Tag Archives: Coal

Climate Change & Sustainability

Don’t write Adani off

119 Comments

Adani Australia’s chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj – known in the industry as “JJ” – has done an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review saying that their team at Adani has not wavered in their vision to build the Carmichael mine, rail and port project in Central Queensland. They’ve been working on it for seven years, have spent $3.3 billion to date, have 800 people working right now and have put up arguments to answer their critics.

Hear him out and see what you think. Continue reading Don’t write Adani off →

Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Science

Climate clippings 222

10 Comments

1. Warming could soon exceed 1.5°C

The UK Met Office has warned that temperatures could break through the 1.5°C threshold within five years.

    The 1.5C threshold was set at Paris as an ambitious target because scientists fear that a world warmer than that would be susceptible to ever wilder climactic events that in turn would precipitate greater drought, habitat loss, food insecurity and mass migration.

The UN Environment Program in its annual emissions gap report, published last October, said government commitments were only a third of what was needed. Continue reading Climate clippings 222 →

Climate Change & Sustainability, Environment, Politics & Government

Adani casts a long shadow over Batman

21 Comments

Bill Shorten probably knows Labor can’t win the byelection in the Melbourne seat Batman while supporting the far-away Adani coal mining project at Carmichael in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland. So he looks set to oppose the mine.

However, Queensland LNP senators Matt Canavan and Ian Macdonald and Capricornia MP Michelle Landry have invited Shorten to come to Townsville to explain his position there, and ultimately that is what he must do. Continue reading Adani casts a long shadow over Batman →

Climate Action, Climate Change & Sustainability

Corporate responsibility on climate change cuts in

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BHP Billiton has thrown a significant spanner in the works of peak mining bodies lobbying on behalf of fossil fuels to the detriment of climate change. In the 26-page report BHP Industry Association Review downloadable here the company has made three decisions:

First, BHP has reached a preliminary decision to quit the World Coal Association “in light of the identified difference and the narrower activities of benefit to BHP from membership. BHP will invite responses from the WCA before making a final determination as to future membership by 31 March 2018.”

Second, similarly it will make a final determination on membership of the United States Chamber of Commerce on or before 31 March 2018, having identified material differences.

Third, BHP will remain a member of the Minerals Council of Australia, provided that it refrains from policy activity or advocacy that BHP disagrees with within 12 months. Continue reading Corporate responsibility on climate change cuts in →

Climate Action, Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Policy & Planning

Climate clippings 118

4 Comments

1. South Australia going for broke

Malcolm Turnbull would call it a ‘reckless, irresponsible, ideological frolic’, but South Austria has been running 63% on wind and solar during the last few months, and is going for broke.

Giles Parkinson says SA must, and will, lead world on renewables.

    The Weatherill and Koutsantonis strategy is to embrace new technologies, cheap wind and solar and storage, smart software and smarter management, and put into practice the sort of scenarios envisaged by the CSIRO, Energy Networks Australia and more recently by the storage review commissioned by chief scientist Alan Finkel.

All that can stop Weatherill and Koutsantonis is Nick Xenophon at the next election putting the LNP into office. Continue reading Climate clippings 118 →

Climate Change & Sustainability, Politics & Government

The Adani Project: – is it good for Australia?

44 Comments

This is a guest post by blog commenter Geoff Henderson. It is particularly strong on the structure and standing of Adani as a company, and on the truly pathetic contribution the project would make to both jobs and the coffers of the state government in royalties. I’ve added some links of other recent material at the end. Enjoy!

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A Four Corners program[1a] made serious claims about the Adani Conglomerate corporate profile in India. Credible allegations of bribery, corruption, money laundering, environmental destruction, tax/royalty avoidance and more were leveled at Adani.[1b] Continue reading The Adani Project: – is it good for Australia? →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

Queensland powers up for a warm summer

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One morning recently, 10 October I think, local ABC radio host Steve Austin called up Queensland energy minister Mark Bailey to ask him about an announcement the Queensland government had made. Something about, on a voluntary basis, turning down your aircon so it runs at 26C and being paid for the power saved.

Bailey obviously had a story to tell, but wasn’t given a chance to tell it. Austin is not a boofhead, but he sometimes does a good imitation of one. In this case Bailey was bullied and harassed, “Just answer my question!”, which was whether the purpose of the scheme was to save people money, or to keep the lights on, I think there was a third option which I’ve forgotten. In any case the answer “All of the above” was not permitted, and we never found out what the scheme was about.

With Bailey dispatched, Austin gave LNP spokesman Scott Emerson the opportunity of a free rant, presumably in the name of ‘balance’ with no right of reply for Bailey. Later in the morning Austin told us he had trouble getting people to come on the show! What a surprise! Continue reading Queensland powers up for a warm summer →

Climate Action, Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Climate clippings 117

13 Comments

On Monday and Tuesday this week we are going to have the AFR national Energy Summit in Sydney with everyone there, including Josh, Jay, Bill, Andrew Vesey and a different Malcolm Roberts (Chief Executive, APPEA). Should be fun.

The Weekend AFR had about half a dozen articles, led off by an article by Ben Potter, Angela Macdonald-Smith and Mark Ludlow (no doubt pay-walled) which said our energy has become dirty, expensive and annoyingly unreliable. They reckon something has to be done, it’s just that:

the causes identified by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – or unofficial backbench energy spokesman Tony Abbott – are not the same as the causes power industry experts and regulators highlight. Continue reading Climate clippings 117 →

Climate Change & Sustainability

Climate clippings 116

220 Comments

1. South Australia wants an apology from the PM

On September 28 we had the first anniversary of the dirty big storm the brought down the power pylons in South Australia causing a state-wide blackout, as the Heywood interconnector exceeded capacity and tripped.

Now the state want an apology from the PM. Energy minister Tom Koutsantonis: Continue reading Climate clippings 116 →

Climate Action

Climate clippings 115: beyond coal

8 Comments

1. Liddell to go

The die was cast at the AGL annual general meeting. Liddell will be closed and not sold.

    Mr Vesey spent the bulk of his address explaining how AGL would replace the capacity lost at Liddell, including new wind and solar farms, up to 750 megawatts of new gas-fired plants and a 100-megawatt upgrade to the more modern and larger Bayswater coal plant nearby. A 250 MW battery at Liddell and demand response will also come into play, he said.

Continue reading Climate clippings 115: beyond coal →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

AGL struggles daily to keep Liddell going, and looks to ‘flexible’ power

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According to the AFR, AGL Energy faces “a huge daily challenge” just to keep its “geriatric” Liddell coal-fired power station running and will need to spend up to $150 million just to “keep our noses above water” until 2022. It will cost $900 million to keep it open for another 10 years, as Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg would have it.

“It’s exceptionally challenging,” AGL Macquarie general manager Kate Coates told the group of press representatives and other interested persons on the tour on Tuesday. Continue reading AGL struggles daily to keep Liddell going, and looks to ‘flexible’ power →

Climate Policy & Planning

Coal now in short supply!

4 Comments

Former PM Tony Abbott said it would be “unconscionable” to adopt a clean energy target and he would cross the floor rather than vote for it, adding that his government had been elected “to abolish the carbon tax and end Labor’s climate change obsessions to go further down the renewables path.” He said there was “no chance” the party room would support a “significant increase in the amount of renewables in our system” and called for Hazelwood 2.0.

On the same day, the AFR’s front-page headline was New threat to power supply, the problem being that coal-fired power stations in NSW are struggling to find enough coal. Continue reading Coal now in short supply! →