His address on decarbonisation was slanted toward impacts on agriculture.
Targets for renewable energy have set us on a path in which there needs to be a 15 per cent annual transition away from fossil fuels.
He outlined the usual stories about solar and wind-sourced electrical energy plus centres producing hydrogen from electrolysis of water. The projections for battery development were most encouraging with what can be expected in markedly improved storage, weight saving and lower cost.
Understandably Prof Finkel drew on his engineering background in the hour available, concentrating on how our motors and industrial processes would be powered.
Regrettably the talk made no mention of how our country could have less dependence on energy. Irrigation in developed countries is usually a story of major energy dependence.
When I reviewed the topic a few years back, Israel’s irrigation required 37 per cent of its national energy consumption. The United States, with some 80 per cent of water sourced from aquifers, typically expends more than 50 per cent of farm energy on irrigation. Lifting and distributing water via pipes is enormously energy intensive.
Shepparton’s forebears were aware of this, designing and constructing the irrigation scheme now managed by Goulburn-Murray Water. It is a gravity flow system that makes use of our typography.
With the $2 billion upgrades initiated with the Northern Victorian Irrigation Renewal Project, it is a world leader.
Water moves from reservoirs to irrigated plants with minimal energy inputs even after allowing for infrastructure and operation. In fact the irrigation scheme is a net generator of energy because of hydroelectricity. These claims can be achieved when there is plenty of water available to this irrigation scheme.
The trouble is that at least 1000 Gl less water is now being delivered in our system compared to the turn of the century, resulting in much greater difficulty in minimising evaporation and seepage losses as a proportion of water delivered.
About half the water now remains and in a dry year downstream demand will cause it to be much less.
Prof Finkel never explored this issue of water moving from a gravity flow scheme.
The largely urban audience remained oblivious to the energy implications of having to lift some 1000 Gl of water from the river and pipe it to plants on new developments in the arid zone beyond Robinvale.
The implications for carbon dioxide generation when pumping water escapes public exposure.
Energy equivalent to some 70 million litres of diesel is required for 1000 Gl water, which ends up as about 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide produced when pumps use electricity from coal or gas fired generators is even greater.
Irrigation in the Shepparton region was a standout example of how to operate a system with minimal carbon emissions.
Meanwhile our nation’s policies, driven by the supposed wisdom of a free market for water, encourages water to move to the arid zone where about 60 per cent more water per hectare is needed for the same production and the nation incurs a significant carbon dioxide loading.
Too frequently local talk about carbon emissions finishes with compost, which mostly ends up as carbon dioxide, rather than tackling the system issues with a broad perspective.
Barry Croke, Kialla