China’s effective ban on Australian coal since October is more political retaliation than climate statement and may have ended up as a bit of an own goal. While the ban has contributed to widespread Chinese blackouts during freezing winter snap, Australia’s coal exports have just shifted to new markets as prices continue to surge in …
China ban more musical chairs than Death Of Coal Read More »
On Friday (January 7) the French electricity grid operator RTE asked consumers to reduce their power consumption because things were getting tight. French citizens were asked to put off running the dishwasher or doing a load of washing that evening because there might not be enough electricity. That day total electricity demand in France reached …
Like all good energy nerds, I keep track of my old electricity bills. I recently stumbled across an old spreadsheet with some analysis of different retailer offers from the time my wife and I moved into our house back in 2010. I was curious to see how much our bills had changed so I started …
Energy efficiency (EE) has been portrayed as the “low-hanging fruit” of climate policy. Apparently improving the efficiency with which energy is used is as easy as picking money up off the ground. The latest global summary of progress on EE suggests otherwise: global improvements in EE have been steadily slowing over the back end of …
We’re getting less efficient at energy efficiency Read More »
Anyone who thinks gas doesn’t has a global future hasn’t been paying much attention to the gradually escalating geopolitical tensions arising in the South China Sea. Since 2014 China has been building seven artificial islands around reefs it claims as its own territory in the middle of the Sea. The reason for this is simple: …
The renewable energy sector continues to demonstrate it is largely COVID-proof with continuing growth in the pipeline of projects, based on the latest data from the Clean Energy Regulator (CER). In the longer term the recently launched NSW electricity infrastructure roadmap will stimulate many more projects, but the newest utility-scale plants are in Victoria and …
The recent announcement by telephony giant Telstra about its plans to become an electricity retailer is not so much new, green or innovative. But it may mark an important inflection point in the evolution the electricity market: the demise of the vertically integrated retailer. Telstra has been kicking the tyres on getting into electricity since …
Grattan’s latest energy analysis has provoked much debate in the media including pushback on some of its conclusions from the federal government and the gas network sector, amongst others. Grattan’s main thesis is that the idea of a gas-led recovery is a mirage and would require massive government subsidies. They go further and say that …
China is the world’s biggest greenhouse emitter, the second biggest economy and the biggest manufacturer of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries in the world. It is both the problem and the solution to climate change. In September in an address to the United Nations General Assembly China’s President Xi Jinping said that China would …
