Draining the nation's energy: how Canberra lags industry on green power (excerpt): SMH

BHP seeks buyers for coal mines, oil fields in portfolio shake-up

"Australia is host to a stranded asset. That is, something once valuable that is now worthless as events have moved on.

 

We call it Canberra. Specifically, Parliament House. Even more specifically, the federal energy and climate debate.

The rest of the country has moved on. The Coalition government and the Labor opposition are both policy anachronisms stuck in a cul de sac of dead arguments.

"The Minister for Energy and the Environment in the Liberal government of NSW, Matt Kean, has a message for Canberra:

'The community has moved on, the market has moved on, capital

Carbon tariffs will soon impact on trade.

has moved on," he tells me. "The only people standing in the way are those defending vested interests, the beneficiaries of the fossil fuel industry. Those MPs are defending Blockbuster in a Netflix world.' "

"As Kean's comments demonstrate, Australia's state governments are moving on, too. Including Liberal ones. Consider four of the developments in the real world – the digital world of Kean's metaphor, as opposed to the vintage-model videotape – in Australia in just the past four days.

Our Renewable Future

On Tuesday, the world's biggest mining company, BHP Billiton, announced its plans to sell off all its thermal coal mines, the type of coal burned to make electricity, within two years. It's also selling down some of its other carbon-intensive assets and has committed to net-zero carbon emissions from its operations by 2050. Executive pay is now linked to meeting the firm's emissions targets.

Climate Criminals

"On Thursday, the National Farmers Federation announced its members had voted to adopt an economy-wide policy of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The peak farm industry body has long been one of the most politically conservative lobbies in the land. "There is a huge potential for Australia to be a global leader in low-emissions agriculture," said the NFF president, Fiona Simson. Some farm sectors are well ahead in cutting their own emissions – the red meat industry has committed to net zero by 2030.

On Friday, the big Australian insurance firm Suncorp announced it would no longer invest in, finance or insure any new oil and gas ventures. That's on top of its policy banning dealings with new thermal coal. It has pledged to phase out all its thermal coal exposures within five years.

Climate Criminals

Also on Friday, it was reported that Australia's biggest electricity generator, AGL, had lodged planning documents disclosing its first concrete steps towards shutting its coal-fired Liddell power station in 2022. The big Liddell generators in NSW's Hunter Valley are almost 50 years old. The plant is past its useful life. AGL, Australia's No. 1 emitter, has committed itself to net-zero emissions by 2050. It, too, will link executive pay to meeting its emissions target."

Read the original August 21, 2020, SMH article 

Related: Revealed: how the gas industry is waging war against climate action (excerpt) : The Guardian

#climatechange, carbon addiction, #carbonstorage, #climatecriminals, #corporations, #farming, #economy, #fossilfuelcompanies, #trade-tariffs-on carbon-offenders

 

WHO Manifesto for a healthy recovery from COVID-19: Video

The WHO Manifesto for a healthy recovery from COVID-19 lists six steps to create a healthier , fairer  and greener world while investing to maintain and resuscitate the economy. 
 

More information: https://www.who.int/news-room/feature...

 

Related:  Why COVID deniers and climate skeptics paint scientists as alarmist (excerpt): Grist

Transparent Solar Panels: Energy Formula

Let's hope this technology develops further.

"A team of researchers from Michigan State University managed to develop fully transparent solar panels – a breakthrough that could lead to countless applications in architecture, as well as other fields such as mobile electronics or the automotive industry. Previous attempts to create such a device have been made, but results were never satisfying enough, with low efficiency and poor material quality.

A transparent luminescent solar concentrator waveguide is shown with colorful traditional luminescent solar concentrators in the background. The new LSC can create solar energy but is not visible on windows or other clear surfaces – Courtesy of Michigan State University, Photography: G.L. Kohuth

“We can tune these materials to pick up just the ultraviolet and the near infrared wavelengths that then ‘glow’ at another wavelength in the infrared” – Richard Lunt, assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science at MSU’s College of Engineering. The captured light is transported to the contour of the panel, where it is converted to electricity with the help of thin strips of photovoltaic solar cells.

Solar panels are great, particularly when you are looking at making your home a lot more energy efficient. Here at Energy Formula, we’re looking forward at helping you reach your goal.  If you’ve been looking at the idea of solar panels but you just can’t get behind their functionality as far aster aesthetic appeal, you aren’t alone. There are many people whose sole reason for not going solar is due to the appearance of the panel itself.  No you have a new way to consider looking at solar power: through transparent solar panels!

How do transparent solar panels work?
These are exactly as simple as they sound. They’re panes of glass that are coated in a solar concentrator top layer that acts as the solar panel itself. Invisible to the eye, this super lightweight coating can be applied to any clear surface and give it maximum solar potential while still keeping the window itself perfectly clear.  This is essentially an invisible solar panel!
These unique transparent solar panels work by using molecules to absorb the light that hits the glass and then transporting it to the actual contour of the panel and converting it into energy through the photovoltaic cells that you know about already.  
This development would make the most out of the buildings’ facades, since the vertical footprint is often larger than the rooftop one – especially for glass towers. Solar harvesting of Transparent Solar Panels would, thus, become more efficient and aesthetically, without altering the architectural design. Moreover, this technology could be easily integrated in old buildings.

The process of their power is exactly as you would expect, but it’s so special and unique to think that it happens entirely invisible to the naked eye in the form of a film that can be spread over any clear surface.  Truly, it’s the stuff of legends, but it is very much  real life.

Perks of transparent solar panels

There are no end of perks to consider for transparent solar panels, but her are some of the leading options to know about for our world as we know it. 

• It allows for skyscrapers to engage with renewable energy: We already know that there are all sorts of skyscrapers and such kinds of buildings that are filled to the brim with glass.  This means that there are floors and floors, and panes and panes of glass already there ready to be used for solar power.  We just have to use it. 

• It’s simple to apply and easy to benefit from: This film must be applied correctly, but it is easy to do so by professionals, and it will be as simple as “peel and stick” as far as the benefits . No complicated software, no upkeep. It’s just a covering for windows of any size and maximum solar power. 

• It can be an after-market solution: Buildings new and old can benefit from the use of transparent solar panels as it is intended as an after-market treatment to consider for glass in both commercial and residential buildings. 
•  

While transparent solar panels have only 1% energy efficiency right now compared to the blue and black ones that you’ve seen before, there’s a lot of hope that this will continue to build and grow as more people get interested in solar power and the technologies that can be used to put it into effect a bit more realistically for commercial buildings. " 

from Energy Formula

Revealed: how the gas industry is waging war against climate action (excerpt) : The Guardian

Methane gas contributes to climate change

"After the gas ban was beaten back in Seattle, Caleb Heeringa, a spokesman for the Sierra Club in the city, said advocates saw coordinated industry and union pushback against gas-related climate efforts grow.

A new group called the Partnership for Energy Progress (PEP) was taking root. The partnership is an organization of western utilities, labor unions and businesses that plans to spend $2.8m in 2020 convincing consumers that “natural gas is part of a clean energy future”, and fighting state and local climate restrictions on gas, according to records reviewed by the Guardian."

Methane gas well. They leak.

.................

"The American Gas Association (AGA), which represents mainly investor-owned gas providers, now convenes monthly calls “that bring together appliance, homebuilder, fuel, and other associations to compare notes and support efforts to push back on decarbonization and electrification issues”, according to the same document."

Communities say no to gas wells.

........................

"As the public learns more about the harms of natural gas, the industry is playing both defense and offense.

Burning natural gas produces less planet-heating carbon dioxide than burning coal or oil. Gas advocates have positioned it as a smart alternative to those dirtier fossil fuels. Even the Obama administration backed gas as a “bridge fuel”.

But the extraction and transportation of natural gas leaks methane: a climate pollutant with a short-term warming potential far more powerful than carbon dioxide. Scientists are revealing we have greatly underestimated the methane emitted by the gas industry.
Fossil gas is responsible for 42% of the US greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels, according to data from the Department of Energy interpreted by Robert Howarth, who researches methane at Cornell University.

#jailclimatecriminals

“Gas is one of the biggest drivers of emissions growth both in the US and globally, and the future trends for expansion on the system are really worrying,” said Sheryl Carter, director of the power sector climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The infrastructure investments that are being made right now … they last for 40 to 60 years. So that really locks in those emissions increases.”"

Read the complete The Guardian story 

Related: What Can I Do? The Truth About Climate Change and How to Fix It by Jane Fonda
Published August 20, 2020 

#jailclimatecriminals, greenhouse gas pollution, methane gas, #America, #Australia, #climate crisis, #climateaction, #climatecriminals, #economy, 

Legal challenge to native forest logging in Tasmania might succeed

"BIG NEWS ! This court case could be a watershed moment in

ending the taxpayer-subsidised destruction of Tasmania’s precious native forests and the best chance in a generation to properly protect our old growth wilderness, their critters and critical carbon sinks.

Australian political parties support logging native forests

For more than two decades, too many Tasmanian politicians have hidden behind these dodgy Regional Forest Agreements and promoted the interests of a few profiteers at the expense of our environment and taxpayers.

We have long known these Regional Forest Agreements were used 

Native forests are already at risk from fires.

as cover to abandon the endangered wildlife they were set up to protect, simply to grease the wheels for a marginal industry that has wielded significant political clout. 

Recently the Tasmanian Government failed again to get FSC certification for its destructive native forest logging operations. 

This is no surprise when, for decades, it has not had a robust legal framework holding the industry to account especially around the protection of endangered species such as the Tasmanian devil, wedge-tailed eagle and swift parrot, and also for the logging of old growth forests." Senator Whish-Wilson on Facebook

..............................

"Bob Brown launches legal challenge to native forest logging in Tasmania

State-sanctioned felling is ‘based on a monumental lie’, former Greens leader says

'The former Greens leader Bob Brown has launched a legal challenge to native forest logging in Tasmania, claiming it is inconsistent with federal environment law.

The case by the Bob Brown Foundation, lodged in the federal court on Thursday, challenges what has been seen as an effective exemption from environment laws granted to state-sanctioned logging under regional forest agreements between Canberra and the states.

Australia ranks second worse on climate protection

It argues the Tasmanian regional forest agreement is not valid as it lacks a legally enforceable requirement that the state must protect threatened species.

The foundation says if the case were successful it would consider similar action against federal-state forest agreements in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia. It said the current rules “essentially allows the state government to make up the rules as it suits, and gives no guaranteed protection for our wildlife and environment”.

Brown said the foundation had been buoyed by a landmark federal court judgment in May that found logging in Victoria’s central highlands by the state-owned agency VicForests was in breach of a regional forest agreement.

Logging in NSW leaves Koala stranded.

“This is a huge undertaking for us but everyone knows that the flattening and burning of native forests and wildlife is not ecologically sustainable,” Brown said. “The industry is based on a monumental lie and this challenge puts that lie to the test.”

Read complete The Guardian story, August 21, 2020

  Related: Both the major parties in Australia support new gas projects

What Can I Do? The Truth About Climate Change and How to Fix It by Jane Fonda

What Can I Do?

The Truth About Climate Change and How to Fix It

By: Jane Fonda

Available: 9th September 2020
ISBN: 9780008404598
Number Of Pages: 252

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A call to action from Jane Fonda, one of the most inspiring activists of our time, urging us to wake up to the looming disaster of climate change and equipping us with the tools we need to join her in protest

This is the last possible moment in history when changing course can mean saving lives and species on an unimaginable scale. It's too late for moderation.

Our climate is in a crisis. 2019 saw atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases hit the highest level ever recorded in human history, and our window of opportunity to avoid disaster is quickly closing. In the autumn of 2019, frustrated with the obvious inaction of politicians and inspired by contemporary activists, Jane Fonda moved to Washington, DC to lead weekly climate change demonstrations on Capitol Hill. On October 11, she launched Fire Drill Fridays (FDF), and has since led thousands of people in non-violent civil disobedience, risking arrest to protest for action.

In What Can I Do?, Fonda's deeply personal journey as an activist is weaved alongside interviews with leading climate scientists, and discussions of issues, such as water, migration, and human rights, to emphasise what is at stake. Throughout, Fonda provides concrete solutions and actions that everybody can take in order to combat the climate crisis in their community.

As Annie Leonard, Executive Director of Greenpeace US and Fonda's partner in developing FDF, has declared, "Change is inevitable; by design, or by disaster." The problems we face now require every one of us to join the fight. The fight not only for our immediate future, but for the future of generations to come.

About the Author

Jane Fonda is an Emmy- and two time Oscar-winning actress and highly successful producer. She revolutionised the fitness industry with the Jane Fonda Workout in 1982 and has sold more than seventeen million copies of her fitness-focused books, videos, and recordings. She is involved with several causes and is the founder of both the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention and the Jane Fonda Center at Emory University. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller My Life So Far, and she received a Tony nomination in 2009 for her role in 33 Variations.

She lives in Los Angeles.

Both the major parties in Australia support new gas projects