Climate Finance Energy director Tim Buckley said the increase in power demand would need to be matched by investments into new energy generation, which could transform the regional and rural areas.
“The beauty of the land grab in the data centre gold rush that’s underway right now is that capital is pouring in,” Mr Buckley said.
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All coal-fired power stations would receive a zero-emissions allowance by 2035 under the council’s proposal.
Introducing the change would require ambition from the federal government, Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley said, but would help to boost investor confidence.
“We need to have the certainty that the coal plants are going to go offline, that they’re not going to be allowed to continue to pollute forever,” he told AAP.
“It aligns with the need for the broadening of the Safeguard Mechanism and its strengthening.”
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Alistair Kitchen & Tim Buckley: The US war on Iran at the start of 2026 gave Australia a major reminder of why energy security is yet another reason for the whole of our country to embrace the energy system transformation to electrification and decarbonisation – a permanent solution to our addiction to expensive, high emissions, scarce diesel and oil imported from the Middle East.
Nowhere is this need and opportunity more evident than in remote communities of outback Australia. For these communities, excessive dependency on imported diesel means energy insecurity is a near daily threat.
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Highlights – CEF’s field trip to China CATL, XCMG and China Hongqiao Group, Asian Carbon markets progress; Main Story – My keynote presentation this week to the RE Construction Summit; Lowlights – The WA by-election last week
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Buckley, the head of Climate Energy Finance who returned recently to Australia from his latest trip to China, said the “staggering” scale of manufacturing and the speed of construction there put Australia’s $2.5 billion efforts to bail out facilities such as Tomago in the shade.
The visit took in the Hongtai Aluminium smelter in the southern province of Yunnan. Construction on the site began in December 2019, with the first metal produced within a year.
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Data centres could consume 13 per cent of National Electricity Market power by 2036. Australia should require them to bring new firmed renewable energy rather than add pressure to the grid.
We all saw the shocking scenes last week as a glacier collapse in the Himalayas produced a biblical flash flood on the Nepal-Tibet border, obliterating everything in its path. The impact was such that it triggered seismic activity signalling an earthquake. Panicked people tried desperately to outrun a churning wall of water metres high. At the time of writing, over 900 are dead, swept away in the raging torrent, with thousands missing, villages and infrastructure destroyed, and scores of Australians unaccounted for.
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Rooftop solar and batteries and virtual power plant technology solutions could permanently reduce this massive state budget subsidy, but it requires capacity building and up front capital, as well as political will and policy developments, and ultimately a nationally coordinated approach. Australia has installed over 487,000 home battery systems in the last 12 months. But how many have been installed in remote, end-of-grid and off-grid communities? Next to none. Now is a great time to change this Minister Chris Bowen and Assistant Minister Josh Wilson, Minister Amber Jade Sanderson and Minister David Janetzki.
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Climate Energy Capital director Tim Buckley says attempting green hydrogen without access to China’s capital or capex costs, or its scale “is a waste of time”.
“Let China lead, prove it, and once they’ve commercialised it, partner with them,” he told Renew Economy.
“No one’s building anything in Australia. Even AREH has moved away from hydrogen, saying let’s just be an energy provider to the big mining companies. That was one of the biggest hydrogen proposals.
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Energy analyst Tim Buckley argues Australia’s super funds could play a much bigger role in our pursuit of cleaner, cheaper energy.
Buckley has 30 years of experience in finance and runs an independent think tank. He said that if we want to start taxing foreign renewables, we need to first be fostering local investment.
According to Buckley, Australia has trillions of dollars worth of potential investment tied up in superannuation funds, but proportionally, a very small amount of that goes toward clean energy projects.
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Climate Energy Finance (CEF) director Tim Buckley says energy independence is China’s driving motivator. “There is no lack of ambition in China to be a world leader in all zero emissions industries of the future, and there is a clear and well-structured national plan to deliver on this,” Mr Buckley said. “However, China will build the new before dismantling the old.”
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Tim takes us from his early career in financial research and forensic company analysis to carbon pricing, corporate governance, superannuation, ESG, Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, China’s manufacturing scale, green steel, batteries, data centres and Australia’s opportunity to become a clean-energy powerhouse.
This is a conversation about how capital actually moves, why incentives matter, why governance matters and why the energy transition will ultimately be shaped by economics as much as engineering.
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