Energy Policy Post-2030

Senator VAN (13:15):

The Opposition Leader’s recent flutter at climate change this past week is the ALP’s weakest attempt yet to insert itself in to a debate that has left Labor lost in space. 

Let me be clear, setting targets is important. Setting ambitious targets may be noble. But setting arbitrary targets without a clue on how to achieve them is a complete folly.

In December 2015, the countries of the world met in Paris and agreed to fix emissions reduction targets in a coordinated global effort to ward off catastrophic climate change. The Paris Agreement was hailed as a major breakthrough, with signatory countries signing off on what they felt they could legitimately do.

This was a rare act of global agreement done in a spirit of cooperation.

Now it should be noted, signatories still have over 10 years to go to reach their self-defined targets. Some countries, such as Australia, will meet their targets early while others may or may not meet theirs at all. Those that meet them early may elect to reset their targets or may just continue the policy settings adopted such that reductions will continue to accrue.

Obviously the expectation is that signatory countries will meet their targets, though there is no guarantee they all will. If all, or most, meet their targets as agreed, we should keep warming to below two degrees. However, the efforts cannot and should not stop there. Yet there is currently no international framework to address what happens post-2030.

There is a need to consider new policy settings that address continued emissions reduction and carbon abatement beyond 2030.

The ambition of nations at COP26 in Glasgow later this year should be to assess what signatories to Paris have achieved to date and to negotiate further reductions if countries are looking likely to beat their current target.

The challenge for Glasgow is that the renewable technologies that will be required to drive further reductions, in the most part, do not exist yet or at best are nascent. To reach the levels of emissions that some are preaching for is all but impossible unless technologies are used that allow us to do the impossible.

The key difficulty in continuing to cut emissions post-2030 is that by then all of the 'easy' gains will have been taken. Energy generation, one of the largest contributors to emissions, will have reached peak renewable in most countries in the near term. There will be some legacy coal-fired generation that should only come off line at the end of its productive life. But sadly for the most part a glut of low-cost renewable power will have made coal generation economically unviable in many places.

However, this is will only happen if other means of providing firm power are found.

That is policy challenge number one: getting an energy mix that is at once reliable, cheap, and with no or low emissions.

As you would have seen from our announcements on Snowy Hydro 2.0, pumped hydro is the ideal use of excess, cheap, intermittent power to provide replacement firmness but there are probably not sufficient geographically suitable sites to build enough hydro to service all jurisdictions.

Batteries may provide some of the solution at a micro level, but the cost and efficiency must improve and end-of-life issues must be addressed and they are unlikely to ever provide ‘grid scale’ firming.

Natural gas is the logical fuel to create firming services that will allow wind and solar to make their contribution, however state governments – or rather, I should say some state government – like that in my home state of Victoria are strangling the supply of gas.  Until the economy‑killing gas moratoriums are abandoned the potential for gas to substantially lower emissions is effectively still­ born.  These state killing moratoria must be lifted immediately!

Now looking at future technologies, hydrogen is often spoken about as a solution here, and it may well be. Current projections are that the year will be at least 2030 before we even see any hydrogen coming into the market. Let alone it being commercially viable, hydrogen-fuelled capability for either energy or transport is at least a decade away. The key logistical challenge will be the distribution of hydrogen fuel, which could possibly mean that while the technology to use hydrogen is available by 2030, the infrastructure to enable it could take a further 10 years.

Australia is leading the way with its emissions reductions with the achievement of and beating our Kyoto targets by 411 million tonnes – it’s 80 per cent of a years’ emissions. We have done this way ahead of track. Not many other nations can claim that. As a nation we will be in a much better position than almost all Paris signatories to look at further reductions.  That is actual reductions not ambit claims.

There is only one feasible way to guarantee greater reductions in Australia’s emissions. That is using a proven technology like many of our peer countries are currently using.  That is nuclear power.

If we want to be serious about reducing emissions, nuclear energy needs to be in the energy mix.  The Greens refrain is that it isn’t safe, clean, timely, economic or practical. Closer examination shows that this refrain is simply histrionics. 

Nuclear kills far fewer people than solar or wind, and these numbers are readily found.  Gen 3+ and Gen 4 Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are safe especially when sited in geologically stable regions like much of Australia is.

Nuclear produces zero carbon from production. After all this is what seems to be the point of Labor’s 2050 goal.

Spent fuel can be managed safely with modern technology and good planning so the fear mongering about waste is pointless.

It could also be timely: the technology required to produce nuclear energy is existing technology.  That means we can purchase reactor technology that has been proven to work elsewhere.  Yes – we still need to clear the appropriate regulatory hurdles and those will still need to be set, and we need to consult widely with Australians so they can come on this journey with us. Then it needs to be built but can be done in a timely manner.

Now the economics: given that current nuclear technologies are Small Modular Reactors they are cheaper and faster to build, have long life spans, and high output. So the economics of nuclear stack up over whole of life.

Policymakers need to continue the good work done so far in reaching our 2030 targets. There is no other way for Australia to achieve larger lower emissions reductions in the forseable future other than nuclear energy.

I challenge all those in this Place: you cannot claim to be passionate about our planet, about reducing our emissions, without looking at nuclear energy as a power source. It’s not possible.

You cannot wish emissions away – that is just a dream. That’s a pipe dream that people use as a political stunt – particularly in this place. To do anything you must take practical, meaningful actions and that leads us to nuclear power.

We need to foster the innovation, the skills and the capability within this nation, and our universities are well placed to do that. That allows us to tackle the spectre of the over-the-radar emissions, as I call them—those post-2030.

That's where we need to get to next—not 2050 but 2030.