The Energy Industry Is Controlled And Dominated By The Consumption Of Fossil Fuels

First and foremost, economic and trade structure which was created in fossil fuel energy resources, and the development of renewable resources produce a major obstacle. The brown and black coal makes that Australia has a stable and cheep electric power since the coal has an abundant cheap supply. (Effendi and Courvisanos, 2011) Because the output of emissions-intensive industries is the high demand overseas, it become a major revenue source of the contributor and the government. Effendi and Courvisanos, (2011) All of this leads fossil fuel electricity generation industry to be a traditional property. It is important to appreciate that this engenders structural inertia and amplifies other barriers such as lack of financial

Approximately 23 percent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions were made by the national food supply chain. Coal fired power stations come after them.

Fossil fuels and other power generates are slowly changing the world. Alternative power sources are slowly becoming more popular in everyday life while the technology progresses. Using these power sources that don’t pollute the atmosphere could be the change in the world that completely changes the way the world uses energy. Engineers and technicians have been producing these alternative ways for years and years. A few, but not limited to consist of: Solar panels, Wind turbines, Wave tech and much more.

Coal power is the cheapest fuel to power the ever growing population with Australian mining industry still putting in billions of dollars into a vast amount of coal projects never the less coal power is a fossil fuel, a fuel which takes hundreds of year to form so the future of coal is undetermined. Coal is a reliable power source but one of the many concern with coal is the mining process used to remove it from the ground. Ecological effects are developing worries for the industry, with the carbon emissions possibly contributing to global warming.

As nations search for less carbon intensive forms of energy the demand for gas has grown rapidly worldwide in recent years. This significant increase in demand has led to a boom in world gas prices. In Australia, there are large reserves of unconventional natural gas compared to conventional natural gas. However, according to the Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics (BREE) there is enough conventional natural gas in Australia to supply all of Australia at current levels for more than 6130 years.

Australia is self-sufficient in energy resources for electricity generation. The black coal is used to supply electricity in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, while the brown coal is used in Victoria. Australia also has hydro centrals, used to produce hydro-electric energy for Tasmania. States such as South Australia and Northern Territory

Nowadays, there are two fastest growing sources of renewable energy which are wind and solar that produce intermittent supplies of energy. People tend to demand from energy more than before. Renewable energy in Australia deals with efforts being made in Australia to quantify and expand renewable energy, which includes electricity, transport fuels and thermal energy. Total renewable energy consumption in Australia in 2015 was 346 Joules(PJ), representing 5.9% of Australia's total energy consumption.(2015 Australian Energy Statistics) This is an increase of 1.6% from 2011–12 levels (265 PJ), representing 4.3% of Australia's total energy consumption.(2013 Australian Energy Update) The energy consumption increases is not only due to the rate

Each household uses about 2,883 kWh [1] of electricity per year in Australia. Our Westfield shopping Centre can use up to 2,620,140 kWh [2] of electricity in a year (based on 2012 statistics) aswell.

An increase of clean energy investments implies that funding for non-renewable energy would be decreased, which is something the government is unwilling to let go of. This is evident from Australia’s reluctance in putting its name down on the Paris climate summit communique which promotes the phasing out of government subsidies for coal, gas and oil. There are several justifiable reasons for keeping the coal industry, as coal is indeed Australia’s largest energy export, and also the major source for domestic power generation. The Coalition government also believes that coal is “essential to relive energy poverty”. But the bad news is that the future for coal industry in Australia does not look good. Coal prices have been dropping, and it is predicted that coal mines will become uneconomical because of their ongoing expenses. In other countries such as US, coal and oil industries have also struggled to expand. Back at home, the Adani mega coal mine in Queensland has a huge financial risk attached to it, yet it is heavily backed by the federal government. More than half of the coal mines in Queensland are currently running at a loss. There are too many uncertainties in the coal industry, and renewable energy is the natural solution. Developing renewable energy industries will expand the job market, and an increase in investments will ensure clean energy that is highly accessible to Australians. Given that solar and wind energy are both cheaper ways to generate electricity, together with the fact that the demand for coal is declining, the switch from non-renewable energy to renewable energy will certainly ensure economic growth for Australia. If the government is still in doubt, just look at the examples around the world: US has terminated coal mining leases, and its solar and wind sectors have been rapidly growing. China, Germany, and the UK have all financed in large wind arrays last year. With adequate funding

The total electricity generation in Australia in 2016 is 285 GWh (Department of the Environment and Energy 2017). Fig 1 shows the Australian electricity generation source; it seems from the fig that 84% from the total generated electricity from burning the carbon based fuels and just 16% from renewable energy sources. According to Choudhury et al. (2010) study, about 40 GWh of the electricity generated is used to operate the air conditioning and refrigeration systems.

Australia has the highest greenhouse emissions per capita as of 2009 (Figure 1). This is attributed to its heavy reliance on

Over all in Australia, there exists an extensive difference in the price of electrical energy, as the data shows that over 80% is output of black and brown coal which add pressure of the supply, once they experience such cost of producing these energy, market distortions come across other renewable alternatives in the future energy development ( Dopita &Williamson 2010, pp.11-13).

Energy comes in the form of renewable or non-renewable energy. Renewable energy resources include wind, solar, water, biomass and geothermal. These resources are some of which will not run out because they are natural resources of the earth. Solar energy comes from the sun, wind energy from the wind geothermal from deep within the earth and so on. Non-renewable resources are fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gases. These cannot be replaced so eventually we will run out and have to rely on renewable energy. Non-renewable energy makes up 86 percent of Australia’s energy with the other 14 percent being renewable energy. 73 percent of Australia’s energy is using coal while, 13 percent is natural gases, 7 percent is hydropower, 4 percent is wind, 2 percent is rooftop solar and 1 percent is biomass.

Currently, the most common source of energy is made from the combustion of coal. However, Australians are the most polluting people in the world. Greenhouse gas emissions from coal generation in Australia are growing rapidly. ABARE predicts our energy emissions will be more than 60 percent higher over the next 25 years if we continue with “business as usual”. (The age) A carbon tax has been introduced for greenhouse gas reduction and for investment and development in zero and low-emission technologies.

Despite facing the same challenge as other countries, Australia keeps her track of development in a designing route by a high-proportion fossil fuel consumption during recent decades. In 2013-2014, the fossil fuel such as coal, oil and gas, took 94.1% part of whole energy consumption, on the other hand, 5.9% part of renewable energy could even be ignored. (Australian energy statistics, 2015) However, there is almost no doubt that to replace fossil fuel consumption with non-fossil fuel energy is the inevitable trend of future ages. It is not only one of the best approaches to preserve the earth environment in our time, also leaving enough resource and technology accumulation to next generations building a healthy and efficient society. It is a long journey to achieve this promising change with difficulties in terms of cost, no-fossil fuel energy distribution,