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 5 March 2018, Renew Economy, Victoria town’s breakthrough deal on network tariffs as it pursues 100% renewables. A small Victorian town that is hoping to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy as early as 2020 has achieved what appears to be a groundbreaking deal on network charges that could pave the way for similar projects around the country. Newstead, a town of less than 1,500 people in central Victoria, has negotiated new network charges with its electricity distributor, Powercor, that will remove some of the hurdles of building a small solar farm and sharing the output with the community. The two-year trial on new network fees will mean that the community can install solar and share the output without being hit by further network charges for each kilowatt they consume. Equally importantly, they appear to break the nexus between lower energy use and soaring grid charges, and will help ensure that everyone benefits from a local renewable energy transition, and not just those who can afford it. The Powercor tariffs – specially constructed for the people of Newstead, but with a broader energy market transition in mind – introduce a fixed daily network charge of $1 day, and a monthly “demand” charge of $2/kW. It completely removes fees based on kilowatt-hour consumption. Tosh Szatow, from energy consultants Energy for the People, which has been advising the Newstead community group, Renewables Newstead, says the new tariffs will have two significant benefits. One is the way it will make community-owned solar farms, and sharing that solar output, more attractive, because it will eliminate the perverse incentive for individuals to preference rooftop solar, over a shared solar farm, despite the latter option having a lower $/kW installed cost. Read More here 28 February 2018, Energy Live News, Project aims to inject hydrogen into UK gas network. A project that aims to inject hydrogen into a gas network in the UK has officially been launched. The HyDeploy project hopes to establish the potential for blending hydrogen – up to 20% by volume – and is working towards a one-year live trial on part of Keele University’s private gas network, starting in 2019. Led by Cadent, formerly National Grid Gas Distribution, in partnership with Northern Gas Networks and technical experts, the project is currently gathering data from laboratory tests and safety checks on gas appliances in customers’ homes. That includes testing appliances with blends of hydrogen, with data to be submitted to the Health and Safety Executive in April. David Parkin, Director of Safety & Network Strategy at Cadent, said: “HyDeploy will provide important practical evidence to help us understand how hydrogen could help to reduce carbon emissions from heat in a practical and affordable way for UK customers.” Source 12 February 2018, Renew Economy, S.A. to host Australia’s first green hydrogen power plant. The South Australia government has announced funding for what will be Australia’s first renewable-hydrogen electrolyser plant – a 15MW facility to be built near the end of the grid at Port Lincoln on the Eyre Peninsula. The “green hydrogen” plant – to be built by Hydrogen Utility (H2U), working with Germany’s thyssenkrupp – will include a 10MW hydrogen-fired gas turbine, fuelled by local wind and solar power, and a 5MW hydrogen fuel cell. Both will supply power to the grid, will support two new solar farms and a local micro-grid, and will also include “distributed ammonia” that can be used as an industrial fertiliser for farmers and aquaculture operators. The $117.5 million project, which will receive a $4.7 million grant and a $7.5 million loan from South Australia’s Renewable Technology Fund, is being described as a “globally-significant demonstrator project” for the emerging hydrogen energy sector. Read More here 12 February 2018, Climate News Network, Hydrogen could see off fossil fuels. Hydrogen is the least talked-about renewable energy but has the greatest potential to replace fossil fuels, both to heat homes and to provide fuel for road transport. The possibility of using hydrogen has been known about for generations, but only in the last two years has it become both practical and financially viable to see it as a large-scale competitor to both gas and oil. Networks of hydrogen filling stations are now being opened in Europe and parts of the US. Batteries for road transport have attracted most of the recent publicity around renewables and have become the focus of many governments with targets for switching away from petrol and diesel, particularly in cities with air pollution problems. But hydrogen has even greater potential because its only emissions are pure water and warm air. Storage potential What has made hydrogen so attractive is that it can use surplus renewable electricity from wind and solar farms by using electrolysers to produce hydrogen. This is a process of passing an electric current through water and converting it into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be stored. Read More here 22 July 2022, Renew Economy: Bowen frees ARENA from Taylor’s fossil fuel mandate, puts focus back on renewables. The Albanese government has moved to reverse the former Morrison government’s attempts to redirect renewable energy funding to non-renewable technologies, issuing a replacement set of regulations to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. (ARENA) Federal climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen said the new set of regulations will restore the agency’s focus on funding renewables, ending years of Morrison government attempts to redirect billions in funds to carbon capture and fossil fuel technologies. ARENA was established under the Gillard government to provide funding for the research and development of new renewable energy technologies, and formed part of the Clean Energy Package negotiated with the Greens, along with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Climate Change Authority. It has has been instrumental in the emergence of a competitive renewable energy sector in Australia, particularly large-scale solar and more recently with battery storage and other supporting technologies needed a renewables based grid. Bowen says ARENA will be provided with a new mandate to “maximise the take-up of renewable energy” and to focus on electrification and energy efficiency. “The best way to put downward pressure on energy prices is to ramp up investment in renewables and that is exactly what we are doing,” Bowen said. Read more here 14 July 2022, Renew Economy: The madness of cutting down forests to grow food crops for supersonic aircraft biofuels. Regular readers will recognise several recurring themes in my writing, including the risks involved with reviving carbon-intensive supersonic aircraft and the challenges of scaling sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). In this installment I deal with both. In June 2021, United Airlines announced that it intends to purchase 15 “Overture” aircraft from Boom Supersonic, with an option to purchase 35 more. In June 2022, United CEO Scott Kirby reaffirmed that United’s purchase remains “on track”. Those planes, we were originally told, will operate on 100% synthetic SAF produced from renewable electricity. In a January 2022 study conducted in partnership with MIT we concluded that even such a high-integrity “e-fuel” isn’t likely to mitigate the climate impact of supersonic aircraft. Unfortunately, the prognosis for delivering supersonic aircraft that burn clean fuels has gotten even bleaker. Last September, the Biden administration announced the “Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge”, a whole-of-government initiative to spur the production of 3 billion gallons of SAF by 2030. That’s more than a 100x increase from 2020 global production. Read more here 19 April 2022, Renew Economy: “Another lie:” It is time to call out Coalition’s climate modelling con. It’s back – the now predictable feature of Coalition election tactics – a scare campaign against Labor’s climate and energy policy. Tuesday saw the latest example of the Coalition making astronomical claims about the costs of Labor climate policies courtesy of federal energy minister Angus Taylor and the Murdoch media, both citing unpublished modelling. It is the latest in a long history of climate policy scare campaigns run by the Coalition, claiming that Labor’s policies will lead to a surge in electricity prices. It is a tactic kick-started by Tony Abbott’s attacks on the Gillard government’s carbon price in the lead up to the 2013 campaign. It helped Abbott win that campaign, and so every federal election since has seen concocted modelling used to produce fanciful claims about the costs of Labor policies and which are then provided to and run uncritically by favoured media outlets. It is designed to scare voters and has been a major factor in Australia’s failure to take meaningful action on climate change for the last decade. It has been responsible for setting Australia back in the global transition to clean energy. Read more here 14 April 2022, Climate Home News: Saudi Arabia dilutes fossil fuel phase out language with techno fixes in IPCC report. Saudi Arabia watered down a major UN climate science report by pushing for the use of unproven technologies that would allow the continued extraction of oil and gas, sources close to the negotiations have told Climate Home News. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s latest report focuses on how to halt global heating below 2C and to 1.5C in line with the Paris Agreement. While it deals with solutions, this is the most politically sensitive part of the IPCC’s three-part assessment. Publication was delayed by six hours on Monday following a marathon 40-hour session over the weekend for scientists and government representatives to finalise its summary for policymakers – the longest approval plenary in the IPCC’s 34-year history. The document concludes “a substantial reduction in overall fossil fuel use” is needed to tackle the climate crisis. But compared to earlier drafts, there is a much stronger emphasis on technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide underground (CCS) as a potential solution that extends the lifespan of coal, oil and gas infrastructure…. In the negotiations, Saudi Arabia was isolated on the issue. But its vocal position may have provided cover for others with similar views. “The US was silent on CCS,” Teresa Anderson, climate justice lead at ActionAid International, told Climate Home. “It really seemed like they were happy to let Saudi Arabia be the bad guys.”Read more here 9 January 2024, NOAA Climate.GOV: What’s in a number? The meaning of the 1.5-C climate threshold. Numbers and the meanings we attach to them can be weird. A number can mean a lot or very little depending on how it is being used, and who is using it. To a Taylor Swift fan, 13 is a lucky number. To many in Western cultures, it is a day of bad luck when falling on a Friday. To others, 13 is just the number that comes after 12. When it comes to climate science and policy, one of our “13s” is the 1.5°C climate threshold, shorthand for global average surface warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. That’s the level of warming that the countries who signed the Paris Agreement have agreed to try to stay below. But what does pre-industrial mean? How do we know when we’ve passed 1.5°C? And what happens if we do? When you read or hear climate numbers, they are often being compared to average. The September 2023 NOAA global surface temperatures, for instance, were 1.44 degrees Celsius above average. That average represents a defined period of time. In this case, September was 1.44°C warmer than the average September of the twentieth century. For the 1.5°C climate threshold, the “average” time range is defined as the “pre-industrial period”, or the period of time before the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human-emissions began to significantly influence global temperatures. Sounds a bit vague, right? What years make up this “pre-industrial period?” It depends. Most history books define the dates of the Industrial Revolution as between the mid-1700s and mid-1800s, but scientific definitions of pre-industrial typically cover some range of decades between 1850 and 1900. Why? Because that’s the earliest time period with widespread, consistent surface temperature records. Different research groups use different parts of the broader time range. For NOAA data, we currently define pre-industrial as 1850-1900. (Footnote 1) While there can be differences in what counts as “pre-industrial”, it’s important to remember that industrial versus pre-industrial is really about the human signature on our climate and how scientists can distinguish that from natural variability going back thousands of years. (Footnote 2) Read more here New Scientist, 6 December 2023: Major climate tipping points could be triggered within a decade. The climate has warmed so much that we are already at risk of triggering five global “tipping points” that would have catastrophic effects worldwide and couldn’t be reversed easily if at all, according to a major report. As the world goes past 1.5°C of warming, it will be increasingly likely that we will cross these tipping points, and there will be a growing risk of this resulting in others as well. “Triggering one tipping point could trigger another in a kind of dangerous domino effect,” says Tim Lenton at the University of Exeter in the UK, the report’s lead author. “But also these tipping points in the Earth system could, in turn, trigger damaging tipping points in societies, things like food security crises, mass displacement and conflicts. Stopping these threats is possible, but it’s going to require urgent global action.” A tipping point is where a small alteration in a system can cause abrupt changes that are hard to reverse or are irreversible, because of amplifying feedback processes. Lenton says this is like leaning back on a chair: when it is near the balance point, just a small nudge can make the chair fall over. The report, put together by more than 200 researchers worldwide, brings together all the existing studies on tipping points and also includes research that is about to be published. According to the report, the five major tipping points we are near to crossing are: the loss of the Greenland ice sheet, the demise of the West Antarctic ice sheet, the die-off of tropical coral reefs, the abrupt thaw of large areas of Arctic permafrost and the slowing of an ocean current known as the North Atlantic subpolar gyre. The subpolar gyre is a circular current south of Greenland where salty water cools and sinks. It is linked to the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), but there is growing evidence that the current could slow or stop separately from and sooner than the AMOC, says David Armstrong McKay, also at the University of Exeter. Read more here The conversation, 5 December 2023: Fossil CO₂ emissions hit record high yet again in 2023. Global emissions of fossil carbon dioxide (CO₂), in yet another year of growth, will increase by 1.1% in 2023. These emissions will hit a record 36.8 billion tonnes. That’s the finding of the Global Carbon Project’s 18th annual report card on the state of the global carbon budget, which we released today. Fossil CO₂ includes emissions from the combustion and use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and cement production. Adding CO₂ emissions and removals from land-use change, such as deforestation and reforestation, human activities are projected to emit 40.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2023. The world’s vegetation and oceans continue to remove about half of all CO₂ emissions. The rest builds up in the atmosphere and is causing increasing warming of the planet. At current emission levels, the remaining carbon budget for a one-in-two chance to limit warming to 1.5°C will likely be exceeded in seven years, and in 15 years for 1.7°C. The need to cut emissions has never been so urgent. Read more here 29 November 2023, RealClimate: Science denial is still an issue ahead of COP28. It is 33 years now since the IPCC in its first report in 1990 concluded that it is “certain” that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities “will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface.” That has indeed happened as predicted, it has been confirmed by a zillion studies and has been scientific consensus for decades. Yet, when the next global climate summit is coming up (it’s starting tomorrow), we don’t only learn that the host, United Arab Emirates, intends to use the event for new oil deals. We also see more attempts to cast doubt that global warming is caused by emissions from burning oil, gas and coal – as so often before these summits. This time making the rounds is a “discussion paper” published by Statistics Norway. It is noteworthy not because it contains anything new (it doesn’t), but because despite clearly violating the established standards of good scientific practice, it was published by a government agency. That’s why it is having an impact in non-scientific quarters including the corporate world, and it has even been cited in a submission to proceedings of the German parliament. The flood of fallacies or deceptions begins with the paper’s title: “To what extent are temperature levels changing due to greenhouse gas emissions?” But the effect of greenhouse gases is not even investigated in the paper – which suggests the title is politically motivated. And the paper revolves around ignoring past studies and basic physics, using dubious sources, and the glaring blunder of arguing that warming at any individual weather station might be caused by random weather variations, without ever wondering how it is possible that these supposed random variations go in the same direction all over the planet: in the direction of warming. The paper provides a good opportunity to illustrate how climate science obfuscation works, and to remind readers how we actually know for sure that greenhouse gas emissions are indeed responsible for modern global warming. 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 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 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 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?
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/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3915730/EIA%20coal%20power%20plants.png)
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
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.
