Fed: Aust reliance on oil and coal to continue: ABARE

AAP General News (Australia)
08-03-2004
Fed: Aust reliance on oil and coal to continue: ABARE

By Shane Wright

CANBERRA, Aug 3 AAP - Despite the advent of renewable energy measures, Australians
will depend on oil and coal for 70 per cent of their energy needs for the next two decades,
a new report has found.

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), in a report on
energy trends to 2020, said coal and oil would continue to power most of the nation's
homes and industries.

But it did warn that Australia's reliance on imported petroleum products would grow strongly.

The bureau said Australian energy consumption was expected to grow by 2.2 per cent
a year for the next 15 years, while energy use should grow by 2.5 per cent a year.

At present, black and brown coal and oil account for 76.5 per cent of all energy consumed
within Australia.

By 2020, despite the advent of a range of renewable energies, coal and oil would still
account for 70.4 per cent of all energy consumption.

Wind power is expected to be the most successful of the renewable energies, growing
by almost 16 per cent a year.

But even by 2020, renewable energies are expected to produce just 5.3 per cent of all
the energy used by Australians.

The biggest single renewable energy will be biomass at 3.8 per cent of all energy.

"No radical shift in Australia's fuel mix is on the horizon," ABARE acting executive
director Vivek Tulpule said in a statement.

The bureau said demand for natural gas would also grow strongly at around 3.7 per cent
annually, accounting for almost a quarter of all energy use by 2020.

In a sign of Australia's dwindling oil reserves, the bureau said reliance on imported
petroleum products would climb.

At present, about 17 per cent of the nation's energy needs are satisfied by imported
crude oil or other petroleum products. By 2020, it is expected to be 46 per cent.

Mr Tulpule said the reliance on imported oil was due to the absence of major domestic
oil discoveries.

Between 1970 and 2020, energy consumption per person is expected to have doubled, although
energy costs are tipped to have almost halved over the same period.

"Over the next two decades, energy consumption per dollar of economic output is projected
to decline, on average, by 1.1 per cent a year in Australia," Mr Tulpule said.

"This suggests that in 2020, 18 per cent less energy will be needed to produce a dollar
output compared with 2001-02."

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