According to a report published today the closure by Alcoa of its aluminium smelter in the southern state of Victoria will further weaken the case for Australia’s current Renewable Energy Target (RET).
The conservative Liberal-National government has just announced a review of the RET, headed by a climate denier businessman Dick Warburton, that is expected to report by the middle of this year.
However a report in today’s issue of in the News Corporation national daily newspaper The Australian claims the RET will “likely” be weakened in the wake of Alcoa’s decision to close the Point Henry aluminium smelter, a heavy user of electricity in Victoria.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said the government would not the pre-empt the review announced into the RET earlier this week, which is likely to be delivered to the government mid-year.
But according to the newspaper, the Alcoa decision and other recent industrial closures have “hardened attitudes towards the RET” within “senior” ranks of the coalition.
The reports says many in the government believe the mandated 41,000GWh target by 2020 potentially representing more than 20 per cent in the current demand environment.
The Australian added that National Generators Forum chief Tim Reardon said the industry faced a “death spiral” if more industrial users shut down, and that at current levels no new generating capacity would be needed for 10 years.
2 Responses
There’s precious few countries hitting their renewable targets, but Australia can do better than this
Interesting.
‘National Generators Forum chief Tim Reardon said the industry faced a “death spiral” if more industrial users shut down, and that at current levels no new generating capacity would be needed for 10 years.’
The Australian makes the ‘death spiral’ of the industry sound problematic, in reality it shows that Australian public and industry are using and needing far less fossil fueled energy.
I ask, problematic to whom beyond the profit hungry corporations? Sounds remakably like the idea of sustainability creeping in.
With this being spoken by the generation industry’s leader then when could the timing be better placed to advance a serious renewable energy overhaul of the existing fossil fueled energy generation stock?
The energy corporations can divest from dying fossil fuels and shift their investment money into clean energy. Especially if there’s no need for building more fossil fueled power stations for the next 10 years and demand is and has reduced.
Move the jobs being lost into renewables as much as possible.
Manufacturing, maintenance, energy generation, R&D, grid improvements, labouring, efficiency technologies, installations, etc etc etc
Renewable energy works and the climate is ripe for the transition to it!