Yesterday you should have received the amazing work that Murray Hogarth has started for us on how the new push for nuclear energy in Australia is an overly expensive and fundamentally political ploy to keep oil and gas in our economy.
We’ve had unabashed congratulations for this, but they all belong to Murray who’s put the forensic skills he developed in his previous career as an investigative reporter with 4 Corners back in valuable use.
There are so many people now drinking the Kool-Aid.
Fossil fuels know their days are numbered. So in comes the nuclear option. Which in theory, and in some countries that are already established in this industry, might make some sense. For Australia it makes no sense. It’s too expensive and would take so long to develop that by then we won’t recognise this beautiful country or planet that we love.
Murray’s series dives into the political links. Strangely (not) they lead back to where we thought they would – coal.
Years ago, a senior mining journalist where I worked solved my confusion as to why the federal government’s stance on climate and sustainability was in direct conflict with its own environment department.
“What you need to understand” said the fellow journo, “is that the coal industry sits on the prime minister’s lap.”
Clearly coal and gas are now sitting on an even bigger lap – that of the masters of the universe, given the way the owners of these giant resources can so easily push their way to the top of the political agenda and win over a misinformed public. Remember the stupid but highly effective slogan with the Indigenous Voice referendum? “If you don’t know just say no.”
The nuclear campaign for the hearts and minds of public is already working. In fact, it’s astounding how quickly it’s taken root. We’re guessing it’s the fear of climate change already in evidence.
It’s no matter that the Opposition jerks around on facts, costs, locations for facilities and time timetables for delivery.
And it’s no matter that they are discrediting our respected scientific organisation – the CSIRO.
Unfortunately, the “magic bullet” offered by nuclear energy has hit the street; it’s off and running. Facts are now unlikely to matter. It’s the first story that counts – true or otherwise.
It’s the same game playing of facts and science devised by the cigarette lobby and then the climate deniers who now dare not deny climate but are happy to proffer solutions that achieve nothing.
(By the way, the battle for better is never over. The new conservative government in New Zealand has now repealed the tough anti smoking legislation designed to ban nicotine for future generations.)
By the time nuclear energy could become viable in Australia none of us will likely recognise this place.
Let’s not get blindsided – the push for nuclear is not real; it’s a furphy, a stalking horse for coal and gas, as Murray details in the start of this series.
We need to keep an eye on the ball
At an ARBS conference breakfast in Sydney on Tuesday the leading lights of the technical side of the industry pointed to where our efforts need to be focused instead: energy efficiency.
They were upbeat.
We know that by retrofitting our old buildings with great thermal comfort (no excuse not to do it with new buildings) and low tech solutions like load shifting – championed by people like Craig Roussac – we can dramatically slash the need for new power stations needed to transition to all electric. If we put solar on all our roof in the cities, where most of energy is consumed, as Planet Ark’s Paul Klymenko said as part of the discussion panel for the breakfast, we can even obliterate the need for new power lines – now hugely contentious by environmentalists power lines.
Never mind there won’t be much of an environment at all if we don’t transition.
But Frankie Muskovic from the Property Council of Australia was upbeat on the prospects for an imminent shift.
The federal government was at last turning its attention to buildings, she said, [and not before time].
She said: “I think we should expect to see a shift on CBD (Commercial Buildings Disclosure which mandates NABERS energy rating disclosure on commercial buildings) sometime soon.
“I think it was outrageous that it wasn’t in the National Energy Performance Strategy.”
“We have been doing this for 40 years, we have this incredibly solid foundation.”
So far in its term this Labor government has been busy delivering on election promises, (the safeguard mechanism, electric vehicles and so on).
But now the spotlight might finally turn to buildings that we all know is such a cheap and quick way to dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Especially with the known and proven power of the NABERS energy rating mandate embedded in the CBD (commercial buildings disclosure) program.
“I would expect to see action really ramp up on the building side of things from here on out,” Muskovic said.
“I think we should be seeing shifts on CBD, we should be seeing NABERS really empowered to cover as much of the built environment as it possibly can.
“And then we will hopefully start to see incentives targeted at the work to electrify commercial buildings.”
And while it will be hard for the Feds to ban gas given its new embrace of this fossil fuel, the new National Construction Code provision for 2025 would make it very hard to build a new commercial building with gas, she said.
“The facts are, there is no future for fossil gas in buildings. There is no credible study across the world that suggests that’s the case, and there is no clinical study that suggests that green hydrogen is going to be a thing at scale anywhere. So it’s electrification all the way. We need to be cracking on with it.”
But there’s a big problem that she challenged the ARBS audience with, given their roots in the airconditioning, heating, ventilation and refrigeration industry. And that’s the phenomenal cost of electrifying assets.
While it might be just $200,000 to replace a gas boiler it can cost $1 million or even up to $3 million for an electric retrofit, she said.
Key here was smart design and the need to “start thinking a little bit more creatively about how we solve for that challenge”.
Paul Klymenko picked up on the thread and said a big chunk of how we get to net zero is from energy efficiency – up to 45 per cent.
In fact, he pointed out, “everything’s about efficiency”.
“I’ll give you a simple statistic showing how inefficient Australia is in managing resources. Because everything in this room has come from nature, everything we’re wearing right now, that’s a resource.
“For every kilo of resources we get out of nature, we get about $US1.20 in value out of it. The OECD average is $US2.50.
“So that means we’re less than half as efficient at extracting that economic value out of those resources.”
Think of the benefit to the economy and long yearning calls for more productivity.
Klymenko is right: Nature wastes nothing and recycles everything. Nature should be our guiding star.
Tina Perinotto