Pitt Digs In (Again) On Coal Mining ..And Burning

For the second time this week, Minister for Resources and Water Keith Pitt has issued a media release defending Australia’s coal industry and use.

This appears to have been brought on by a couple of things – one was a study indicating pretty much all of Australia’s remaining coal reserves will need to remain unmined to help give the world a fighting chance on reining in temperature increase. The other event was a UN special adviser calling on the Australian Government to adopt more ambitious emissions reduction goals and rapidly phase out coal.

Minister Pitt is pretty proud of Australia’s association with the problematic black (and brown) rock that is increasingly creating misery for others and ourselves. After a missive on Monday indicating Australian policy would not be dictated by pesky foreigners trying to prevent (even more) climate change related disasters, yesterday he boasted:

“Australia accounts for approximately 8 per cent of the world’s thermal and metallurgical coal production, which is exported to over 25 countries including the UK, Germany and New Zealand.”

I’ll just change a couple of words.

“Australia accounts for approximately 8 per cent of the world’s crystal meth production, which is exported to etc…”

Would that be something to be proud of? Or to put it another way using pandemic parlance, being a super-spreader of emissions isn’t something we should being crowing about given the perilous climate situation.

Coal Power And CCS

On coal-fired power generation in Australia, Minister Pitt said:

“Coal-fired power still provides around 65 per cent of Australia’s electricity and remains the most reliable form of power generation.”

Same deal on the first bit and as for the second bit, well, Callide. But Callide isn’t the only coal burner to have shat itself at some point this year. Other units have too – just not as spectacularly or with such impacts. Coal plant failures in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland have been on the increase, even with renewables such as wind and solar power helping to take some of the load off these emissions-spewing clunkers.

But Minister Pitt is also looking towards technologies such as carbon capture and storage contributing to a reduction in coal-fired power station emissions “by 90 per cent or more”.

A bunch of taxpayer bucks have been committed to develop CCS technologies over a long period and we’re yet to see any working reliably and economically at scale here – or anywhere in the world for that matter. Case in point: Chevron Australia’s Gorgon LNG facility CCS project in Western Australia.

Elsewhere, a CCS plant that literally sucks has getting some attention this week, but it and other CCS technologies – even if successful to some degree – do not make for real solutions given the myriad problems associated with coal power other than greenhouse gas emissions.

But it seems we’re now going to throw even more money at CCS via the Australian Renewable Energy¹ Agency (ARENA) thanks to Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor fiddling with regulations that control how the agency spends its cash.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That prevention lies in renewable energy backed by storage – what millions of Australian households and businesses are doing already with their solar power systems, and increasingly will in the future with solar battery storage.

Given the Australian Government’s current attitude, UN climate talks in Glasgow in November are going to be interesting and perhaps a little uncomfortable at times.

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/pitt-coal-emissions-mb2151/