Monday 7th July 2014

Newspapers, telecommunications and the entertainment industry have all felt the chill winds of change brought on by new technology. Now science is revolutionising power generation. Technology is making alternative sources of energy cheaper, more user-friendly and, crucially, it's decentralising production to the rooftops of homes and commercial buildings across Australia.

So why is the Federal Government moving away from its commitment to renewable sources of energy? Why would it consider reducing renewable energy targets, favouring greenhouse-gas emitting coal and gas?

In part the answer is simple. Price. As the Prime Minister explained recently:

"All of us should want to see lower prices and plainly at the moment the renewable energy target is a very significant impact on higher power prices."

But the renewable energy industry warns that while coal and gas might enjoy a price advantage now, renewables are the future:

"The Government has an ideological agenda. They want to carve out the impact of renewable energy on the network and they want to stop renewable in their tracks." John Grimes, Australian Solar Council

Next on Four Corners, reporter Stephen Long documents the revolution in power generation taking place across the globe. He travels to California, where successive governments have legislated to have one third of the state's power come from renewable sources.

He meets the Australian entrepreneur who left home to create a multi-million-dollar solar company in the US.

Stephen Long visits a massive solar farm that not only takes energy from the sun, but can also store it in a massive salt crystal tower. In time, the farm will power the bright lights of Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, back in Australia the Federal Government is being lobbied by power producers using coal and gas to wind back the renewable energy targets that would see 20 per cent of this country's power generated by renewables by the end of the decade. Little wonder they want the targets lowered. The explosion in wind farms and solar rooftop panels in homes across Australia has already cut the demand for electricity and left them with gold-plated infrastructure that can no longer be justified. For one Queensland company, the decentralisation of power production has been devastating:

"In the last five years of our generation business, we've made nothing."

All this leaves the Federal Government in a difficult situation. If it decides to wind back the policy clock and downplay renewables, it will lose a high-tech cutting-edge industry while it props up old-style big polluters. As economist and author Jeremy Rifkin puts it, the choice is stark:

"It's ridiculous. Australia's the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. There's so much sun, there's so much wind off the coast, and so it makes absolutely no sense when you have an abundance of renewable energy, [to] rely on a depleting supply of fossil fuels with all of the attendant consequences to society and the planet."

Power to the People, reported by Stephen Long and presented by Kerry O'Brien, goes to air on Monday 7th July at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is replayed on Tuesday 8th July at 11.00am and 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturday at 8.00pm EST, ABC iview and at abc.net.au/4corners.

Transcript

Power to the People - Monday 7 July 2014

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Politics, power and the new reality. Welcome to Four Corners.

The Rudd and Gillard governments had two key policy planks in response to the threat of global warming.

One was the carbon tax leading to an emissions trading scheme. The other was a mandated target to generate 20 per cent of Australia's electricity from renewable energy sources - like wind and solar power - by 2020.

The Abbott Government is in the process of abolishing the carbon tax; it is also reviewing the renewable energy targets (RETs) under urging from the coal and traditional electricity industries, with the strong prospect that the targets will be significantly cut back.

Businessman, Dick Warburton, the person heading that review is sceptical of claims that man made carbon dioxide is a major cause of global warming.

The Government also wants to shut down several related agencies, like the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

The policy shift in Australia comes at a time when hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested in renewable energy around the rest of the world, and at a critical time for investment decisions here.

Australia's dilemma is underscored by the fact that we have just about every energy resource in abundance - old and new, dirty and clean.

Stephen Long looks at some startling comparisons on both sides of the Pacific.

STEPHEN LONG, REPORTER: The sun rises over the rolling hills outside Canberra.

In these fields, pasture meets power.

Every turn of these massive blades propels wind into clean energy.

It's not a new technology, but it may be the way of the future.

To supporters, renewable energy is part of a revolution that will eclipse fossil fuels and change the way we live and work.

But, not everyone sees it that way.

Recently, Australia's Treasurer took a tilt at these very windmills.

JOE HOCKEY, FEDERAL TREASURER: If I can be a little indulgent here, I drive to Canberra to go to Parliament and so on, I drive myself, and I must say, I find those wind turbines around Lake George to be utterly offensive.

ALAN JONES, RADIO PRESENTER: Correct. Correct.

JOE HOCKEY: And I think they are just a blight on the landscape.

ALAN JONES: And the people you're talking to are paying for them. When are you going to knock them off?

JOE HOCKEY: Well, we can't knock those ones off.

STEPHEN LONG: The wind farms that Joe Hockey finds so unsightly are owned and run by Infigen Energy.

MILES GEORGE, MD, INFIGEN ENERGY: So there's 90 turbines here, including the Capital and Woodlawn wind farms.

STEPHEN LONG: Miles George is managing director of the company, which operates 24 renewable power plants - six of them in Australia.

(to MILES GEORGE)

How much power does that generate?

MILES GEORGE: It's enough power to power about half the houses in Canberra.

STEPHEN LONG: He's worried about the Government's apparent hostility to clean sources of electricity.

MILES GEORGE: We could fit another 30 or so in and we have approval for that.

STEPHEN LONG: Oh! There's the view that the Treasurer Joe Hockey found so offensive: Lake George with the wind turbines.

How did you feel when you had heard Joe Hockey said that?

MILES GEORGE: Oh I was angry that that sort of statement would be made by our Federal Treasurer. I didn't think it was appropriate. Not so much the visual amenity issue, but talking about his inability to stop these things or something like that he said, which, you know he's talking about stopping an investment that Australian investors have made.

STEPHEN LONG: The Treasurer's comments are part of a broader backlash in the Coalition.

And, while it may be too late to "knock off" these wind turbines, the Government's review of the Renewable Energy Target might just kill the business.

MILES GEORGE: Well if the target was scrapped without any compensation, we would lose 40 per cent of our revenue and our business in Australia would fail.

STEPHEN LONG: (to Greg Hunt) If the Renewable Energy Target is cut, people are saying that they will have to close down wind farms.

It will kill existing investment. You're on the record as saying that you are not in the business of killing existing investments.

GREG HUNT, FEDERAL ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: That's correct.

STEPHEN LONG: What does that imply?

GREG HUNT: What that means is very clear, that my view and our view is that we support sustainable investment. We will approach the review with an open mind.

STEPHEN LONG: But to critics, it seems as if the Government has declared war on renewable energy.

JOHN GRIMES, CEO, AUSTRALIAN SOLAR COUNCIL: This Government has an ideological agenda.

They want to carve out the impact of renewable energy on the network and they want to stop renewals in their tracks.

JEREMY RIFKIN, AUTHOR, THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: Australia's the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. There's so much sun; there's so much wind off the coast, and so it makes absolutely no sense when you have an abundance of renewable energy, why would you rely on a depleting supply of fossil fuels with all of the attendant consequences to society and the planet?

It's absolutely makes no sense whatsoever.

STEPHEN LONG: Across the Pacific, it's a different story.

San Francisco, the cultural and financial hub of Northern California.

In the Bay Area and beyond, sun and wind power are merging with IT know-how to forge new industries and new ways of doing business.

We took a journey through the Golden State, as California powers ahead with renewable energy.

DAVID HOCHSCHILD, CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISSIONER: It's quite exciting the job growth that we're seeing.

Today the United States has for example,150 000 employees in the solar industry, so about a third of those, 50 000, are here in California and that's actually a 50 per cent growth in those jobs just over the last three years.

So we actually have more employees today in the solar industry in the US than there are in auto manufacturing and than there are in coal mining.

STEPHEN LONG: California energy commissioner David Hochschild lives high in the hills above Berkeley, overlooking San Francisco Bay.

California, with a population of nearly 40 million, has legislated that a third of its energy should come from renewable sources by 2020.

Commissioner Hochschild says it will easily reach that target.

DAVID HOCHSCHILD: As a result of that law, we've seen a massive increase in investment and innovation in the renewable energy space, and today, California has the largest wind project in the world, the largest geothermal project in the world, the largest solar thermal and solar PV projects in the world, and the largest manufacturing operation in the state of California today is an electric car factory.

So we're seeing enormous momentum as a result of that.

STEPHEN LONG: Were you surprised by the pace of the growth of renewable energy?

DAVID HOCHSCHILD: You know it's actually not a surprise because history has shown quite clearly, when you establish a long-term target and provide that certainty for the market, you get investment and you get innovation and it drives down costs.

STEPHEN LONG: About half an hour away at the Port of Oakland is a company that's seized on California's support for renewable energy and innovation.

It's run by a sun loving Aussie entrepreneur. Danny Kennedy moved here seven years ago.

His business pioneered the use of satellite imaging and internet software to design and sell rooftop solar.

DANNY KENNEDY, CO-FOUNDER, SUNGEVITY: We had this idea that we could take satellite images and aerial photographs and mash them up and do the design and engineering and quoting and sales process to customers over the internet.

STEPHEN LONG: Although Australia pioneered solar power, Danny Kennedy had to leave his home country to realise his ambitions.

DANNY KENNEDY: You know, a couple of obvious reasons - one was the sort of risk capital available here in Silicon Valley and the software engineering.

But, also because California at that time had a very strong solar market due to the Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's support for the solar market back in 2006.

STEPHEN LONG: Today Sungevity is an international business with more than 500 employees, operations in the US, Europe and Australia and revenues in the hundreds of millions.

Its founder is dismayed by the drift of policy back home.

DANNY KENNEDY: The big risk for Australia is that we miss out on the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century.

We get stuck in quarry Australia mentality from the 20th Century while the rest of world is phasing out coal and trying to move to these new industries and creating whole new ways of doing business and jobs which Australians may never benefit from.

STEPHEN LONG: As the sun sinks in the sky at Lancaster, California, a baseball game is underway under lights, in a solar-powered stadium.

The Lancaster Jet Hawks are leading the California league; their city is leading the way with renewable energy.

Heather Swan is an executive with the Lancaster Power Authority, which has overseen a radical shift away from fossil fuels.

HEATHER SWAN, LANCASTER POWER AUTHORITY: We've kind of gotten started with a grassroots effort that started putting solar on homes and getting the information out to our homeowners and our citizens. Then we took that step a little farther and became the example ourselves and we put solar on our major city facilities.

Those city facilities are now powered about 97, 98 per cent by solar.

STEPHEN LONG: Lancaster was aiming to be 100 per cent renewable powered by the decade's end.

HEATHER SWAN: Yes, I mean, we were originally given the goal of 2020, but you know I think we can make it happen by 2016.

STEPHEN LONG: Just two years away?

HEATHER SWAN: When you say it like that, you make it sound so close. But, I know, it's not far away.

STEPHEN LONG: It's now technically possible to supply all the electricity needs of a city or district without any reliance on fossil fuels.

That used to be a pipedream, but new technologies that allow renewable energy to be stored and used day and night are changing the ballgame.

And here at least, support for the new order crosses the political divide.

(to Heather Swan)

Your mayor is a Republican.

That side of politics in Australia is quite hostile, it seems, to renewable energy.

HEATHER SWAN: Well it is here too, so.

But, he is a Republican and he's been quoted in the New York Times as saying I may be a Republican but I'm not an idiot.

And he's very well educated and he's very well researched on the subject and he's an adamant believer in climate change. We are seeing it happening right here in our own backyard.

STEPHEN LONG: Tonopah.

This sleepy little town in the high desert country of the Sierra Nevada is at a crossroads, where the old economy is making way for the new.

Tonopah was one of the last frontiers of the Old West.

The discovery of silver at the dawn of the 20th century sparked a mining boom, before the town lapsed into fading glory.

They campaign hard out here, but there's little division about where the future lies.

It's in mining the sun.

Less than a half hour's drive out of town is a state-of-the-art solar facility known as Crescent Dunes.

If it looks space-age, that's because it is, considered by some to be the most advanced power plant in the world.

The project's technical director is Brian Painter, an industry veteran who's been running electricity plants for 30 years.

(to Brian Painter) It's amazing. It's like a mechanical forest.

BRIAN PAINTER, CRESCENT DUNES: It is exactly, you are walking through a mechanical forest. It's made up of steel and mirrors and all this sort of thing.

STEPHEN LONG: The huge mirrors on these mechanical trees are known as heliostats.

BRIAN PAINTER: Each heliostat concentrates the sun's energy on the top of the tower there, the black section that you see.

STEPHEN LONG: What's in the tower?

BRIAN PAINTER: What's in that black section is molten salt. Molten salt is pumped through the top. It's like a big energy absorber; it's absorbing all that sun's energy that's being concentrated on the tower.

STEPHEN LONG: While we were at Crescent Dunes, the process of pumping 31 million kilograms of salt into the tower was still being completed.

When the plant starts running later this year, 10,347 glittering mirrors will beam concentrated light onto the tower, where the molten sodium will act like a giant battery, storing the sun's energy.

DAVID HOCHSCHILD: Crescent Dunes is a remarkable thing to see. This is the first solar thermal power plant in the world to have molten salt storage, so what it does it takes the energy of the sun, produces electricity and then stores that as heat in molten salt storage and, at night, when they need to make use of that power, they can run it from the heat that's being stored in this molten salt storage facility.

BRIAN PAINTER: The thing with being able to store the energy is that we can shift the time of delivery; we can deliver night time, day time, when a utility might want power, we can deliver any time.

STEPHEN LONG: Overcoming one of the perceived problems of solar: that the energy's only available when the sun's shining. This technology could be the backbone of a power grid, delivering base-load power as reliably as coal or gas-fired generators.

When it's up and running, it will be providing energy into the night for the neon-light capital of the world.

DAVID HOCHSCHILD: That's right. The facility's going to be providing power to Las Vegas.

It's hard to think of a city in the world that uses more energy at night than Las Vegas, so it's a great validation of the possibilities of solar and storage together.

STEPHEN LONG: The company behind Crescent Dunes wants to bring this remarkable technology to Australia.

It's hoping the mining industry will embrace solar power at remote mine sites, which currently rely on polluting, and heavily subsidised diesel fuel to generate electricity.

It had planned to build large scale renewable power plants to supply retail electricity, but it's given up on those ambitions because of the drift of policy down-under.

KEVIN SMITH, CEO SOLARRESERVE: That policy change pretty much took the life out of the renewable energy sector as far as large scale projects for say utility applications.

Other markets around the world are advancing.

Australia is going to get left behind.

STEPHEN LONG: Kevin Smith is the chief executive of SolarReserve, the company that developed Crescent Dunes.

(to Kevin Smith) What was the reaction in your sector in the United States when people discovered that a man who denies that C02 is contributing to climate change was appointed to head the review of the Australian Renewable Energy Target?

KEVIN SMITH: Well, it's a little bit hard to grasp that, kind of that concept. I mean clearly you know that appointment was made because they want to move back towards conventional fuels: coal and oil.

It's pretty clear that the policy in Australia is now being centred around big coal. The coal industry clearly has rallied to move policy away from renewable energies because they view renewable energy as a threat and back toward conventional coal.

STEPHEN LONG: The new developments with renewable energy and storage seem to have passed the Prime Minister by.

(Excerpt from 2GB Radio, 2 July 2014)

TONY ABBOTT, PRIME MINISTER: The difficulty with renewable energy is that when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, well the power doesn't flow. We've got massive supplies of coal; we've got massive supplies of gas; we should, we should be making the most of our natural advantages.

(End of excerpt)

STEPHEN LONG: The Environment Minister denies that the Australian Government is hostile to renewable energy or biased towards coal.

GREG HUNT: Well I think the long term future for renewable energy is actually very strong.

It's about balance and the right balance here is to ensure that we protect jobs and investment, we support sustainable growth, but we don't add significantly to power prices and we try to take the pressure off power prices.

STEPHEN LONG: What Australia has in abundance, and California and Nevada lack, is coal.

Coal has defined Australia's political economy, and while it can avoid paying for the impact of its emissions, coal is a cheap source of energy.

But as renewables gain ground, coal fired power generators are hurting.

RICHARD VAN BREDA, CEO, STANWELL CORPORATION: In Queensland and across Australia, there's actually a glut of electricity generation in the market.

There's probably 20 per cent more generation capacity in the national electricity market then we actually need.

In Queensland, it's probably higher than that.

STEPHEN LONG: Richard Van Breda runs Stanwell, a state government owned power company, and Queensland's biggest electricity generator.

(to Richard Van Breda)

Hence you don't want to see more renewables coming into the marketplace?

RICHARD VAN BREDA: Absolutely. Absolutely. And certainly our submission looked at renewables; our recommendation was that renewable energy targets be phased out over time.

STEPHEN LONG: The Tarong Power Station, 180 kilometres north west of Brisbane, is one of Stanwell's key assets.

At full capacity, this giant facility consumes up to 7 million tonnes of coal a year, and up to 28,000 megalitres of water to power its turbines.

But in recent years, Stanwell has been losing money. In 2012, two of the four power generating units at Tarong Power Station were shut down.

RICHARD VAN BREDA: We've lost 160 jobs on this site. Across our business, 35 per cent of our workforce has left, which was close to 320 jobs.

STEPHEN LONG: That's a lot of jobs.

RICHARD VAN BREDA: It is and it's a lot of people you need to speak to. It's very hard to make those decisions but we've had to do it, otherwise the business is just not going to survive.

STEPHEN LONG: The problem for coal fired power utilities like Tarong is two-fold.

Wind and solar power are pushing down the wholesale price of electricity.

And overall, demand for electricity has been falling.

RICHARD VAN BREDA: People are not using as much electricity as they used to with electricity prices going up significantly, people are a lot more circumspect about the electricity they use.

STEPHEN LONG: And there's a lot of people in Queensland who've moved to rooftop solar.

RICHARD VAN BREDA: Absolutely. I think, if you look at the capacity of Queensland's market, probably 10 per cent of that could be close to the solar installations across, across our rooftops here.

STEPHEN LONG: Ten per cent on rooftop solar?

RICHARD VAN BREDA: Absolutely. Very, very significant.

STEPHEN LONG: What would you say to people who would argue, we're better off losing these coal fired power stations that pollute the environment and moving towards renewables?

RICHARD VAN BREDA: First of all it's, it's the cheapest form of electricity we have and we need to have the debate around is it cheap electricity or is it a move to renewables?

STEPHEN LONG: Over the past five years, retail electricity prices in Australia have doubled. But how much is clean energy to blame?

Truth be told, the Renewable Energy Target's only had a minor impact on power prices - on the best estimates, about 3 to 4 per cent.

Offset by renewables pushing down the wholesale price of electricity.

What's really driven up power prices has been a massive investment in the network: the poles and wires, the infrastructure.

And, as it turns out, much of that investment was unnecessary.

JOHN GRIMES: They got the forecast wrong.

Power prices are going up because power companies have over invested in the network and those companies get a guaranteed return on their investment, guaranteed by the Government.

IVOR FRISCHKNECHT, CEO, AUSTRALIAN RENEWABLE ENERGY AGENCY: The main reason for the increase in electricity prices is the cost of networks.

So network infrastructure has been added to pretty dramatically in the last five years and that is roughly half of your total electricity bill today goes to pay for the poles and wires that carry electricity from the generators to your house or business.

STEPHEN LONG: As energy prices soared, for the first time ever, electricity consumption went backwards.

Although the problem is partly of the industry's own making, the fall in consumption has driven a backlash against renewable energy.

Incumbent power companies are saying, why build more capacity when there's already oversupply?

MATTHEW WARREN, CEO, ENERGY SUPPLY ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA: The simple reality is the RET, the Renewable Energy Target as designed was designed to fill anticipated growth in the market and the market conditions have changed.

STEPHEN LONG: Matthew Warren is chief executive of the Energy Supply Association.

It represents the big electricity retailers and generators, and its pushing to cut the Renewable Energy Target.

MATTHEW WARREN: We've seen an ever accelerating decline in demand since 2009 and so that's meant that, what was 20 per cent is now looking more like 25, 28, 29 per cent, and that's a much bigger target.

STEPHEN LONG: Although it's often called a 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target, that's not in fact what the legislation says.

The law calls for a fixed amount of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.

Forty-one-thousand gigawatt hours from large scale schemes. At least 4,000 gigawatt hours from small-scale renewable energy schemes, such as roof top solar.

Australia's small scale sector is booming, but it's a long way off the large scale target.

To meet it, there needs to be significant new investment in renewable energy.

MATTHEW WARREN: The market conditions in Australia, with so much over supply of generation means that we think that the RET, as designed currently, is likely to fail and half, up to half of the RET will never get built.

STEPHEN LONG: As the lobbying to cut the target finds sympathetic ears in Parliament, in the national capital, there's a new dawn for renewable energy.

If all goes to plan, Canberra will be 90 per cent renewable powered by 2020.

STEPHEN LONG: Wow.

SIMON CORBELL, ACT ENERGY MINISTER: That's the Royalla solar farm.

STEPHEN LONG: That is impressive.

SIMON CORBELL: it's 80,000 solar panels - enough power to meet the needs of about 4,500 thousand Canberra homes.

STEPHEN LONG: Simon Corbell is the ACT Energy Minister.

He's taken me to a power utility 23 kilometres south of Canberra.

It'll begin operating in a few weeks' time.

SIMON CORBELL: When it does connect, it will be the first large-scale solar power facility connected to the national electricity market.

STEPHEN LONG: And still tiny by world standards.

It costs a lot to build a plant like this, and that does feed into electricity prices, but in the medium term, the energy will be cheaper because the fuel input, sunlight, is free.

SIMON CORBELL: The economics is a no brainer and it also drives down the cost of electricity more generally in the market because, often, at times of peak demand, renewables is the cheapest source of energy into the electricity market

STEPHEN LONG: He's having a hard time convincing some of his counterparts in the states.

SIMON CORBELL: Well the other state governments have vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

They collect the royalties from the coal mines; they collect the dividends from the coal-fired generators; they own these assets. And, they are not interested in disrupting that business model, even though that's locking consumers into higher energy costs over the medium to long term.

STEPHEN LONG: It's a big day at the Orange City Bowling Club in the central west of New South Wales.

A troupe of Canberran bowlers has bussed in to take on the locals.

STEPHEN LONG: G'day. How are you?

PAT EGAN, ORANCE CITY BOWLING CLUB TREASURER: Hello Stephen, nice to meet you.

STEPHEN LONG: You've got a fair crowd in for the tournament?

PAT EGAN: It's a fairly big day; a bit unusual because we've got about 50 visitors here today.

STEPHEN LONG: Pat Egan is the club's treasurer

(to Pat Egan) Sun's shining; good day.

PAT EGAN: It's fantastic for bowls mate. That green is probably running about 15 seconds which is pretty good for bowls.

STEPHEN LONG: Pat's penny-wise, but in the face of rocketing electricity bills he convinced the board to have 360 solar panels installed on the roof of the bowlo'.

PAT EGAN: Yeah you can see a good view of them there now; they are in banks of 10.

STEPHEN LONG: So you were the inspiration for this, Pat?

PAT EGAN: Yeah, only because of my personal experience at home where I put a system in, in 2012, and the savings were coming as I expected.

So I became treasurer here recent, just after my own installation, and I was trying to find ways to save costs.

STEPHEN LONG: As you would.

PAT EGAN: And increase our revenue. But saving costs, what springs out to you straight away is the cost of electricity.

(Footage of Stephen and Pat having beers inside the bowling club)

STEPHEN LONG: Ah yes. Cheers Pat!

PAT EGAN: Nice to have you over for a couple, mate.

STEPHEN LONG: Cheers.

(to camera) Over a beer at the club, Pat shows me how much money the rooftop solar has cut from the power bills.

So that was a month's power bill?

PAT EGAN: Yeah.

STEPHEN LONG: Ten thousand bucks or close enough

PAT EGAN: And this one's $4,891.

STEPHEN LONG: That's a huge saving.

PAT EGAN: It certainly is.

STEPHEN LONG: An electricity bill that was running at $116,000 a year has fallen by more than a third, and the investment in rooftop solar will pay for itself in three years.

This humble bowling club may be part of a paradigm shift, a new era for the economy.

Danny Kennedy calls it the rooftop revolution, power to the people.

DANNY KENNEDY: What we've had is these big power stations at the middle of a hub and spoke model, shunting electrons down a one-way fire hose, telling us what we should pay for it.

What we're getting now is the ability to participate in the creation of electricity. We're going to have our own power plants on our own roofs. There's going to be a community level storage system, a solar farm or a wind farm out the back, and all those are going to take part in the creation of electricity and the economics of electricity, and it's all going to be managed through software and information communications technology.

JEREMY RIFKIN: We now have millions and millions of small players, home owners, small businesses, cooperatives, even large businesses that are producing their own solar and wind generated green electricity at near zero marginal cost.

In 10 years from now, 15 years from now, we'll have tens of millions of local sites producing green electricity on micro-grids. In 20 years, from now we'll have hundreds of millions of people producing their own green electricity.

Economist and author, Jeremy Rifkin, argues that green energy and new communications technology are ushering in a period of radical economic change.

Just as the steam engine, the telegraph and the printing press drove the first industrial revolution, petrol-fuelled motor cars, the road network and the electricity grid the second, renewable energy and the internet are combining to create a new industrial revolution, which could be a jobs bonanza.

JEREMY RIFKIN: That second industrial revolution of the 20th Century is clearly on life support. It's not coming back; it's waning.

We are right now on the cusp of a third industrial revolution. We have to transform our energy resources from fossil fuels to renewable energy. That's extremely labour-intensive.

We have to convert every building in Australia and around the world to your own micro-power plant, installing solar, wind, geothermal technologies right there, retrofitting the buildings.

STEPHEN LONG: The pillars of this revolution include transforming the world's building stock into micro-power plants that collect and store renewable energy, shared via an energy internet.

And transitioning the transport fleet to plug-in electric and fuel cell cars.

Palo Alto, California is home to the new green machines of motoring.

The Tesla is an electric vehicle that's winning the hearts of motoring enthusiasts.

Put one of these through its paces, and you'll give a hoon in a gas-guzzling V8 a run for their money and help save the planet at the same time.

This may be the future of motoring. This is a high performance vehicle: it does 0-100ks in 4.4 seconds and it can drive up to 502km on a single charge.

There's zero emissions and zero noise. And, I love this: there's no exhaust pipe.

Teslas aren't cheap.

When it goes on sale here, the high-end model will cost close to a 100,000.

But a mass-market model's coming, with a price tag of about $30,000.

And the cost of electric vehicles is set to plummet.

DAVID HOCHSCHILD: Well, I think the Tesla is analogous to the iPhone, okay. When it first came out it's a beautiful well-designed product, but expensive. But, what you see over time is, as you get to scale, the prices come down and that's exactly what's happening with Tesla. This is a car that is actually headed towards being a mainstream technology.

And, honestly it's actually part of a family of electric cars. You look at what the other auto manufacturers are doing - GM and Toyota and others - they're really headed towards a mainstream ah technology.

STEPHEN LONG: At Tesla's futuristic factory, specialised robots turn out hundreds of cars each week.

The company now employs 6,000 people.

Soon, it plans to build what it's calling the "gigafactory": a mass manufacturing plant for lithium ion car batteries which will create economies of scale and dramatically reduce the cost of electric cars.

MATTHEW WARREN: We think that they are potentially another game changer.

If you look at the cars being made out of Tesla in California, they're faster; they're cleaner; they're quieter and they're safer than conventional petrol driven cars.

They are a lot of things that consumers will like about electric cars if they're priced correctly and they could have a material impact on the electricity and energy supply in Australia as well.

STEPHEN LONG: Big, incumbent power companies are hoping that mass take up of electric cars will boost electricity demand, saving them from a death spiral of falling revenues and rising unit costs, as more and more people generate, store and share their own power.

But there are no guarantees.

MATTHEW WARREN: Oh look, I think we are seeing in the energy industry, it's going through a transformation that's not dissimilar to telephony to retail to newspaper media and that is, we're seeing, you know, quite radical transformation that is driven by technology and driven by changing market conditions.

DANNY KENNEDY: It's disruptive like media was disrupted a decade ago.

Once upon a time, the ABC and New York Times were all the news that was fit to print and they shunted the news of the day down the one way fire hose, and now we use social media and Twitter and whatever else to co-create what is the news stream and what makes for big news.

And, the economics, we know well, has been completed transformed. That's coming to electricity. The coal and other protected, vested interests of Australia are going the way of the Dodo if they don't adjust to this reality.

STEPHEN LONG: When super storm Sandy struck the United States in 2012, Americans discovered what it's like when the power grid breaks down.

Millions of people across the east coast were left for days without electricity: no light, no heat and no communications.

RICHARD KAUFFMAN, CHAIRMAN, ENERGY AND FINANCE, NEW YORK STATE: The thing that people had the hardest time with during Sandy was the fact that they were cut off from communications.

If you're without power for days, it is, not just inconvenient, but it really feels like you can't live your life.

Individuals and communities want to have more and more control over their energy system. We again saw this after Sandy where communities have asked for their own micro-grids because they don't want to be as reliant upon the grid.

STEPHEN LONG: Former investment banker, Richard Kauffman, is known as New York's Energy Tsar.

He's overseeing a move to decentralised electricity.

RICHARD KAUFFMAN: In the last 10 years, we've invested $17 billion just to keep the grid as it is. And, in the next 10 years, if we keep just doing exactly as we've been doing, it's, we have to invest another $30 billion.

The Empire State is instead planning a radically different electricity system, with community micro-grids and technology that allows buildings to create and store their own energy.

RICHARD KAUFFMAN: It used to be that you had to get the electricity that came through the central grid because that was the only alternative.

Well that's not true anymore, so we have had, across a whole range of industries, the benefit that customers are now in charge and the technology exists now for that to be true in the power sector.

The cost of all these solutions are going down, while the cost of the traditional central station power and distribution systems goes up.

DAVID HOCHSCHILD: In 1980, it cost $35 a watt to buy a solar panel. Today, it's 70 cents a watt.

STEPHEN LONG: Maiden, North Carolina.

A sleepy little southern town.

Maiden happens to be home to a major facility of a titan of technology.

Apple's data centre at Maiden processes vast numbers of messages, photos, videos and other content being shared in cyberspace.

The computing power needed to process all that content shared on the web and on mobile devices is a massive drain on electricity.

The power demands have led to accusations that technology companies have a "dirty cloud".

This is the solution: a vast solar farm, generating 167 million kilowatt hours of power. Enough to make Apple's data centre 100 per cent powered by renewable energy.

It's the largest solar farm in the United States not owned by a power utility and it's supplemented by fuel cells that store electricity generated from biomass.

LISA JACKSON, VICE PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS, APPLE: The direction towards clean and green energy is one that I believe is the right one and is where the world is going.

You know when you look at air pollution or water pollution issues, when you look at the challenges that we'll face as our populations grow, it just makes great sense and, in this case it also makes great business sense, for Apple and other responsible companies to step up to the plate, acknowledge that climate change is not just a challenge, but also an economic opportunity.

STEPHEN LONG: It's quite amazing; it looks like a spaceship.

LISA JACKSON: It does, doesn't it? Some people call it the Mother Ship.

STEPHEN LONG: Lisa Jackson is Apple's environmental director, a role she took on last year after serving under President Obama, as head of the U.S. Environment Protection Agency.

She shows me a scale model of Apple's coming campus.

(to Lisa Jackson)

How many employees are going to be here?

(to camera)

Thirteen-thousand employees will work at the new Silicon Valley headquarters, and it will be 100 per cent powered by renewable energy.

For Apple, it's not just about doing the right thing for the environment.

LISA JACKSON: The power that we use, the renewable energy that we use, is competitive and, in many cases, cheaper than conventional brown power.

And, for us, it's more than just the initial price; it's also the reliability of having our own power. For us, we know that power is going to be there; we don't have to worry about changes in the price.

STEPHEN LONG: Energy security and price certainty are key benefits of renewable power.

DAVID HOCHSCHILD: Fossil fuels are subject, over time, to enormous price volatility, and as you move to renewable energy future you're not subject to that because there's no cost for sunlight or wind or tidal power. And, so you actually become I think more stable as a country and more competitive internationally.

STEPHEN LONG: A view echoed by Miles George, when we met at those wind farms outside of Canberra.

MILES GEORGE: Well, once you've established renewables, the fuel is free forever. Whereas if you have coal and gas fired power generation, you're exposed to gas prices and coal prices forever.

GREG HUNT: Look, whether it's wave or solar, whether it's wind or geothermal, whatever the source of energy, there are always operating costs and the renewable energy companies actually make that point to me almost every day.

STEPHEN LONG: While Environment Minister Greg Hunt does see a growing role for renewable energy, he's also pinning much hope on "clean coal".

GREG HUNT: For Australia, I think the message is clear: we can move to reduce significantly the emissions from our current generators. The technology which is emerging now, and which I think will be available over the next three to five years, cleans up very significantly, not perfectly, but very significantly by up to 30 to 50 per cent the emissions from current generation.

That can go around the world and nothing would make a bigger difference, along with protecting the great rainforests, to reducing global emissions.

STEPHEN LONG: Perhaps.

There's also a risk that global action on climate change will push up the price of fossil fuels, leaving Australia with stranded power assets and soaring electricity prices.

JEREMY RIFKIN: So we have enough of these renewable energies distributed in every square inch of Australia and the world to power our species' needs till kingdom comes, at near zero marginal cost, without pollution to the planet.

So what kind of cockamamie thinking, if I may say this, keeps us into these old polluting dinosaur energies and technologies of the 20th Century, when we could be in the new energies of 21st century and have unlimited amount of renewable energy?

STEPHEN LONG: Yes, it costs money to create the infrastructure for renewable energy, a lot of money.

But existing fossil fuel generators and power utilities were subsidised: by and large, built with public funds.

If renewable energy becomes ubiquitous, the economies of scale should deliver a radical reduction in power prices that could transform the world economy.

Will Australia be leading the revolution, or will it be left behind?

KERRY OUTRO

KERRY O'BRIEN: The Warburton Review of the Renewable Energy Target for the Abbott Government is imminent, but given the confusing signals that are coming from Clive Palmer's new senators on support for renewable energy targets and the future of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, this debate is far from over.

Next week on Four Corners, the story behind the tragic killing of 11-year-old Luke Batty.

Until then, good night.

END

Background Information

FOUR CORNERS PHOTO GALLERY

Power to the People Photo Gallery - In tonight's @FourCorners, reporter Stephen Long documents the revolution in power generation taking place across the globe. Cameraman Louie Eroglu and producer Karen Michelmore took these photos whilst filming.

KEY REPORTS

Review of the Renewable Energy Target | Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet | 2014 - On 17 February 2014, the Government announced the review of the Renewable Energy Target scheme by an expert panel which will report by mid-2014. Read the Terms of Reference and all submissions.

Fair pricing for power | Grattan Institute | Jul 2014 - Over the five years to 2013 the average Australian power bill increased by 70 per cent, when inflation increased by only 12 per cent... The report recommends a change to the way consumers pay for the network that carries electricity from generators to homes, so that it better reflects the cost of running the network. Download the report. [PDF 1.2Mb]

The Clean Energy Australia Report | Clean Energy Council | Jun 2013 - A comprehensive overview of Australia's renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors, and includes key figures and statistics on the energy market. Download the report.

Shock to the system: dealing with falling electricity demand | Grattan Institute | Dec 2013 - Australians are using less power but paying more for it, with potentially highly damaging consequences for the electricity system, a new Grattan Institute report finds. By Tony Wood and Lucy Carter. [PDF 664Mb]

NEWS AND IN-DEPTH

Solar experts say Australian renewable energy investment being stifled by Government policy | ABC News | 7 Jul 2014 - One of the world's most advanced solar power companies has shelved plans to develop electricity plants for the public market in Australia because of the Government's apparent hostility to renewable energy. By reporter Stephen Long.

Power corrupts | The Monthly | Jul 2014 - How network companies lined their pockets and drove electricity prices through the roof, by Jess Hill.

Lower RET target would hit superannuation funds | AFR | 4 Jul 2014 - The federal government's plan to circumvent Clive Palmer and water down the renewable energy target will have adverse effects for the retirement savings of millions of Australians, says the Investor Group on Climate Change.

ARENA board empties as axe looms | SMH | 4 Jul 2014 - The Greens have accused the Abbott government of "destroying by stealth" the $3.2 billion Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) by failing to renew the contracts of board members.

Uriarra solar farm: Developer pushes proposed facility further away from homes, says residents 'won't see anything' | ABC News | 4 Jul 2014 - The company behind a proposed solar farm near the rural village of Uriarra in Canberra's west has said residents will not be able to see the facility.

Alinta Energy moves closer to solar-thermal power plant for Port Augusta | ABC News | 3 Jul 2014 - Alinta Energy has decided a stand-alone solar-thermal power plant is a technically feasible option to redevelop Port Augusta's coal-fired power station.

NSW energy price rises | ABC Rural | 30 Jun 2014 - There have been massive rises in the cost of energy in New South Wales. From mid-2007 onwards, electricity has risen more than 100 per cent... Most of that rise has been due to the cost of the network, the poles and wires, but a fair bit is also due to the introduction of the carbon tax.

Utilities move to kick rooftop solar off the grid | Renew Economy | 27 Jun 2014 - Utilities in Queensland are looking to limit and even stop households exporting excess electricity back into the grid from their rooftop solar panels, in a move that other Australian network operators are expected to follow - even if it does have the potential to accelerate grid defections and the so called "death spiral".

Government modelling shows power prices will fall if RET stays | SMH | 24 Jun 2014 - The federal government's case to scrap or weaken the Renewable Energy Target (RET) has been dealt a blow, with modelling it commissioned for the review showing consumers will be better off if the target is kept.

Renewable energy target: Economic modelling shows household bills to rise in short term, drop long term | ABC News | 24 Jun 2014 - Economic modelling for the renewable energy target (RET) review has found that keeping the clean energy scheme would result in lower household bills over the longer term.

Fears for renewables after energy target 'described as government largesse' | The Guardian | 17 Jun 2014 - Windfarm owner said he was astonished by attitude of the head of the Coalition's renewable energy review, by Lenore Taylor.

AUDIO Electric car maker opens access to patents in effort to take on big manufacturers | The World Today | 13 Jun 2014 - There's no shortage of theories about why the electric car has never made it to the mass market. But could the decision of one US car maker revive the fortunes of the electric car? Tesla has thrown door the open to its most closely guarded corporate secrets and is inviting designers around the world to build on its technology.

AUDIO The price of power | Background Briefing | 27 Apr 2014 - With Australian electricity prices amongst the highest in the world, more and more households are going solar. The big power companies say the Renewable Energy Target is undermining their businesses and they want it wound back. The federal government agrees, so who is to blame for the high price of power?

Danish report finds 100% renewables feasible by 2050 | Renew Economy | 26 May 2014 - A new report by the Danish Energy Agency has found it would be technically possible to construct a secure and reliable national energy system based on 100 per cent renewables by 2050. The report, Energy Scenarios for 2020, 2035 and 2050, compares the feasibility and cost of replacing coal, oil and natural gas with various different green energy scenarios, ranging from an electricity-based wind-power system to a fuel-based biomass system.

COMMENT Renewables race is one Australia should win by Elizabeth Farrelly | SMH | 21 May 2014 - The renewables race is one Australia should win. Ours is the sunniest continent on earth. Every year, we are gifted 58 million petajoules of free energy: ten thousand times our total use. We're young, wealthy, stable and more-or-less civilised. We also have wind, hot rocks and a massive coastline of potential wave power, to even out the bumps.

China wants to triple solar by 2017 | The Australian | 20 May 2014 - China will aim for 70 gigawatts of solar by 2017, more than triple its current installed capacity which sat at just under 20 GW at the end of last year, Bloomberg reports.

China's genuine green energy revolution | Business Spectator | 16 Apr 2014 - China's emergence as the champion of green energy has taken the world by storm. Hardly a day goes by without some new revelation - China as the world's largest builder of wind turbines; the largest producer of solar photovoltaic cells; the most advanced proponent of smart grids and the upgrading of present grids; the largest market for energy efficiency.

Extreme weather official advice rewritten to remove climate change link | The Guardian | 30 Jun 2014 - Australian government accused of significantly watering down information document on Department of Environment website.

Joe Hockey tilts at wind turbines | The Guardian | 2 May 2014 - Wind turbines are 'utterly offensive', treasurer tells broadcaster Alan Jones, flagging a paring back of renewable energy funding.

Obama Orders Federal Government To Triple Its Use Of Renewable Energy | Huff Post | 5 Dec 2013 - Saying the government should lead by example, President Barack Obama is ordering the federal government to nearly triple its use of renewable sources for electricity by 2020.

LINKS

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency | @ARENA_aus - ARENA was established by the Australian Government to make renewable energy solutions more affordable and increase the amount of renewable energy used in Australia. arena.gov.au/

Australian Solar Council | @SolarCouncil -The SolarCouncil promotes scientific, social and economic developments through the use of solar energy. solar.org.au/

Clean Energy Council | @cleannrgcouncil - The peak body representing Australia's clean energy sector. www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/

Climate Council | @climatecouncil - Providing Australians with a reliable source of information on climate science, headed by Chief Councillor Tim Flannery. www.climatecouncil.org.au/

The Climate Change Authority - Provides independent advice on the operation of Australia's carbon price, emissions reduction targets, caps and trajectories, and other Australian Government climate change initiatives. www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/

The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project | @SolarReserve - A solar thermal power plant located near Tonopah, Nevada. Once completed, it will power up to 75,000 homes during peak electricity periods. www.solarreserve.com/.../crescent-dunes/

Department of the Environment - http://www.environment.gov.au/

The Energy Supply Association of Australia | @esaa_energy - The peak industry body representing the stationary energy sector in Australia. www.esaa.com.au/

Renew Economy | @renew_economy - Australia's best informed website focusing on clean energy news and analysis, as well as climate policy.

reneweconomy.com.au/

RELATED PROGRAMS

Earth, Wind and Fire | Apr 2007 - How much power can we pull from the sun and the wind? As Australia casts about for cleaner energy solutions, are we neglecting renewable energy at our peril?

Who's Afraid of Nuclear Power | Aug 2005 - Jonathan Holmes explores Australians' fear of nuclear power and asks: is it time we got over it? Watch online: Flash Broadband Edition.