No...in the sense we should be sensibly transitioning away from fossil fuels. But that doesn’t mean a couple of new high efficiency HELE coal fired plants shouldn’t be built, as part of the mix on the retirement of our existing fleet of a dozen / dozen and a half coal plants.
Yes...if you assume that large parts of Asia are building and planning new coal plants, that will be hungry for coal for five six decades from now. If we take the (supposed) moral high ground and end our coal exports, do you think for a minute it will mean these Asian coal fired plants will cease operating? Any number of other countries will quite happily fill the void we leave, but with crappy coal, not our high calorific value coal. So by taking the moral high ground, these Asian coal fired plants will be spewing out even more carbon than would have been the case if we continue exporting the stuff. (Around 1.4 tonne for every 1 tonne of Australian thermal coal). At some point, decades from now, the demand for coal will cease to exist, and that will be the market signalling the end of the industry.
As I see it, anyone who is a pragmatic environmentalist should be demanding Asian countries, whilst they still rely on coal, to preference our high energy coal. The last thing we should do is put a stop to it’s availability.
