Star of the South, long considered a frontrunner to become Australia’s first offshore wind farm, High Sea Wind, Gippsland Skies, Blue Mackerel, Kut-Wut Brataualung and Ørsted Offshore Australia.

The Gippsland offshore wind zone has to-date not faced the criticism, some of it based on misinformation campaigns, that has been directed towards proposed zones in New South Wales’ Hunter and Illawarra regions.

In a speech to the Energy Users Association of Australia in Melbourne today, Bowen will say offshore wind energy was not about meeting 2030 emissions reduction and energy targets as the industry would take longer than that, it was “very much about planning for a reliable energy system years into the future”.

The International Energy Agency puts offshore wind in a category of its own as ‘variable baseload power’, with similar capacity factors as gas and coal-fired power plants.

As well as jobs rich, offshore wind is energy rich. That’s why major Australian energy users – from Alcoa in Portland, to Bluescope in the Illawarra, to Tomago in the Hunter – say that offshore wind is vital to their energy future.

see earlier), Chris Bowen’s speech to the energy users association today will also include some observations about the future of gas.

The climate change and energy minister will argue there are “exaggerated claims on all sides of the gas debate”.

Slogans like ‘gas-led recovery’ and ‘no new gas’ are equally catchy – and equally unhelpful to explaining the proper role of gas in our net zero energy mix.

Bowen’s speech, released to journalists by his office, says the resources minister, Madeleine King, will release a future gas strategy in the coming weeks so that the “national discussion on gas can be guided more by the evidence and less by the culture wars”.

Bowen will say gas will play an “important role in electricity by firming and peaking renewables” as unlike coal and nuclear it could be turned on and off at short notice, that there are not yet substitutes for gas in many industrial settings, and that new gas supply will be needed “even as we electrify at pace” as current supplies are dwindling.

The International Energy Agency last year found the growth era for fossil fuels had finished, and that global investment in oil and gas would need to be cut roughly in half by 2030 to put the world on track to reach net zero emissions by mid-century.

The consultants Climate Analytics found gas was the largest source of global fossil fuel emissions growth last decade.

here.

Chalmers said “this is what happens when interest rates have increased and the economy is slowing”.

And it’s no surprise to us because we know that people are under pressure. We saw that in those very weak retail figures, we’ve seen it in consumption figures, we’ve seen it in the growth figures. And that’s why in this budget, there will still be a primary focus on the fight against inflation, but also a focus on how we grow the economy, how we focus on economic security in ways that we just talked about, to make sure that we are striking the right balance, fighting inflation in the here and now but laying the foundations for future growth in our economy.

There’s no shortage of challenges, and what we’ve demonstrated the first two budgets and will demonstrate again in the third is a willingness to fight inflation as the primary focus, but not the sole focus.

Star of the South, long considered a frontrunner to become Australia’s first offshore wind farm, High Sea Wind, Gippsland Skies, Blue Mackerel, Kut-Wut Brataualung and Ørsted Offshore Australia.

The Gippsland offshore wind zone has to-date not faced the criticism, some of it based on misinformation campaigns, that has been directed towards proposed zones in New South Wales’ Hunter and Illawarra regions.

In a speech to the Energy Users Association of Australia in Melbourne today, Bowen will say offshore wind energy was not about meeting 2030 emissions reduction and energy targets as the industry would take longer than that, it was “very much about planning for a reliable energy system years into the future”.

The International Energy Agency puts offshore wind in a category of its own as ‘variable baseload power’, with similar capacity factors as gas and coal-fired power plants.

As well as jobs rich, offshore wind is energy rich. That’s why major Australian energy users – from Alcoa in Portland, to Bluescope in the Illawarra, to Tomago in the Hunter – say that offshore wind is vital to their energy future.

Queensland property market was showing signs of losing momentum.

Lawless said:

Affordability pressures may be impacting the pace of growth across the city, following a nearly $300,000 increase in values since the onset of Covid in March 2020, the largest dollar value increase of any capital.

The strongest growth was occurring in the lower range of the market in almost every capital city, with the exception of Darwin.

Similarly, growth in unit prices was typically outpacing house values.

blocking of misogynistic content online before a snap national cabinet called for today to focus on women’s safety. The federal government has signalled that strengthening violence prevention by countering online harms will be a priority at the meeting, called after a spate of violent attacks on women.

We have a special report today from the Great Barrier Reef where a summer of storm surges and cyclones has left the Unesco heritage site looking like a “graveyard”, according to scientists stunned by the latest bleaching event. Surveying an area of coral off Heron Island, one scientist estimates that “90% of branching corals are dead or dying”.

Foreign investment approvals will be made quicker but greater scrutiny will be placed on potential risks as Australia tries to balance economic and security interests, treasurer Jim Chalmers will say today. The Treasury will set a target to process half of foreign investment cases needing approval within 30 days after from next January, Chalmers will tell the Lowy Institute in Sydney. It will also seek more funds from abroad to support so-called build-to-rent housing ventures and the energy transition off fossil fuels as the government pursues its Future Made in Australia policy.

Source: theguardian.com