WHEN you immerse yourself in the issues of the environment and climate change, it's clear no information can be taken for granted. Every topic is open to debate.
The science of climate change was clear well before this current climate crisis began: Increase carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and more heat will be trapped inside the atmosphere. Temperatures will subsequently rise. Recently, carbon dioxide levels have increased and temperatures have risen. Arctic ice is thinning. It's pretty simple yet there are still doubters.The debate over climate change is almost over and now we are facing a much more complex battle. In this debate, the opponents both have accepted _ or at least pretend to accept _ that we are causing climate change. It is passionate because so much money is involved and puzzling because the combatants never seem to seriously analyse the merits of the opposing position.
The most powerful claim from coal and nuclear supporters is that renewable energy cannot provide baseload power, as it is not available at all times in the day. This is a partial truth. A small number of isolated series of solar and wind stations will not provide baseload power, however, as our renewable energy supply becomes larger and the variety of electricity-generation types increases, the variations in natural factors such as wind, sun, tides and waves cease to become a significant problem.
In fact, such a system would be less susceptible to power outages than our current system. If technologies such as hydro power, geothermal and bioenergy (burning crop waste) are included in the mix, these can allow simple fine-tuning of electricity supply to allow for variations in demand.
Another common argument is that we need nuclear power to bridge the gap while renewable energy technologies develop to the point where they can replace coal. This argument is completely misleading. Many of the emerging renewable energy technologies will be able to provide large quantities of baseload power in Australia well before we can develop nuclear reactors or prove the concept of carbon capture and storage.
In spite of all this talk about other technologies, a great majority of the renewable energy available to us is solar. So the solution to the debate depends upon relatively new technologies in solar power, a rapidly developing field. One new technology is called concentrated solar power (CSP). This uses hundreds of mirrors to concentrate the suns rays onto solar panels. A group in Europe has developed a concept called DESERTEC, which involves placing CSP arrays in desert areas in the Middle East and North Africa and transmitting the power generated from these throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa via a supergrid comprising super-efficient, high-speed, high-voltage transmission lines. The DESERTEC foundation estimates it only needs to cover 0.3 per cent of the Sahara Desert with CSP plants to power these areas with electricity, with less than three per cent of the Sahara needed to power the world. Other scientific research has proved wind power could theoretically supply the entire world with 40 times the electricity used in the world today (and five times the total energy used).
If a supergrid were to combine solar power, wind power, wave farms, tidal stream generators, biomass, geothermal and hydroelectric stations, it could meet our daily and hourly demands. We could one day see sunlight in Sahara in the mid-afternoon powering homes in the Middle East at twilight, and strong winds in the Netherlands powering homes in Turkey on a cloudy day.
So we can power the world with renewable energy. We can start soon, and we will be able to do so when we need to start preparing to meet stringent emissions targets in 2050.
This begs the question. Why is Australia not developing its own version of DESERTEC? We have a massive solar supply in our desert regions, many windy areas throughout the nation, great waves, plenty of rubbish (biomass) and one of the largest geothermal energy supplies in the world right here in Geelong. We have the scientific talent to make it happen _ if we get moving before our scientists all leave the country.
Manufacturers have left the country and the mining boom will one day be over. Our country will have to start producing sustainable incomes to adjust to this reality. An Australian supergrid is the simplest way for us to take a leadership position in the response to climate change and allow our economy to continue to flourish into the future.
Gavin Brown is director of Global Neighbourhood Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment