Climate Tasmania

A Tasmanian take on the thorniest global issue since the dinosaurs. Based on Peter Boyer’s newspaper column in the Hobart Mercury.

Challenges and opportunities in a new-age energy market

Tasmania’s electricity market is set to become more competitive. Where is this trend taking us? [15 February 2011 | Peter Boyer]
The story of Tasmania’s electricity market gets murkier by the day. To the public shock over power prices has been added a spate of seemingly absurd decisions to buy power from far-away Queensland. But in [...]

Despite the cold, Tasmania is warming

It got suddenly chilly in the second week of May, but the cold masks an underlying warming that has continued for over half a century. [8 June 2010 | Peter Boyer]
Global warming would have been the farthest thing from your mind if you’d spent a certain weekend last month at Liawenee on Tasmania’s Central Plateau.
The night [...]

The expensive red-herring that is “clean coal”

In the national effort to cut carbon emissions, “clean coal” is a fraught issue: the technology is feasible but financial and physical issues make it a dubious prospect. It’s real danger is in encouraging prolonged use of coal.