Victoria’s Energy Future: Prospects and Challenges October 2013

 Friday 25 (9.00am-5.00pm) & Saturday 26 October (9.30am-1.00pm)

at The Royal Society, 8 La Trobe Street

An audience of over one hundred attended the public forum at Melbourne Museum to hear three very interesting presentations by Tony Wood from the Grattan Institute, Mike Sandiford from Melbourne Energy Institute and Simon Holmes a Court from the Embark Project.  The three speakers then took questions from the audience, as well as some posed by moderator Rob Gell.  The forum proved to be an ideal precursor for the symposium held on the 25^th and 26^th in the Society’s theatre.

In closing the symposium, the President, Dr Bill Birch, made the following observations:

“Firstly, I’m confident that our initial premise, that Victoria’s geology and geography make it an ideal place for innovative energy technologies, has been confirmed.  That we have been able to assemble a range of speakers based in Victoria or with projects in the region strongly supports this conclusion.

Secondly, was the Royal Society right to take on such a topic in the first place?  Again, I’m now sure it was.  Just about all the presentations were strongly underpinned by science and technology —the amazing technology of wind turbines, for example, and for harnessing deep and shallow geothermal energy, and what about the ‘cat-HTR’ process for turning dirty brown coal into a potential super product?  Then there are the advances in solar PV technology, the engineering of prototype wave turbines, and the methods of converting waste to energy.

Thirdly, having a range of speakers across topic and from academia, industry, business and government has given this symposium a quality that more specialized and larger meetings don’t have. And all the presentations were accessible to everyone!

What have we learnt, apart from all the technological advances and challenges?  Here are some outcomes.

• Victoria is ideally situated in the world of energy generation and innovation.
• Despite all the technologies becoming available, there is a disturbing disconnect between government policy on implementation and stated objectives and targets.
• While market forces seem to be having an effect on reducing emissions from electricity generation and use, we are not going to meet our target of a 5% reduction by 2020.  Much more is needed.
• A carbon pricing scheme is fundamental to ensure innovation continues, with or without so-called direct action approaches, such as soil carbon sequestration.
• Science and technology are well advanced for energy generation — storage is still a work in progress.
• At the more detailed level, we learnt the difference between coal seam gas and shale gas, and the distinction between deep and shallow geothermal energy, as well as the various health issues associated with wind, unconventional gas and coal mining.

I’m sure we’ve all learnt more than just these, and you the audience will no doubt take away additional information.”

Program details were: