Carbon Training International

Energy Efficiencies Opportunities Program drives emissions and financial savings for industry

The Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism has released the first report on actions under the Energy Efficiency Opportunities (EEO) program. “First Opportunities, A Look at Results from 2006-2008 for the Energy Efficiency Opportunity program” notes the following:

• Opportunities have been identified to save more than 6 million tonnes of CO2-e per year (1.1% of Australia’s total emissions for 2006-07)
• As of December 2008 corporations reporting under the program had assessed 1,019 PJ of total energy use “identifying opportunities with energy savings of 67.7 PJ, or 6.6% of their assessed energy use….yielding a potential financial return of $736 million if these projects are implemented.[i]”

To put this energy saving in context, 67.7 PJ is the equivalent total energy consumption of 1.4 million Australian households.

It is interesting to note that the aluminium, ferrous metals and oil and gas industries who strongly opposed the introduction of the CPRS (i.e. a price on carbon) were at the fore...

True cost of oil not reflected at the bowser

Terry Tamminem, until recently head of the Californian Environmental Protection Agency, was quoted yesterday [i] as suggesting that the price of petrol would need to rise from current levels of $1.20 to $3.60 per litre if all externalities:

• health costs
• congestion
• impact on the environment
• energy security measures

are taken into account.

The community bears the cost via higher taxes.

Due to the lack of transparency in the true cost of bringing products and services to market, there exists an unchallenged acceptance of these costs.

Trebling petrol prices (an increase of $2.40 per litre) to incorporate externalities makes the impact of a price on carbon pale into insignificance. Using the accepted conversion factor of 2.5 kg of carbon dioxide emissions from burning a litre of petrol, a carbon price of $20 per tonne equates to a price impact of 5 cents per litre; less than the weekly fluctuation in Sydney petrol prices from Tuesday through to Saturday.Examples of technological breakthroughs that ...