Thursday 25 August 2011

Facts count

Canberra Times
16 August 2011, Page: 16

Debate over climate change policy is not helped by static from ignorant know-alls who publicly invent "facts" they have not checked. An example is John McKerral (Letters, August 13), who declares that the US Energy Information Administration has shown that power from solar thermal plants costs almost six times as much as coal-fired power.

He cites no reference for this claim, which can be disproved simply by reading the EIA's 2011 Annual Energy Outlook (www.eia.gov/aeo). The EIA estimates the capital cost of the cheapest and dirtiest coal-fired plants (without carbon capture or IGCC gasification technology) at $US2844 per kW, compared to $US4692/ kW for solar thermal plants: a gap of 65%.

But that is just the capital cost. Coal-fired plants run on coal, solar thermal plants on solar power. Coal costs $4.25 per MW/h, the EIA estimates, but the sun is free. Burning coal to produce power generates roughly a tonne of greenhouse gases per MW/h. Capturing solar power produces no emissions. I'm not advocating solar thermal plants. The EIA found the cheapest power sources were natural gas and wind. I am advocating truth in debate.

Tim Colebatch, Hackett


John McKerral and Brian Hatch frequently make claims in your letters columns that are simply wrong. Hatch claimed (Letters, August 11) that the world stopped warming in 1998. To the contrary, there is a very extensive interlocking chain of evidence for global warming, and its very serious potential consequences, from climatology, meteorology, oceanography, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, ecology, palaeontology, glaciology and other fields of science.

McKerral previously claimed that deep CO₂ emission cuts will destroy our lifestyle, and that renewable energy can't contribute effectively (Letters, September 3, 2010). This time (Letters, August 12) he confuses energy ( kW/h) and power ( kW) in his claim that solar thermal costs 24¢ per kW. Large-scale solar costs 15-18¢ per kW/h in good locations, and that is declining rapidly. Solar is closing in on the price of electricity from coal, once a carbon price is factored in.

Deployment of photovoltaics in Australia has risen from 10 MW in 2007 to 360 MW in 2010. Far larger deployment of solar has taken place in Europe. Including a carbon price, the levelised cost of solar electricity from building roofs is now cheaper than retail tariffs in NSW, the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia (8% discount rate). Its likely that five billion people in temperate regions of the world will have solar parity with retail tariffs by 2015, and with wholesale prices a little later.

Professor Andrew Blakers, director, Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, Australian National University

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