There are calls from the backbench and elsewhere for the federal government to safeguard the future of coal. But do those calls make economic sense? A look at Queensland’s energy landscape suggests not.
Households that are most likely to go solar are those that can afford solar panels, but aren’t so rich that they don’t have to worry about their electricity bill at all, says a survey of 8,000 homes.
Joachim Seel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Andrew Mills, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Ryan Wiser, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Large-scale solar and wind tend to push energy prices down, which sounds great as a consumer. But that makes keeping the grid in constant balance harder.
Masaō Ashtine, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
The 2017 hurricane season showed that Caribbean nations urgently need more resilient power grids. But the effects of climate change – including more severe storms – complicate the shift to renewables.
A recent survey of electric utility leaders finds that Trump administration efforts to promote coal energy and roll back air pollution regulations have had little impact on their long-range plans.
As fusion becomes more technically viable, it’s time to assess whether it’s worth the money because breakthroughs in the lab don’t guarantee success in the marketplace.
Saving power to use later lets consumers, businesses and utilities generate energy when it’s cheap and deliver it when they need it most. There’s not much of it today, but the industry is growing fast.
SA Liberal Party leader Steven Marshall said that state Labor policy had left South Australians with ‘the highest energy prices in Australia’ and ‘the least reliable grid’. Is that right?
The fossil fuel era won’t last forever. And a new set of countries will find their reserves of lithium, copper and rare earth metals are in high demand.
Solar windows would need to trap enough light to generate power, while letting through enough to keep buildings light. Thankfully, newly developed semitransparent cells offer to do just that.
Many Puerto Ricans are happy to see their broke power utility sold off to whoever can get the lights turned back on. But privatizing the island’s energy grid may bring more problems than relief.
Sun, wind, waste biomass, geothermal, tides and waves: all these energy sources in Sydney’s backyard add up to a zero-carbon energy solution for the city.