15 May 2017, Climate Home, India and China ‘on track to exceed Paris climate pledges’. With downgraded outlooks for coal use, India and China are set to beat their pledges to the Paris climate agreement, according to an updated analysis of their climate policies. Just as coal plants are cancelled in the two largest emerging economies, in the US, the Trump administration has started to roll back regulations designed to constrict emissions. But analysis released by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) on the sidelines of a UN climate meeting in Bonn, Germany found policies in India and China would more than outweigh slower emissions reductions in the US. The growth in global emissions has stalled in recent years, thanks mainly to reduced consumption of coal in China. “This has been attributed partially to structural changes in the Chinese economy, but also a continued policy drive to reduce coal use to both combat air pollution and climate change,” said Dr Yvonne Deng, a consultant scientist at Ecofys, one of a group of organisations that contributes to the CAT project. Deng said it was unclear whether the last three years of coal data in China was “merely a pause in the steady growth, or whether this is a sign of China having reached its peak in coal consumption”. Earlier this year, China cancelled construction plans for 103 coal power stations. If it turned out to be a sustained decline, she said, the country’s annual emissions in 2030 could be 1-2 gigatonnes lower than CAT predicted at this time last year. China’s current emissions are between 11 and 12Gt a year. Read More here
Category Archives: Fossil Fuel Reduction
7 April 2017, The Conversation, The stampede of wind farm complaints that never happened. National Wind Farm Commissioner, Andrew Dyer, has just released his much anticipated first annual report. In its first year of operation until the end of 2016, the National Wind Farm Commissioner says his office received: 46 complaints relating to nine operating wind farms (there were 76 operational wind farms in Australian in 2015)
- 42 complaints relating to 19 proposed wind farms
- two complaints that did not specify a wind farm.
The commissioner’s office closed 67 or these 90 complaints, with the remaining 23 complaints still in process. Of the 67 now-closed complaints, the office closed 31 because the complainant did not progress their complaint. This suggests these complaints were minor. The office closed the file on another 32 after it sent complainants more information about their complaints. This leaves only four, which the report describes two as being settled after negotiations between the parties, and two given the ambiguous category of “other”. These figures are frankly astonishing. The complaint investigating mechanism was set up after a Senate enquiry report that cost undisclosed millions to deal with a “massive” problem with wind turbines. But the hordes of people who apparently needed a way to help them resolve matters have now gone shy. Chair of the Senate Committee on Wind Turbines was ex-Senator John Madigan, a public critic of wind farms. Read More here
5 April 2017, Reuters, ANALYSIS-Trump declares end to “war on coal,” but utilities aren’t listening. Most U.S. power companies have no plans to alter their years-long shift away from coal. When President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week to sweep away Obama-era climate change regulations, he said it would end America’s “war on coal”, usher in a new era of energy production and put miners back to work. But the biggest consumers of U.S. coal – power generating companies – remain unconvinced. Reuters surveyed 32 utilities with operations in the 26 states that sued former President Barack Obama’s administration to block its Clean Power Plan, the main target of Trump’s executive order. The bulk of them have no plans to alter their multi-billion dollar, years-long shift away from coal, suggesting demand for the fuel will keep falling despite Trump’s efforts. The utilities gave many reasons, mainly economic: Natural gas – coal’s top competitor – is cheap and abundant; solar and wind power costs are falling; state environmental laws remain in place; and Trump’s regulatory rollback may not survive legal challenges. Meanwhile, big investors aligned with the global push to fight climate change – such as the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund – have been pressuring U.S. utilities in which they own stakes to cut coal use. “I’m not going to build new coal plants in today’s environment,” said Ben Fowke, CEO of Xcel Energy, which operates in eight states and uses coal for about 36 percent of its electricity production. “And if I’m not going to build new ones, eventually there won’t be any.” Of the 32 utilities contacted by Reuters, 20 said Trump’s order would have no impact on their investment plans; five said they were reviewing the implications of the order; six gave no response. Just one said it would prolong the life of some of its older coal-fired power units. North Dakota’s Basin Electric Power Cooperative was the sole utility to identify an immediate positive impact of Trump’s order on the outlook for coal. “We’re in the situation where the executive order takes a lot of pressure off the decisions we had to make in the near term, such as whether to retrofit and retire older coal plants,” said Dale Niezwaag, a spokesman for Basin Electric. “But Trump can be a one-termer, so the reprieve out there is short.” Trump’s executive order triggered a review aimed at killing the Clean Power Plan. The Obama-era law would have required states, by 2030, to collectively cut carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30 percent from 2005 levels. It was designed as a primary strategy in U.S. efforts to fight global climate change. The U.S. coal industry, without increases in domestic demand, would need to rely on export markets for growth. Shipments of U.S. metallurgical coal, used in the production of steel, have recently shown up in China following a two-year hiatus – in part to offset banned shipments from North Korea and temporary delays from cyclone-hit Australian producers.RETIRING AND RETROFITTING Coal had been the primary fuel source for U.S. power plants for the last century, but its use has fallen more than a third since 2008 after advancements in drilling technology unlocked new reserves of natural gas. Hundreds of aging coal-fired power plants have been retired or retrofitted. Huge coal mining companies like Peabody Energy Corp and Arch Coal fell into bankruptcy, and production last year hit its lowest point since 1978. Read More here
29 March 2017, The Conversation, Hazelwood closure: what it means for electricity prices and blackouts. Victoria’s Hazelwood power station will be shut down this week after nearly 50 years of supplying electricity. The imminent closure has led to concerns about blackouts, raised most recently by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, and rising electricity prices. So what does the evidence suggest? Blackouts ahead? Last week The Age reported that Victoria is facing “72 days of possible power supply shortfalls over the next two years”. While that sounds bad, it does not mean the state is facing imminent blackouts. This was based on a report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which is in charge of making sure that Australia’s energy markets work. Every week, AEMO produces something called the Medium Term Projected Assessment of System Adequacy. This report assesses the expected supply and demand of electricity for the next two years. In a recent report, AEMO did indeed forecast a “reserve shortfall” for 72 days in Victoria in the coming two years. AEMO has actually been forecasting many days of reserve shortfall, since early November last year when Engie announced the closure of Hazelwood. AEMO has also been forecasting an even greater number of days of reserve shortfalls in South Australia for well over a year. The shortfall forecast is based on a combination of factors. This includes the amount of local energy supply, the import and export of electricity from other states, the maximum daily demand for electricity, and the “reserve requirement”. The reserve requirement is essentially “spare” capacity that can be used to maintain a reliable supply if something goes wrong. If there is not enough supply to meet this requirement, there is a reserve shortfall. Forecasting maximum demand is incredibly challenging and uncertain. AEMO does it by using probabilities. This gives us a measure of the probability of a particular demand forecast being exceeded in a year. For example, a 10% chance would be expected to be exceeded one year in ten. A 50% chance would be expected to be exceeded one year in two. To illustrate the point, AEMO forecast that demand over the past summer in Victoria had a 10% chance of exceeding 9,900 megawatts. In reality, the maximum demand was only 8,747MW. That’s not to say the forecast was wrong, but rather that it was not an exceptional (one year in ten) summer. Read More here