 And for our final presentation today, please, I invite to the stage to tell us about zero carbon energy for the Asia Pacific. Thank you, Margaret. Good evening, everyone. My name is Emma Aisbitt and I'm the Transdisciplinary Research Leader for our team. We are super excited to pitch our grand challenge to you tonight, zero carbon energy for the Asia Pacific. But first, we'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land and pay our respects to their elders, past and present. We'd also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land in Northwestern Australia, and you'll see why shortly. Presenting with me tonight are Professor Carly Catchpole, a world-leading solar cell researcher, and Dr. Paul Burke, a successful young economist specializing in energy policy in the Asia Pacific. Professor Catchpole will introduce our research themes to you. But first, Dr. Burke will tell you why zero carbon energy for the Asia Pacific is the grand challenge of the moment. Climate change is the world's greatest challenge. We stand at a decision point. This graph shows alternative emissions pathways from now until the end of the century. If the world acts rapidly to decarbonize our economies, we still have a chance of restricting global warming to two degrees Celsius. If we do not, we are on track for three or four degrees Celsius warming this century and then more next century. There is an imperative to get moving on decarbonization and to do so in a way that creates exciting opportunities for our economy and our communities. The time to act is now. We are in the Asian century. Over the next two decades, two-thirds of energy use growth will be here in the Asia Pacific, in China, India, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. If this energy is high carbon, we are on track for dangerous climate change. This setting provides Australia with a tremendous opportunity. If we could boost our energy exports while switching to a zero carbon energy export model, we could gain an economic boom while also making a major proactive contribution to the avoidance of dangerous climate change. Australia is an energy superpower. We are the world's largest exporter of coal. And as of next year, the world's largest exporter of natural gas. Both of these are carbon intensive fuels. Australia is also by far the world's largest exporter of iron ore. And this is our largest energy product. Iron ore is used in very carbon intensive manufacturing processes in the production of steel. Are we serious about climate change? If we are, we need to get moving to switch our energy export bundle to a zero carbon one. Let's create a new economic model for Australia, one based on zero carbon energy. Australia can lead on this issue. Fortunately, Australia's natural endowments place us well to reach this vision. Australia is richly endowed in renewable energy in the sun and the wind. Our solar endowments are particularly impressive. With just the land area shown by this blue dot, we could generate enough electricity to supply Australia's needs. With the land area shown by the green dot, we could generate enough electricity to supply the whole world's needs. Australia is very well placed to become a new type of energy superpower. A zero carbon energy superpower. Our Grand Challenge team will undertake transformational research that will change the way Australia trades with the world. Our research will proceed on four pathways. First of all, we will undertake research on the export of zero carbon electricity from Australia to Asia via subsea cables. This is electricity produced in Australia using renewable energy. Second, we will carry out research on the export of zero carbon hydrogen-rich fuels produced in Australia using renewable energy. Third, we will carry out research on the export of zero carbon refined metals and products. Finally, we will do the work that will underpin the development of policy and legal frameworks for uptake of zero carbon energy in countries throughout the Asia Pacific. This is our vision for zero carbon energy for the Asia Pacific. I will now hand on to Professor Kylie Catchpole who will explain how we will do this. Thank you, Paul. We'll focus our research on Northwest Australia. Northwest Australia has a number of important advantages. Firstly, it has a huge amount of solar and wind available. It has the potential for a 100% renewable electricity grid through pumped hydrogen and battery storage. It has enormous mineral resources and it's close to major Asian markets. Our research will have the potential for immediate impact through companies that are starting to develop projects for zero carbon exports. For example, our industry partner, CWP Renewables, is leading a consortium to develop the Asian Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara region. This multi-billion dollar, 11 gigawatt solar, wind and electricity storage project will eventually be the second largest power station in the world. As well as providing electricity for exports to Indonesia and onto Singapore, it will also provide electricity for new domestic industries in Northwest Australia. So, how do we achieve vision for zero carbon energy for the Asia Pacific? First of all, we need to understand the diverse perspectives of a wide range of stakeholders from traditional owners of country to foreign governments. Based on this understanding, we will develop new ways to share the benefits to achieve a fair and sustainable energy transition. We will develop new technologies for renewable energy systems for hydrogen generation and for metal refining. And we will develop new policy and legal frameworks in order to achieve the required level of coordination and investment. Benefits that are shared with stakeholders and communities are essential for achieving a fair and sustainable transition. First of all, we have to make sure that we take advantage of the genuine opportunity for sustainable development that renewable energy growth offers to the traditional owners of the land. We'll therefore work with Indigenous people and other local communities to ensure best practice involvement in these new industries. In particular, we're looking at how to structure agreements between renewable energy projects and local Indigenous communities that bring maximum benefit for those communities, not just for the near term, but for the intergenerational time scale of the agreement. This work is very new and there's been almost no research done in this area to date. We'll therefore work with leading Indigenous organisations to share the results of this work as widely as possible so we can ensure maximum benefit for local communities. We'll also be researching what determines social licence to operate for large-scale renewable energy projects for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. And of course, communities are not the only stakeholders who will determine the success of our zero carbon ambitions. We'll therefore work with governments, with companies and with energy utilities to understand their shared interests and work with them to maximise our impact. There are a number of technological and economic challenges to transition to a renewable energy-based economy. For example, renewable electricity systems are completely different from traditional electricity systems. There's lots of electricity available when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining and there's potentially deficits at other times. We will research new ways to design and control renewable energy systems that balance the generation, transmission and storage in order to achieve reliable and low-cost electricity. We'll also research potentially disruptive technologies for hydrogen generation and metal refining. For example, we'll be looking at new ways to generate hydrogen directly using solar energy which has the potential to be much cheaper than existing technologies. We'll also be looking at new ways to refine metals that don't use fossil fuels as inputs but instead use electricity and hydrogen. Regulation and governance are essential for achieving the coordination of interests required for a successful energy transition. And there are a few key areas that have the potential for particularly large impact. So we'll be working on policies that can accelerate progress in these areas. For example, it is clear that there will be a lot more trade in electricity in the future to take advantage of the low cost of renewable energy in places where there's large renewable energy resources. This will require new formal legal frameworks for international trade and investment in electricity. Secondly, policy has a huge impact on the uptake of renewables. So we'll be researching what determines policy impact on the uptake of renewables in countries across Asia taking into account local political and legal frameworks. This work will build on ANU's world-leading expertise in economic tools for carbon reduction. And it will also provide a benchmark for our work on the competitiveness of Australian exports of renewable energy. We'll also be looking at legal frameworks for hydrogen supply chains and based on our work with indigenous involvement, we'll be looking at the role of state governments in supporting and empowering these communities to benefit from opportunities. I'll now pass over to Emma to talk about our team. Thank you, Kylie. So a fair and sustainable transformation of Australia's energy relationship with the region truly is a grand challenge. But why should it be the ANU that leads this transformation? In short, because the ANU has a breadth of world-class energy researchers working across disciplines and topics from governance and community to technology. ANU has the depth of expertise in the Asia Pacific. And ANU has accomplished interdisciplinary researchers capable of making the linkages required to ensure that research is transformative. Last but not least, the ANU has the ANU Energy Change Institute directed by Professor Ken Baldwin, which has the capacity to bring all of these people together in a strong and cohesive team. In addition to cohesion, gender and career stage diversity are important goals for our team. Our recruitment to date has already improved the gender balance among energy researchers at the ANU. We work hard to ensure that our project offers productive opportunities, leadership experience and mentoring for early and mid-career researchers of all genders. Our project is about sustainable investments, including in human capital. Our team also extends beyond the ANU. The Energy Change Institute already has an impressive track record of engagement, including successful collaborations with government and industry. Our Zero Carbon Asia Pacific research is deepening these relationships. Important players like CWP renewables and Evo Energy have already contributed expertise and funds to our research. Representatives from these companies sit alongside representatives from several government agencies and award-winning ANU academics on our active and engaged steering committee. Importantly, our Zero Carbon Asia Pacific research is also expanding our collaborations, especially with community and Indigenous organisations. All of these relationships are important. They help to ensure that our research is relevant, up-to-date, impactful. In the summer, a timely, fair and sustainable transition to Zero Carbon energy in the Asia Pacific is an economic and moral imperative. We will research four pathways through which Australia could dramatically contribute to such a transformation. For each of these, our researchers will combine their expertise across a broad range of academic disciplines to produce truly groundbreaking research. By working closely with our external collaborators, we will ensure that our research has impact and delivers on the promise of Zero Carbon energy for the Asia Pacific. Thank you. So thank you. I'm sure there are questions from the floor. I'm Hong from Management. Thank you very much for the beautiful presentation. I want to ask how do you commercialise and compete with the big mining industry in Australia? Oh, excellent. Thank you. I almost paid her to ask that question. So one of the reasons that I was really excited to get part of this project is because we all know that in Australia there's a serious political economy issue regarding the coal industry. And I studied political economy. And the more I've studied it, the more I've realised that the best way to combat a serious industry lobby group is to help grow an opposing lobby group. And so I'm very excited to be helping the renewables energy industry grow. I'd just like to add to that in terms of mining, looking at the metals mining industry. They would love to have this energy. They actually want it because it's going to be cheaper for them. So they're very, very keen on bringing that into their system. I'm a client for the philosophy. On the Asia Pacific end, so there was a lot about stakeholders in Australia, but I was wondering about stakeholders in, for example, India or China, which had the really big circles on the graph. Do you want to start? Yeah. So a key focus of our work is to look at the policy and legal environment here in Asia Pacific countries, including Q1's Indonesia, India and China, and to develop mechanisms that will help a transition away from coal, mostly coal, towards zero carbon energy. There are some big challenges in countries like Indonesia, for example, with subsidies for coal and for electricity consumption. And there are some key reforms that we can help that would help to improve progress towards this goal of zero carbon energy. I could add a little on China. So, I mean, the Chinese are actually very progressive and are doing a lot on this themselves, right? So, I mean, we're really focusing on what can we do as Australia, where can we have the maximum impact? And of course, one thing we may be doing is contributing part to the trans-Asian grid, essentially, that will help support the growth of renewables by helping to balance out energy where it's available, when it's available. Hi, I'm Rachel Columbia from ANU. Thanks very much for the presentation. I just wanted to ask what the timeframe was for the project, because it's massive. So, I just wanted to get a sense of the length of the project today. I mean, so that's an excellent question. And different parts of the project will have different sort of time frames to completion. But what we're looking at is what can we do in a five-year timeframe? And so for the technologies, for example, they're not going to be operating at scale at our entire iron ore is not going to be refined in Australia with renewable energy in five years. But in five years, we could have made substantial progress on developing the technologies required to do that at an economically efficient manner. On the other hand, the Asian Renewable Energy Hub is being developed by our industry partners. And so that really could be and will be delivering money to them, electricity to other people. And hopefully, which is really important to us, benefits to Indigenous partners. And so the sorts of outputs that we're looking at in the five-year timeframe include things like guidelines for Indigenous communities negotiating with renewables investors. Because this is not the only renewable investment coming to Indigenous controlled land. You have some fairly adventurous technology, which is highly contested worldwide. So some holy grail of creating direct solar, whatever, electricity to hydrogen that's highly efficient, creating direct metallurgical refinery again, without any CO2 emission. Why should we think that we have the ability to be out in front of the rest of the world on those technologies? Okay, so sure. So for direct generation of hydrogen, both the US Department of Energy and a recent Australian roadmap have said that direct generation of hydrogen has the potential to be much cheaper than existing technologies. So we've demonstrated a solar to hydrogen efficiency of 16%, which is the highest that's been demonstrated with a potentially low cost process. So we think we have the potential to move that forward and to look not only at that technology, but around those technologies to look at how we can move it forward with a low cost process. On the metal refining, this is very hard. And there's actually been not much work done in this area at all. So far, most of people have been focusing on using bio Coke as a replacement in iron ore refining. This seems to us to be a dead end because it's gonna require a lot of biomass and it's gonna have a large environmental impact. So we're looking at technologies of pyrolysis and electrolysis. So using electricity or hydrogen in those processes. So there's certainly significant challenges, but we do have a lot of expertise at ANU on high temperature processing with chemicals, including reduction of iron oxide and manganese oxide. So we think we've got a lot of scope to do something in this area. I just wanted to ask, given the timeframe of the project, looking towards what we're looking at in climate destabilization and the regions in the tropics where you are looking at basing this project, what's your strategy for dealing with resilience of an increased effect, major climatic events, both in your production electricity transmission and delivery to some of those communities which are likely to be highly impacted within the next 20 or 30 years, and how do you avoid having a situation where those communities become dependent on a arguably tenuous link back to mainland Australia and how you protect that technology or develop it to be future-proof? Can you shut up? So I'm not an engineer anymore, but I do know that we have very good engineers, both at ANU and in our industry partners who have obviously thought about, you have to plan in that a huge tropical storm is going to come through every X number of years, so that already the wind turbines are designed to withstand cyclones. The obvious and very good question is, what happens if such a tropical storm takes out the subsea cable? And the answer to that is that ultimately, you will need to have probably pumped hydro storage in a relatively significant amount on the Indonesian side of that cable. And that's one of the working, Paul and myself and people working on communities and we have also specialists on the anthropology of Indonesia is how do you site those pumped hydro sites without sort of dispossessing marginalized people in Indonesia? Okay, please join with me in thanking the final team for the presentation.