Category Archives: Energy

Robodebt royal commission report handed down – as it happened

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Bill Shorten: robodebt commission report will be a ‘vindication’ for victims and their families

The NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, says today “is a vindication” for victims of the robodebt scandal with the royal commission report being handed down. He told ABC’s RN this morning:

The heart of this story today is the fact that real people unlawfully had debt notices … raised against them by the most powerful institution in Australia, the commonwealth government.

Two of these people, after receiving robodebt notices, subsequently took their own lives that I’m aware of.

Today is not the day [their mothers] want. What they really want is their sons to be alive.

One of the challenges we’re seeing across the country is great teacher shortages … COVID brought that timetable forward.

Classrooms are more complex, there is a great diversity of needs across the classroom, and as society changes a lot of teachers and education ministers are testifying about the impact of technology in classrooms.

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Peter Dutton ramps up nuclear power push and claims Labor down ‘renewable rabbit hole’

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Opposition leader to tell Institute of Public Affairs that domestic reactors are natural next step from Aukus pact

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has ramped up calls for nuclear power in Australia, casting the move as a way to avoid dependence on wind and solar technology from China and a natural next step from the Aukus pact.

Dutton will make the comments on Friday at an event organised by the Institute of Public Affairs, a Liberal-aligned thinktank that has publicly opposed curbs on coal-fired power and has lobbied against the net zero by 2050 policy.

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Australian energy ministers to consider renaming natural gas to ‘fossil gas’ in law

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Meeting to discuss updating national gas law to reflect fuel’s environmental impact as well as overhauling hydrogen strategy

Australian energy ministers meeting on Friday will discuss an overhaul of the country’s hydrogen strategy, the treatment of emissions from the Beetaloo gas field and whether to change the treatment of “natural gas” in the national gas law.

The ACT energy minister, Shane Rattenbury, will propose the gas law be updated to replace “natural gas” with “fossil gas” or “methane” to more accurately reflect the environmental impact of the fuel.

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China accused of scores of abuses linked to ‘green mineral’ mining

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Watchdog identifies 102 violations over past two years as country extracts ‘transition minerals’ for green-energy technology

A new report into China’s dominance in the green-energy market has identified more than a hundred allegations of environmental and human rights violations linked to its overseas transition mineral investments over the past two years.

China dominates the processing and refining of lithium, cobalt, copper, manganese, nickel, zinc, chromium, aluminium and rare-earth elements – and the manufacturing of technologies like solar panels, wind turbines and batteries for electric vehicles (EV), which require so-called transition minerals.

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Australia resists Japan’s lobbying for NT gas export project to be given special treatment

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Australian government stands by safeguard mechanism’s design and indicates it will not change in response to lobbying

The Albanese government is resisting a push by Japan for a major new Northern Territory gas export development to be given special treatment under Australia’s revamped emissions reduction policy.

The Kishida government has lobbied the Albanese government over its concerns about Australia’s safeguard mechanism, a climate policy that requires major industrial polluters to either cut greenhouse gas emissions intensity – how much they emit per unit of production – or pay for carbon offsets.

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Australia news live: Tanya Plibersek announces audit of 1,000 environmental offset sites to check if they are delivering on promises

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Treasurer Jim Chalmers wants to maintain strong budget position while rolling out existing policies; federal government cancels satellite program. Follow the day’s news live

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, denies Australia’s first budget surplus in more than a decade comes at the expense of under-pressure households as the cost of living rises, AAP reports.

Chalmers has confirmed there will be a larger surplus for the 2022/23 financial year than predicted in last month’s federal budget.

By getting the budget in much better nick by finding savings ... it actually makes it possible from that much stronger foundation to provide the $15bn of cost-of-living relief that we had in the budget.

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China on course to hit wind and solar power target five years ahead of time

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Beijing bolstering position as global renewables leader with solar capacity more than rest of world combined

China is shoring up its position as the world leader in renewable power and potentially outpacing its own ambitious energy targets, a report has found.

China is set to double its capacity and produce 1,200 gigawatts of energy through wind and solar power by 2025, reaching its 2030 goal five years ahead of time, according to the report by Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based NGO that tracks operating utility-scale wind and solar farms as well as future projects in the country.

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Crown estate enjoys huge rise in profits thanks to offshore wind

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Fees for accessing UK seabeds help boost profits to £443m while King Charles says some of surplus will go towards public good

The crown estate has generated record profits of almost half a billion pounds from Britain’s offshore windfarms, as talks continue over how much of the windfall should be shared with King Charles.

The royal property manager made £443m in profits in its last financial year, up by almost £130m from the year before, in large part thanks to payments made by renewable energy companies for the right to access the seabed.

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PM launches byelection campaign – as it happened

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Birmingham tells RN he is ‘conflicted’ over voice to parliament

Shadow foreign minister, Simon Birmingham, avoids disclosing what he will vote in the voice referendum, dodging ABC RN’s Patricia Karvelas’ questions.

Do you support the voice?

I’ve been clear that I don’t intend to actively campaign in the referendum.

Why aren’t you taking a position? I mean, you’re making it clear that you want it to be private. If it’s private, that means you are actually sitting on the fence.

Patricia, I think you can hear from my answer there, that I am, in some ways conflicted and think this is a very difficult situation the country has been put in, that we have got a question before a proposed change.

We’re getting a situation where the government is not really directly responding to Ukraine’s requests for the Hawkei vehicles, or the Abrams tanks, nor the D mining equipment they’ve asked for.

[The Albanese government’s] contribution in terms of humanitarian assistance is simply $10m compared with the $65m that had been provided previously. So this is a concern …

Status as the leading non-Nato contributor to Ukraine has slipped away and the type of support being offered now doesn’t seem to be either meeting Ukraine’s requests, providing the modern equipment that they want or need, nor the type of scale that would seem to keep Australia commensurate support of our other parts.

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Solar powers ahead with hopes of a renewables record for solstice month

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As the industry gathers in London this week, there are signs of a new dawn after the damage done by Tory subsidy cuts

Britain’s solar industry delivered record levels of renewable electricity to the power grid earlier this year, but as daylight hours stretch longer around the summer solstice, it could be on track to reach another record.

Solar power generation in June is on track to come within a hair’s breadth of the record set during an unusually sunny May in 2020 at about 20 gigawatt hours, according to Alastair Buckley, the professor of organic electronics at the University of Sheffield.

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New windfarm could be used to power North Sea oilfield

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Electricity generated on Shetland could be used to fuel the proposed Rosebank field, instead of homes

Electricity from a new onshore windfarm could be used to power the biggest undeveloped oilfield in the North Sea, campaigners are warning, ahead of an imminent decision over whether to approve the project.

The huge Rosebank oilfield is three times bigger than the controversial Cambo field that was put on hold more than a year ago. It has the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil and its final approval is expected to reach the energy secretary, Grant Shapps, in the next few weeks. It is expected to be approved after Rishi Sunak hinted last month that it would be “economically illiterate” not to invest in UK oil and gas because Britain will remain reliant on fossil fuels for “the next few decades”.

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Paris climate finance summit fails to deliver debt forgiveness plan

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Countries in debt distress thrown financial lifeline but critics say measures fall short of what is needed

Poorer countries struggling with a growing debt crisis were thrown a lifeline at a global finance summit in Paris but the plans still fell short of the debt forgiveness programme that some had hoped for.

Progress was made on reforms that would help address the climate emergency, as nearly 40 world leaders and the heads of global institutions met in Paris for the summit, which ended on Friday.

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Labor under fire from crossbench over $1.5bn stake in Middle Arm industrial precinct

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Zali Steggall and David Pocock take aim at government over support of development on Darwin habour which will benefit gas industry

The Albanese government has come under pressure from the crossbench over its $1.5bn stake in a “sustainable” development precinct on Darwin harbour after documents revealed the project would benefit the gas industry.

In question time on Thursday, the independent MP for Warringah, Zali Steggall, asked the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, why his government had “backflipped” and blocked a Senate inquiry into the Middle Arm industrial precinct.

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Gas stoves emit benzene levels above secondhand smoke, US study finds

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Even low doses of airborne benzene raise the risk of a variety of cancers, including lymphomas and leukemia

Using a gas stove can raise indoor concentrations of benzene, a cancer-linked chemical, to above what’s found in secondhand smoking or even beyond levels found next to oil and gas facilities, a new study has found.

The research, which measured benzene levels in 87 homes in California and Colorado, found that gas and propane stoves frequently emitted benzene at rates well above healthy benchmarks set by the World Health Organization and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

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Starmer reassures North Sea workers as Labour lays out energy and climate plan

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Speech in Scotland shows willingness to face energy dilemma head-on, but green groups say fossil fuel end date must come soon

Scotland was a brave choice as the venue for the launch of Keir Starmer’s new energy and climate policy. Back in March, Rishi Sunak was planning to hold his “energy day” in Aberdeen, the UK’s oil and gas capital, but after criticism he switched to the much safer Oxfordshire.

Starmer knows that Labour needs to win back lost seats in Scotland, so visiting the Scottish capital for an important speech was a canny move. More than that, though, taking the launch to Edinburgh showed a willingness to face head-on Labour’s energy dilemma: how to shift the UK economy to a low-carbon footing, as net zero demands, without destroying high-quality jobs in carbon-intensive industries.

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MPs voting on report that found Boris Johnson misled parliament – UK politics live

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Theresa May says parliament must punish MPs who break rules as Penny Mordaunt says Johnson ‘undermined democratic process’

At the Labour event Keir Starmer is now speaking. He starts with a jibe at the SNP, saying the tide is turning in Scotland.

Turning to energy policy, he says Labour wants to promote security.

Can we still achieve great things? Can we unite and move forward? Can we still change, can we grow, can we get things done, can we build things? New industries, new technologies, new jobs; will they come to our shores, or will the future pass us by?

You can put it even more starkly. Around the world people want to know, are we still a great nation? If the question is about the British people, the answer is emphatically: yes.

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Australia needs to reduce emissions to net zero by 2038 to do ‘fair share’ to contain global heating, analysis shows

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Exclusive: Researchers say government’s climate schedule needs to be brought forward by a decade to keep heating to 1.5C

Australia’s fair share of action to give the world a chance of keeping global heating to 1.5C would mean reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2038 – more than a decade ahead of the government’s schedule, according to new scientific analysis.

To stay on track to keep global heating of 1.5C within reach – a goal the climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen has described as vital – Australia’s 2035 target would need to see a cut of 90% on 2005 levels by 2035, the analysis says.

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‘No time to waste’: getting Australian homes off gas crucial for meeting net zero targets, report says

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Grattan Institute analysis recommends governments help households transition to electric, and ban new gas connections for homes and businesses

Getting households off gas for heating and cooking would cut energy bills and improve people’s health, and is necessary for Australia to have any hope of reaching net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, a new analysis says.

The report by the Grattan Institute, a Melbourne-based thinktank, called on state and territory governments to set dates for the end of gas use and launch campaigns to encourage and help households become “all electric”, running on renewable energy.

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Origin Energy surrenders 10 controversial gas tenements in Queensland’s channel country

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Company gives up 10 of its 11 leases in the area amid concern about potential impacts of fracking

Australia’s largest energy company has surrendered 10 controversial gas tenements in Queensland’s channel country, as the state government embarks on long-delayed consultation over environmental protections for the sensitive Lake Eyre-Kati Thanda basin.

Origin Energy and the Queensland resources department confirmed the “total surrender” of 10 of the 11 production leases held by the company in the area, amid concerns about the impact of potential fracking plans on its unique waterways and floodplains.

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Germany coalition staves off implosion with 11th-hour heating law amendment

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Environmental groups criticise revision of law that would have banned installation of gas and oil systems

The German government has staved off a power battle that threatened to cause the ruling coalition to implode after finally agreeing an 11th-hour amendment to a controversial new heating law.

Negotiations over the legislation have dominated the headlines for weeks, with the economy minister, Robert Habeck, of the Greens clashing with the pro-liberal Free Democratic party (FDP) over how much consumers should be burdened with the costs of replacing fossil fuel heating systems with cleaner, climate-neutral energy.

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