University Report: Critical Analysis of Zero Carbon Australia Plan

This report provides a critical analysis of the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, examining its structure, style, and main ideas. The article, focused on achieving 100% renewable energy in Australia, is well-structured and uses visual aids to present information effectively. It discusses the challenges of carbon emissions, including industrial contributions and consumer lifestyles, and explores potential solutions like alternative fuels and government initiatives. The analysis highlights the authors' success in outlining the roadmap, cost estimates, and financial implications of the plan, while also discussing the affordability of energy sources and the economic comparisons of the stationary energy plan. The report also mentions the limitations of carbon sequestration and the high costs associated with carbon emission technologies. The author appreciates the discussion of affordability and economic comparisons in the article.

Critical Analysis
(Zero carbon Australia stationary energy plan article)
Student’s name
Institution Affiliation(s)

The structure and style of the article
The article is well structured and focused, and audiences at all levels of education
background can be able to understand it. A clear representation of information, images, statistics,
graphs, and other visual aids have been well used for the presentation. The content is original
exciting and the figures presented are interesting to follow through. The audience has been well
selected, and the article meets the requirements and purpose of the selected audience which is to
identify the roadmap that the Australian government should follow in order to attain a zero
carbon emission state. The article is well researched with appropriate conclusions, inferences,
and references to credible and authoritative Australian content (Wang et al., 2019).
The main ideas
The main ideas of the article include a 10-year roadmap of how Australia will be able to
attain 100% renewable energy. The base load energy supplied by renewable sources is also
discussed. Carbon emission has become a major issue in developed nations. It has been noted
that the rate at which the amount of carbon is increasing is building up tremendously. Various
reasons have been attributed to this trend, but a long term solution to the problem has not been
reached at. The causes of carbon emissions include emissions by industries (being the major
contributor to the levels of carbon that is emitted daily to the atmosphere. Greenhouse emissions
have also been at the increase (Wang et al., 2019).
Consumers’ lifestyles in Australia have really played a major role in the increase of
carbon that is emitted daily to the atmosphere. There are some things that they need to be warned
about if the level is to go down. 40% of the carbon is produced by vehicles. The citizens have not
been using environment-friendly forms of transport. To start with, vehicles are owned by almost
everybody. Journeys by public vehicles would reduce 90% of the emissions that are caused when

everyone uses their personal vehicles (Sukor, Basri, & Hassan, 2017). If alternative fuels are
sought and the citizens encouraged using these, then there would be up to 75% reduction in the
amount of carbon that would be emitted to the atmosphere. Fuels such as ethanol have been
proven to produce low levels of emissions. Therefore, it would be prudent enough for citizens to
adopt this type of fuel. The government wants to come up with a program that will enable filling
stations to be able to lease out electric car batteries to car owners.
Currents carbon emissions levels have led to this phenomena to become a global issue
requiring immediate action. There are various methods of controlling carbon emissions. Even
though carbon sequestration is one of the most viable options of storing carbon, it faces
challenges such as storage security, heightened energy consumption and lack of large-scale
practicality (Wang et al., 2019). This method is also costly and has a higher cost in cases of even
small leakages. There are current demonstration projects that aim at investigating the viability of
carbon sequestration in different parts of the world. Breakthrough in these projects will lead to
more viability of this process which has a high potential of solving problems of carbon emission.
Research and development made through this article aid the Australian government and global
institutions to ascertain specifics related to cost and sustainability of carbon emissions
(Tollefson, 2018).
Has the author(s) achieved the intended goal?
The lead authors have attained their goal of highlighting all the key factors, the
requirements and generally the roadmap that Australia should follow if it is aimed at attaining
zero carbon emission economy. The article has included the designs of the various elements that
make up the country including the buildings, transportation systems, electricity and energy
sources like wind power and solar Technologies. The most critical part of this article is the fact

that cost estimates and budgetary issues have been discussed throughout. This gives the big
picture of the financial implications that the country will face in a bid to implement the
ZCA2020 Stationary Energy Plan (Wright et al., 2011). The authors have also done well in
identifying the cost projects that the country would face in the future if the plan is not adopted
for implementation.
What I like and what I don’t like about the article
What I like about the article is the fact that the issue of affordability of energy sources
and the proposed renewable energy sources by various households have been discussed. The
discussion on the economic comparison of the stationary energy plan has included all the
necessary financial estimates that are needed to establish a zero carbon emission country. Carbon
emission technologies are very expensive, and this is also a reason why it is not ready for usage
on a large scale (Ebi & Ziska, 2018). As this technology is in its experimental stages, it is not
very economical. The equipment and plants made for carbon emissions are very expensive both
in building and in later usage. With the passage of time, this obstacle may be removed by
employing cheaper techniques and materials for building and running Carbon emission
equipment’s (Wei & Pan, 2017).

Reference
Ebi, K. L., & Ziska, L. H. (2018). Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide: Anticipated negative
effects on food quality. PLOS Medicine, 15(7), e1002600.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002600
Sukor, N. S. A., Basri, N. K., & Hassan, S. A. (2017). Carbon Footprint Reduction in
Transportation Activity by Emphasizing the Usage of Public Bus Services Among Adolescents.
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 226, 012054.
https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/226/1/012054
Tollefson, J. (2018). Global industrial carbon emissions to reach all-time high in 2018. Nature,
d41586-018-07666–6. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07666-6
Wang, C., Wu, K., Zhang, X., Wang, F., Zhang, H., Ye, Y., … Wen, B. (2019). Features and
drivers for energy-related carbon emissions in mega city: The case of Guangzhou, China based
on an extended LMDI model. PLOS ONE, 14(2), e0210430.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210430
Wei, P., & Pan, H. (2017). Research on individual carbon dioxide emissions of commuting in
peri-urban area of metropolitan cities —an empirical study in Shanghai. Transportation
Research Procedia, 25, 3459–3478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2017.05.253
Wright, M., Hearps, P., Beyond Zero Emissions, University of Melbourne, & Energy Research
Institute. (2011). Australian sustainable energy: zero carbon Australia stationary energy plan.