10-03-10 - Australian Energy Very Different at 2030

The Australian Energy Resource Assessment released at the beginning of March by Geoscience Australia and ABARE - the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics - paints a 2030 picture of a domestic energy mix very different to the current energy configurations.

In 344 pages, the Assessment covers all of the known energy resources in Australia - including those like uranium that are not currently in use. It assesses their availability and the technologies that will allow for them to be expolited efficiently and cleanly.

By 2030, Australian energy use is expected to increase by around 50 percent, with coal to continue its dominance, although with increased contributions from gas and on the renewables front, wind power in particular. As a result, average domestic emisisons intensity of energy is set to reduce, but not significantly.

Perhaps the most important strategic issue in the Assessment is the clear expectation that Australia will continue to be reliant upon imports of transportation fuels. This energy security challenge - a topic about which Resources, Energy and Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson has been frank - also provides guidance to industries that might be able to provide transport fuels.

In that context, it is notable that biomass energy (including biofuels) is reserved to last in the Assessment. Equally, while bioenergy currently accounts for about 3.9 percent of Australia's energy (it is the largest supplier of renewable energy currently - about 78 percent of all renewables), only a very minor increase - to 4.4 percent - is expected by 2030.

As the Assessment points out, the reality is that biomass energy is largely a feature of in process and co-generation in the sugar industry, pulp and paper and timber industries. Thus, the expansion in the sector is considered in the context of these industrial developments. There is only limited expectation of an expansion in biofuels production for broad use and application.

In part, this is because there is little confidence in the national capacity to link resource, technology, investment and markets. To CarbonEdge that sounds like a direct challenge to Australian entrepreneurs.

CarbonEdge will provide a detailed, subscriber only analysis of the outlook for the biomass energy sector in the next edition of CarbonEdge due out on 2nd April, 2010.

A major feature of the Assessment is its reviews of the factors that are likely to impact upon the take up of each of the energy resources and technologies. CarbonEdge expects this to be the major area of contention. As ever, the assumptions underpinning the forecasts are contestable and based on current policy and historical developments.

The Assessment was commissioned by the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism as part of the explorations towards a new energy white paper and national energy policy for Australia. Originally, the Assessment would possibly have been released as an input to or appendix of the white paper.

It is perhaps a demonstration of the complexity of energy policy that the white paper has been delayed because there is no conclusion to one of the key inputs - an emissions reduction target and a price on carbon. In part, that is also a constraint operating on this Assessment.

A comprehensive review and anlysis of this Assessment will be included in the next edition of CarbonEdge.

To download the Assessment, click here.

 

 

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10-03-10 - Australian Energy Very Different at 2030

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