Kyle's Australia Project

By now everyone has heard of things like greenhouse gas, Co2 and global warming and the effects such nasties have on our environment.

The phrase “go green” has become popular to use on everything from reusable shopping bags and recycling bins to T-shirts and coffee mugs. To Go Green means you are environmentally aware. Now this may mean that you like to grow your own fruit & veg, you always recycle, you have replaced the flush button on your loo, or now use those crazy looking, spiral shaped, long life light globes.

If you are a business you might be cutting back on your paper use, encouraging your staff to use energy saving search engines such as Blackle, providing your staff with kitchen facilities to allow for cooking of lunches instead of them buying take-away lunches with lots of plastic packaging or altering how and where you dump your waste products to make sure our air and water are cleaner.

It also means that countries like Australia are striving to produce energy from alternative and renewable resources, thus eliminating the undesirable consequences of burning fossil fuels, such as high carbon dioxide emissions.

But what are the alternative or renewable resources and what is Australia doing exactly?

Well, I’m glad you asked …. My blog

Australia’s Use of Alternative Energy Sources

outlines what alternative energy sources there are and where Australia is using them currently.

Renewable energy is energy obtained from the natural environment or from sources that can be replaced by nature, making them effectively inexhaustable. Most forms of renewable energy do not emit any greenhouse gases or generate any toxic waste and so produce “clean” non-polluting energy that can be used infinately. Renewable energy sources include biomass and biofuels, geothermal, hydro, solar, tidal and wind energy. All of which are outlined here. I have also included a section on clean coal technology and nuclear energy for comparisons.

Now you may be asking me “Why do I need to know these things?”, again, I’m glad you asked …
Alternative and particularly renewable energy, plays an important role in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the security of our future energy supplies.
With electrical energy needs in Australia forecast to increase by 50% by the year 2020, the demand on our current electrical supplies will be too great and we would be faced with wide scale deficits and or blackouts as well as major environmental challenges.

At present, renewable energy in Australia represents just over 5% of total energy consumption however this only equates to less than 2% of total production due to the significant non-renewable energy exports such as natural gas and coal to china and other developing countries. Of this renewable energy, hydro makes up the largest componet at about 63.% followed by wind 23%, bioenergy 11%, photovoltaic 2% with other sources (wave, tidal, solar thermal & geothermal) making up less than 0.05%.

Australia has abundant resources that have the potential for vast renewable energy capabilites that would significantly alleviate Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. These capabilities have yet to be fully realised and so remain greatly under utilised.

So, that being said, How does Australia’s energy production compare to other countries?
Below are some graphs obtained from the International Energy Agency outlining energy production levels from 1972 to 2008 Mtoe (Million Tons of Oil Equivalent)

 
 
 
 
Surveys show that the Australian public have considerable support for the use of renewable energy sources in Australia. I hope through this blog to help widen the knowledge of the capabilities and benefits of such renewable energy sources, and to encourage more Australian’s to support energy efficiency in Australia and the world, as quite clearly our future depends on it.