What to expect at All-Energy Australia 2014

All-Energy Australia is back for another year. To be held from 15-16 October at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, the business-to-business conference will offer more than 120 international and local speakers, alongside over 100 exhibitors filling over 3600 m² of floor space.

This year’s keynote address will be delivered by Laurence Kemball-Cook, the CEO of clean tech company Pavegen. Kemball-Cook founded the company after patenting a flooring technology that converts footsteps into renewable electricity.

Kemball-Cook is advocating for Australia’s introduction of a system of decentralised power grids. He said it makes no sense for massive power stations to be located long distances from where the energy is consumed, noting, “Significant energy is lost when it is transferred from the point of generation to the point of use.”

Kemball-Cook instead calls for “small-generation, community-based power stations that can be fully integrated into the smart grid of the future”. He claims these will lead to “less wastage, significant cost savings, reduced carbon emissions and less dependence upon fossil fuels”.

Fellow speaker Professor Ray Wills, from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Western Australia, goes one step further. He says the “utility death spiral” is underway and that by 2040, “more than 80% of the world’s energy will come from self-generated renewables”.

“Everything by way of energy generation and storage will be sitting on our rooftops and resting in our homes and businesses,” said Professor Wills, who believes the cost of renewable energy will begin to tumble from about 2020.

“Not only will solar panels give us cheaper energy, but they also have the potential to deliver security of supply at times that we might otherwise experience disruption through disasters.”

Professor Wills criticised the Abbott government’s lack of support for the change, saying “ultimately it will cost us billions of dollars”. But according to the CEO of Green Global Solutions, Bob Sharon, the business sector is also to blame.

“Industry prefers ‘tried and true’ rather than ‘smart and revolutionary’, and the problem is that is not helping anyone,” Sharon said. He noted that facilities managers usually “aren’t the ones paying the energy bills”, and thus have no incentive to reduce costs.

He urges facilities managers to utilise proven new technologies which can result in energy savings of between 50 and 80%, providing a return on investment within three years. “The onus has to be on both businesses and consultants to be bold,” he said, “and that will result in energy savings of 10 times what we have now.”

Tony Irwin, the chairman of Engineers Australia’s Nuclear Engineering Panel, advocates for a somewhat controversial form of energy. Irwin claims that by 2030, dozens of small modular reactors (SMRs) will be dotted around Australia.

Irwin spoke of the benefits of the nuclear reactors: their small size means they have “natural safety”; waste may be removed via deep geological disposal; and the Australian Energy Technology Assessment conducted by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics last year found that nuclear is the lowest cost base-load low emissions technology.

“They are particularly suitable for remote areas and small transmission grids,” he said.

Professor John Howard is meanwhile calling for investment in a ‘cleaner’ form of nuclear technology - fusion. The head of the Plasma Research Laboratory at ANU says fusion has the potential to replace all our base-load power needs, which can’t be met by renewables due to intermittency and storage problems.

Fusion is “an inexhaustible clean energy source”, Professor Howard said, because it burns hydrogen out of water. He explained that the challenges of the technology lie in other areas, “including finding suitable material that can withstand the enormous heat flows”.

“It is critical that we continue work in this area, modest though it may be, so that when fusion becomes viable we have some traction … and we will be in a position to make informed decisions,” Professor Howard said.

This is just a small sample of the topics which will be covered at All-Energy Australia. And for attendees who are interested in other areas of the sustainability sector, the show will be co-located with Australia’s Sustainability in Business Conference & Exhibition, Waste Expo and Inter-Water Australia. For more information on the event, visit www.all-energy.com.au/.