Media

Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance, estimates Woodside and its Scarborough and Browse LNG project partners face a safeguard mechanism carbon bill of $63 billion out to 2050 if they go ahead. Australian gas producers face the tightening of the safeguard mechanism to make it work as it was designed – as an effective cap-and-trade carbon pricing scheme. Read more

Woodside CEO, Meg O’Neill’s comments came as new analysis from the Climate Energy Finance group found Woodside would be hit with a $63bn carbon credits bill out to 2050 under the safeguard reforms if it goes ahead with its Browse and Scarborough LNG projects in WA. Read more

As CEF”s Matt Pollard writes, EV sales accounted for 15% of the global passenger vehicle market in 2022, up from just 5% in 2020. In February, EV sales in China hit a record 32% market share of passenger auto-sales, with fossil fuel-based vehicles falling 20% in absolute terms from February 2022. Capital deployment into clean energy technologies and supply chain diversification has turbo-charged EV sales, galvanised by the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the EU Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA). We look at the trends and implications for Australia. Read more

Via AAP syndicated in Canberra Times and a hundred plus mastheads. Climate Energy Finance (CEF) has tallied the cost based on the recently legislated emissions safeguard mechanism and the development of the proposed Browse and Scarborough mega-gas fields o the WA coast, if emissions at existing gas facilities are not cut. CEF is calling on the board to urgently re-evaluate the investment case for the projects, and use the recently legislated safeguard mechanism to invest in emissions reduction at its existing facilities. Read more

The scale of getting Australia to reach net zero emissions by 2050 is colossal. A new report says Australia’s electricity grid will need to triple in size and trillions of dollars will need to be spent, and gas-fired generation capacity will need to double in the coming decades, if the lights are to stay on Read more

Melbourne, Queensland and Princeton University researchers from the Net Zero Project say gas-fired power capacity will be required for some time yet. However, CEF’s Tim Buckley says gas-fired capacity and output should not be confused. There will be a progressive shift from gas base-load power generation to gas peakers to enhance reliability as the transition to renewables and battery storage accelerates. Read more

Tim Buckley comments on the new CEIG report which says private capital investment of over $420bn is needed to decarbonise the NEM in line with 1.5 degrees. The scenario is ambitious but credible, said Tim Buckley”, “the global landscape has changed so fundamentally in the last 9 months, the Australian landscape has changed with new government, such that we now have state and federal alignment but also at the global level, and the US Inflation Reduction Act is a global gamechanger.” Read more

Reflecting on CEIG’s Decarbonising the NEM report, “Tim Buckley said financial resources were already at hand to but investors needed lawmakers to create confidence so they could plan. ‘We now need the right policy aspiration to unlock already existing technology solutions and leverage our transformative, once in a hundred year decarbonisation investment opportunity’. Read more

Citing Tim Buckley’s commentary on Adani Group, Himal Southasia magazine panellists look at the conglomerate’s long reach – from energy to transport and logistics, from India to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and Myanmar – which says as much about the conglomerate as it does about power, politics and diplomacy in the region. Read more

The Australian Government long ago identified green hydrogen as a major export opportunity but recent global developments could send the industry from hero to zero – a fact widely acknowledged by the industry’s leaders. A decade of investment is at stake. Read more

Demolition will represent the end of an era in the Hunter region. The power station’s closure also holds great national significance as a blueprint to what the future could hold for Australia’s remaining 18 coal-fired power stations. Read more

Among big miners exiting the coal business, Glencore is the exception, effectively arguing that holding on to its big thermal coal business is not only economically preferable but morally superior. Read more