Latest news with #RossGarnaut
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Nation has what it takes to become a green superpower
How encouraging to read Peter Hartcher picking up on economist Ross Garnaut's theme of Australia as a future energy superpower and provider of green iron (' Australia's great leap forward', July 15). I especially rejoice as a retired engineer. This is more than just a technological fix, although I know from personal experience with hydrogen how challenging its use will be. However, I remain confident that our young scientists, engineers, economists and politicians have what it takes. Let's go for it, but let's also recognise the sobering challenge of too many egotistical politicians with their fingers close to nuclear buttons. John Court, Denistone Peter Hartcher should have read Nick O'Malley's article on the drawbacks of green steel before predicting it's the answer to the world's steel production problems (' The PM talked up green steel. But is it even a thing?' July 15). As O'Malley points out, the industrial supply chain to produce green steel is long, complicated and expensive. It's a great idea, but its time has not yet come. Ian Adair, Hunters Hill Full marks to Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest for pledging to produce green iron in Australia (' Green metals, Australia's power play ', July 15). While his determination to produce commercially viable green hydrogen has stalled, the electric smelting furnace, which is preferably powered by renewables, has progressed to the pilot stage. The idea of value-adding to our vast iron ore resources is a welcome step away from the 'quarry Australia' mentality. Now the crucial challenges of location of smelters, provision of renewable electricity and infrastructure, disposal/utilisation of waste and access to a trained workforce remain. It is certainly encouraging to note that both the WA and federal governments are supporting the transition, presumably as their considerable income stream from mining royalties will remain intact. Roger Epps, Armidale Envoys for all Is it sensible to have 'envoys' representing some segments of the population while omitting others (' Burke spares Segal from criticism ', July 15)? During the referendum 'debate', the racism was extraordinary as an alarming number of No proponents appeared to enable people to express once taboo but increasingly common slurs and disinformation about Indigenous people. Yet not only did an official First Nations envoy not materialise, but 60 per cent of Australians thought it was fair to deny them a voice. If we are to have envoys, let's ensure they represent all minorities who are the butt of ignorance and discrimination. Alison Stewart, Riverview We certainly should oppose all forms of bigotry and so Minister Tony Burke's mention of misogyny, an evil as persistent as antisemitism, was welcome. Despite regrettable instances of antisemitism making Jews feel unsafe, it is women who are actually being killed in Australia at an average of one a week. Yet, there is no Special Envoy to Combat Misogyny, and if such an office were created, imagine the furious outcry about 'wokeness' and 'political correctness'. Caroline Graham, Cromer Councils run monopoly Cindy Yin's article highlights the cost-shifting by state and federal governments onto local councils, who are then forced to seek special rate variations to make up the lost revenues (' The $500 burden every Sydney ratepayer is carrying ', July 15). This issue has been ongoing for more than 30 years and is well known. The federal government has reduced overall funding to councils from 2 per cent of tax receipts to less than 0.5 per cent over the same period. This is largely why there is such a backlog of maintenance and repairs in (especially) regional councils. Still, no one questions the monopoly provider position for council services such as water, sewer and garbage. Ratepayers are forced to pay for services they either do not need or could perhaps get more cheaply from a different provider. As a single-person household, I am required to pay the same annual charge for garbage collection as much larger families, yet my bins only go out every other month. Effectively, I pay $503 for $70 worth of actual garbage collection. Hardly an equitable scenario. An actual usage cost model would definitely help with my cost of living, as it would for every other small household, as we effectively subsidise those who are filling the landfills. Mark Walker, Kempsey Bradfield folly So the judge will review cherry-picked votes that the AEC allegedly miscounted, until 26 + 1 are found to be invalid and the result reversed ('Liberals mount court challenge in last ditch bid to reclaim Bradfield', July 15). Do the Liberals really think this sort of dummy-spit will sway any of the highly reputable judges on the Court of Disputed Returns. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to reverse one seat makes no real difference to the overall election massacre of the Liberals. The 'better economic managers' surely realise that money would be better spent promoting the candidate for the next election in 2028 by door-knocking every one of the 120,000-plus voters. Gisele Kapterian agreeing to this appeal puts her judgment in doubt and suggest the 'born to rule' mindset that was just comprehensively rejected by Australian voters. Peter Kamenyitzky, Castle Hill I am disappointed but not surprised at Gisele Kapterian's court challenge after her narrow loss in Bradfield. Her opponent, Nicolette Boele, also lost on her first attempt but stayed active and engaged in Bradfield and stood at the next election; the sitting member Paul Fletcher chose to resign, perhaps not relishing another three years in opposition. Now taxpayers' money is to be squandered on lawyers in the Court of Disputed Returns because this late entrant feels she and her party have a right to rule. I trust Ms Boele is not distracted by this uncertainty and is able to continue to focus on the interests of the constituents she represents. Marjorie Sutcliffe, The Rocks Liberal diehards appealing against the Bradfield election result is like the dying days of the British Empire – 'we can't believe those peasants want us gone – it's our right to govern.' Well, a majority of progressive members of the electorate wanted the Liberal Party with its woeful (now non-existent) policies on climate and the environment out of the picture. The fact that Gisele Kapterian, the Liberal candidate, didn't even turn up for a 200-plus audience of electors representing socially progressive groups spoke volumes. A quiet rebellion has happened and the army of volunteers who supported and funded community independent Nicolette Boele will make sure the Liberals can't take them for granted ever again. Carolyn Pettigrew, Pymble Pay tax proudly I would suggest that rather than talking about tax cuts, Treasurer Jim Chalmers might want to start a campaign to change the electorate's mindset and educate people of the reasons we pay tax, the benefits everyone receives and to ultimately encourage people to feel pride in paying their share (' To cut taxes we need ways to raise revenue: Chalmers', July 15). Governments don't help themselves when they constantly try to seduce us with tax cuts, which, from the top down, instil the overall understanding that paying tax is bad, and any way to reduce tax payments is good. Of course, the other, possibly challenging, aspect is that politicians then have to convince us that the tax revenue collected has been spent wisely. I know, tell me I'm dreaming. Mark Tietjen, Redfern Puppet show I've been to an afternoon performance in the Paddington Reservoir Gardens, with William Barton on didgeridoo playing with a violinist. It was a wonderful performance and well suited to that venue. I think it's also a great site for a puppet show (' Other places would be delighted to host Paddington's puppet show ', July 15). However, the biggest drawback is getting there. It's either drive (and try to find an elusive parking spot), bus, or a fairly long walk from the light rail. For that reason alone, there may be better site options to draw a crowd from far and wide. Lisa Clarke, Watsons Bay How good that the City of Sydney's Art and About festival threatens 'art in any corner of our city, at any time'. But are the Paddington residents with reservations about the four-metre puppet called Fauna, exploring 'themes of climate change and deforestation', equally concerned about reality, which is far scarier? Fauna would be most welcome in Melbourne as a friend of Blinky, a four-metre koala who regularly accompanies climate and forest rallies. As Kermit the Frog said, 'Life's like a movie, write your own ending.' While our ending looks increasingly grim, we are at least still writing it. Fauna and Blinky are part of that story. They make us think. Ray Peck, Hawthorn (Vic) Fuel for thought No, David Sayers, it is not 'pure folly' to believe that EV trucks will be used in the remote places of Australia (Letters, July 15). It is actually pure progressive thinking. Remote trucking refuelling stations can be set up with solar arrays and batteries alongside other energy alternatives including hydrogen, diesel and petrol. The change away from fossil fuels has to happen because eventually, some time in the future, there will be no oil available for anyone to use. That future may arrive sooner than you think, not because it has all been drilled up, but because of conflict in the oil-rich centres of the world. Neil Quinn, Vincentia David Sayers claims EV trucks cannot be used in remote areas because there is no grid electricity. Putting aside for a moment the role of solar-generated electricity, the objections to green energy generally are getting to the point where they are jostling for curiosity value with the alleged phenomena of curtains that fade when daylight saving returns. Joe Weller, Mittagong David Sayers asserts that EV trucks will never be able to work for long hauls. I disagree. Road trains have large roofs that could carry multiple solar panels to charge the vehicle as it drives along. Tom Meakin, Port Macquarie AUKUS positives The AUKUS 'deal' has two pillars, the first being the nuclear submarines and the second being advanced capabilities (' PM tested on US alliance ', July 14). The second is the one correspondents and the media either gloss over or choose to forget. Pillar two is about collaboration and sharing advanced military technology (AI, computing, cyber technologies, undersea tech, hypersonics, electronic warfare and information sharing). It seems many commentators are too engrossed with the nuclear angle to see beyond the other possible benefits. Michael Cronk, Dubbo What intelligence? The implications of superintelligence seem too much for most of us simple humans to deal with (' Mark Zuckerberg's $150 million job offers are spreading fear', July 15). Look hard and it's scary indeed. 'The end of human history,' says historian Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Meanwhile, the rest of us concentrate on gossip, celebrities and the State of Origin while Donald Trump tries to recreate the 20th century and our churches expend their energy debating the place of women in worship. It looks like the horse has bolted. Game over. Brian Haisman, Winmalee Dodgy science Racism is also a failure to keep up with scientific research which has proven through the human genome project that race is a social construct not a biological phenomenon (Letters, July 15). Given that all living human beings belong to the subspecies homo sapiens, you really can't help but love your neighbour because any differences that exist are minor cosmetic ones. Sister Sledge didn't know it, but the group was spot-on with their big hit song We are Family. Genetic essentialism is old hat and dodgy science. Trevor Somerville, Illawong Lucky after all I see that the annual Global Liveability Index published by The Economist' s intelligence unit this year has three Australian cities in the world's top 10 most liveable cities: Melbourne (#4), Sydney (#6) and Adelaide (#9). This index uses an objective quantitative approach to assigning the rankings. No other country has more than one city in the top 10. No US city is in the top 10. For all of our whingeing, we must be doing something right in Australia to have such a result. Enjoy! Dale Bailey, St Leonards Natural air-con The solution to cold trains is from cold Europe and is very simple. Each door should have a button to be pressed only if passengers need to open it (Letters, July 15). It also helps in hot summers when the air-conditioning is running. On busy stations, there can be an override when all doors open automatically. Matt Mushalik, Epping Bespoke madness For cycle commuters, Sydney's cycle ways don't offer much help (' The cycleway from hell was paved with good intentions ', July 15). You have to ride on the road to get to them, often negating the most direct way to get to your destination, and they all make you join road traffic again. May as well just stay on the road and hope to God that motorists steer clear of you. Increasing the one-metre car distance rule to two metres could be helpful. Claudia Drevikovsky, Croydon Just stop already Recent moves to reduce urban speed limits to 40km/h do not go far enough. It is scientifically proven that to minimise road accidents, injuries and fatalities, the optimum speed limit is zero km/h. This should be applied universally to cars and trucks, bikes, skateboards, prams etc. Doubtless some people will carp about the impact on convenience, economic activity and so on, but human life is priceless. Josh Shrubb, Turramurra Whey to go There are much better ways to dispose of or, in my case, transform milk that is past its use-by date (' Is milk bad now? No, but it is contributing to a $12m plumbing problem ', July 15). All milk, old or fresh, when simmered on a stove makes delicious cottage or farm cheese. In fact, you get a tastier result when the milk has already begun to curdle. The old-fashioned 'curds and whey' of Miss Muffet fame is simply that – one litre of milk, a teaspoon of salt, in a saucepan and brought to just below boiling point. Turn off the heat, add the juice of half a lemon, wait until the mixture separates, then sieve through a cheese cloth. Hey presto, curds ie farm cheese and whey – the high-protein liquid for further use in cake or breadmaking. Mix the curds with a little cream for a delicious cottage cheese – and have no concerns about clogging up the plumbing. Eva Johnstone, Blackheath If your milk is going off, make a chocolate cake. The milk will act as a rising agent. Delicious. Irene Thom, Vaucluse
The Age
5 days ago
- Business
- The Age
The PM talked up green steel. But is it even a thing?
Champions of a green steel industry, such as the economist Ross Garnaut, a director of The Superpower Institute and the clean power company ZEN Energy, along with Andrew Forrest of Fortescue Metals Group, argue that Australia is uniquely placed to lead this potential new industry: we have the world's largest iron ore reserves and the vast space for the wind and solar farms needed to power the industry. Is it happening yet? Not at large scale. A Swedish consortium, Hybrit, has made around 5000 tonnes of hydrogen-reduced iron, and advances are being made in Australia. ZEN Energy is working with European and Asian partners to develop a green iron project to supply a new electric arc furnace at Wyalla in South Australia, while Fortescue has a green metal project underway at Christmas Creek in the Pilbara. What's the hold up? Cost and complexity. The industrial supply chain to produce green steel is long, complicated and expensive. It demands that a hydrogen industry be built to sustain it, and cost-effective ways of storing that hydrogen, and massive amounts of green energy, which also must be stored. The cost of each those processes must also be driven down. While renewable energy costs are tumbling, hydrogen remains comparatively expensive. Back when hydrogen cost around $15 a kilo former Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an energy policy designed to drive it down to $2 per kilo. Today it remains closer to $10. 'It means a lot of large organisations making big expensive bets, and getting enough of them right,' explains Tony Wood, senior fellow with the Grattan Institute's energy program. 'The question is, who is going to cover the risk?' Finally, the product they make will be more expensive than conventional steel, which means the industry will need customers willing to pay a premium for a clean product. If countries are to meet their Paris Agreement targets, it is expected that market will grow. Garnaut believes the industry needs the support of a carbon price. Are there advantages beyond greenhouse gas emissions? Absolutely. As Albanese said on Monday, Australia is already the world's largest exporter of iron ore. If we can scale green iron at a viable cost we can add value to the product. 'The value of the green iron would be two or three times the value of the iron ore,' says Garnaut, pointing to a Superpower Institute paper that found if green iron replaced iron ore as a primary export, it could generate up to $386 billion annually by 2060. By comparison, Australia's iron ore exports are typically around $120 billion per year. This would provide a strategic hedge against the expected decline in coal exports. With a large scale green iron or steel industry, Australia could not only help decarbonise its own economy, but that of its iron customers, who would be purchasing Australian green energy embodied in the iron products. This would be far more efficient than exporting Australian hydrogen and iron ore to be produced offshore into iron and steel, and it could reduce global emissions by four per cent, Garnaut argues.
Sydney Morning Herald
5 days ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
The PM talked up green steel. But is it even a thing?
Champions of a green steel industry, such as the economist Ross Garnaut, a director of The Superpower Institute and the clean power company ZEN Energy, along with Andrew Forrest of Fortescue Metals Group, argue that Australia is uniquely placed to lead this potential new industry: we have the world's largest iron ore reserves and the vast space for the wind and solar farms needed to power the industry. Is it happening yet? Not at large scale. A Swedish consortium, Hybrit, has made around 5000 tonnes of hydrogen-reduced iron, and advances are being made in Australia. ZEN Energy is working with European and Asian partners to develop a green iron project to supply a new electric arc furnace at Wyalla in South Australia, while Fortescue has a green metal project underway at Christmas Creek in the Pilbara. What's the hold up? Cost and complexity. The industrial supply chain to produce green steel is long, complicated and expensive. It demands that a hydrogen industry be built to sustain it, and cost-effective ways of storing that hydrogen, and massive amounts of green energy, which also must be stored. The cost of each those processes must also be driven down. While renewable energy costs are tumbling, hydrogen remains comparatively expensive. Back when hydrogen cost around $15 a kilo former Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an energy policy designed to drive it down to $2 per kilo. Today it remains closer to $10. 'It means a lot of large organisations making big expensive bets, and getting enough of them right,' explains Tony Wood, senior fellow with the Grattan Institute's energy program. 'The question is, who is going to cover the risk?' Finally, the product they make will be more expensive than conventional steel, which means the industry will need customers willing to pay a premium for a clean product. If countries are to meet their Paris Agreement targets, it is expected that market will grow. Garnaut believes the industry needs the support of a carbon price. Are there advantages beyond greenhouse gas emissions? Absolutely. As Albanese said on Monday, Australia is already the world's largest exporter of iron ore. If we can scale green iron at a viable cost we can add value to the product. 'The value of the green iron would be two or three times the value of the iron ore,' says Garnaut, pointing to a Superpower Institute paper that found if green iron replaced iron ore as a primary export, it could generate up to $386 billion annually by 2060. By comparison, Australia's iron ore exports are typically around $120 billion per year. This would provide a strategic hedge against the expected decline in coal exports. With a large scale green iron or steel industry, Australia could not only help decarbonise its own economy, but that of its iron customers, who would be purchasing Australian green energy embodied in the iron products. This would be far more efficient than exporting Australian hydrogen and iron ore to be produced offshore into iron and steel, and it could reduce global emissions by four per cent, Garnaut argues.
Sydney Morning Herald
11-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Ross Garnaut: Prophet with a sunny vision of our glorious future
What we need is some sort of economist prophet who can help us overcome this existential threat, not an army of blinkered economists telling us all that matters is raising our material standard of living. Fortunately, among the profession's abundance of unproductive thinkers is a lone prophetic, and so productive, thinker, Professor Ross Garnaut, who sees not only how we can minimise the economic cost of the transition to clean energy, but also what we can do for an encore. What we can do to fill the vacuum left by the looming collapse of our fossil fuel export business (which, by chance, happens to be our highest-productivity industry). Because economists are such incurious people, Garnaut seems to have been the first among them to notice that, purely by chance, Australia's natural endowment also includes a relative abundance of sun and wind. Until now, we thought these were non-resources and of little or no commercial value. It took Garnaut to point out that, in a post-carbon world, they had the potential be our new-found comparative advantage. To provide us with a whole new way of making a bundle from exports, while generating many new jobs for the miners to move to. When you add the possibility of structural change to the rules of conventional economics, you get what's a scary thought for many economists: maybe our natural endowment isn't ordained by the economic gods to be unchangeable through all eternity. Maybe there are interventions fallible governments should be making to move our economic activity from one dimension of our natural endowment to another. Maybe such a switch is too high-risk and involves too many 'positive externalities' (monetary benefits than can't be captured by the business doing the investing) for us to wait for market forces to take us to this brave new world. Loading Maybe changing circumstances can change the nature of our comparative advantage in international trade, meaning the government has to nudge the private sector in a new direction. It was Garnaut who first had the vision of transforming Australia into a 'Superpower' in a world of ubiquitous renewable energy. And it was he who uncovered the facts that made this goal plausible. Exporting our fossil fuels is cheap, whereas exporting renewable energy would be much more expensive. So whereas it was more economic to send our coal and iron ore overseas to be turned into steel, in the post-carbon world it soon will be more economic to produce green iron and other green metals in Australia and then export them. In a speech last week, Garnaut acknowledged that, in its first term, the Albanese government began to lay the policy foundations for the Superpower project. The economic principles are set out clearly and well by Treasury's 'national interest framework' for A Future made in Australia, released after last year's budget, he says. The re-elected Albanese government has already restated its commitment to the project. Garnaut says there's much more for the government to do in creating the right incentives for our manufacturers to re-organise and expand. Loading Research sponsored by his Superpower Institute finds that Australian exports of goods embodying renewable energy could reduce global emissions by up to 10 per cent. So we can contribute disproportionately to global decarbonisation by supplying goods embodying renewable energy that the high-income economies of Northeast Asia and Europe cannot supply at reasonable cost from their own resources. This would 'generate export income for Australians vastly in excess of that provided by the gas and coal industries that will decline as the world moves to net zero emissions over the next few decades'. Garnaut concludes: 'The new industries are large enough to drive restoration of growth in Australian productivity and living standards after the dozen years of stagnation that began in 2013.' The present fashion of obsessing with productivity improvement for its own sake is counterproductive and probably won't achieve much. We should get our priorities right and focus on fixing our most fundamental problems – unfairness between the generations, action on climate change and fully exploiting the opportunities presented by our newfound strength in renewable energy – and let productivity look after itself.
The Age
11-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
Ross Garnaut: Prophet with a sunny vision of our glorious future
What we need is some sort of economist prophet who can help us overcome this existential threat, not an army of blinkered economists telling us all that matters is raising our material standard of living. Fortunately, among the profession's abundance of unproductive thinkers is a lone prophetic, and so productive, thinker, Professor Ross Garnaut, who sees not only how we can minimise the economic cost of the transition to clean energy, but also what we can do for an encore. What we can do to fill the vacuum left by the looming collapse of our fossil fuel export business (which, by chance, happens to be our highest-productivity industry). Because economists are such incurious people, Garnaut seems to have been the first among them to notice that, purely by chance, Australia's natural endowment also includes a relative abundance of sun and wind. Until now, we thought these were non-resources and of little or no commercial value. It took Garnaut to point out that, in a post-carbon world, they had the potential be our new-found comparative advantage. To provide us with a whole new way of making a bundle from exports, while generating many new jobs for the miners to move to. When you add the possibility of structural change to the rules of conventional economics, you get what's a scary thought for many economists: maybe our natural endowment isn't ordained by the economic gods to be unchangeable through all eternity. Maybe there are interventions fallible governments should be making to move our economic activity from one dimension of our natural endowment to another. Maybe such a switch is too high-risk and involves too many 'positive externalities' (monetary benefits than can't be captured by the business doing the investing) for us to wait for market forces to take us to this brave new world. Loading Maybe changing circumstances can change the nature of our comparative advantage in international trade, meaning the government has to nudge the private sector in a new direction. It was Garnaut who first had the vision of transforming Australia into a 'Superpower' in a world of ubiquitous renewable energy. And it was he who uncovered the facts that made this goal plausible. Exporting our fossil fuels is cheap, whereas exporting renewable energy would be much more expensive. So whereas it was more economic to send our coal and iron ore overseas to be turned into steel, in the post-carbon world it soon will be more economic to produce green iron and other green metals in Australia and then export them. In a speech last week, Garnaut acknowledged that, in its first term, the Albanese government began to lay the policy foundations for the Superpower project. The economic principles are set out clearly and well by Treasury's 'national interest framework' for A Future made in Australia, released after last year's budget, he says. The re-elected Albanese government has already restated its commitment to the project. Garnaut says there's much more for the government to do in creating the right incentives for our manufacturers to re-organise and expand. Loading Research sponsored by his Superpower Institute finds that Australian exports of goods embodying renewable energy could reduce global emissions by up to 10 per cent. So we can contribute disproportionately to global decarbonisation by supplying goods embodying renewable energy that the high-income economies of Northeast Asia and Europe cannot supply at reasonable cost from their own resources. This would 'generate export income for Australians vastly in excess of that provided by the gas and coal industries that will decline as the world moves to net zero emissions over the next few decades'. Garnaut concludes: 'The new industries are large enough to drive restoration of growth in Australian productivity and living standards after the dozen years of stagnation that began in 2013.' The present fashion of obsessing with productivity improvement for its own sake is counterproductive and probably won't achieve much. We should get our priorities right and focus on fixing our most fundamental problems – unfairness between the generations, action on climate change and fully exploiting the opportunities presented by our newfound strength in renewable energy – and let productivity look after itself.
