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Sun's rays alone can power Australia by 2030



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Australia could be totally reliant on solar energy by 2030 if the current obstacles of technical inertia, lack of political will and entrenched interests can be overcome, a leading CSIRO scientist says. ''Australia should be building a solar backbone,'' atmospheric physicist Mike Raupach told a national climate change conference at the Australian National University yesterday.

Pursuing large-scale geosequestration projects to reduce Australia's rising greenhouse emissions was not the answer and ''is fighting against the way the Earth's systems want us to go'', he said.

Dr Raupach, a contributing author to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, said Australia's greenhouse emissions were growing faster than in any other developed nation in the world, driven by increasing per capita wealth and the ''aggressive consumption'' of the average urban lifestyle.

''We need a cap on total emissions at around 500 billion tonnes of carbon, which means an 80 per cent reduction in emissions for developed countries, and perhaps a 90 per cent reduction for Australia.''

The climate-change threat was ''somewhere between severe and extreme''. A gap was emerging between ''what the economists tells us is possible'' and what scientists insisted was necessary to tackle the problem, Dr Raupach said.

Significant reductions in Australia's greenhouse emissions were ''technically achievable and affordable'', with low-cost mitigation measures including improved refrigeration, lighting, heating and car fuel efficiencies, better building insulation and reduced travel, with carbon offsets invested in renewable energy rather than biosequestration or tree-planting projects, he said. The director of the University of Adelaide's climate research institute, Professor Barry Brook, told the conference that ''to have a reasonable chance'' of avoiding a future increase of 2 degrees of global warming, developed nations must achieve ''at least an 80 per cent reduction in emissions'' by 2050 and begin levelling off emissions ''by no later than 2015''.
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And if Australia can do it, so can the United States.
JanforGore

22 responses // Sun's rays alone can power Australia by 2030

  • wow, that last statment of yours was DEFINETLY TRUE
    jakes_green
  • corporate interest and greedy politicians stand in the way yet again
    Defi
  • jakes_green:

    This is why we need sustainable entrepreneurs and state and local governments to supercede this lackluster, greedy, selfish, corrupted, federal government. We could put solar arrays up in the Mojave desert and in other places around this country that could have at least 50% or more of it with solar power within the next twenty years if we really wanted it, and frankly, I don't want to hear we can't from any politician anymore.

    Australia is learning from their own suffering in this mega drought that is now going to be part of their everyday lives that the wasteful practices of humans are contributing to global warming and the devastation they are seeing in their own country. Farmers there as well have committed suicide over losses suffered in this drought and peope have shot each other over water because it is so scarce in places like the Murray-Darling Basin. The Darling River is now almost non existant, and their government has done little but work to build reclamation plants to profit more from their plight.

    Solar power in Australia in indeed the way to go, and I think the people are ready, just as they are in Africa. We need a solar revolution around the world to tell coal plants that we will no longer tolerate their destructive way of providing energy, and they need to see the economic opportunities they are missing out on by not even attempting to have a little vision to see just how much they could be a part of the future of the planet's sustainabiility.

    Why can't coal plants be converted to a solar power plant? Why is our vision so limited? Propaganda, that's why, and it's time people realized that coal and nuclear actually are not the wave of the future and that there is a better cleaner choice for them that can be online within the next fifteen to twenty years if the people demand it. So yes, if they can do that in Australia, the United States doesn't have a leg to stand on in refusing to do it.

    I
    JanforGore
    1 response to this
  • Yet another reason why I want to go there!
    shroomfairy
  • We could do this here. We could convert to a DC power grid and have solar farms around the country sending power throughout the national grid. If the government had the vision and courage to take this on it would happen.
    jefftego
  • U.S.-Gov't-backed-oil-co's are standing in the way, but boy does this sound nice.
    atee
  • That's awesome!
    milkradio
  • they could but are they going to?
    paddedwalls
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahT8qlLieUQ
    They slaughter Kangaroos there.

    Every country has a dark side. None are better than another. It's stupid to think otherwise.

    Yay for them with the sun. The sun is very powerful. Only a fraction is needed for the earth.

    Just one second of solar power from the sun at close range could run the United States for a million of years (if I'm not mistaken).

    It's a powerful star.

    It would be awesome if the United States did this, but I wish people stop trying to force the United States to be like everyone else. It's the sole reason it has always been Unique because it's not like anyone else.

    And Australia is behind.

    There is a single city, Greenburg, that rebuild their city entirely green after a devastating Tornado.
    J_Jammer
  • What was the point of taking a positive thread and turning it into something negative with something that has absolutely nothing to do with Australia having the ability of being solar by 2030? Who also stated here that countries don't have dark sides, and again what does that have to do with the topic? Also, the United States and China HAVE TO LEAD ON THIS ISSUE for other countries to follow. The United States and China are the two BIGGEST emitters of greenhouse gases IN THE WORLD, and that is having an adverse effect on the sustainability of this planet. However, if you think that constitutes not being like everyone else and are proud of that, fine. You're simply on the wrong side.
    JanforGore
  • Stating on the one hand America has to mind its own business and now you are stating they have to provide a leadership role?

    Make up your minds.
    J_Jammer
  • http://www.goingsolar.com.au/php/index.php
    paddedwalls: Looks like they've already started.
    JanforGore
  • http://www.solarsystems.com.au/154MWVictorianProject.ht...
    The largest photovoltaic power station in the world is to be built in Victoria.
    JanforGore
  • They won't be the first.

    For, as you would want, America is, the single city. The first in the world.
    J_Jammer
  • Seeing is believing. We aren't first in this, so we better get moving.
    JanforGore
  • First city in the world, yes.

    Why bother stating it if it's not true? I don't bother with lying. It's boring.
    J_Jammer
  • Its amazing that nature provides us with all our needs, yet we always see past it. A lightning bolt could generate so much energy! So can the wind, and the sun! Nature even gave us options!

    EDIT: We just choose the wrong option.
    ipodrulz
  • Though I understand what you're stating, technically oil is natural.
    J_Jammer
  • thats true...if america is as great as the government claims to be, why dont they try to do something that will make it BETTER. building more hybrid cars at affordable prices, solar energy, wind engery ect these are all ways that we can help our enviorment but no one wants to. the electric companies are making lots of money and they dont want mass change to solar energy because then theyll loose money or even go out of business...forget the fact that we're slowly destroying our world that doesnt matter because money powers everything. one day we're gonna have to choose between our economy and our enviorment and when that day comes its gonna be too late
    cerci_girl
  • Ray Kurzweil has said in 4-5 years we will see solar power that is cheaper per KW/Hr then carbon. you can see this coming with companies like Intel investing in making solar cells and the price of carbon based energy going up.
    gylu
  • 2030? Make it in 5 years.
    MrBigShot21

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