Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has rubbished opposition calls for Australia to embrace nuclear power in the form of small modular reactors. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has injected his idea of a nuclear renaissance into the energy debate, suggesting he might change the Coalition’s official opposition to nuclear power, saying Labor was…
The federal government has engaged an eminent academic to study the need for a carbon tariff to protect local manufacturers from unfair competition from imports which are not subject to restrictions on emissions of CO2. The move opens the way for import tariffs to be applied on carbon intensive products such as cement and steel…
The federal and Western Australian governments have signed a landmark agreement to expand and modernise electricity grids in Perth, the South West and the North West Pilbara region. The Commonwealth-Western Australia Rewiring the Nation deal will bolster WA’s energy security in preparation for increasing use of renewable energy and battery storage. It will be backed…
Renewable power generation’s share of the National Energy Market is showing a sudden and rapid rise in importance with renewables now playing a bigger role in Australia’s energy mix than ever before. The federal government’s March 2023 Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory showed that renewables accounted for 39 per cent of generation…
University of Wollongong spinout business Hysata officially opened its new 8,000 square metre global headquarters and factory in Port Kembla and was awarded over $23 million in government support on Monday as it progresses its high-efficiency electrolyser towards commercialisation. The company, which closed a $42.5 million Series A round in August last year, said it…
By Peter Roberts The Minister for Climate Change and Energy has celebrated a year of achievement on tacking climate change, lambasted the climate ‘fantasy’ of the former Morrison government and outlined his next task – the creation of sector specific decarbonisation plans. In a major speech to the Clean Energy Council Bowen said he would…
An area covering 1,854 square kilometres off NSW’s Hunter region was declared suitable for offshore wind development by the federal government on Wednesday. According to a statement from the department of energy, the zone is 20 km from the coast in the north and over 35 km from the coast in the south and has…
The latest round of electricity generation Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) auctions are underway which are aimed at unlocking around $10 billion of investment and adding 6GW to support grid reliability and security. The federal and New South Wales governments today announced auctions that will deliver almost one gigawatt of additional dispatchable capacity, eliminating the forecast…
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will invest $30 million to support development of a domestic sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry based on conversion of agricultural feedstocks. Announcing the programme the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said that a homegrown SAF industry could help decarbonise the hard-to-abate aviation sector and create thousands…
