The political turning point for Australia’s energy debate may well have come in the first week of the year. Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan’s historic pledge in The Australian that coal will remain a core part of the energy supply mix for the foreseeable future was the strongest endorsement for coal from a minister since the renewables debate began more than a decade ago.
Is this the first real sign the Turnbull government has recognised voters care more about energy prices and the lights staying on when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining than they do about leading the world in cutting emissions and embracing renewables?
Canavan’s backing of coal is a clear signal of how the federal government intends to address the key voter issues of energy affordability and reliability. But still outstanding is a third issue created by the signing of the Paris Agreement, Australia’s promise to reduce its carbon emissions by up to 28 per cent by 2030.
Malcolm Turnbull knows this third plank must be delivered or he risks losing just as many moderate Coalition voters as he picks up from blue collar Labor electorates.
Currently, the national energy debate is so straitened that this need to consider price, reliability and the Paris Agreement are never addressed holistically: on the far Left the focus is only on what technology best reduces emissions, while on the far Right the message extends to keeping the lights on and prices down.
Having thrown its support behind domestic coal to the reported tune of $100 billion over the next two decades with the Paris Agreement looming large in the background, the federal government has the opportunity to advance clean coal technologies just as the government’s $2bn Australian Renewable Energy Agency has done for renewable energy.
It is this unexplored middle ground that the Prime Minister must now seize if the political headaches of energy price, reliability and carbon emissions are to be resolved.
One Nation is targeting the mining states of Queensland, NSW and Western Australia in upcoming state elections and it is not hard to see it backing clean coal as a means of appealing to conservative regional and urban voters.
The desire to reduce our carbon emissions is not new. Nor is the aspiration to reduce coal’s carbon footprint. Indeed clean coal technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), gasification and chemical washing — which remove or reduce pollutant emissions to the atmosphere — have been in development for several decades.
Ironically, like the renewables that now seek to kill off coal, it is only very recently that this research has started to deliver commercially appealing results.
CCS has struggled to gain political traction, in part due to the tough task of selling the process of pumping up to 90 per cent of the carbon emitted from power stations several kilometres below the earth’s surface, where it is then stored — perhaps indefinitely. In reality, this process simply returns the carbon to where it originated and has been safely stored for many millions of years.
In China, India, Canada, South Korea, the US and Australia, commercially successful coal-fired plants using either CCS or high efficiency low emission technologies to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 90 per cent are already operating.
Yet the energy debate in this country remains characterised by shrill hysteria and political point-scoring.
As Robin Batterham, a former group chief scientist at mining giant Rio Tinto and former chief scientist of Australia, says, while the cost of capturing carbon dioxide is challenging, “as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made clear in its 2014 report, the cost of not capturing it is greater”.
The IPCC also says that not only is CCS the cheapest way to reduce global emissions, but it may not even be possible to achieve lower emissions targets without CCS.
Geoscience Australia, an official government adviser, calls CCS “one of the most important tools Australia has to reduce our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions”, while the International Energy Agency says “following the ratification of the Paris Agreement, the ability of CCS to reduce emissions from fossil fuel use in power generation — including from existing facilities — will be crucial to limiting future temperature increases”.
And according to New Scientist, a study by the CSIRO which modelled various scenarios for how Australia could continue to grow and meet climate targets found: “The most positive scenarios for Australia’s growth and climate are ones where CCS becomes commercially viable. Australia is one of the world’s biggest producers of coal and CCS would allow coal use to increase, while decreasing emissions.”
It is clear that clean coal technology offers Australia the sensible middle path to a clean energy future in line with the three big objectives of a national energy policy that delivers security, affordability and lower carbon emissions.
The next federal election could be as soon as August next year. That doesn’t leave the Prime Minister much time to convince voters that only he can solve our emerging energy crisis.
If voters are to be convinced, then clean coal technology needs to quickly find its way into the government’s electricity message.
To that end, Canavan may well be remembered as the man who first shone the light on the middle path to a clean energy future.
Nathan Vass is chief executive of the Australian Power Project, which promotes sustainable national energy poli
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Michael42 MINUTES AGO
Did you know that when you take into account all of Australia's ability to absorb CO2 (plants, the oceans etc) we actually absorb more than we generate. Yet we still insist on wrecking our national electricity grid with wind mills and solar panels. Not peak oil, rather peak stupidity.
Michael of Sevill
Mike1 HOUR AGO
Australia is already leading the world in reducing emissions, but we've over shot the mark by way too far. Time for everyone else to catch up. I can't believe the self induced madness. Why give India, China, and the rest rest a free kick at our expense.
Go visit these places and see for yourselves. The various environments in these places are an absolute disgrace. And here's good old do gooder Australia selling itself down the drain showing the way at whilst it descends into economic failure. What a joke.
We don't have leaders here any more, just abject morons! Move aside Turnbull and Shorten, you and your hangers on are an absolutel joke.
Keclonis48 MINUTES AGO
@Graeme@anthony Correct Graham, and for all the eco-zombie movements in Germany what have they done? They shut down their reactors and are now forced to pay the highest electricity prices in Europe.
To fix this they are building BROWN COAL power stations.
pamela42 MINUTES AGO
@Graeme@anthony Quite right. If people think that Australia can do miracles whilst the rest of the world turn to nuclear etc., to power their cities, they are living in La La land. Climate change has become a religion and we should make use of all our resources not follow Germany and be spending billions on alternate energy whilst we have an abundance of good clean coal etc.
The population will not be able to afford the politicians dreams, we shall turn into a third world country. I am stacking up on candles NOW, although they will not run my computer etc.
Wake up Australia.
Chris41 MINUTES AGO
@Graeme@anthony And they have to buy their power from France because the renewables are greatly under-producing. Getting rid of their nuclear industry has made them a massive power importer (nuclear from France).
Keclonis1 HOUR AGO
@patricia But when the high priests of AGW state the CCS is needed then where do you stand? Or is that an inconvenient truth?
Here's some more. Bleet all you like. It is fact that China and India will burn MILLIONS of tons more coal every year than currently up until 2030.
So jump up and down like the rest of the eco-zombies or come to the middle and push for what works now, while good solutions are given the time to become economic.
We all want pollution minimised. We all want to tread more carefully on this planet.
Sanchia5 HOURS AGO
Coal is what we have in abundance and it is unfortunate that we are being bullied into not using this to our advantage for power generation and export income. History will be very unkind to Malcolm Turnbull who by pursuing ego driven idealistic policies has put the cost of living and the cost of business on an ever increasing upward curve which will be an ever increasing burden to us all. We have been betrayed by a conceited arrogant economic vandal of the worst type.
Brian5 HOURS AGO
The Department of the Environment update (December 2015) showing emissions from 2000 to 2015 and projections to 2020 makes interesting reading. Per Capita emissions are projected to decrease by some 22% and emissions intensity (emissions as a function of GDP ) will drop by 40%. But these metrics reflect our immigrant driven growth in population and increasing GDP so the actual emissions by sector in Mt CO2 -e or the actual amount released to the atmosphere paints a different story. From 2000 to 2015 emissions have remained steady but by 2020 emissions will have increased by 32 Mt or 5.7%. While the agriculture/land use sector have performed brilliantly (a combined decrease of 50 Mt or 60% in emissions), the gain there has plateaued. Emissions for transport and direct combustion (machinery used in mining, manufacturing, construction etc) is increasing. One sector of increasing emissions that may surprise is electricity generation, despite all that subsidy money thrown at renewables and the financial pain from the community from the RET. Since 2010 emissions for power have increased by 6% and even with the absurd targets for renewables, by 2030 will increase by at least another 1% although the anticipated blackouts could reduce emissions by the departure of industry and the loss of overseas investment.
So we need to stand tall and adopt the metric that global warming activists us to beat us over the head, per capita emissions, ignoring as they do the actual levels of gas produced. Alternatively we could run with the Minister's Direct Action Carbon Capture plan and actually do something positive.
William6 HOURS AGO
When Donald J Trump is sworn in as President of the US on 20/01/2017 then end to all this job destroying useless intermittent renewable Rubbish will come about very quickly.Trump has stated that his country needs affordable reliable energy to get back on the road to prosperity and create more jobs and that the Stupid Paris Climate agreement needs to be torn up which I have no doubt he will do regardless of the wailing of the WindWeasels and their lefty Enablers.Once the US abandons their funding of the Worlds Largest Travelling Cocktail Party the UNs idea that any human being can do anything to control the weather will be seen by many more sensible people as the greatest Con Job of modern times.If Team Turnbull keeps on with his unachievable 33,000 GWh by 2020 that has already caused the loss of 750 MW of Reliable Affordable Base Load Generation in SA and another 1600 MW to be lost in Victoria in March his grip on the Top Job that he obtained so Deviousy may become very slippery indeed.With sensible men like Matt Canavan in the cabinet there are a few more good men that may make Turnbull Hear the message or get out of the way and let someone with Nations well being his main concern and not Jetting around the world to sign up to schemes that reduce Australia's prosperity while China and India will keep on increasing their Plant Food Emissions until well past 2030.Australia is responsible for 1.3% of world Co2 and only 30% of that comes from from power generation.The inmates are really the ones running the Assylum.Just have look at SA to to see the result.William B.
David5 HOURS AGO
@william
The right thing for the country is more often that not the furthest thing from them minds of the Utopia chasing Labor party politicians. Labor party politicians have never ever worked in a wealth creating enterprise and automatically assume that money is easy to come by. These people have no idea of how to balance a budget and even less of an idea of how to create wealth so that people can be constructively employed.
Labor and Greens party politicians have only ever been employed in government positions or other wealth destroying positions. They definitely do not represent the genuine interests of the broader community. Just their own.
Ross6 HOURS AGO
The only way coal will be part of our energy future is if the Government builds the power stations. No private entity will countenance funding a power station because of Australia's enormous sovereign risk. This is just another casualty of our politicians lunatic renewables policies
Denzil34 MINUTES AGO
@Ross China has offered to build power coal fired power station in SA for 300 odd million. Or did I misread?
george7 HOURS AGO
Absolutely spot on!!! The left speak as if it makes commercial sense to simply give up on coal and ignore our huge reserves. Let's instead redirect the billions going into renewables technology towards coal given the positive news clean coal projects are showing.
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