Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Report: Sydney Launch Thursday 12th August

Zero Carbon Australia will be launching their Stationary Energy Plan in Sydney this Thursday.

Thursday 12 August - 6-7.45pm

Sydney Town Hall, 483 George St, Sydney

Featuring:

Hon. Bob Carr - Former NSW Premier
Hon. Malcolm Turnbull - Federal MP for Wentworth
Senator Scott Ludlam - Federal Senator WA
Matthew Wright - Executive Director Beyond Zero Emissions
Allan Jones MBE - Chief Development Officer, Energy & Climate Change, City of Sydney
MC - Quentin Dempster - journalist and broadcaster

Free Entry

You are invited to attend the Sydney launch of the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan.

This cutting-edge plan, the culmination of over 12 months and thousands of hours of pro bono work by engineers, scientists and postgraduate students, is a collaboration between the climate solutions think tank Beyond Zero Emissions, and the University of Melbourne Energy Institute.

This plan is unique in Australia. It is a detailed and costed blueprint for transitioning our stationary energy sector to 100% renewable energy in ten years. The technologies utilised in this plan are commercially available now.

This free public event will cover the details of the plan as well as the state of renewable energy in Australia more broadly. A panel discussion with technical experts will follow the presentations.

Don't miss out!

If you would like to take a look at the report or synopsis they are available here:

Synopsis 16 pages:
http://media.beyondzeroemissions.org/ZCA2020_Stationary_Energy_Synopsis_...

Full Report 200 pages:
http://beyondzeroemissions.org/zero-carbon-australia-stationary-energy-p...

the ZCA2020 plan should really be viewed as a draft proposal. It is very ambitious to contemplate replacing ALL fossil fuel use by 2020 and is relying on the relatively new CSP solar towers and molten salt storage for 60% of the power generation.
It would seem that replacing all coal-fired power by renewable and nuclear and 50% of oil use replaced by electric vehicles by 2030 would be a much more realistic target, still very ambitious, but giving very substantial CO2 reductions.

Well - its good to set an ambitious target - in reality it will probably take 30 years but the sooner we get started the better...

Big Gav, agree that ambitious targets are worthwhile, but respectfully disagree about the way we get there, and acknowledge that a lot of TOD users won't agree with me. The BNC critique of the ZCA plan suggests that :

"1. The ZCA2020 Stationary Energy Plan has significantly underestimated the cost and timescale required to implement such a plan.
2. Our revised cost estimate is nearly five times higher than the estimate in the Plan: $1,709 billion compared to $370 billion. The cost estimates are highly uncertain with a range of $855 billion to $4,191 billion for our estimate.
3. The wholesale electricity costs would increase nearly 10 times above current costs to $500/MWh, not the $120/MWh claimed in the Plan.
......."

http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/12/zca2020-critique/

Personally, I would be encouraging "moderate" investment in R&D for the solar technologies the plan proposes, among other technologies, but acknowledging that, for all the best will in the world, renewables are simply not going to get us there. Despite the glossy presentation, this would have to be the most deeply flawed "serious" energy report I have seen, and does no service to the obvious hard work that has been put into it. My hope is that we don't waste yet another 10 years on wishful thinking.

Personally I don't view BNC as a remotely credible site - its purpose is just to promote nuclear power and it systematically distorts the facts regarding renewables...

It looks like a well thought out plan from glancing through the summary. Even if this doesn't work out as planned, and, you only cut back to 75% reduction on FFs, that is a good start!! Anyway, best of luck in your project.