Gippsland Climate News

I picked up nice clean copy of Nobel laureate scientist Peter Doherty’s A Light History of Hot Air (MUP 2007) in an op shop recently. The book is part family history, some reminiscences, humour and general history but specifically it is about climate change. Much of what Doherty writes is valid today such as his sad predictions on coral reefs that are unfortunately now materialising:

“It will be an incalculable loss if ocean warming proceeds with such rapidity that it outstrips any capacity for adaptive evolution and results in the death of corals and the degradation of reef ecosystems…What an immense tragedy it will be if it comes to that. No amount of deliberate duplicity or rewriting of history, will protect the legacy of those leaders and generations that did not make the utmost effort to avoid such catastrophe.” (p.234)

Doherty had very high hopes for the “king maker” Rupert Murdoch and his prominence in the Western media via Fox and News Ltd. Unfortunately Murdoch’s “sea change” about treating climate change seriously came to nothing and his Australian papers still trumpet the climate sceptic message. But the “actions of presidents and prime ministers [and we assume media moguls] are best left to the measured judgement of history. Their policies often come back to haunt them.” (p.249) Perhaps at some future date I will examine more of Doherty’s thoughts on politics and the media.

Peter Doherty concludes: “I am as much a layman as anyone else when it comes to global warming. The only thing that my research field of viral immunity has in common with this area is complexity, and the associated possibility that outcomes may vary in unpredictable and even catastrophic ways. Time and time again over a long research career I’ve been jarred out of my complacency by the joint operation of the ‘law of unintended consequences’ and Murphy’s law (anything that can go wrong, will go wrong). That’s OK when we’re talking about laboratory mice, but not so good when the big ‘experiment’ involves all the life forms on this planet.” (p.263)

Even if a trifle dated at times, a bit too optimistic as with Rupert Murdoch, and sometimes a bit rambling, Doherty’s book is still well worth a read. Try your library. It is a book by a scientist about life and science.

 

Being on the wrong side of 70 and somewhat of an IT dinosaur it has taken me some time to come to terms with the words ‘blog’ and ‘blogger’. Quite simply a blog is a piece of online journalism, possibly opinion, but hopefully factually based. A blogger requires a platform on which to publish his or her blog – a website. Two years ago I had no ambition to be a blogger or have a platform on which to blog. I was a promoter of the existential threat of climate change via elections, the letters columns of local papers and an emailed newsletter. Then I received a wonderful gift from my Canadian relatives – a website and a twitter page (more on this at a later date). Even with the platform the blog was still some time coming.

Previously I had been writing longer essays and a couple of them made it to the publications page of this site (mainly history) before the blog came into being. After some ‘googling’ (sorry!) I worked out a rough formula on which the blog was to be based. The main purpose of the blog was (and is) to relate climate change to local issues and aspects of it in Gippsland, to see possible threats and offer possible solutions with an occasional opinion piece. It was to be short with a maximum of 500 words per blog, illustrated, evidence based but hopefully understandable by ‘Joe Blow’ in the street. It was to be regularly posted – twice a week if possible. My style has been to make it personal, a bit folksy, local and now and then angry. It was to have good news and bad and the occasional guest bloggers.

Over the last year there have been a number of guest Gippsland bloggers outlining various problems, solutions and opinions. The pressure group Gippsland2020 has provided the bulk of my guest bloggers including Dan Caffrey of Traralgon on pumped hydro, Lorraine Bull of Morwell on the just transition in the Latrobe Valley, Dr Jo McCubbin of Sale on climate health matters and Tracey Anton of Toongabie on the recent visit by John Hewson.  Other bloggers include Jill Redwood of  Goongerah and Deb Foskey of Bonang on forestry matters, Deb Carruthers of Paynesville and Marg Thomas of Mirboo North on coal seam gas, and Alan Broughton of Bairnsdale on the methane emissions of cattle.

The blog has been regularly posted twice a week on Sundays and Wednesdays for the last 15 months varying in number from 7 to 9 per month. It currently has somewhere between 100 and 120 regular viewers with peak visits of 60 to 70 at the end of the month and approximately 150 viewers in total. At times it can be a bit of a strain writing this as when I am also running for public office. To keep the standards up it would be nice to have one or two more guest bloggers.

 

 

Voices of the Valley calls for $40 million Latrobe Valley transition package to be spent in Latrobe Valley. The Victorian government recently announced that the $40 million package dedicated by Daniel Andrews to fund transition in the Latrobe Valley would be split, with money from the package now also going to Wellington and Baw Baw Shire.

Community group Voices of the Valley expressed disappointment and exasperation at this announcement, stating that the Latrobe Valley has been let down by the government, and are calling on Daniel Andrews to keep his promise that the $40 million is dedicated solely to economic transition in the Valley.

“When Daniel Andrews announced the $40 million package in April we were relieved that the Latrobe Valley was to receive real support for transition,” said Wendy Farmer, President of Voices of the Valley. It is very disappointing and exasperating to hear that the package dedicated to Latrobe Valley is now being split up. We are trying to transition a community who has lived through privatisation and now faces the imminent closure of Hazelwood. The Andrews government must keep their promise to the Latrobe Valley.”

The State government’s decision to divide up the dedicated package was that some people who work in the Valley live in these areas. Farmer responded to this reasoning saying, “surrounding areas should be supported by the state government, but not at the expense of the Latrobe Valley community. The entire Gippsland community will benefit from a properly financially supported Latrobe Valley as it transitions from the coal industry, just as it has always benefitted from the presence of the power industry here.”

Voices of the Valley are calling on Daniel Andrews and Wade Noonan to commit the $40 million to the Latrobe Valley region, and to find the funding for Wellington and Baw Baw Shire from elsewhere. “We are trying to transition a community and maintain an economy, and with the imminent closure of Hazelwood it is time for the State Government to wholeheartedly support Latrobe Valley. The Andrew’s government has a unique opportunity to lead the way in community transition and make the Latrobe Valley a good example of how government and community can work together through transition. It is more than disappointing that Mr Andrews and Mr Noonan already watering down promises they made to genuinely support the Latrobe Valley.”

 

First the good news. The Andrews Labor government has freed up the approach to climate change with bureaucrats again able to mention the phrases ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’. Prior to the 2014 election this was taboo and this simple action released them from the shackles of the Liberal Party. As if not mentioning the problem would make it go away. The barrier to wind generation, where anyone opposed to a wind farm located within 2km of a generator site could prevent the proposal going ahead was reduced to 1km by Labor. The government has also instituted numerous inquiries, token programs and public consultancies on various aspects of renewable energy, sustainability, and climate change. The best example of this was the exhaustive process that has eventually led to the permanent ban on Onshore Unconventional gas, generally known as CSG. Why it took so long to make that decision however remains a mystery.

Best science indicates that to have any hope avoiding harmful climate change and actually achieving the main aims of the Paris Agreement about to come into force we need to rapidly reduce our production of greenhouse gases. We happen to be sitting on the worst offenders – our brown coal fired generators – in Gippsland. With many locals calling for a just transition from fossil fuel fired electricity to the best methods of renewable energy the path to 100% renewables should be both clear and urgent.  So far the state government (or large sections of it) does not appear to understand the threat of climate change or the need for urgent action. Whilst federally the conservatives are beyond the pale even Federal Labor appears to be somehow hoping that action to mitigate warming and coal development can somehow co-exist. Likewise the actions of the Queensland Labor government and that great white(?) elephant – Adani coal.

Elsewhere the ACT Labor (and to a lesser extent SA) government is leading the way being on track to be using 100% renewable energy by 2020. The path to 100% renewable energy can readily and quickly be achieved with strong government support. Once the science is readily accepted and understood – something that is by no means obvious in either of our mainstream political parties – then the actions are obvious. The Just Transition in both the Latrobe Valley and Victorian Forests can be commenced by pouring funds (and applying a variety of solutions) into the Latrobe valley and other depressed rural communities.

 

Electricity in Melbourne was originally provided by small companies and municipalities running on generators fired by black coal imported from NSW. The Old Brown Coal Mine at Yallourn North was acquired by the Mines Department during the 1916 NSW coal miners’ strike. At this time there had been some political debate about whether to pursue brown coal fired generators or hydro-electricity. The decision went in favour of the former with the formation of the SEC in 1918 and the appointment of engineer and war hero John Monash in charge in 1920.

The Yallourn open cut was commenced in 1922 and the first electricity generated in 1928. The SEC then gradually acquired the private and municipal operations and the grid began to spread slowly across Victoria. After WWII there was massive expansion at Morwell in 1949 and then later at Loy Yang. The SEC’s cheap brown coal fired electricity was the main driving force of Victoria’s economic growth helping make it the leading manufacturer in the Commonwealth.

The mines and power production however were not problem free with moisture content of the coal being an early problem, and at various times there followed floods, fires and earth movements, which disrupted coal production in the open cuts. It was not until the late 1980s when Loy Yang was comparatively young that the first warnings were being uttered about global warming by scientists from the CSIRO. In terms of greenhouse gas production our brown coal generators were the dirtiest in the world. These warnings were ignored by successive State governments which sold all the working open cuts and their power stations to private operators between 1994 and 1999. These warnings continue to be ignored in the highest offices in the land.

The electricity grid came slowly to many outlying parts of Gippsland. Mains power had only reached the upper Tambo Valley in 1965 and was seen as a ‘godsend’ to farmers and the small towns. Farms prior to that were powered with small 32v petrol generators with batteries. The 32v plant had to be run every night, which required continuous care and maintenance, with the batteries often old and failing and their owners unwilling to purchase new ones for a procedure soon to be made redundant.

The planners ran the line run straight up the Little River valley as close to the existing farm houses as possible. I arrived in the valley less than 10 years after the grid had been installed and purchased a small block a bit more than half a kilometre from the line. The exorbitant cost of getting the mains power to my house site including going over or under the main road, meant that I opted for a stand-alone power system, originally powered by a reconditioned ‘windlite’ wind generator. 30 years later I remain a renewable energy missionary. And if climate change is not a good enough reason for a rapid ‘just transition’ in the Latrobe Valley then perhaps the quest for clean air in those communities is.

Occasionally there is a strong push, usually from a vested interest associated with the timber industry, to use waste from timber mills to make bioenergy, and for this to be counted as renewable energy. There are huge problems with the carbon accounting of this – that is quantifying how much greenhouse gas this process creates. Currently the creation of biofuels is listed as ‘renewable energy’ by many European nations and is considered a carbon neutral process. This has recently been exposed as at best misleading and at worst fraudulent accounting in an article in the New Scientist by Michael Le Page entitled ‘The Great Carbon Scam’. (24.9.16)

Le Page noted: “The carbon balance sheets of developed countries hides a scam, one whose long-term effects could be far more damaging than the subprime mortgage scandal that led to the global recession of 2008.” This ‘bioenergy’ is made mainly from felled trees and to a lesser extent waste wood and accounts for 60% of all Europe’s current renewable energy. It may be “reducing emissions compared to fossil fuels” but definitely not as much as is claimed as they do not count the significant carbo dioxide produced when burning the biomass.

For many years the woodchip ‘tail’ has wagged the timber mill ‘dog’. Now there is a push to change that ‘tail’ to bioenergy – a push that must be resisted. In the long term (ie 100 years) this process may be carbon neutral but in the short term we need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and bioenergy is only part of the solution if it is made from true waste or from plantations grown specifically for that purpose.

Our native forests are a store of carbon and must be protected. Even mature forests still remove small amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Removing a 100 year old tree for bioenergy means that there is a carbon deficit for 100 years until a tree planted in its place matures – assuming of course that one is planted and that it survives. We do not have the time to even consider this. Currently I am aware of one ‘renewable energy project’ supported by Sustainability Victoria of this kind using waste from a timber mill. But our number one priority must be to preserve and protect what remains of our bush as best we can.

The logging of native forests must be phased out as quickly as possible with generous redundancy payments to the workers. All timber, whether sourced locally or imported, should be only from plantations. It will be seen that using renewable energy is only a partial solution and it does not solve the climate change problem on its own. Once 100% renewable energy is achieved then carbon drawdown is going to be increasingly important and become a priority. The tree remains our best option for capturing and storing carbon dioxide. A very good reason why the bush must be preserved and protected.

With the possibility of Hazelwood Power Station shutting soon and the just transition still nowhere in sight one suspects that there is a feeling of unease in the valley. The privatisation of the electricity generators in the 90s was generally a disaster for the valley in terms of employment, skills retention through apprenticeships, and other aspects bringing on a general economic malaise that is still visible in parts of Morwell and Moe. That was a small transition done very badly with the ‘holy dollar’ being the ultimate determinant of what could and had to be done.

But major changes of this sort must consider people and their communities for that is what a just transition means. Before anything else it means that the large pool of unemployed in the valley is soaked up by some means or other. At the same time planning for the eventual shut down of all the generators must begin. The planning should cover manufacturing, various possible sources of renewable energy including wind, solar, heat pumps, pumped hydro and geothermal, and other aspects of the transition. Finally any workers made redundant must also be treated generously.

With two years of inaction on State government’s behalf it now appears that they may be saved by a bit of luck. Funds that were originally designed to support brown coal projects – co-financed by the Federal and State Governments – are sitting idle after two of the three projects have been abandoned and the other languishing and yet to produce a satisfactory environmental report. See here.  No coal company can possibly produce a carbon neutral report. Therefore none of them could pass the first and most important environment test – that it must not contribute in any way to global warming – and in effect be carbon neutral. How any government in this day and age with all the scientific information before them could make such poor decisions to finance projects such as these is beyond belief.

But with this misdirection of government policy comes an opportunity with up to $45m sitting idle in the State’s coffers. With these funds the just transition can commence immediately. An overriding planning body – the Latrobe Valley Just Transition Commission or whatever you like to call it – can be cranked up immediately with these funds. They should look at all the options and work with education institutions, engineers, scientists to achieve whatever it takes. The needs of accountants and number crunchers should be well down the list. In short this organisation should be very like the one that started the SEC under General Monash nearly 100 years ago with powers to co-opt and if necessary override the decision makers in other government departments and organisations. For State Labor the next two years have to be a whole lot better than the last.

Since the majors storms, transmission tower collapses and state-wide power blackouts in South Australia our political leaders in their ignorance have been attacking renewable energy and are now talking about energy security. With the storms and damage such as they were it was inevitable that large sections of the state would be blacked out. The transmission line collapses meant power surges and cut-out switches designed to protect the system operated causing further surges and cut-outs until the electricity system in the whole state was down. With such a storm it meant large parts of the state would have been blacked out but not, with a properly designed system, the whole of it. Some energy security could have been provided with micro-grids.

A micro-grid essentially means a small section of the grid can be isolated to keep operating when there is a fault or disturbance elsewhere. At its very smallest it can operate as a single household. This house has to be correctly wired, have a battery system, and an inverter that can disconnect from the mains. These systems have been around for quite some time but have been very expensive. When the grid power fails the inverter automatically switches to the battery back-up and if combined with solar power and depending on the size of your batteries and panels could provide both energy security and independence for a number of days.

The next level of micro-grids are for smaller communities sometimes at the very end of the 240 volt transmission lines. In these communities power failures occur often and there are a number of places in East Gippsland where these could be readily employed. Residents of Mallacoota have been agitating for some years for the community to be part of a micro-grid to improve their energy security and reliability. Technically this could be done immediately using diesel generators. Such a ‘micro-grid’ operated in the Omeo district during the 2006/7 bushfires when power to the region was cut. Ideally of course the micro-grid should be mainly renewable energy and battery storage with a diesel generator back-up. 

Micro-grids combined with renewable energy (wind and solar) and storage (batteries, pumped hydro) can provide a large amount of energy security. At the same time they are assisting the move towards a climate friendly and sustainable society with energy security and independence. Unlike the offerings of the climate dinosaurs in Canberra which would have us continue burning and exporting coal and promoting gas (still a fossil fuel) as a bridging energy source. Micro-grids, renewable energy and batteries are part of a decentralised power system where you are no longer beholden to the price gouging of the power supply companies and the coal miners. That is why they, and their pawns in Canberra, fight these ideas and advances ‘tooth and nail’. Why not bring on the Mallacoota micro-grid now and refine and improve it as funds and technology allow?

 

 

I came to the conclusion that humanity (rather than the planet) was threatened by global warming in 2008 and that we were in a climate emergency. I resolved to become politically active standing for office whenever I could to publicise the matter, trying to form and then join a single issue climate party that appealed across the political spectrum and more recently blogging and using the social media. When I have the opportunity I often quote the English divine Thomas Norton “hope for the best prepare for the worst.” And the worst is definitely a climate emergency.

In all this I have been heavily influenced by former CSIRO Atmospheric physics scientists – Barrie Pittock, Ian Enting and Roger Francey. David Spratt and Phil Sutton’s Climate Code Red was published the same year if I needed any further encouragement. Since then my political efforts in Gippsland – one of the conservative bastions in the country – have so far made little progress. In my six previous efforts at office, for instance, I have always lost my deposit.

The recent storm events in South Australia may be a foretaste of the climate emergency. That extreme weather events will become more common and more extreme has been one of the major predictions of climate scientists for more than 30 years. These events are surely an example of both of these predictions with severe winds and more than 80,000 lightning strikes across the state. With 22 power pylons blown over the whole State was blacked out. We can safely conclude that climate change has heavily influenced this event. Imagine a similar circumstance in Gippsland with fires everywhere (from dry thunderstorms) in a heatwave and the state’s electricity blacks out.

In their madness our leaders have attacked SA’s renewable energy sources, wind in particular. They are obviously still prisoner to the coal lobby and advocating the opposite of what needs to be done. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could accept such brazen lies when looking at the physical evidence – photos of twisted power pylons lying on the ground.  In the wartime emergency which we will eventually have there will probably be censorship and prison terms for those that act or propagandize against the emergency. Our deputy PM (and a substantial proportion of the media) would be in jail.

On 16 June the Climate Emergency Declaration petition was launched with an open letter from prominent Australians called for “an immediate ban on new coal and gas developments and an emergency-speed transition to zero emissions. We must begin the enormous task of safely drawing down the excess greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. We call on the new parliament to declare a climate emergency.” – See more here.

Among the signatories of the original letter were Philip Adams, Judith Brett, Ian Dunlop, John Hewson, Robert Manne, Bill McKibben, Peter Singer, David Karoly and Christine Milne. I signed the Climate Emergency Declaration in June or July, and then forgetting, tried to sign it again recently. But all the evidence around us of warming is not good and we need many more around us to sign, push and promote the Climate Emergency Declaration Petition.