“Friendshoring” – ensuring supply chains come from geopolitical allies – is the focus of this piece featuring the work of CEF’s Tim Buckley and Matt Pollard analysing critical minerals value adding projects in Australia. Read more

CEF’s Tim Buckley and Matt Pollard explore how Australia’s new Labor government has set its sights on 21st-century gold: value adding our world leading supplies of lithium and rare earth minerals. Read more

Tim Buckley says Australia’s energy crisis predicament could have been avoided by policy certainty around renewable energy. “We really need to see the $20 billion ‘rewiring the nation program’ implemented at speed”. Read more

Tim Buckley says the current reporting of emissions data by the Clean Energy Regulator is ad hoc and partial and “having real time satellite data by facility, that is independent and transparent, would be a huge step up.” Read more

Tim Buckley comments on China’s leadership on decarbonisation in this positive international story on the progress being made to a better future. Read more

Tim Buckley says the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax, designed to raise revenue from multinational gas producers making superprofits, is structurally flawed and predicts a Treasury review currently underway will find that it is not operating in the national interest. The Treasurer has undertaken to carefully consider the advice as pressure for a solution to the gas price crisis ramps up. Read more

In #6 in CEF’s series on critical minerals, Matt Pollard and Tim Buckley review key Australian public financial capital initiatives and their role in accelerating Australia’s critical mineral supply chain value-adding projects, with a focus on key examples. Read more

Tim Buckley’s discussion on Sky News Afternoon Agenda with Kieran Gilbert on gas in this story in The Australian: “We have a gas cartel, according to the ACCC – 90 per cent of the gas reserves in eastern Australia are controlled by three consortia, which have ramped up the price on the east coast tenfold, 1000 per cent, in the last three, four, five years and we are now paying above export price parity”. Read more

Tim Buckley explains that considering energy from the perspective of baseload power is an outdated concept from a decade ago and needs to shift with decarbonisation. “The concept is completely different today because you are going to have negative power prices 20% or 30% of the time and that changes everything”. Read more

In his piece foreshadowing next month’s COP 27 and tracking global progress on decarbonisation, Nine/Fairfax environment editor quotes Tim Buckley on China: while it leads the world in coal use, it also leads in “wind and solar installation and manufacturing, EV production, batteries, hydro, nuclear, ground heat pumps, grid transmission and distribution, green hydrogen, literally every zero-emissions technology today.” Read more

Tim Buckley calls on Australian governments and industry to note the IEA’s forecast for the ongoing structural decline of coal, modelling up to a 45% decline globally by 2030. The agency also highlights the structural demand for key critical minerals and hence the opportunity for Australia as a world leader in critical mineral resources. Read more

As fossil fuels peak before 2030 and then decline, Tim Buckley notes that the IEA’s 2022 World Energy Outlook says a huge increase in energy investment, to above $4 trillion per year, is essential to reduce the risks of future energy price spikes and volatility, and to get on track for net zero emissions by 2050. Read more