Coal news and updates

Australia is now less reliant on coal than at the beginning of the century even as energy consumption steadily climbs with a growing population.

As the population grew by 1.6 per cent in 2017/18 to 25 million, energy consumption rose by 0.9 per cent, compared with average growth of 0.6 per cent over the past 10 years.Of this, brown coal-fired generation fell 17 per cent in 2017/18 and the decline was only party offset by a three per cent increase in black coal use, the latest Australian Energy Update has found.Together the share of coal was 60 per cent of total energy generation compared with 80 per cent at the beginning of the century.Natural gas-fired generation grew by seven per cent in 2017/18, contributing 21 per cent of total electricity generation, while renewable generation grew 10 per cent and contributed 17 per cent to the total.Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor said the key challenge in the energy sector was integrating renewables while delivering affordable and reliable power."That means keeping our existing generation in, and running at full tilt, and supporting complimentary investment in dispatchable generation and storage," Mr Taylor said in a statement on Friday.He said the government had invested $1.43 billion in reliable generation and storage, supporting an expansion of the Snowy Hydro scheme and developing a second Bass Link interconnector.

 

Source: https://au.news.yahoo.com