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    Policy

    Energy & Climate

    May

    David Atkin is chief executive of the Principles for Responsible Investment, a UN-backed lobby for socially responsible investing.

    ‘Every country is worried about what’s happening in the US’

    ESG champion David Atkin runs a global organisation with 5300 signatories that manage a total of $US121 trillion – about half of global funds under management.

    • Ben Potter
    Neoen owns the Victorian Big Battery outside Geelong in Victoria.

    Brookfield lands Origin Plan B with $10b Neoen bid

    The French utility’s pipeline makes it the largest owner of renewable energy in Australia, six months after Origin dismissed the Canadian investment group.

    • Ben Potter
    There is a case for imposing a levy on carbon emissions.

    A carbon tax and dividend scheme could be the answer

    Readers’ letters on the pressing need for a carbon tax; why we shouldn’t fear AI; in defence of mortgage brokers; and the reality of climate change.

    Former Hawke Labor government economist Ross Garnaut estimates if Julia Gillard’s emissions trading scheme was still in place, it would now be raising about $70 billion a year, based on the European carbon price.

    Taxpayers are poorer without a carbon tax

    Instead of imposing a carbon levy on polluters to fund big personal income tax cuts, governments are gambling taxpayer money on climate and energy projects.

    • John Kehoe

    Victoria needs new gas after all, state Labor admits

    In March, Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the state had enough electricity to cover winter shortfalls. On Thursday, she conceded that it needed new gas supplies.

    • Gus McCubbing
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    Origin Energy’s Eraring power station.

    Fears Eraring subsidies will need to be extended

    Keeping the country’s biggest coal-fired power station open until 2027 has raised questions about whether it will be needed to keep the lights on into the 2030s.

    • Updated
    • Ben Potter and Elouise Fowler

    With patient capital, Australia could make solar panels

    This country can make good quality panels. The doubts lie with Australian governments’ and capital markets’ willingness to allocate the billions of dollars, year after year.

    • Tristan Edis
    Santos chief executive Kevin Gallagher and Shell Australia chair Cecile Wake at the Australian Energy Producers’ conference in Perth.

    Subsidy wars: Carbon capture cost adds up for fertiliser maker

    Carbon capture and storage would add 50 per cent to the cost of producing ammonia in the Pilbara, making it uneconomic without further government support.

    • Ben Potter
    Peter Dutton remains committed to nuclear power.

    Our cheapest, most efficient nuclear fusion reactor is the sun

    Readers’ letters on nuclear energy; the role of drugs and alcohol in family violence; fat-cat university vice chancellors; an alternative Bonza outcome; Singapore’s new leader; and Alexander Downer’s columns.

    Nuclear power is part of the landscape in 32 countries.

    Cut through the noise on nuclear power

    It’s a mistake to flatly rule out nuclear power when the final cost of a fully renewable system is also far from clear.

    • Michael Brear and Chris Greig
    From left, Woodside boss Meg O’Neill; Resources minister Madeleine King, and Peter Cosgrove at the Australian Energy Producers conference in Perth.

    Woodside eyes data centres to justify hydrogen bet

    Woodside is looking to data centres’ hunger for green power as a potential solution to the problem of finding customers willing to justify the oil and gas giant’s  commercial-scale bet on green hydrogen.

    • Ben Potter
    Part of the $2.3 billion EnergyConnect transmission line being built between SA and NSW. Photo: ElectraNet

    Risk of summer blackouts in NSW, Victoria rises

    Power users face an increased risk of summer shortages in NSW and Victoria due to delays in transmission lines and renewable projects, and large users may need to switch off plants to avoid blackouts.

    • Ben Potter
    The scale of the risks are such that a reckless mis-step could result in serious blackouts and imperil the social licence needed to navigate the already challenging process of decarbonisation.

    Keeping Eraring open is about engineering not morality

    The imminent decision around when to close Australia’s biggest coal-fired power station is a watershed moment between an ideological approach to climate change and the laws of physics.

    • Matthew Warren
    Maia Schweizer,COO  Sundrive, and Vince Allen, founder and CEO

    Critics say Aussies can’t make cheap solar panels. This start-up says they’re wrong

    The brains behind SunDrive say Australia has the material, the best resources, and even national security reasons, for keeping solar panel expertise here.

    • Ben Potter
    Michael Myer, chairman of Sunshine Hydro, at site of its proposed Djandori 300 MW green hydrogen project south of Gladstone, Qld.

    Hydrogen credit could blow its $6.7b budget

    Sunshine Hydro chairman Michael Myer says international investment could mean the cost of the budget measure blows out, but is still worth the benefits.

    • Ben Potter
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    Brian Craighead, founder of Energy Renaissance, says the $523 million budget “battery breakthrough” funding can help Australia’s only lithium ion battery maker expoand sufficiently to underwrite a massive expansion in critical minerals. Photo: Louie Douvis

    The game changer on battery-making is still to come

    The founder of Australia’s only lithium-ion battery-maker says a $523 million budget boost will help underwrite a boom in critical minerals.

    • Ben Potter

    This could be the biggest local energy shake-up since the late ’70s

    The budget leg-up for the ‘Future Made in Australia’ through green metals is ultimately about shoring up Labor’s electoral base.

    • Andrew Clark
    The Australian Renewable Energy Agency is a big winner from the federal budget.

    Arena to receive $5.1b to back renewable energy

    A big winner is the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, a body threatened with abolition a decade ago.

    • Ben Potter

    Blue-sky thinkers block the sun to fight climate change

    It might sound like science fiction, but a mix of scientists and venture capitalists are working on plans to block the sun to slow global warming.

    • Peter Ker and Lap Phan
    International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol.

    The world’s wiliest climate warrior? It’s not who you think

    International Energy Agency boss Fatih Birol, a lifelong bureaucrat with roots in the oil industry, has made the net zero transition a personal mission.

    • Hans van Leeuwen