<
https://theconversation.com/clean-energy-slump-why-australias-renewables-revolution-is-behind-schedule-and-how-to-fix-it-229514>
"For years, the electricity sector has been the poster child for emissions cuts
in Australia. The sector achieved a stunning 26% drop in emissions over the
past 15 years, while other sectors have hardly budged. The share of renewable
energy has gone from 7.5% to more than 30% in that time.
But unfortunately, this impressive pace is not fast enough.
Investments in renewable energy plants slowed in 2023 – financial approvals for
new solar farms shrank more than a third and no new wind farms won backing. By
the end of that year, Australia had 56 renewable energy projects under
construction, down from 72 a year earlier.
For Australia to achieve the federal government’s 43% emissions cut target by
2030, and the deeper and swifter cuts required after that, we need to
accelerate. The federal government wants the electricity sector to be
generating at least 82% from renewable sources by 2030. The electricity sector
needs to be clean enough by that year to make electrification the better choice
for sectors heavily dependent on fossil fuels, from transport to heavy industry
to household gas.
And it won’t end there. After 2030, when other sectors start to electrify en
masse, the electricity sector will need to keep building more and more new
renewable capacity to keep up.
If it doesn’t, it simply won’t be possible to eliminate the remaining 56% of
our emissions that come from producing and burning fossil fuels. And that’s
before Australia even starts looking at expanding its industrial base to become
a so-called “renewable superpower”.
There are three reasons the electricity sector isn’t achieving the required
pace at the moment."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
