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Business Says End Carbon Tax, Bring In ETS
By Nick Perry From:AAP April 18, 2013 A GROWING chorus of business and industry groups is calling for Australia’s carbon tax to be scrapped now and replaced with an emissions trading scheme (ETS) and a floating price. Opposition to the fixed-price regime – currently $23 per tonne of CO2 emissions – has grown since a failed bid to improve Europe’s ETS saw market-based prices there plummet to below $4 per tonne. Market analysis released on Thursday forecasts Australia’s carbon price could plunge to $2.70 when Labor’s carbon pricing mechanism links with Europe’s ETS in July 2015. The fixed price is due to rise to $24.15 in July this year and $25.40 in 2014, before the price is set by the market in 2015. Industry is calling for an earlier transition to a floating price, arguing it would help drive down power costs for businesses and households. Wesfarmers chief Richard Goyder said companies didn’t want to pay significantly more for emissions than the rest of the world. “I think business would welcome a more market-based price, considering the cost pressures we’ve got at the moment,” he said on Thursday. The Australian Industry Group said by abolishing the fixed-price period and linking with Europe, Australia’s emissions targets would still be met but at a lower cost to business. “We should make the most of the opportunity to meet our own targets at least cost,” said AiGroup chief executive Innes Willox. In its latest forecast, energy and carbon advisory firm RepuTex predicted Australia’s carbon price would average just $2.70 when it’s floated until 2020. Treasury anticipated a carbon price of $29 in 2015/16, but since Europe’s price spiral Labor has confirmed the forecast would be revised in the May budget and an updated revenue outlook provided. RepuTex executive director Hugh Grossman said the price plunge would see companies meet their emissions targets at a much lower cost and spur a revival in coal-fired power generation. The total impact would be an immediate reduction in wholesale electricity prices. “They’ll basically drop to levels pretty close to what we would have seen before the introduction of the carbon pricing mechanism,” Mr Grossman told AAP. Meanwhile, opposition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt says the coalition agrees using markets was the best way to tackle global warming – but not with a carbon tax. Using a “classic market mechanism”, Mr Hunt said the coalition would directly fund activities that reduced CO2 emissions – known as abatement – like revegetation and improving soil carbon. Abatement would then be purchased at the lowest possible cost via a reverse auction, a process where prices are driven down by competing sellers. In a speech to the Australian National University on Thursday evening, Mr Hunt will argue this carbon buyback approach would reward innovation and initiative while meeting Australia’s climate targets. “Whereas the carbon tax tries to drive up the price of basic services in order to force down use … we will not provide a dollar unless there is an actual reduction of emissions,” he will say. “Our Direct Action Plan is a simple, low-touch market mechanism.” Continue reading
More Plant Sugars, More Biofuels: Funding Continues For J.B.E.I. Work
Monday, 15 April 2013 JBEI’s Henrik Scheller (left) and Dominque Loque, shown here with Arabidopsis plants, are engineering plant cell walls to make the sugars within more accessible. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab) The Joint BioEnergy Institute has received a five-year renewal of funding from the United States Department of Energy. Under the terms of the renewal, J.B.E.I. will be funded by up to $25 million annually through 2018. The J.B.E.I. is a Bioenergy Research Center created by the D.O.E. to conduct research on the development of advanced, next-generation biofuel. Originally established in 2008, it was backed by a $125 million grant for the first five-year period. The J.B.E.I. is led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory but also includes researchers from the Sandia National Laboratory, the University of California campuses of Berkeley and Davis, the Carnegie Institution for Science, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. J.B.E.I. research, for the past five years, has focused on developing advanced biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass, which uses grasses and other non-food crops and agricultural waste to create alternatives to fossil fuels. Using synthetic biology techniques, the J.B.E.I. researchers seek to engineer plants to enable easy extraction of plant sugars from biomass and to increase the sugar yields of energy crops. Softer walls, less sugar A recent example of the work done in J.B.E.I. would be a genetically engineered Arabidopsis plant that produces less xylan in its cell walls (see related story ) and another with less lignin then the natural plant with more extractable sugars for the biofuel process. “Through the tools of synthetic biology, we have engineered healthy plants whose lignocellulosic biomass can more easily be broken down into simple sugars for biofuels,” said Dominique Loque, who directs the cell wall engineering program for J.B.E.I.’s Feedstocks Division. Lignocellulosic biomass is one of the most abundant organic materials found on Earth. It has been used as animal feed and in the creation of paper. Now scientists are focused on using lignocelluloses as a source of sugars for advanced biofuels. Lignocellulose makes up the plants cell walls. In order to get to the fermentable sugars, the lignocelluloses need to be broken down, a process that can be difficult, expensive and time consuming. Researchers have been searching for a way to reduce lignin, a major polymer in plant cell walls, to enable easier sugar extraction. Most efforts have however resulted in sever biomass yield reduction or a loss of integrity in the plant’s vessels, a key tissue for water and nutrient distribution. What Mr. Loque and his colleagues did was rewire the regulation of lignin biosynthesis and create an artificial positive feedback loop to enhance secondary cell wall biosynthesis in specific tissue. “When we applied our APFL to Arabidopsis plants engineered so that lignin biosynthesis is disconnected from the fiber secondary cell wall regulatory network, we maintained the integrity of the vessels and were able to produce healthy plants with reduced lignin and enhanced polysaccharide deposition in the cell walls,” said Mr. Loque. The researchers believe that this technique can also be implemented to other plant species for biofuel crops with less lignin and more sugar. Enhancing national security, increasing green jobs Aside from the J.B.E.I., the Energy Department also funds two other Bioenergy Research Centers, the BioEnergy Research Center led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. According to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the establishment and support of these centers by the administration is intended to help the biofuels industry move forward to decrease the country’s dependence on foreign oil, as well as generate new clean energy jobs. As with the J.B.E.I., both the B.E.S.C. and the G.L.B.R.C. will be funded worth $25 million for the next five years. Emphasis during these years will be on bringing the new methods and discoveries in the centers to maturity to enable their transition into the marketplace. – K.R. Jabuena Continue reading
Govt To Review Carbon Tax Modelling After EU CO2 Price Cras
AAP 17/04/13 The federal government is expected to review modelling for its carbon tax in the lead-up to the budget, after a vote in the European Union sent the price of CO2 emissions tumbling. A proposal by the European Commission to reform the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) to have polluters pay more was voted down by EU lawmakers overnight. The controversial plan aimed at freezing – or “backloading” – 900 million carbon permits between now and 2015, to address oversupply and drive up their value. Analysts expected the plan would double the price per tonne of CO2, but the price plunged after the vote was defeated narrowly by 19 votes, with 63 abstentions. As news of the rejection spread, European carbon prices slumped to €2.63 before recovering some lost ground to trade just below €3 ($A3.84). The decision has implications for Australia’s carbon price mechanism, which will link with Europe’s ETS from July 2015. Australia’s carbon price is currently a fixed $23 per tonne and will rise incrementally over the next two years before linking with the European scheme. Treasurer Wayne Swan said the government would re-examine its carbon price before the May budget. “We’ll look at all of our assumptions and forecasts in the budget, and we’ll do that in the normal way,” he told reporters. Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said Treasury would model the carbon price in “the usual way” in coming weeks and provide revised forecasts for 2015/16 and a revised revenue forecast. Treasury modelling had projected the price at $29 per tonne in 2015/16. Mr Combet said the government would continue with its plans to link with the European emissions trading scheme from 2015, when Australia would have a common carbon price with 31 other countries. “Obviously, the price in the European market has an influence on the Australian price at that time, but that is two years away and a lot of things can happen between now and then,” he told AAP. The EU decision was another example of the global financial crisis having an impact on the Australian budget, he said. Continue reading
