Message from the Director

How quickly things change in the energy scene.

With the recent change in the Federal Government, Australia has moved to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, we have a renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020, a 60 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2000 by 2050 and a mix of new government support opportunities in low emissions research, development and demonstration in the planning stages.

All this neatly dovetails with the Energy Transformed National Research Flagship’s mission of a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the stationary energy and transport sectors of 50 per cent compared to 1990.

Perhaps our “BHAG” (big, hairy, audacious goal), set in 2002 when the Flagship commenced, is not that audacious anymore. 

However, our scenario modelling continuing on from the Energy Futures Forum shows just how hard that target will be. Results illustrate massive changes to the way we generate, distribute and use energy will be necessary to achieve that target.

The Energy Transformed National Research Flagship program is continuing to grow, particularly with a major expansion in alternate fuels research and development, and the implementation of several major Asia Pacific Partnership (APP) projects on low emissions technologies.

In this edition of the newsletter, we highlight a new Future Fuels Forum, progress in post combustion carbon dioxide capture, improvements in distributed energy management and control systems, advances in the storage of power from renewable energy and technology and initial results of a comprehensive biofuels study. All these projects are contributing strongly to the advancement of the Flagship’s long term mission.

I hope you enjoy the articles.