Queensland is a renewable energy “super state” and should embrace the opportunities that come with taking action against dangerous climate change, the country’s chief climate commissioner says.
Environmentalist Tim Flannery will on Tuesday launch the climate commission’s latest report, which examines the impact of global warming on Queensland.
It reveals the state’s solar energy output has doubled over the past two years.
Queensland has the largest installed solar photovoltaic capacity in Australia, at over 475 megawatts. More than 200,000 households and businesses have solar panels installed.
“Queensland is a bit of an energy super state,” Prof Flannery told AAP.
A high percentage of sunny days with clear skies means the state has “high-quality solar radiation” with little variation throughout the year.
Tuesday’s report argues there’s massive potential for large-scale concentrated solar thermal (CST) generation.
CST uses mirrors to reflect sunlight into a small area to heat fluids or salts and drive steam turbines.
“Queensland receives significant direct (as opposed to diffuse) sunlight, making CST an efficient method to generate electricity,” the report states.
“The state experiences levels of radiation that compare favourably with solar thermal generation sites in the United States and Spain.”
In remote areas of Australia solar is already thought to be cheaper than retail electricity.
Globally the cost of producing PV cells has dropped 75 per cent in the past four years and 45 per cent in the last 12 months.
“Solar PV (along with wind) could be the cheapest form of power in Australia by 2030,” the report states.
Queensland also has 55 per cent of Australia’s bioenergy capacity, powered mainly by sugarcane waste.
But it’s not all sunny and sweet news for Queensland.
Prof Flannery points out the state has “significant vulnerabilities” when it comes to sea-level rises.
Some 85 per cent of Queenslanders live near the coast, and experts expect the global sea level to rise 50 to 100cm by 2100.
The Gold Coast alone has 4000 residential homes “at risk” within 110 metres of erodable coastline.
The sea level in the Torres Strait has been rising at 6mm a year - double the global average.
“We are seeing the impacts already on those communities,” Prof Flannery said.
Rainfall patterns across Queensland are changing, but the impact of climate change is much less clear than in southeast and southwest Australia.
That’s in part due to the uncertainty about the impact of higher temperatures on El Nino.
“It’s a more complicated situation,” the chief climate commissioner said.
But it is known that over the last 110 years Queensland has become slightly wetter, although the coastal region stretching from the southeast to Townsville has experienced a drying trend which has become more obvious since 1970.
The report highlights once again the threat posed to the Great Barrier Reef and Queensland’s tropical rainforests.
Labor’s climate commission was established in early 2011 to promote the case for tackling global warming.
