Energy Futures for Australia

Project 2.1

Future Research Project

Australia 21 is seeking a portfolio of funding support to provide for a budget of $1 million per annum to support the its energy futures research Project over the next five years. Subject to the availability of funding Australia 21 would in the short run establish individual research teams to tackle the following elements of its ambitious research agenda:

• Development of improved modeling tools, in particular to enable more effective treatment of options in the transport sector

• Development of the integration methodology to a point that would enable the analysis to be repeated with standardised data sets as new information becomes available and new technologies come to market

• Further analysis of the options for Victoria

• Comparable single-state analyses for other states and territories

• Development of a first analysis for Australia as a whole, permitting more in-depth analysis of the potential impacts of cross-border trading in gas and electricity, and how these might impact on investment and consumption patterns

• Development of risk assessment, risk management and decision-tools for the insurance industry and other large businesses with a critical stake in climate risk.

• Closer analysis of the possible role of biofuels in the Australian energy market covering issues such as competition with other uses for land and water; climate risk (what impact would a major drought have on biofuels production?), monoculture risk and biodiversity implications.