The orders came from across the globe even though the car isn’t scheduled for sale until late in 2017.
If you shake hands with Malcolm Turnbull, you best count your fingers to see whether they are still there.
In short, he’s “keeping” ARENA, except that it has no funds, its grant function will be terminated and organisationally it will be absorbed into the CEFC. He starting a new fund, called the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, a subsidiary fund of the CEFC, to lend out to bankable ‘innovative’ ventures, but the funding is less than is already there, and will be dribbled out at the princely rate of $100 million per year for the next 10 years so as “not to overwhelm the market.”
In other words, pretend you are brave and forward-looking, but don’t do anything that might disrupt coal’s predominance any time soon. Continue reading Turnbull’s clean energy stunt
In this post I’d like to identify a few technologies that are under development which go beyond the standard wind and solar. However, first I’ll link to a Climate Institute report prepared around the time of the Paris climate talks last year, which showed that in 2013 for the first time more new energy capacity was created in the form of renewables, rather than coal, gas, oil or nuclear. Back in 2001 renewables only accounted for 19% of new capacity. Now the proportion has reached 58% and is climbing steeply: Continue reading Clean power for the future
At the Paris climate conference a surprise result was for the world to aim to hold “the increase in … temperature to well below 2°C … and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”.
Fred Pearce in the New Scientist now takes a look at what some are saying needs to be done. Continue reading Saving the planet
The Brisbane company Tritium manufactures a range of products including the award-winning Veefil electric vehicle fast charger right here in Brisbane. Tripling production in a new facility it exports Veefil to the world including Europe and America. Continue reading Climate clippings 164
By 2020 emissions will grow by 6%, leaving Australia 4% above 2000 levels compared with our official target of -5%. Not to worry, we will use carry-over credits under the Kyoto Protocol to formally meet our international commitments. Continue reading Australia’s greenhouse emissions to peak after 2030
Most existing solar panel owners will need to obtain a new inverter to connect with the grid. Continue reading Climate clippings 163
Tesla and GM say “they will soon deliver 200+ mile range EVs at a game-changing price of $30,000 or less — including tax incentives.”
For GM, it will be the Chevy Bolt, and for Tesla, the Model 3. Continue reading Tesla and GM announce affordable, long-range electric cars
The US Supreme Court has just given the finger to the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, with implications for US democracy as well as the planet. Continue reading US climate action, and democracy, at a tipping point
Dr Larry Marshall, former venture capitalist and now head of the CSIRO, has a brief and a vision to turn the organisation into an innovation catalyst. Climate science simply no longer fits, according to him.
He told the ABC:
So if you look at the climate market, I think after Paris the argument for climate change is pretty much decided, I think that question has been answered.
So that begs the next question, what do we do about climate change? How do we adapt to it? How do we mitigate it?
And it’s inevitable that people who are gifted at you know measuring and modelling climate may not be the same people who are gifted at figuring out what to do about it, or how to mitigate it.
China exponentially increased its use of coal in the early part of this century, so that 64% of its energy comes from coal. Now studies suggest that coal use in China declined in 2014 and may have peaked in 2013. No new mines will be approved in the next three years. Continue reading Climate clippings 162
