Daily update: Australia urged to set 50% renewables target by 2030

23 September, 2014 General news0

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Daily update: Australia urged to set 50% renewables target by 2030

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Australia urged to go to 50% renewables by 2030 as first step to zoo carbon energy by 2050, South Australia aims for 50% renewables by 2025; been energy paper focuses on gas, coal and nuclear; fossil subsidies may amount to $39bn a year says new report, how solar will bring about a people’s energy revolution, why Rockefellers dumped Big Oil for renewables. And more:

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The Parkinson Report

Australia urged to set 50% renewables target by 2030 Giles Parkinson

Major new report from ClimateWorks suggests Australia should aim for 50% renewables by 2030, as important stepping stone to zero-carbon economy by 2050 – when we will still have air-conditioning, drive cars, and enjoy a thriving economy.

Abbott’s energy green paper focuses on gas, coal, nuclear Giles Parkinson

Abbott energy green paper mentions gas 434 times, coal 100 times and nuclear 67. Storage gets 32, solar 26, and wind energy just 13 mentions.

Australia can get to zero carbon emissions, and grow the economy Anna Skarbek & Frank Jotzo

Australia could go to zero net emissions by 2050, without compromising prosperity and with new economic opportunities if the world goes low carbon.

Up to $39bn a year – the cost of unpriced energy pollution in Australia Sophie Vorrath

Report says unpriced CO2 pollution is biggest energy subsidy ‘by far,’ costing Australia $14-39bn in damage to economy, environment, health, and security.

South Australia sets 50% renewable energy target for 2025 Giles Parkinson and Sophie Vorrath

South Australia says it has already met its 33% renewable target, and will lift this to 50% for 2025 – if the national RET stays in place.

Solar and the new (democratic) energy economy John Farrell

Solar power is the spark to energize a new energy economy from the bottom up.

Wave power prototype with Oz connection set for testing in Europe Staff Reporter

EU collaboration including Australia’s Carnegie Wave Energy closes in on developing standardised, self-contained offshore electricity generator.

Rockefeller heirs shift oil fortune to renewables, call it “astute business” Sophie Vorrath

The heirs to the fortune of US oil tycoons John and William Rockefeller have divested their funds fossil fuel investments and reinvested them in renewables.

Citigroup sees Australian solar market at 14GW by 2020 Giles Parkinson & Emma Fitzpatrick

Citigroup says annual solar installations will more than double in Australia by 2020, with global market set to jump to 51GW in 2015.

Another gong for Uni Wollongong net-zero energy fibro shack Sophie Vorrath

Team UOW’s net-zero energy Illawarra Flame House – based on a converted fibro shack – wins another award, this time for engineering excellence.

Europeans now using no-carbon sources for 56% of demand Energy Information Administration

Penetration rates of no-carbon generation have increased from 50% to 56% in recent years in Europe.

Neville

ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news Featured Research from universities, journals, and other organizations Climatologists offer explanation for widening of Earth’s tropical belt Date: March 18, 2014 Source: University of California – Riverside Summary: Climatologists posit that the recent widening of the tropical belt is primarily caused by multi-decadal sea surface temperature variability in the Pacific Ocean. This variability includes the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (a long-lived El Niño-like pattern of Pacific climate variability) and anthropogenic pollutants, which act to modify the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Until now there was no clear explanation for what is driving the widening. Share This Email to a friend Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+ Print this page A cool-water anomaly known as La Niña occupied the tropical Pacific Ocean throughout 2007 and early 2008. In April 2008, scientists at NASA’s … [show more] Credit: NASA image by Jesse Allen, AMSR-E data processed and provided by Chelle Gentemann and Frank Wentz, Remote Sensing Systems [Click to enlarge image] Recent studies have shown that Earth’s tropical belt — demarcated, roughly, by the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn — has progressively expanded since at least the late 1970s. Several explanations for this widening have been proposed, such as radiative forcing due to greenhouse gas increase and stratospheric ozone depletion. Now, a team of climatologists, led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, posits that the recent widening of the tropical belt is primarily caused by multi-decadal sea surface temperature variability in the Pacific Ocean. This variability includes the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), a long-lived El Niño-like pattern of Pacific climate variability that works like a switch every 30 years or so between two different circulation patterns in the North Pacific Ocean. It also includes, the researchers say, anthropogenic pollutants, which act to modify the PDO. Study results appear March 16 in Nature Geoscience. “Prior analyses have found that climate models underestimate the observed rate of tropical widening, leading to questions on possible model deficiencies, possible errors in the observations, and lack of confidence in future projections,” said Robert J. Allen, an assistant professor of climatology in UC Riverside’s Department of Earth Sciences, who led the study. “Furthermore, there has been no clear explanation for what is driving the widening.” Now Allen’s team has found that the recent tropical widening is largely driven by the PDO. “Although this widening is considered a ‘natural’ mode of climate variability, implying tropical widening is primarily driven by internal dynamics of the climate system, we also show that anthropogenic pollutants have driven trends in the PDO,” Allen said. “Thus, tropical widening is related to both the PDO and anthropogenic pollutants.” Widening concerns Tropical widening is associated with several significant changes in our climate, including shifts in large-scale atmospheric circulation, like storm tracks, and major climate zones. For example, in Southern California, tropical widening may be associated with less precipitation. Of particular concern are the semi-arid regions poleward of the subtropical dry belts, including the Mediterranean, the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, southern Australia, southern Africa, and parts of South America. A poleward expansion of the tropics is likely to bring even drier conditions to these heavily populated regions, but may bring increased moisture to other areas. Widening of the tropics would also probably be associated with poleward movement of major extratropical climate zones due to changes in the position of jet streams, storm tracks, mean position of high and low pressure systems, and associated precipitation regimes. An increase in the width of the tropics could increase the area affected by tropical storms (hurricanes), or could change climatological tropical cyclone development regions and tracks. Belt contraction Allen’s research team also showed that prior to the recent (since ~1980 onwards) tropical widening, the tropical belt actually contracted for several decades, consistent with the reversal of the PDO during this earlier time period. “The reversal of the PDO, in turn, may be related to the global increase in anthropogenic pollutant emissions prior to the ~ early 1980s,” Allen said. Analysis Allen’s team analyzed IPCC AR5 (5th Assessment Report) climate models, several observational and reanalysis data sets, and conducted their own climate model experiments to quantify tropical widening, and to isolate the main cause. “When we analyzed IPCC climate model experiments driven with the time-evolution of observed sea surface temperatures, we found much larger rates of tropical widening, in better agreement to the observed rate–particularly in the Northern Hemisphere,” Allen said. “This immediately pointed to the importance of sea surface temperatures, and also suggested that models are capable of reproducing the observed rate of tropical widening, that is, they were not ‘deficient’ in some way.” Encouraged by their findings, the researchers then asked the question, “What aspect of the SSTs is driving the expansion?” They found the answer in the leading pattern of sea surface temperature variability in the North Pacific: the PDO. They supported their argument by re-analyzing the models with PDO-variability statistically removed. “In this case, we found tropical widening — particularly in the Northern Hemisphere — is completely eliminated,” Allen said. “This is true for both types of models–those driven with observed sea surface temperatures, and the coupled climate models that simulate evolution of both the atmosphere and ocean and are thus not expected to yield the real-world evolution of the PDO. “If we stratify the rate of tropical widening in the coupled models by their respective PDO evolution,” Allen added, “we find a statistically significant relationship: coupled models that simulate a larger PDO trend have larger tropical widening, and vice versa. Thus, even coupled models can simulate the observed rate of tropical widening, but only if they simulate the real-world evolution of the PDO.” Future work Next, the researchers will be looking at how anthropogenic pollutants, by modifying the PDO and large scale weather systems, have affected precipitation in the Southwest United States, including Southern California. “Future emissions pathways show decreased pollutant emissions through the 21st century, implying pollutants may continue to drive a positive PDO and tropical widening,” Allen said. Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by University of California – Riverside. The original article was written by Iqbal Pittalwala. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: Robert J. Allen, Joel R. Norris, Mahesh Kovilakam. Influence of anthropogenic aerosols and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation on tropical belt width. Nature Geoscience, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2091Prev

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Daily update: Australia urged to set 50% renewables target by 2030

Daily update: Australia urged to set 50% renewables target by 2030

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