INTHEBLACK February 2023 - Magazine - Page 27
F E AT U R E
Above: Wind turbine towers at Port of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, in November 2022. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced
plans to initiate a renewable energy project to build the largest wind farm in Australia.
from where it is produced to a geological storage
facility deep underground.
“CCUS is needed for reducing emissions in
those areas of the economy that are difficult or
impossible to decarbonise, such as the cement
and steel industries,” Smart says.
“Another example is aviation. It’s difficult to
make aviation fuel sustainably. The model finds
it’s more cost effective to use fossil fuel-based
aviation fuels and then offset those with carbon
capture and storage.”
In one scenario run by the Net Zero Australia
team, Smart says, there were no fossil fuels
permitted at all. “But we still needed carbon
capture and storage,” he says.
3. CLEAN ENERGY FOR EXPORT
“Australia has an enormous potential to produce
clean energy for export,” Smart says. “If we
hope to achieve net zero by 2050, this will be an
absolutely necessary element.”
Of course, Smart says, Australia is blessed in its
capacity to generate renewable energy. This can be
exported via undersea cables, or as green hydrogen
or ammonia. “Ammonia is good and viable now,”
Smart says. “We can produce clean ammonia,
predominantly from renewable resources.”
The hydrogen-dense liquid is easier and
potentially safer to ship than liquid hydrogen,
he says. Ammonia also contains more hydrogen
than liquid hydrogen itself.
“We have the infrastructure, and we’ve known
how to make and transport ammonia effectively
for 100 years,” Smart says.
THE EMPLOYMENT BONUS
Transforming the economy will give rise to a diverse set of
employment opportunities, the Net Zero Australia report predicts.
New technical skills will
be needed in renewable
generation, transmission,
energy storage, clean
hydrogen, and carbon capture,
utilisation and storage.
In the scenarios modelled
by Associate Professor Simon
Smart, project director of Net
Zero Australia, and his team,
results indicate that Australia
must mobilise a workforce of
up to 1.3 million new workers.
“Two-thirds of these workers
will need VET [vocational
education and training] or
TAFE [technical and further
education] training and the
other third will need a degree,”
he says. “What’s interesting is
that the top 10 professions will
only account for a third of the
total jobs. It requires a diverse
range of people and skills.”
The Net Zero Australia study
offers clarity around options and
pathways. What comes next, he
says, will require a whole lot of
community consultation.
“It’s not just about the
production of clean energy,”
Smart says. “It’s also in the
materials and the technologies
that feed into the energy
production. Plus, there’s a lot of
innovation still to come in terms
of business models, which we
haven’t yet sorted out.”
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