Coal news and updates

Victorian premier Denis Napthine has ruled out any shutdown of the state’s highly-polluting brown coal power generators as he set out his election pitch to voters.

 

A landmark report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on Sunday, warned that climate change is set to inflict “severe, widespread and irreversible impacts” on the world’s population unless greenhouse gases are drastically cut.

 

In order to avoid dangerous levels of warming, the IPCC said fossil fuel use that doesn’t capture emissions should be phased out by the end of the century, while renewable energy such as solar and wind must make up 80% of production by 2050.

 

But Napthine said Victoria must continue to rely upon brown coal, which is far more carbon-intensive than other types of coal, for its power. Around 430bn tonnes of brown coal – a large portion of the world’s total – is located in Victoria, mostly in the Latrobe Valley region.

 

Napthine said that brown coal “provides us cheap, affordable energy for Victorian families and Victorian businesses. It’s vital for the cost of living for families, vital for our competitive industries”.

 

The Victorian premier said the Coalition government was “strongly supportive” of renewable energy opportunities.

 

“We’ve been strongly supportive of the 20% renewable energy target at a federal level and we’ve argued that very, very strongly,” he said.

 

“We’ve offered direct financial support for a range of renewable energy sources whether it be large-scale solar, whether it be geothermal, whether it be wave power or wind power.”

 

Napthine formally triggered Victoria’s election period on Monday by issuing the writs to the state’s governor. The premier said the election would be based around trust, promising an extra 200,000 jobs and 850,000 training places and calling on voters to remember the “waste and mismanagement” of the previous Labor government. The Coalition is currently behind in published polls.

 

Napthine’s sentiments were echoed by Campbell Newman, the Queensland premier, who said that an immediate halt to coal use would condemn people in China and India to poverty.

 

Meanwhile, Greg Hunt, the federal environment minister, said on Monday: “I think any of us who are trying to predict what happens, you know, almost a century away in terms of energy use might be getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.

 

“What does matter is that we take practical progressive steps to be more efficient, to reduce emissions because you can clean up air quality if you’re reducing particulate pollution which is often associated with the sources of CO2 and methane because they’re related product.”

 

Mark Wakeham, chief executive of Environment Victoria, said Napthine’s view of coal was “divorced from the reality of climate science”.

 

“When it comes to climate science, Denis Napthine and Tony Abbott are two peas in a pod,” he told Guardian Australia. “This Victorian government have almost universally favoured fossil fuel generation over renewables.”

 

Wakeham said the Coalition had shelved any plan to phase out Victoria’s three big brown coal generators – Hazelwood, Loy Yang and Yallourn – and placed restrictions on new wind farms and attempted to reverse any progress on energy efficiency.

 

“This is disappointing because in opposition the Coalition supported an emissions trading scheme, supported having an emissions reduction target and supported solar feed-in tariffs,” he said.

 

“They’ve now abolished everything, they’ve removed every plank there was in place on climate change. We need genuine support for renewables and to decarbonise the economy.”

 

The Coalition at both federal and Victorian levels have highlighted the role of new technology in either capturing and burying carbon emitted by brown coal generators, by up to 50% in some cases.

 

But professor Peter Christoff of the University of Melbourne said this approach was problematic.

 

“We’ve heard about new technology and carbon capture for more than a decade and nothing’s happened,” he told Guardian Australia.

 

“It’s too expensive and there are lots of cheaper and cleaner options out there. Brown coal is an energy intensive, high-emissions fuel and just isn’t viable as an energy source in the future.”

 

 

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/