Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Ian Campbell, Minister for the Environment and Heritage. Minister, the frequently asked questions section of the Switkowski review report says:

Nuclear power supplies baseload electricity—something that renewables like wind and solar energy cannot do economically until practical and affordable energy storage systems are available.

Isn’t it the case that geothermal, biomass and hydro-electricity generation can and do already provide baseload power? Can the minister explain why this information was left out of the report? Will the government correct this misinformation on the public record?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Allison for the question relating to renewables. One of the points that all Australians should know—and I am sure Senator Allison knows this—is that we do in fact have substantial power supplied by renewables in Australia. Quite often there is reference to the Howard government’s mandatory renewable energy target. That was aimed at a two per cent increase in renewable energy. I think that quite often a lot of Australians think that we are trying to get to two per cent when, in fact, Australia at the moment is close to 11 per cent renewable energy. A lot of that does come from hydro, particularly in Tasmania.

I have not read the specific reference in the Switkowski review, in the frequently asked questions area, but I suspect that he was referring to wind and solar energy. The fact of the matter is that those energy sources do face hurdles in relation to the storage of that energy for use when either the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. They are constraints but they are constraints that the Australian government is very constructively seeking to overcome. We are funding through the CSIRO, at the solar centre in Newcastle, a project to do exactly that: get energy from the solar concentrator and use that energy to transform natural gas by increasing its, I think, hydrogen content. I will have to ask Professor Abetz about that because he is so good at science. The idea is to increase the energy coefficient of natural gas, which you can do by using solar concentrators, by about 30 per cent and then transport it. Storage is one of the very prospective technologies. We are also—through about a $40 million fund—looking at a range of other storage techniques so that renewables can in fact provide more reliable energy around the clock, regardless of when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. I think that would be the explanation for that frequently asked question.

Though you can try to fudge it as much as you want—and those opposite certainly do—the reality is that, between them, fossil fuels and nuclear are substantially, across the globe, the biggest suppliers of baseload power. You can try to pretend and tell the world that you could put up enough wind turbines to replace that, but of course that is not the truth. You could pretend and tell the world that you can do it through energy efficiency or just through more solar panels, but that is not the truth. The cold hard reality is that you need to address the issue of baseload power, you need to address the issue of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions going into the atmosphere and you need to have a portfolio based approach. If you are to be successful, you need to capture carbon from burning fossil fuels, you need to ensure that the world increases its nuclear capacity, you need to put more resources into and build more renewables, you need energy efficiency, you need to plant more trees and stop deforestation and you need to transfer fuels. You need a portfolio approach. You need all of those technologies. If you have a 1960s based ideological objection to one of those technologies, you are part of the problem and you are not part of the solution.

Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I ask a supplementary question. I will actually ask the same question again in my supplementary, if I may, since the minister did not answer it. Minister, is it not the case that geothermal, biomass and hydro can and do already provide baseload power? Will the minister admit that MRET, the mandatory renewable energy target, which he says was aimed at two per cent, is in fact less than one per cent and will be by 2010?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The MRET policy was aimed at, I think, 9½ megawatts. Although people like to confuse the message, the reality is that Australia’s proportion of renewables is somewhere between 10 per cent and 11 per cent. So it is a substantial sector in this community. It is a very successful industry. If the Greens, the Democrats and the Australian Labor Party want to run around telling Australians that they can solve the problem of ensuring that we have got a secure energy future and secure jobs and that they can also address climate change and dangerous green house gas emissions by using renewables, then they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. You have to tell the truth about this issue and you have to have practical solutions. If you try to kid people by saying that, if you build enough wind turbines, you can solve the problem, you are misleading the Australian people and you clearly do not take climate change policy seriously.