What you will find on this page: LATEST NEWS; Fossil fuel emissions have stalled; does the world need hydrogen?; Mapped: global coal trade; Complexity of energy systems (maps); Mapped: Germany’s energy sources (interactive access); Power to the people (video); Unburnable Carbon (report); Stern Commission Review; Garnaut reports; live generation data; fossil fuel subsidies; divestment; how to run a divestment campaign guide; local council divestment guide; US coal plant retirement; oil conventional & unconventional; CSG battle in Australia (videos); CSG battle in Victoria; leasing maps for Victoria; coal projects Victoria
Huge task to decarbonise
Source: Australian Delegation presentation to international forum held in Bonn in May 2012
Latest News 9 December 2015, Energy Post, German grid operator can handle 70% wind, solar before storage needed. The company responsible for more than one-third of Germany’s electricity grid says there is no issue absorbing high levels of variable renewable energy such as wind and solar, and grids could absorb up to 70 per cent penetration without the need for storage, writes Giles Parkinson of Reneweconomy.com. Boris Schucht, the CEO of 50 Hertz, which operates the main transmission lines in the north and east of Germany – and which is 40 per cent owned by Australia’s Industry Funds Management – says the industry’s views of renewable energy integration has evolved rapidly in the past decade. “It’s about the mind-set,” Schucht said at the Re-energising the Future conference in Paris, and later to RenewEconomy. “10 to 15 years ago when I was young engineer, nobody believed that integrating more than 5 per cent variable renewable energy in an industrial state such as Germany was possible.” Yet, Schucht says, in the region he is operating in, 42 per cent of the power supply (in output, not capacity), came from wind and solar – about the same as South Australia. This year it will be 46 per cent, and next year it will be more than 50 per cent. “No other region in the world has a similar amount of volatile renewable energy ….. yet we have not had a customer outage. Not for 35 or 40 years.” Read More here 8 December 2015, BBC News, UK ‘scores well’ on climate, for now. Denmark, the UK and Sweden have topped the international rankings in an index of countries combating climate change. The annual table is compiled by green groups Germanwatch and Climate Action Network. They analysed progress in the 58 countries producing more than 90% of energy-related CO2 missions. The organisers congratulated the UK for its performance to date, but say the government lacks a coherent vision for the future. The index takes into account emission levels, trends in emissions, energy efficiency, progress towards renewable energy and climate policy. It ranked the UK fifth in the world, after Denmark. The first three places were left empty because the organisers say no major nation is doing enough to cut emissions. Wendel Trio, one of the principal authors, told BBC News the UK had earned its slot because of overall low emissions, climate policy over several years, a fast-growing renewables sector from a low base, and a commitment to phase out coal. But he said the UK was in danger of losing its grade. …..Kit Vaughan from the charity Care International pointed out that the review had been done two months ago – before the government’s recent “reset” which downgraded renewable energy. He said: “It is clearly out of date. Both Denmark and the UK have recently gone backwards at high speed, slipping from climate champions to carbon culprits. “It shows how quickly this government is able to take a wrecking ball to previously progressive climate action and just how quickly enlightened climate policy can be ripped up and systematically dismantled.” Read More here 5 December 2015, Climate News Network, Saudis still hooked on oil habit. COP21: Despite making pledges to cut back on its large-scale fossil fuel emissions, Saudi Arabia’s oil production is continuing to run at record levels. PARIS, 5 December, 2015 − Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter and one of the world’s top per capita emitters of greenhouse gases, has traditionally voiced little concern about climate. So there was some surprise when, in advance of the current UN climate change summit in Paris, the country announced that it was aiming to cut back on its C02emissions. The problem is that the pledge comes with some important caveats that seem to render the whole exercise meaningless. More than 180 countries have so far submitted pledges – referred to in UN jargon as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) − to the summit to cut back on emissions of greenhouse gases. Export revenues Under the Saudi plan, there will be an annual cutback of up to 130 million tonnes of emissions by 2030. But they say that such cutbacks will only be made as long as there is “a robust contribution from oil export revenues to the national economy”. They also warn that should any agreement made at the Paris talks create what is termed an “abnormal burden” on the country’s economy, then the climate-related commitments would be weakened. Read More here 5 December 2015, The Spectator, An age of climate realism is upon us. At last, cooler heads are prevailing….The Paris meeting is not even attempting to achieve what the 2009 Copenhagen summit failed to do: reach a legally binding treaty on cutting CO2 emissions. Instead, the aim is to replace the legally binding targets of the Kyoto Protocol (which runs out in 2020) with voluntary pledges tailored to the national considerations of individual countries. In short, the Paris climate deal will mean abandoning the notion of making decarbonisation legally binding — at least for the time being. Even so, governments from around the world are keen to sign an agreement that will allow political leaders to declare a victory, and to move on. At the same time, officials readily accept that painful decisions will be kicked into the long grass. Thus, the Paris accord is likely to be a ‘wait and see’ arrangement which, for the next decade at least, suspends any attempt of reaching a binding decarbonisation treaty. Such an outcome will almost certainly trigger a fundamental reassessment of Europe’s go-it-alone-no-matter-what-the-costs decarbonisation policies. Why has it proven impossible for such summits to make the kind of progress that was, until recently, billed as a matter of saving the world? Firstly, policies that commit western governments to unilateral decarbonisation have turned out to be more costly and politically toxic than conventional wisdom proclaimed. Rather than running out of fossil fuels — and thereby making renewable energy more competitive — the US shale revolution and the prospect of its global proliferation has triggered a glut of cheap oil and gas. Fuel prices have fallen and look set to remain low for the foreseeable future. As a result, the bridge to a world powered by renewable energy has become longer rather than shorter. Read More here Note that “the pause” noted in the article is a red herring – read more here 8 December 2016, The Guardian, Finkel review criticises climate policy chaos and points to need for emissions trading. Exclusive: Report warns investment in electricity has stalled, and existing policies won’t allow Australia to meet its Paris target. Australia’s chief scientist, Alan Finkel, has said investment in the electricity sector has stalled because of “policy instability and uncertainty” – and he’s warned that current federal climate policy settings will not allow Australia to meet its emissions reduction targets under the Paris agreement. In a 58-page report that has been circulated before Friday’s Council of Australian Governments meeting between the prime minister and the premiers, Finkel has also given implicit endorsement to an emissions intensity trading scheme for the electricity industry to help manage the transition to lower-emissions energy sources. While there is no concrete recommendation to that effect, the report, obtained by Guardian Australia, references the evidence from energy regulators that such a scheme would integrate best “with the electricity market’s pricing and risk management framework” and “had the lowest economic costs and the lowest impact on electricity prices”. Finkel also notes advice from the Climate Change Authority which says market mechanisms have the lowest average cost of abatement, and of the options modelled, an emissions intensity scheme “had the lowest impact on average residential electricity prices”. Read more here 7 December 2016, Climate Home, Full circle: 33 hours in Australian climate policy. It took just over a day for the suggestion of a carbon price to be stamped out by right-wing MPs who hold the prime minister in their thrall. If you have ever wondered how Australian climate policy was high jacked by a minority group of government conservatives, Monday and Tuesday are worth a review. For Malcolm Turnbull and his government, this is a very old dance. The name of the jig is carbon pricing, a policy considered politically mundane across much of the world. The World Bank records carbon pricing in 40 national jurisdictions and more than 20 cities, states, and regions. But in Australia the very notion has had party leaders of the left and right prancing and backflipping for years. This week’s rendition was as uptempo and gymnastic as has been performed yet. On Monday, energy and environment minister Josh Frydenberg was doing the early morning radio rounds. He was asked to fill in the blanks left by the terms of reference his department had released regarding the government’s scheduled 2017 review of climate policy. Would it include a form of carbon pricing? Not on the whole economy, said Frydenberg: that’s Labor’s thing. But he went on: “The review is explicit about looking at sector-by-sector approaches and given that the electricity sector is about one third of the total emissions across the economy it’s only appropriate to see if we’ve got the best mechanisms in place… A number of organisations have recommended an emissions intensity scheme but again this review still has a long way to go.” Analysis: China prepares for world’s biggest carbon market An emissions intensity scheme would necessitate placing a value on carbon. Frydenberg had opened the door and a whole flock of crazy was about to walk through. Read More here 6 December 2016, The Guardian, Australia’s energy transmission industry calls for carbon trading. Emissions intensity scheme is the least costly way of reducing greenhouse gases, Energy Networks Australia and CSIRO say. Australia’s electricity and gas transmission industry is calling on the Turnbull government to implement a form of carbon trading in the national electricity market by 2022 and review the scope for economy-wide carbon pricing by 2027. EnergyNetworks Australia warns in a new report examining how to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050 that policy stability and regulatory certainty are the key to delivering lower power prices and reliable electricity supply. While Tony Abbott once characterised carbon pricing as a wrecking ball through the Australian economy, the new report, backed by CSIRO, says adopting an emissions intensity scheme is the least costly way of reducing emissions, and could actually save customers $200 a year by 2030. The forceful intervention by the industry on Tuesday follows the Turnbull government on Monday flagging an emissions intensity trading scheme for the electricity sector as part of its scheduled review of its Direct Action climate policy. Some stakeholders also believe the Finkel review into energy security and Australia’s climate commitments may also float the desirability of an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector when it presents its preliminary fundings to Friday’s Coag meeting of the prime minister and premiers. But the difficulties for the government emerged immediately after the baseline and credit scheme was flagged by the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, on Monday when the chairman of the Coalition’s backbench committee, Craig Kelly, warned carbon trading was not Coalition policy and would not be accepted by the party room. Energy Networks Australia has been working for two years on what it calls a policy roadmap to achieve zero emissions by 2050. A report to be released on Tuesday argues that the goal can be achieved but only with an integrated policy approach.The report recommends that the government adopt an emissions intensity baseline and credit scheme for the electricity sector by 2022, and set a light-vehicle emissions standard policy to provide incentives for electric vehicle uptake. Read More here 5 December 2016, Renew Economy, Turnbull leads attack on wind as Coalition readies carbon price backflip. Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition government appears ready to throw the medium and long-term future of Australia’s large-scale renewable energy market under a bus, as the price to be paid for a back-flip on a carbon price for the electricity sector. Turnbull joined with The Australian and right-wing climate denying bloggers Andrew Bolt and Jo Nova on Friday in somehow connecting last week’s network fault in Victoria with the growth of renewable energy. Turnbull told a local radio station that the outage was the “fault” of the South Australian government. On Monday, a clearer picture of what the Coalition is up to emerged with the release of the terms of reference for the climate policy review in 2017. Importantly, this review is no longer a “sit rep” – situation report – flagged by energy minister Josh Frydenberg when he first took office. It will, in fact, consider a range of new policy mechanisms, such as an emissions intensity baseline and credit scheme for the electricity sector (effectively a carbon price), a sure sign that the Coalition now realises what Turnbull knew all along – that Direct Action is a fraud and a fig leaf for serious action on climate change. But to try to dance its way through internal politics, the demands of the fossil fuel lobby and comparisons with Labor’s own proposals, Turnbull and Frydenberg appear to have concluded that the best way to appease the far-right rump of the Coalition is to abandon direct support for renewables, help open up the Galilee Basin coal resource and push for more coal seam gas. Reports emerged on the weekend that the Coalition is considering offering a $1 billion concessional loan to help build a rail link between the Galilee Basin coal projects and the port at Abbot’s Point. The idea has appalled environment groups. It also comes as emergency talks are held in Melbourne about the “gas supply crisis”, and as the Coalition readies to receive the Finkel review of the National Electricity Market and prepares to again badger the states on the individual renewable targets at the COAG conference this Friday. The conflicting strategies comes as yet another report highlights the parlous state of the country’s climate efforts, noting that Australia is on track to use up its entire “carbon budget” under the Paris agreement in little more than a decade.Read More here 15 January 2020, The Guardian, Climate crisis fills top five places of World Economic Forum’s risks report. For first time, environment is at top of list of issues worrying world’s elite. A year of extreme weather events and mounting evidence of global heating have catapulted the climate emergency to the top of the list of issues worrying the world’s elite. The World Economic Forum’s annual risks report found that, for the first time in its 15-year history, the environment filled the top five places in the list of concerns likely to have a major impact over the next decade. Børge Brende, the president of the World Economic Forum, said: “The political landscape is polarised, sea levels are rising and climate fires are burning. This is the year when world leaders must work with all sectors of society to repair and reinvigorate our systems of cooperation, not just for short-term benefit but for tackling our deep-rooted risks.” After a month in which bushfires have raged out of control in Australia, Brende said there was a need for urgent action. “We have only a very small window and if we don’t use that window in the next 10 years we will be moving around the deckchairs on the Titanic.” The WEF report said the retreat from the multilateral approach that helped cope with the 2008 financial crisis made it more difficult to tackle shared global risks. Read more here 15 January 2020, Sydney Morning Herald, Incredible, secret firefighting mission saves famous ‘dinosaur trees’. Desperate efforts by firefighters on the ground and in the air have saved the only known natural grove of the world-famous Wollemi pines from destruction during the record-breaking bushfires in NSW. The rescue mission involved water-bombing aircraft and large air tankers dropping fire retardant. Helicopters also winched specialist firefighters into the remote gorge to set up an irrigation system to increase the moisture content of the ground fuels to slow the advance of any fire. “It was like a military-style operation,” NSW Environment and Energy Minister Matt Kean told the Herald. “We just had to do everything.” While most of the Wollemi National Park has been burnt by the huge Gospers Mountain fire north-west of Sydney, specialist remote-area fire crews managed to ensure the so-called “dinosaur trees” survived. “Wollemi National Park is the only place in the world where these trees are found in the wild and, with less than 200 left, we knew we needed to do everything we could to save them,” Mr Kean said. The National Parks and Wildlife Service, backed by the Rural Fire Service, kept their efforts largely a secret to avoid revealing the location of the Wollemi pines. Read more here 7 January 2020, ABC News, Victorian fire chief says calls for more fuel reduction burns are an ’emotional load of rubbish’. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has moved to shut down calls for a massive increase in fuel reduction burns, as the state’s fire chief says the debate has involved “hysteria” and an “emotional load of rubbish”. The recent bushfire crises across south-eastern Australia have prompted calls on social media and from former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce for more land to be burnt off during the cooler months to reduce bushfire fuel in summer. Mr Joyce has attacked Greens politicians for what he says is a failure to support hazard reduction burning during winter, despite such burns being part of Greens policy. Some residents emerging from the East Gippsland township of Cann River, which was cut off by bushfires which have devastated the region, told the ABC on Tuesday they believe more planned burning should have been done. Read more here 7 January 2020, Climate Home News, Australia’s bushfires to cost billions as climate risks rise. Australian government announces national bushfire recovery fund, as cost of natural disasters expected to rise in coming years. Bushfires ravaging Australia are expected to cost billions of dollars in recovery efforts and the nation’s bills for tackling natural disasters risk soaring in coming decades with worsening climate change. Record-breaking temperatures and severe droughts have fuelled the fires which have burnt millions of hectares across the country. At least 24 people and hundreds of thousands of animals have been killed. Data from the Australian government Bureau of Meteorology shows December’s mean temperature was 3.21C warmer than the average for the month. Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, said the country’s mean December temperature had warmed about 1.4 times faster than the global annual average temperature over the past century. But pro-coal Prime Minister Scott Morrison has denied the link between climate change and the unprecedented intensity of bushfires across the country, describing it as “misconstrued”. On Monday, Morrison announced the creation of a National Bushfire Recovery Agency, initially funded to the tune of $2billion AUS ($1.4bn) over a two-year period to help families, farmers and businesses recover from the fire-front. Read more here 3 November 2020, Carbon Brief: Hydrogen gas has long been recognised as an alternative to fossil fuels and a potentially valuable tool for tackling climate change. Now, as nations come forward with net-zero strategies to align with their international climate targets, hydrogen has once again risen up the agenda from Australia and the UK through to Germany and Japan. In the most optimistic outlooks, hydrogen could soon power trucks, planes and ships. It could heat homes, balance electricity grids and help heavy industry to make everything from steel to cement. But doing all these things with hydrogen would require staggering quantities of the fuel, which is only as clean as the methods used to produce it. Moreover, for every potentially transformative application of hydrogen, there are unique challenges that must be overcome. In this in-depth Q&A – which includes a range of infographics, maps and interactive charts, as well as the views of dozens of experts – Carbon Brief examines the big questions around the “hydrogen economy” and looks at the extent to which it could help the world avoid dangerous climate change. Access full article here Fossil fuel emissions have stalled 14 November 2016, The Conversation, Fossil fuel emissions have stalled: Global Carbon Budget 2016. For the third year in a row, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry have barely grown, while the global economy has continued to grow strongly. This level of decoupling of carbon emissions from global economic growth is unprecedented.Global CO₂ emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and industry (including cement production) were 36.3 billion tonnes in 2015, the same as in 2014, and are projected to rise by only 0.2% in 2016 to reach 36.4 billion tonnes. This is a remarkable departure from emissions growth rates of 2.3% for the previous decade, and more than 3% during the 2000’s. Read More here 3 May 2016, Carbon Brief, The global coal trade doubled in the decade to 2012 as a coal-fueled boom took hold in Asia. Now, the coal trade seems to have stalled, or even gone into reverse. This change of fortune has devastated the coal mining industry, with Peabody – the world’s largest private coal-mining company – the latest of 50 US firms to file for bankruptcy. It could also be a turning point for the climate, with the continued burning of coal the biggest difference between business-as-usual emissions and avoiding dangerous climate change. Carbon Brief has produced a series of maps and interactive charts to show how the global coal trade is changing. As well as providing a global overview, we focus on a few key countries: Read More here Do you want to understand the complexity of energy systems which support our high consumption lifestyles? Most people don’t give too much thought to where their electricity comes from. Flip a switch, and the lights go on. That’s all. The origins of that energy, or how it actually got into our homes, is generally hidden from view. This link will take you to 11 maps which explain energy in America (it is typical enough as an example of a similar lifestyle as Australia – when I find maps for Oz I’ll add them in) e.g. above map showing the coal plants in the US. Source: Vox Explainers Mapped: how Germany generates its electricity – another example Germany’s “Energiewende”, which translates as energy transition, conjures up images of bright, sunlit fields scattered with wind turbines and solar panels. But to its critics, it is a story of continued reliance on coal. Both stories are illustrated in Carbon Brief’s new interactive map of Germany’s electricity generating capacity. Our series of charts show how the coal problem reveals the challenge of decarbonising heat, transport and industry – issues that have remained largely hidden in countries such as the UK. Carbon Brief has also published a timeline tracking the history of the Energiewende and the German government’s attempts to secure its future. German energy in 2016 In common with many other rich nations, Germany’senergy use is in decline, even as its economy grows. (There have been ups and downs: the first half of 2016 saw energy use increase by nearly 2% year-on-year). Germany used 320 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 2015, the same amount as in 1975. UK energy use has fallen even further, and is now at 1960s levels. (To clarify, this is referring to all energy used by the countries, not just electricity.) Oil overtook coal as Germany’s number one fuel in the early 1970s and today accounts for more than a third of the total. Coal use roughly halved between 1965 and 2000. Yet it has remained relatively flat since then and still supplies more energy than all low-carbon sources combined. Access interactive map and breakdown of energy sources here Power to the People – Lock the Gate looks back at the wins of 2015 And there’s lots more coming up in 2016. Some of the big priorities coming up next for the “Lock the Gate” movement are: If you want to give “Lock the Gate” your support – go here for more info This new report reveals that the pollution from Australia’s coal resources, particularly the enormous Galilee coal basin, could take us two-thirds of the way to a two degree rise in global temperature. To Read More and download report The 2006 UK government commissioned Stern Commission Review on the Economics of Climate Change is still the best complete appraisal of global climate change economics. The review broke new ground on climate change assessment in a number of ways. It made headlines by concluding that avoiding global climate change catastrophe was almost beyond our grasp. It also found that the costs of ignoring global climate change could be as great as the Great Depression and the two World Wars combined. The review was (still is) in fact a very good assessment of global climate change, which inferred in 2006 that the situation was a global emergency. Read More here The Garnaut Climate Change Review was commissioned by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments in 2007 to conduct an independent study of the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy. Prof. Garnaut presented The Garnaut Climate Change Review: Final Report to the Australian Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers in September 2008 in which he examined how Australia was likely to be affected by climate change, and suggested policy responses. In November 2010, he was commissioned by the Australian Government to provide an update to the 2008 Review. In particular, he was asked to examine whether significant changes had occurred that would affect the analysis and recommendations from 2008. The final report was presented May 2011. Since then the Professor has regularly participated in the debate of fossil fuel reduction, as per his latest below: To access his reports; interviews; submissions go here 27 May 2015, Renew Economy, Garnaut: Cost of stranded assets already bigger than cost of climate action. This is one carbon budget that Australia has already blown. Economist and climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut has delivered a withering critique of Australia’s economic policies and investment patterns, saying the cost of misguided over-investment in the recent mining boom would likely outweigh the cost of climate action over the next few decades. Read More here Live generation of electricity by fuel type Fossil Fuel Subsidies – The Age of entitlement continues November 2014 – The Fossil Fuel Bailout: G20 subsidies for oil, gas and coal exploration report: Governments across the G20 countries are estimated to be spending $88 billion every year subsidising exploration for fossil fuels. Their exploration subsidies marry bad economics with potentially disastrous consequences for climate change. In effect, governments are propping up the development of oil, gas and coal reserves that cannot be exploited if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. This report documents, for the first time, the scale and structure of fossil fuel exploration subsidies in the G20 countries. The evidence points to a publicly financed bailout for carbon-intensive companies, and support for uneconomic investments that could drive the planet far beyond the internationally agreed target of limiting global temperature increases to no more than 2ºC. It finds that, by providing subsidies for fossil fuel exploration, the G20 countries are creating a ‘triple-lose’ scenario. They are directing large volumes of finance into high-carbon assets that cannot be exploited without catastrophic climate effects. They are diverting investment from economic low-carbon alternatives such as solar, wind and hydro-power. And they are undermining the prospects for an ambitious climate deal in 2015. Access full report here For the summary on Australia’s susidisation of it’s fossil fuel industry go to page 51 of the report. The report said that the United States and Australia paid the highest level of national subsidies for exploration in the form of direct spending or tax breaks. Overall, G20 country spending on national subsidies was $23 billion. In Australia, this includes exploration funding for Geoscience Australia and tax deductions for mining and petroleum exploration. The report also classifies the Federal Government’s fuel rebate program for resources companies as a subsidy. 24 June 2014, Renew Economy, Age of entitlement has not ended for fossil fuels: A new report from The Australia Institute exposes the massive scale of state government assistance, totalling $17.6 billion over a six-year period, not including significant Federal government support and subsidies. Queensland taxpayers are providing the greatest assistance by far with a total of $9.5 billion, followed by Western Australia at $6.2 billion. The table shows almost $18 billion dollars has been spent over the past 6 years by state governments, supporting some of Australia’s biggest, most profitable industries, which are sending most of the profits offshore. That’s $18 billion dollars that could have gone to vital public services such as hospitals, schools and emergency services. State governments are usually associated with the provision of essential services like health and education so it will shock taxpayers to learn of the massive scale of government handouts to the minerals and fossil fuel industries. This report shows that Australian taxpayers have been misled about the costs and benefits of this industry, which we can now see are grossly disproportionate. Each state provides millions of dollars’ worth of assistance to the mining industry every year, with the big mining states of Queensland and Western Australia routinely spending over one billion dollars in assistance annually. Read More here – access full report here What is fossil fuel divestment? Local Governments ready to divest Aligning Council Money With Council Values A Guide To Ensuring Council Money Isn’t Funding Climate Change. 350.org Australia – with the help of the incredible team at Earth Hour – has pulled together a simple 3-step guide for local governments interested in divestment. The movement to align council money with council values is constantly growing in Australia. It complements the existing work that councils are doing to shape a safe climate future. It can also help to reshape the funding practices of Australia’s fossil fuel funding banks. The steps are simple. The impact is huge.The guide can also be used by local groups who are interested in supporting their local government to divest as a step-by-step reference point. Access guide here How coal is staying in the ground in the US Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign May 2015, Politico, Michael Grunwald: The war on coal is not just political rhetoric, or a paranoid fantasy concocted by rapacious polluters. It’s real and it’s relentless. Over the past five years, it has killed a coal-fired power plant every 10 days. It has quietly transformed the U.S. electric grid and the global climate debate. The industry and its supporters use “war on coal” as shorthand for a ferocious assault by a hostile White House, but the real war on coal is not primarily an Obama war, or even a Washington war. It’s a guerrilla war. The front lines are not at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Supreme Court. If you want to see how the fossil fuel that once powered most of the country is being battered by enemy forces, you have to watch state and local hearings where utility commissions and other obscure governing bodies debate individual coal plants. You probably won’t find much drama. You’ll definitely find lawyers from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, the boots on the ground in the war on coal. Read More here Oil – conventional & unconventional May 2015, Oil change International Report: On the Edge: 1.6 Million Barrels per Day of Proposed Tar Sands Oil on Life Support. The Canadian tar sands is among the most carbon-intensive, highest-cost sources of oil in the world. Even prior to the precipitous drop in global oil prices late last year, three major projects were cancelled in the sector with companies unable to chart a profitable path forward. Since the collapse in global oil prices, the sector has been under pressure to make further cuts, leading to substantial budget cuts, job losses, and a much more bearish outlook on expansion projections in the coming years. Read full report here. For summary of report USA Sierra Club Beyond Oil Campaign Coal Seam Gas battle in Australia Lock the Gate Alliance is a national coalition of people from across Australia, including farmers, traditional custodians, conservationists and urban residents, who are uniting to protect our common heritage – our land, water and communities – from unsafe or inappropriate mining for coal seam gas and other fossil fuels. Read more about the missions and principles of Lock the Gate. Access more Lock the Gate videos here. Access Lock the Gate fact sheets here 2014: Parliament of Victoria Research Paper: Unconventional Gas: Coal Seam Gas, Shale Gas and Tight Gas: This Research Paper provides an introduction and overview of issues relevant to the development of unconventional gas – coal seam, shale and tight gas – in the Australian and specifically Victorian context. At present, the Victorian unconventional gas industry is at a very early stage. It is not yet known whether there is any coal seam gas or shale gas in Victoria and, if there is, whether it would be economically viable to extract it. A moratorium on fracking has been in place in Victoria since August 2012 while more information is gathered on potential environmental risks posed by the industry. The parts of Victoria with the highest potential for unconventional gas are the Gippsland and Otway basins. Notably, tight gas has been located near Seaspray in Gippsland but is not yet being produced. There is a high level of community concern in regard to the potential impact an unconventional gas industry could have on agriculture in the Gippsland and Otway regions. Industry proponents, however, assert that conventional gas resources are declining and Victoria’s unconventional gas resources need to be ascertained and developed. Read More here 28 January 2015, ABC News, Coal seam gas exploration: Victoria’s fracking ban to remain as Parliament probes regulations: A ban on coal seam gas (CSG) exploration will stay in place in Victoria until a parliamentary inquiry hands down its findings, the State Government has promised. There is a moratorium on the controversial mining technique, known as fracking, until the middle of 2015. The Napthine government conducted a review into CSG, headed by former Howard government minister Peter Reith, which recommended regulations around fracking be relaxed. Labor was critical of the review, claiming it failed to consult with farmers, environmental scientists and local communities. Read more here Keep up to date and how you can be involved here Friends of the Earth Melbourne Coal & Gas Free Victoria 20 May 2015, FoE, Inquiry into Unconventional Gas: Check here for details on the Victorian government’s Inquiry into unconventional gas. The public hearings have not yet started, however the Terms of Reference have been released. The state government’s promised Inquiry into Unconventional Gas has now been formally announced, with broad terms of reference (TOR). FoE’s response to the TOR is available here. The Upper House Environment and Planning Committee will manage the Inquiry. You can find the Inquiry website here. The final TOR will be determined by the committee. Significantly, it is a cross party committee. The Chair is a Liberal (David Davis), and there is one National (Melinda Bath), one Green (Samantha Dunn), three from the ALP (Gayle Tierney, Harriet Shing, Shaun Leane), an additional MP from the Liberals (Richard Dalla-Riva), and one MP from the Shooters Party (Daniel Young). Work started by the previous government, into water tables and the community consultation process run by the Primary Agency, will be released as part of the inquiry.The moratorium on unconventional gas exploration will stay in place until the inquiry delivers its findings. The interim report is due in September and the final report by December. There is the possibility that the committee will amend this timeline if they are overwhelmed with submissions or information. Parliament will then need to consider the recommendations of the committee and make a final decision about how to proceed. This is likely to happen when parliament resumes after the summer break, in early 2016. Quit Coal is a Melbourne-based collective that campaigns against the expansion of the coal and unconventional gas industries in Victoria. Quit Coal uses a range of tactics to tackle this problem. We advise the broader Victorian community about plans for new coal and unconventional gas projects, we put pressure on our government to stop investing in these projects, and we help to inform and mobilise Victorian communities so they can campaign on their own behalf. We focus on being strategic, creative, and as much as possible, fun! The above screen shot is of the Victorian State government’s Mining Licences Near Me site. Go to this link to see what is happening in your area Environment Victoria’s campaign CoalWatch is an interactive resource that tracks the coal industry’s expansion plans and helps builds a movement to stop these polluting developments. CoalWatch provides a way for everyday Victorians to keep track of the coal industry’s ambitious expansion plans. To check what tax-payer money has been pledged to brown coal projects and the coal projects industry is spruiking to our politicians. Here’s another map via EV website (go to their website and you should be able to get better detail from Google Maps: Red areas: Exploration licences (EL). These areas are held by companies to undertake exploration activity. A small bond is held by government in case of any damage. If a company wants to progress the project it needs to obtain a mining licence. Exploration Licence applications are marked with an asterix in the Places Index eg. EL4684*. Yellow areas: Mining Licences (MIN). A mining licence is granted with the expectation that mining will occur. A larger bond is paid to government. Green areas: Exploration licences that have been withdrawn or altered due to community concern. Green outline: Existing mines within Mining Licences. Purple areas: Geological Carbon Storage Exploration areas for carbon capture and storage. On-shore areas have been released by the State Government, while off-shore areas have been released by the Federal Government. The Coal Watch wiki tracks current and future Victorian coal projects, whether they are power stations, coal mines, proposals to export coal or some other inventive way of burning more coal. To get the full picture of coal in Victoria visit our wiki page. Get more info and see the full list of Exploration Licences current at 17 August 2012 here August 2015, Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis – powerpoint: Changing Dynamics in the Global Seaborne Thermal Coal Markets and Stranded Asset Risk. Information from one of the slides follows. To view full presentation go here Economic Implications for Australia 83% of Australian coal mines are foreign owned, hence direct leverage of fossil fuels to the ASX is relatively small at 1-2%. However, for Australia the exposure is high, time is needed for transition and the new industry opportunities are significant: 1. Energy Infrastructure: Australia spends $5-10bn pa on electricity / grid sector, much of it a regulated asset base that all ratepayers fund much of it stranded. BNEF estimate of Australia’s renewable energy infrastructure investment for 2015-2020 was cut 30% from A$20bn post RET. Lost opportunities. 2. Direct employment: The ABS shows a fall of ~20k from the 2012 peak of 70K from coal mining across Australia, and cuts are ongoing. Indirect employment material. 3. Terms of trade: BZE estimates the collapse in the pricing of iron ore, coal and LNG cuts A$100bn pa from Australia’s export revenues by 2030, a halving relative to government budget estimates of 2013/14. Coal was 25% of NSW’s total A$ value of exports in 2013/14 (38% of Qld). Australia will be #1 globally in LNG by 2018. 4. The financial sector: is leveraged to mining and associated rail port infrastructure. WICET 80% financed by banks, mostly Australian. Adani’s Abbot Point Port is foreign owned, but A$1.2bn of Australian sourced debt. Insurance firms and infrastructure funds are leveraged to fossil fuels vs little RE infrastructure assets. BBY! 5. Rehabilitation: $18bn of unfunded coal mining rehabilitation across Australia. 6. Economic growth: curtailed as Australia fails to develop low carbon industries. In-depth Q&A: Does the world need hydrogen to solve climate change?
21 April 2015, Climate Council, Will Steffen: Unburnable Carbon: Why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.Stern Commission Review
Australia’s Garnaut Review