GREEN DEALS: Cash for conservation

RM Williams Agricultural Holdings has bought a degraded cattle station in the Northern Territory in a landmark deal that could be the first of its type to source credits under the government's Carbon Farming Initiative. RM Williams will buy the Henbury cattle station, located around 130km south of Alice Springs, for $13 million with the help of the federal government. It will remove cattle from the property and implement a conservation program that it expects will generate up to 1.5 million carbon credits a year, and protect several endangered species.

Baker & McKenzie lawyer Martijn Wilder, who represented RMWilliams and will be chair of an independent committee to oversee the project, said it was a significant deal as it was the first time private capital had been attracted to such a conservation scheme, which had traditionally been the province of philanthropic ventures. “It's the first time a private company has worked with the government to buy a property to put into natural reserve system and fund it with carbon credits,” Wilder said.

“This is a unique opportunity to try and do something with a highly degraded landscape which is biodiversity hotspots in Australia, and to make it work.” The 500,000 hectare Henbury property is bisected by the Finke River, reputedly the oldest in the world, which is home to three fish found nowhere else in the world. Running Waters, a beautiful two kilometre stretch of permanent water, is home to the ancient and threatened red cabbage palm and to endemic fish, providing a refuge for these species as the climate in central Australia has become drier.

The bustard, southern marsupial mole and the black-footed wallaby are just some of the threatened animals that make their home here, and red gum, desert oak and mulga woodlands, shrublands and hummock grasslands provide habitat for other threatened species. The purchase is being branded a “learning by doing” experience that could establish not just a model for generating carbon credits, but also for creating a biodiversity market that enables private capital to be deployed to protect key habitat and endangered species.

Printed solar energy

The Australian government on Wednesday formally opened a new $7.2 million research project that is looking at developing “printed solar cells” that could use organic materials and conventional printing methods. The federal government is investing $1.7 million in the project, one of many funded by the Australian Solar Institute, with other funding coming from the Victorian government and its industry partners which include Bluescope Steel, Innovia Films and Robert Bosch. Other project participants include CSIRO and Monash University.

Funding for the project was originally announced last November as part of the latest funding round from the ASI. The project will look at the development of alternative solar cell technologies and of the possibility of commercializing and producing the cells competitively in Australia.  The aim is to develop easily produced and flexibile solar cells which have an efficiency of at least 10 per cent and can used across a variety of applications such as a coating for roofing steel.

Better friends

The rollout of Australia's first electric vehicle charging network is starting to take shape, with network operator Better Place on Tuesday announcing the first group of organisations who will support the initial roll-out in Canberra. Better Place said the ACT Government, the ACT Electric Vehicle Council, utility ActewAGL, Canberra Airport, Capital Hotel Group, CIC Australia, Crowne Plaza, Hindmarsh, Lend Lease, the National Convention Centre, Rock Development Group, and TransACT. Public will all host access charge spots. Better Place plans to begin rolling-out its electric car charge network in Canberra during the fourth quarter of 2011, with Renault Fluence ZE cars due to arrive for the first Canberra customers from the middle of 2012.