Australia to build world’s largest solar power plant

THE Australian government yesterday announced it will help build the largest solar power plant in the world as part of a new strategy to combat global warming.

It comes as the country struggles with the worst drought it has experienced in living memory and the predictions are global warming will make it even drier.

The Canberra government, under fire for refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, will contribute Aus$75 million (€45.27m) to the Aus$420m (€253m) project to built a 154 megawatts solar power plant in Victoria state which will use mirrored panels to concentrate the sun’s rays, Treasurer Peter Costello said.

The government also announced funding towards a project to reduce carbon emissions from an existing coal-fired power station in Victoria. The project aims to cut pollution in part by capturing and storing emissions from the burning coal.

“This will make a major contribution to emission reduction in Australia and it just shows practical, considered, financially viable, workable technologies which will help us on our way to reduce global warming,” Mr Costello said.

While Australia and the United States refused to sign on to Kyoto, both have become founding members of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Energy Development which also includes China, Japan, India and South Korea.

The partnership aims to cooperate to find technologies to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases believed to be warming Earth’s atmosphere.

With Australia in the grips of its worst drought in a century, the government is under pressure to do more to prevent global warming which is tipped to make the world’s driest inhabited continent even drier.

The drought has affected over half of the country’s rich farm land and at least 70,000 farmers have been made eligible for relief.

The cost of additional drought aid in interest rate subsidies and farmer welfare payments under so-called exceptional circumstances could be Au$560m (€338m), said acting Prime Minister Mark Vaile. That is in addition to Au$350m (€211.3m) announced last week in extra government handouts for farmers hit hardest by the drought.