According to PeakOil -> The Hindu
See Newspaper Cut out: Article 1 and Article 2
Canberra, Oct 27. (AP): Australia’s Government says, its plans to create the world’s largest solar power station by turning a wasteland into a glistening field of mirrors is a step toward making the sun-drenched country a world leader in clean energy.
But critics say the Government, which is riding on the back of an economic boom driven by sales of Australia’s main export, coal, and other resources, is moving too slowly on less-polluting alternatives to fossil fuels and is using clean-energy arguments to launch a nuclear power industry.
The Government, under fire for refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, on Wednesday pledged 75 million Australian dollars ($ 57 million; euro 45 million) to help build the world’s largest solar power plant in Victoria state.
The plant is to consist of almost
The collectors, known as heliostats, will follow the sun and channel its energy into the national power grid. Construction is to begin in 2008 and the A$420 million ($ 319 million; euro 254 million) plant is scheduled to generate 154 megawatts of electricity _ enough to power 45,000 homes _ by 2013.
“My strong conviction has been for a couple of years now that Australia should be and will be the leader in solar technologies in the world,” Environment Minister Ian Campbell told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television late on Wednesday.
But he warned that solar energy was not a silver bullet, and that learning to capture pollution from coal-fired power stations and expanding nuclear generation were also part of making energy cleaner.
The government also announced funding of A$50 million ($ 38 million; euro 30 million) toward a A$360 million ($ 274 million; euro 218 million) project to reduce carbon emissions from an existing coal-fired power plant in the same State.
That protect is to be completed by 2009, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the power stacks by 30 percent.
“Finding technology transfer mechanisms so that you can get these technologies developed in a place like Australia and very quickly moved to places like China is really the front edge of the problem and the challenge,” Campbell said.
Campbell said Australia’s power generation, which is mostly coal-fired, could become predominantly solar if the technology proved cost effective, noting that it was far from that now.
Prime Minister John Howard has said solar energy can’t provide the bulk of the world’s burgeoning energy needs, and will only a supplemental source.
“Solar power will never be able to provide base-load power … in the way that, say, coal and, I believe in the long run, nuclear power can,” Howard said. “But it’s part of the response.”
The two projects are the first to be funded under a A$500 million ($ 379 million; euro 300 million) package announced this week to prevent global warming.
Environmental groups and opposition lawmakers said the Government needs to do more to address Australia’s reputation as the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluter per capita.
Skeptics say the fund is designed to improve the Government’s green credentials ahead of elections due late next year.
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said the Government’s real energy agenda is to sell more uranium. Australia holds 40 percent of the world’s known uranium reserves. Whether Australia should export more or introduce nuclear power are subjects of heated political debate.
“John Howard’s lips say solar but his eyes say nuclear,” Beazley told reporters.
While Australia and the United States refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, both are founding members the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Energy Development _ which also includes China, Japan, India and South Korea.
The partnership aims to cooperate in finding new technologies to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases believed to be warming Earth’s atmosphere.
With Australia in the grips of its worst drought in a century, the government is under pressure to do more to prevent global warming.
The Government is also under growing criticism for abolishing an agency that funded research and development of alternative energy sources when it was first elected in 1996.
- The Race is ON!! Join the Solar Revolution! If all goes bad….Do remember to buy a property in Australia!
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