average period between important inundation events for the marshes has more than doubled since the construction of Burrendong Dam in the 1960s allowed irrigation to flourish along the river.

    Buying Pillicawarrina will not instantly return water to the marshes as its entitlement is mostly general security, and there is a zero allocation of general security water because Burrendong is only 18pc full.

  • Rainfall patterns on knife’s edge

    In terms of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index, conditions have remained close to neutral throughout July.

    Modelling shows neutral conditions are likely to continue in 2008, with most models showing some warming in the coming season, but none suggesting a redevelopment of a La Niña and only a minority predicting a return to El Niño.

    And since winter is a period of relatively high predictability, the neutral forecast can be viewed with some confidence.

    The Indian Ocean is currently in a positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) (which increases the chance of low winter-spring falls in south east Australia), but the index used to measure the IOD, has weakened considerably since its peak in early June, boosting growers’ hopes for reasonable spring rain.

    The IOD is forecast to persist but moderate further throughout the rest of the year.

    In far western NSW there was a moderate swing towards the chance of below average rain in the coming three months.

  • Geothermal energy on the rise in US

    Current geothermal capacity on-line is 2,957 MW according to the report, and with the new additions geothermal power could reach nearly 7,000 MW.  Given the high reliability and capacity factors for geothermal power, this would meet the household electricity needs of the cities of Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Seattle combined. 

    Development of these new projects will provide significant economic benefits, according to GEA.  “These new projects will result in the infusion of roughly $15 billion in capital investment in the western states and will create 7,000 permanent jobs and more than 25,000 person-years of construction and manufacturing employment,” Gawell stated.

    The number of geothermal projects has been steadily increasing over the past two years, the report points out.  Geothermal power production is headed to meet or exceed recent projections.  “In January 2006, The Western Governors Association’s Geothermal Task Force projected 15,000 MW of geothermal power on-line by 2025, at the current pace geothermal production could exceed this estimate,” according to Gawell.  

    The August 2008 results by state are: (State: Number of Geothermal Projects/Megawatts) Alaska: 5: 53–100 MW ; Arizona: 2: 2–20 MW; California: 21: 927.6–1036.6 MW: Colorado:  1: 10 MW, Florida: 1: 0.2–1 MW;  Hawaii: 2: 8 MW; Idaho: 6: 251–326 MW; Nevada: 45: 1082.5–1901.5 MW; New Mexico: 1: 10 MW; Oregon:  11: 297.4–322.4 MW;  Utah: 6: 244 MW; Washington:  1: Unspecified; Wyoming: 1: 0.2 MW.  Total: 103 geothermal projects; 2885.9–3979.7 MW.

    The full text of the U.S. Geothermal Production and Development Update August 7, 2008 is being made available on the GEA web site at: http://www.geo-energy.org/.