Category: Sustainability

In just eleven years, since 1997, the proportion of the world’s electricity generated from wind has almost quadrupled. There are some impressive absolute numbers behind this global proportion.

In 2008 Australia’s total capacity increasing by over 50%, China doubled its total installed wind power and growth was 50% in the USA.

With this impressive growth comes an equally impressive challenge. Coal still provides over 40% of the world’s power. While wind is growing at 29% a year, versus coal’s 4.5%, in absolute terms coal still dominates over wind. The International Energy Agency wedges illustrate the challenge.

The 2009 Australian budget delivers 1.4 billion dollars – over 6 years – for solar power. So how much solar electricity will Australia get?

The government subsidy is for new solar plants that together produce a coal plant’s worth of power – up to 1000MW. Abengoa Solar, a leading solar power company currently constructing solar plants worldwide, put the cost of a 300MW plant at 1.2 billion euros in 2007. In 2009, the Arizona state government announced a 200MW plant for 1 billion US dollars.

The actual cost and reliability of the power generated is as important as the government subsidy for construction costs. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates, for solar plants generating power 24 hours a day by storing the sun’s heat, electricity will soon cost about US 13 cents a unit.

On this scale, sun power is starting to become competitive with expected future power prices.

Can you fit three houses into one without compromising amenity? If you can then the environmental impact of a home would be cut – significantly!

Recent work by Lend Lease (through Delfin Lend Lease) with the Queensland EPA and GreenMode shows how it can be done. The results, appearing in the Queensland Government’s Smart and Sustainable Homes newsletter, are for 35 different homes of the types typically constructed in South East Queensland.

By implementing simple measures – such as insulation, orientation, high efficiency cooling and heating, and window shading – the Ecological Footprint of a home with people living in it is cut by a factor of five.

When construction and the physical maintenance of the house are also included, three of these sustainable homes could fit in the footprint of one ‘standard’ house (of the type commonly constructed in Queensland).

Cheap, clean, reliable and continuous electrons are not as elusive as we might think.

A new large scale solar electricity plant for Arizona, USA, shows the way forward. It will generate electricity by turning sunshine into heat and storing power overnight as molten salt.

It’s also competitive and big. Using South Australia as a comparison, the plant will generate about a fifth of Adelaide’s everyday basic electricity use. And the cost? In 6 years time, $115 per thousand units of electricity. That compares favourably with electricity from gas and also $120 for Adelaide power.

$120 was in the first 3 months of 2008, before any further inflation. It is also before a price on carbon pollution is introduced in Australia.

Sales of solar electricity systems to Australian households are growing exponentially.

The graph, from Australian government figures, shows solar electricity installation per month.

This growth is occurring despite the Australian government imposing a means test on its rebates. The test currently limits rebate payments to households earning less than $100,000 a year. It was introduced in an effort to cool what Peter Garrett, Australia’s Environment Minister, referred to as an overheated market.

In the middle of 2008, when the solar rebate means test is introduced, there is a momentary pause in growth but sales quickly expand again.

The results support reports from many in the solar industry. The industry says people on lower incomes, particularly pensioners, are willing to invest in smart green power. People will pay capital now for future savings.

436 billion US dollars and counting. This dollar figure is the global stimulus funding, according to HSBC, which is helping to address climate change.

Globally, nearly sixteen percent of economic stimulus expenditure goes to such green initiatives.

In Australia this figure is just over nine percent, China it’s nearly thirty eight percent and in the USA it’s close to twelve percent.

The latest 43 billion dollar Australian announcement, for a broadband network, is a good example of economic growth that can build a more sustainable economy. Communications are inherently more climate friendly than many other businesses. In Australia, the CSIRO shows every dollar spent on communications produces a third of the greenhouse gas than an average dollar across the whole economy.

This is part of a clean future. It is much easier to supply clean power for economic activities that pollute less.

And there’s a big future in clean business. Currently, renewable technologies drive 170,000 jobs in the German economy. By 2020 clean tech, say analysts, may be an industry rivalling or exceeding the information technology sector.

This then is the next industrial revolution – growth in clean technology and, significantly more growth in new and emerging low carbon sectors of the economy.

It’s a curious state of affairs – we don’t want Growth Neutral businesses or Neutrally Beneficial social organisations so why Carbon Neutral? The very term implies that there is not a major opportunity to be found in addressing climate change.

Thomas Friedman highlights this and the coming revolution for business, societies, countries and organisations to seek a carbon advantage.

As we transform our economy and build renewable, smart, reliable, efficient power throughout all our activities, we create jobs, social outcomes and also new norms for business. Paul Gilding recently pointed this out arguing the global financial crisis will not sideline sustainability.

Yesterday, Nick Stern author of the UK’s 2006 economic climate change report spoke of this directly to the G20 countries. The opportunity is to invest heavily in energy efficiency and green technology using stimulus funding. It’s a call that some countries have already begun to act on.

Which leads back to the Carbon Advantage – companies and organisations acting now will not just help to answer society’s challenges. It also delivers real benefits for the businesses and organisations that do so.

The Obamas are about to plant a veggie patch at the Whitehouse. It’s not a new idea – Eleanor Roosevelt helped lead the way during the Second World War. But it is a great example of fast change – change that could create a more sustainable world.

Within a couple of years from the start of the war, by 1942 to 43, these home gardens were producing about thirty to forty percent of the US’s veggies – not bad for backyard patches…

Nicholas Stern, ex World Bank Chief Economist and author of the UK Government’s economic review of Climate Change, recently linked recovery from the Global Financial Crisis and responding to climate change.

He says the good news is that there are great returns to handling these two things together. While there are undoubted pitfalls to avoid, current circumstances are also a huge opportunity – climate change and the financial crisis are intrinsically linked. Stern says now is precisely the moment to change to a low carbon economy.