Renewable energy sector struggling

[nabraxas]

Hundreds of Australian wind industry employees are about to be sacked as the industry grinds to a halt. The nation’s largest wind tower company, Keppel Engineering had been hoping that the Rudd Government’s election pledge of a 20 per cent renewable energy target would boost growth in the clean energy sector, but after a year of delay, the industry is struggling.

Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: President-elect Obama is also promoting what he calls a new green deal, injecting $150 billion into renewable energy and alternative fuels. He says the program would generate millions of jobs within the decade. Here in Australia, there's still no sign of the 20 per cent renewable energy target promised by Labor during last year's election campaign. The delay has frozen billions of investment dollars in Australia's wind and solar industries. The next casualty could well be the country's largest wind turbine factory, which is threatening to cut 200 jobs. Kerry Brewster reports.

KERRY BREWSTER, REPORTER: They're working around the clock, building the massive wind towers to drive Australia's renewable power. But this is the company's last order. Once these structures are built, Keppel Prince Engineering will be forced to sack 200 of its 500 strong workforce.

JASON BANNAM, KEPPEL PRINCE ENGINEERING: I've got a two-year-old and a one-year-old and, yeah, me wife's obviously not working and that either. So, yeah, it'll be tough.

MICK PUCHE, KEPPEL PRINCE ENGINEERING: When we voted the last Government in, we were pretty well assured of the wind towers goin' ahead and goin' at full strength.

PETER GARRETT, ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: This isn't taking a long time; this is doing the job properly and thoroughly.

KERRY BREWSTER: Environment Minister Peter Garrett says the 20 per cent renewable energy target promised by Labor during the election campaign won't be a reality until at least halfway through next year.

PETER GARRETT: We're working through it in a methodical way, but we do want to provide the certainty for business and the community to know that we will be taking climate change seriously.

KERRY BREWSTER: Wind power was predicted to fill half the 20 per cent target, but investments have stalled and orders for towers have dried up.

LANE CROCKETT, PACIFIC HYDRO: It was an exciting time 12 months ago when the Government promised a 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020, but they haven't delivered. We don't understand why.

KERRY BREWSTER: Lane Crockett of Pacific Hydro, Australia's largest wind generator, says he has $1 billion ready to invest but can't proceed without legislation.

LANE CROCKETT: If the scheme is delayed much longer, then we'll have no choice but to carry on and put more of our investment into our offshore projects in South America.

KERRY BREWSTER: When Labor came to power, Keppel Prince's general manager Steve Garner mobilised his workers and ploughed another $8 million into his factory. Now, he's steeling himself to sack hundreds of those he trained on the job.

STEVE GARNER, MANAGER, KEPPEL PRINCE ENGINEERING: A lot of our workers are all family connected in a small town like Portland. So we feel very bad about what is facing us at the moment.

KERRY BREWSTER: Does it concern you that the largest manufacturer of wind towers is at this crunch point?

PETER GARRETT: You know what concerns me? The fact that we have an Opposition leader and a Shadow Environment Minister who can't make up their mind about whether or not and when we should have a carbon pollution reduction scheme introduced into ...

KERRY BREWSTER: But it's got nothing to do with the Opposition ...

PETER GARRETT: Well, yes it does.

GREG HUNT, SHADOW ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: The industry had expected legislation to be brought forward. We were keen to examine it, we were keen to be constructive. But that legislation has simply been held up, held over with no explanation.

CHRISTINE MILNE, AUSTRALIAN GREENS: It's been a year now since the Rudd Government's been elected. There were really high expectations from people who were committed to climate change action. And instead of that, we've seen nothing but delay and inaction.

KERRY BREWSTER: Portland has another big employer: the American aluminium company Alcoa, with 600 workers. The Government has already vowed it will preserve the jobs in this heavily subsidised polluting industry. Meanwhile, up this road, workers building towers for clean, renewable energy have no such guarantee.

STEVE GARNER: It's disastrous. We didn't see that this situation of delay, delay, delay, being something that would happen and would force our business into a real steep decline.

KERRY BREWSTER: Environment Minister Peter Garrett denies there's any delay - just certainty.

PETER GARRETT: There's never been a time where people can feel more confident about their prospects in this country. There's a clearly laid out timetable, which we will stick to.

KERRY BREWSTER: But already, Australia is playing catch up, and it's not just wind. The country's only solar panel factory will soon close and the industry is clamouring for action.

MURIEL WATT, PHOTOVOLTAIC ASSOCIATION: We're hoping for a whole range of things that were promised and we're still waiting.

MICHELLE MCCANN, SPARK SOLAR: The thing that is working against us is that the investors that we're talking to are right now being drawn to other opportunities overseas where governments are putting in matching capital.

CHRISTINE MILNE: The fact is the renewable energy industry - the solar industry, the wind industry - has already gone offshore and is continuing to go offshore with BP Solar just being the latest in a long line.

KERRY BREWSTER: Those who have left Australia have shot to the top in a boom time. California's 33 per cent renewable energy target will be reached using technology invented here.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: Solar, solar, solar - that is my goal.

DAVID MILLS, AUSRA: It was a great day to see the Governor so happy that his programs actually are yielding very large pieces of renewable energy equipment. It was infectious.

KERRY BREWSTER: This state-of-the-art solar thermal plant outside Los Angeles was launched six weeks ago and much larger ones are on the way.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: AUSRA's technology was created in Australia, and we were very fortunate that when they looked around where to build their headquarters, they decided on California.

KERRY BREWSTER: A star in the US, with energy companies financing future base load power plants, Dr David Mills spent decades at Sydney University developing his technology. Its potential was dismissed by the previous Government and current policies, he says, are still keeping Australia out of the race.

DAVID MILLS: We would like to have contracts tomorrow. We have utilities in Australia. We have inquiries of about 10 per cent total of Australia's generation. And yet we can't proceed because there's no clarity on the present situation from the present Government.

LANE CROCKETT: Pacific Hydro and other companies all have projects that are ready to go. They have planning approval. They just need the legislation to kick them off. It's $25 billion worth of investment. There's tens of thousands of jobs.

KERRY BREWSTER: US President-elect Barack Obama is talking millions of jobs in a new green deal. Germany claims to have already created 43,000 in its booming solar industry.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: We know that Germany is number one in solar power, but let me tell you something: we gonna catch up with them very quickly the way we are going and I'm very happy about that.

KERRY BREWSTER: Dr Mills says Australia risks missing the boat.

DAVID MILLS: It's important for Australia to put up its hand and say, "No - we're committed. We're going to do this. We're gonna buy into the future."

KERRY BREWSTER: The Australian Government, though, believes its plans are on track.

PETER GARRETT: After a decade in the dark, renewable industries in this country including the solar industry are coming into a great period in the light.

GREG HUNT: No legislation, a crushing of the solar sector, disappointment for people who had hoped that the Government would live up to its promise.

KERRY BREWSTER: That's certainly the sentiment at the wind factory in Portland.

JASON BANNAM: Just hopefully, we can get more contracts and I keep me job, which will make me happy and me wife and me kids happy, too.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Kerry Brewster with that report.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2440907.htm

Peter Garret comes across as a complete tool.

[nabraxas]

& then we get:

Australia warned on climate stance

Adam Morton in Poznan, Poland | December 8, 2008

A CHINESE Government climate adviser has issued a stark warning that Australia would derail global climate talks if its maximum 2020 greenhouse target were less than a 25 per cut in emissions.

Dr Jiahua Pan, a member of the Chinese Experts Committee for Climate Change, said Australia would be acting as though it considered itself a poor nation if it set a maximum target of a 15 per cent cut at the end of United Nations climate talks in Poland.

The public call is a sign of disenchantment among developing nations, including China - the world's biggest greenhouse emitter - that Australia, Japan and Canada have not joined Europe in promising deep emission cuts to take a lead in stalling negotiations.

It comes as the newly formed Global Climate Network - a collaboration between seven international research institutes - will today publish analysis showing that even if all rich nations adopted the relatively ambitious greenhouse targets proposed by Europe and the US president-elect, Barack Obama, it would not be enough to avert the worst climate change predictions without further action.

Dr Pan said the Rudd Government must follow the lead of the European Union, which has committed to an unconditional 20 per cent cut, increasing to 30 per cent if a new global climate deal can be reached in Copenhagen next year.

"If we did not have these targets I think we would go away from Copenhagen empty-handed," Dr Pan told the Herald.

"Outsiders would say: it is acting like a developing country - it is very strange … If you cannot do it, how can you ask us to do it?"

Federal cabinet is weighing up its 2020 reduction target, which is due to be announced next Monday as part of its white paper on a new emissions trading system. But there are expectations that the 2020 target will not fall within the 25 to 40 per cent range advised by climate scientists and backed by most rich nations in Bali a year ago.

The Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, who will attend this week's talks in Poznan, appeared to be lowering expectations yesterday on the potential for a breakthrough in the negotiations and the size of Australia's target. "We in this Government understand Australia has to play its full and fair part in terms of reducing the world's carbon pollution," Senator Wong told ABC TV.

"But when it comes to targets … what we are very conscious of as a Government is striking the right balance, striking the right balance between the different interests. All is us in this government are focused on securing employment."

Writing in The Australian today, the climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, warns there must be progress within months on a global plan based on a per capita allocation of emissions that involves developing nations like China and India from the outset.

Senator Wong said tackling climate change was a marathon rather than a sprint involving policy measures that would affect the economy for many years to come.

Dr Pan, the head of China's Research Centre for Sustainable Development, said Australia's wealth and natural resources gave it the capacity to set a strong target. Sergio Serra, the climate change ambassador for another developing economy, Brazil, said his country was also worried about the lack of commitment from industrialised nations.

Developing nations are not bound by the Kyoto Protocol but the leading emerging economies, especially China, face rising pressure from the rich to accept a binding target to limit emissions growth in a new deal.

About 97 per cent of emissions growth between 2006 and 2030 is projected to come from developing countries.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/natio...8584689045.html

[Stonehenge]

Yeah, china and other places expect the west to do all the sacrificing and them getting a free ride. Or so it sounds to me. GW is going to be a killer in a few years.

But, at this moment is not the best time to put austerity measures in place. We are in not a recession but a global depression. Lets fix that and then see about tightening the old belt.