David French | 19/02/2010 10:46:46 AM

This article was first published in The Morning Bulletin under the heading electricity generation on 19 December 2009.

As an intermittent churchgoer and a constant thinker, considering the motives of other attendees is interesting. Do they fall into one of two categories? Those who believe and try to practise the principles of Christianity (or its alternatives), or those seeking gain (insurance against damnation for example). Or are there more?

Could the debate regarding climate change be considered against similar parameters? Can proponents be grouped into those that want to tidy up and those with an agenda? Meanwhile industry moves relentlessly forward.

Recent visits to Beach Petroleum and Ceramic Fuel Cells (CFCL), in Adelaide and Melbourne respectively, suggest that it is industry that will address climate change. Wave, tidal, solar, wind and geothermal are exciting and get plenty of press, but they also face serious limitations.

Like other traditional producers Beach is sitting on millions of cubic feet of natural gas in situ, in water, in shale, in coal, and as a by-product of oil. Recently Bow energy raised $40 million to build an electricity generating gas turbine at Blackwater. Using coal seam methane, generating power at the energy source and close to the electricity grid cuts transmission costs for both input and output.

Taking the hydrogen out of gas and combining it with oxygen to form electricity is the work of CFCL. A child of the CSIRO, it’s about to begin mass-producing dishwasher size appliances that satisfy a household’s electricity and hot water needs. Run as a “fleet” by existing utilities, CFCL provides insight into the future of power (take that as broadly as you like).

Forget the wholesale closure of coal fired power stations and mass retrenchments, the output from Copenhagen and the auto-immolation of the Coalition is a load of hot air. The future of electricity seems likely to lie in the management of a fragmented generation network.

Government owns the vast bulk of generating and distribution capacity and consequently the ability to change is within its control. With comparatively little Government effort directed toward substitutes, the existing ETS proposal is little more than a tax. Let’s not have another Memtec (proven, commercialised, water filtering technology that was flatly rejected by Australian water utilities, and eventually taken over by US interests). Perhaps Ergon can lead by picking up the phone to CFCL and participating in the Federal Governments Smart Grid Smart City project.

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