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Tim Buckley, a former investment banker and the director of Climate Energy Finance, said on Monday that “putting Band-Aids on an antiquated, beyond end-of-life facility” had proven to be a waste of taxpayer funds. “The future for Whyalla lies in an electric arc furnace using electricity powered by renewables to produce steel at a fraction of the emissions of coal-fired blast furnaces, and developing the state’s valuable magnetite iron ore resources,” Buckley said. Read more

Hundreds of workers in Whyalla will lose their jobs, with the announcement the blast furnace at the city’s steelworks will permanently shut down. At least 500 workers and 100 contractors are out of a job. The 60-year-old blast furnace had been out of commission since April, and all efforts to fix it had failed. Read more

Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley told MWM, “Putting bandaids on an antiquated, beyond end-of-life facility degraded for almost a decade under the watch of Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance has proven to be simply a waste of taxpayer funds.” Buckley says there is still hope, though. “The future for Whyalla lies in an electric arc furnace (EAF) using electricity powered by renewables to produce steel at a fraction of the emissions of coal-fired blast furnaces, and developing the state’s valuable magnetite iron ore resources.” Read more

“South Australia could be well underway on planning for this, and progressing to a final investment decision and into construction on an EAF as a no-regrets first step,” Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley said on Monday. “Putting bandaids on an antiquated, beyond end-of-life facility degraded for almost a decade under the watch of Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance has proven to be simply a waste of taxpayer funds, a delusion that kicked the can down the road and deferred making hard and timely decisions in the best interests of the workforce, the community and taxpayers,” Buckley said. Read more

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. Read more

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.” Read more

https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2026/09/07/follow-the-money-tim-buckley-on-what-will-really-drive-australias-energy-transition/ Read more

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. Read more

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 Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more