Mixed Greens: Qantas to buy CO2 offsets from NT conservation program

Qantas has announced a deal to buy carbon credits from a Northern Territory pastoral property that’s owned and managed for conservation by R.M. Williams Agricultural Holdings. Henbury Station, 130 kilometres south of Alice Springs, is part of Australia’s National Reserve System and the NT government’s Territory Eco-Link program. R.M. Williams manages the property, protecting its natural habitats and species – some of which are found nowhere else in the world. Under the new agreement, the Qantas Group will purchase carbon credits generated by the active management of the property to support its Qantas and Jetstar carbon offset programs . The carrier will be able to use these credits from July 1 2013, to help meet its liability under the carbon pricing scheme.

Qantas’ head of environment, John Valastro, said the airlines’ voluntary carbon offset programs – where customers voluntarily pay a small amount to help offset the emissions from their flight – had been a success since its launch in 2007, offsetting around 1.2 million tonnes of emissions. “Offsetting can be as cheap as $1 for a Sydney-Melbourne flight,” he said, adding that the new deal with R.M. Williams AH meant that future customer contributions would “help protect and regenerate this spectacular and environmentally significant part of the Australian natural landscape.”

David Pearse, R.M. Williams AH managing director, said the Qantas partnership would help deliver important conservation outcomes. “As a designated Protected Area, Henbury’s biodiversity, natural assets and cultural values will be conserved through a range of interconnected land management strategies,” he said. “Henbury will also help provide a new model for private sector investment in biodiversity conservation, and for other Australian farmers to improve their land native vegetation and earn new income.”

Smart city winner

The winner of the ABB Smart Grid City Model competition, launched earlier this year, has been announced, with the University of Queensland entry taking out first prize of a grant to construct their Brisbane city vision model, to be displayed at ABB’s upcoming Automation and Power World Australia event on the Gold Coast.  The competition for university engineering students was introduced to help enhance their skills by introducing them to the power and automation technologies they may work with in the future. Entires were reviewed by an ABB judging panel that analysed their concepts, including design and aesthetics, proposed use of smart grid technologies as well as overall construction feasibility.

Axel Kuhr, manager of ABB in Australiam said the University of Queensland entry – prepared by students John Puckett and Henry Wang and supervised by Professor Tapan Saha – demonstrated how smart grids could deliver Brisbane a stable, secure, efficient and sustainable power network. “What we did find very exciting was the envisioned future for the city of Brisbane outlined by the students,” Kuhr said. “Their greener and smarter city concept was inspiring with the introduction of distributed energy resources utilising renewable energies, storage, electric vehicles and active houses.” ABB’s own smart grid technologies – efficient HVDC and Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS) technologies along with automated substations, dynamic pricing, advanced metering infrastructure and real time communication – were incorporated in the submission.