Superpower 2022: Simon Holmes à Court's annual energy update
Australia is so well positioned to transition rapidly to clean energy, transforming our manufacturing and exports.
Simon Holmes à Court is a senior advisor to the Climate and Energy College at Melbourne University.
The grid is cleaning up and becoming more resilient
00:00 Intro
00:24 Moving all electric
01:54 Decarbonising other sectors
03:00 Renewables displacing coal and gas
03:56 What is the plan?
04:23 4 scenarios, we are moving somewhere between ‘Hydrogen Superpower’ and central ’Step Change’
06:26 AEMO says 100% renewables is totally doable
07:41 Coal is retiring much faster than expected
09:11 AGL takeover bid
09:55 Despatchables not going away, just getting cleaner
11:48 Sample week on the grid in 2039
Fact checking and the bad news
13:36 Debunking the government’s claim that we have reduced our emissions by 20% in the last 15 years
13:56 Without landclearing we have reduced emissions only by 2.6% in last 20 years
14:30 With Australia’s land clearing loophole added in
15:47 Hardly apples with apples, as well land clearing we are adding in our pandemic dip against overseas 2019 figures
16:44 Compared to other western nations our emissions are going up!
17:28 We had previously already committed to net zero at Paris in 2015, so Morrison’s Glasgow announcement should not have been news at all.
18:00 The States had well and truly previous committed to Net Zero by 2050
18:44 “This is the plan … There is not a lot in this whole stack that is actually anything”
19:46 “Not worth the paper I didn’t print it on”
20:07 Feds: Only 15% by 2030
20:19 And only from the easiest - the electricity sector
Hope: decarbonising the future
21:21 We could work on electrifying transport - we have just cracked 2% compared to EU’s 20% or Norways 90% of new sales
22:39 Green steel has gone from something in the laboratory to something at mid scale - with first coal free vehicle
23:41 AREH: Massive 26GW hybrid project for green ammonia exports
26:29 WGEH: 40-55GW, reverting to traditional owners
28:01 Hunter Valley Industrial Precinct: a great example of systems thinking
29:32 Crisis in Europe is likely to accelerated moving away from gas
30:45 All our major coal importers have signalled the end of coal
31:38 States and private enterprising are leading the way
Q&A
32:58 Q1 Offshore wind - now 12 proposals round the country. Global build out of massive ultra high voltage DC interconnections has enabled Australian projects like Sun Cable
36:30 Q2 AGL takeover - “The market has not rewarded them for picking up cheap coal power stations”
39:10 Q3 Nuclear, Hydrogen and Green Steel
42:43 Q4 Europe and gas substitution
44:17 Q5 Direct air capture: There may be eventually a market at around $50-100/tonne, but not while it is free just to put CO2 into the atmosphere.
46: 15 Q6 progressing various energy sectors - policy on transport and interconnections as electricity transition enablers “How crazy is it that is easier to get a cable from the Northern Territory to Singapore than to get one from the Northern Territory to Sydney”
48:44 Q7 Seasonal variation and Windlab modelling
51:19 Q8 Adding value to hydrogen
54:06 Q9 Role of the community: AEMO has flipped on the value of households for the grid - coordinated distributed energy resources will be the major form of storage from mid 30s onwards
Further information:
Slide set resource [ Ссылка ]
AEMO: Draft 2022 ISP: [ Ссылка ]
Huge savings from going all electric - more information here: [ Ссылка ]
