Critical minerals
AGL China Coal Critical minerals Decarbonisation Electricity/electrification Energy crisis Hydrogen India & Adani offshore wind Renewables Taxes and subsidies US IRA/EU NZIA et al
VIDEO| Is China the New Superpower?
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On the Planet A podcast dive into the world of renewable energy and decarbonization with Tim Buckley, Director of Climate Energy Finance – an engaging discussion on the future of energy, global energy markets, and how we are becoming a multi-polar world.
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Qld premier announces $570m battery industry strategy
AAP
Queensland is poised to become Australia’s renewable energy “superpower” after unveiling a $570 million battery industry investment. Premier Steven Miles on Thursday announced the multimillion dollar strategy that is forecast to contribute $1.3 billion to the economy and create 9100 jobs by 2030. Think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) said Queensland was becoming the nation’s “cleantech leader”. “The battery strategy is further evidence that Queensland is not just undergoing an energy transition but a complete transformation from a legacy coal and gas petrostate to a renewable energy and critical minerals superpower,” CEF director Tim Buckley said.
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OP ED | From petrostate to electrostate: Queensland’s renewable energy push shows the Albanese government can move faster
The Guardian
Queensland is not just undergoing an energy transition, but a complete transformation from a legacy petrostate to a renewable energy superpower. Its staggering momentum has lessons for other states and the federal government. The state is a case study on the catalysing impact of public capital expenditure in “crowding-in” private investment to energy transition. As Climate Energy Finance’s new report released this week details, Queensland’s nation-leading investment in transmission, large-scale low-cost renewable energy and consumer energy resources (CERs) is resulting in a tidal wave of public and private capital.
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VIDEO | Can Australia be a renewables superpower?
ABC 7.30
With Laura Tingle on ABC TV’s 7.30, Tim Buckley supports calls by Rod Sims and Ross Garnaut of The Superpower Institute for the federal government to leverage Australia’s generational opportunity be become a zero-emissions trade and investment leader – and for a Carbon Solutions Levy to invest in the clean energy transition.
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OP ED |Nuclear energy is not viable for Australia, for a number of reasons
Canberra Times
Our full page Canberra Times op ed with John Grimes, CEO of the Smart Energy Council, Rewiring Australia’s Dr Saul Griffiths, Blair Palese of the Climate Capital Forum, Dr John Hewson and Mara Bun: The prospect of nuclear power generation in Australia is now a live debate. There are a number of barriers that make nuclear unviable as a solution for Australia’s energy transition in a timeframe necessary to respond to the climate, energy and cost-of-living crisis. We need energy, decarbonisation and cost of living solutions this decade. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends a 50 per cent emissions reduction by 2030. As former Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel has noted, It is hard to imagine first operation of small modular reactor (SMR) technology before 2040.
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OP ED | Keating attack on Origin bid ties big super to petrostate of old
The Australian Financial Review
A better focus for the former prime minister than fending off Brookfield’s ~$30bn of decarbonisation capital that comes with its bid for gentailer Origin would be using his influence to press for reform of the short-term performance test benchmarks that penalise the superannuation industry for investments in future facing, low carbon industries.
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Albanese’s pittance for critical minerals means Australia’s golden opportunity goes begging
Renew Economy
Our op ed on PM Albanese’s state visit to the US. While the visit was touted as a platform for major announcements on investment into an Australian response to the game-changing Inflation Reduction Act, there was a lot of talk, but only $2bn for Australian critical minerals – entirely insufficient relative to the scale of our opportunity to lead the world in processing of minerals onshore. Read our full analysis.
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PM Albanese’s state visit to the US – report card.
Sky News
Tim Buckley wraps PM Albanese’s state visit to the US and the need for a more ambitious strategic public capital commitment to leverage the opportunities of the US IRA, noting the $2bn additional commitment to critical minerals announced is insufficient relative to our massive opportunity as the world’s #1 exporter of lithium and does not adequately respond to the scale and pace of global decarbonisation.
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Tim Buckley on ABC News: Australia joins the critical minerals race
ABC Radio National Drive
Tim Buckley told ABC News that the $2bn announcement by the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese into the sector through low-interest loans for miners and processors is a token response. The US has put US$1,000bn on the table to drive investment in the decarbonisation. Australian government needs to place $100bn public capital support to crowd in the decarbonisation sector, as we need to respond at the speed and scale to the size of the opportunity.
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Tim Buckley on ABC News: The race to Australian made battery technology
ABC TV The Business
Tim Buckley told ABC news that tens of billions of dollars would be needed to set up an onshore renewable battery industry in Australia, to develop the entire supply chain in Australia from critical minerals, to processing and batter assembly, and ideally EV assembly in Australia as well.
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Extra $2b to finance critical minerals ‘lacks ambition’
AAP
Tim Buckley, director of independent public interest think tank Climate Energy Finance, said $2 billion was “a mere token response” to the Biden administration’s $US1 trillion ($A1.6 trillion) industrial and energy stimulus – the biggest in US history.
“It isn’t even a down payment, it is so lacking in courage, conviction and ambition,” Mr Buckley told AAP.
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Five reasons why the government mustn’t cool its heels on an “Australian IRA”
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As Elizabeth Thurbon et al write in The Lowy Interpreter, the Australian Renewable Industry Package is a $100 billion, ten-year green energy transition package proposed by a coalition of groups including Climate Energy Finance, the Smart Energy Council, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. This was no knee-jerk or panicked effort, but a considered view on a proportionate Australian response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – a $520 billion bipartisan bid to secure US dominance in the high-wage, high-tech green industries of the future. The IRA is now sucking a good deal of green energy investment away from Australia, requiring a policy response from Canberra commensurate with Australia’s generational opportunity.
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