19/01/2017

Southeast Asia’s Coal Boom Could Cause 70,000 Deaths Per Year By 2030, Report Says

Mongabay - 

Approximately 50,000 lives a year could saved by 2030 if no new coal-fired power plants are built in Southeast Asia, South Korea, Japan or Taiwan, a new study finds.
50 year-old Munjiah holds her chest X-Ray, showing specks in her lungs at her home near the Cilacap coal-fired power station in Central Java. Photo by Kemal Jufri/Indonesia.
Air pollution from coal-fired power plants is already a major killer in Southeast Asia and that death toll could more than triple in the next 15 years, according to a study by researchers from Harvard University and Greenpeace published last week in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Indonesia, Vietnam, China and Myanmar would be the most affected, the study found.
Southeast Asia is in the midst of an intense drive to expand its power grid, with demand for electricity in 2035 projected to increase by 83 percent over 2011 levels. Much of that demand is slated to be met by coal, with Indonesia alone planning to build 176 new coal-fired power plants by 2030.
As a result, while emissions from coal have reduced in the United States and Europe (and are projected to decline in China), the researchers found that Southeast Asia, Korea and Japan could see their combined coal-related emissions triple by 2030.
If that happens, the region’s mortality rate will rise even faster. At present, air pollution from coal-fired power plants in the area of study were estimated to cause around 20,000 premature deaths per year. If all planned coal projects go through, that figure could reach 70,000 per year by 2030.
Current and projected premature deaths due to particulate matter and ozone pollution from coal. Graph courtesy of Lauri Myllyvirta/Greenpeace.
The researchers analyzed the impact of particulate matter and ozone pollution linked to existing and planned coal projects in 11 countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. (India and China were excluded due to the relative abundance of existing studies focusing on those countries.)
Calculations factored in the location and capacity of each project, local emissions standards and population trends in the project area. Results were analyzed using atmospheric models and global databases tracking and projecting causes of premature deaths.
Indonesia was found to be the most affected country, with coal-related air pollution projected to cause 24,400 excess deaths per year by 2030. Vietnam would follow with 19,220 excess deaths per year, while Myanmar could see 4,030 deaths per year. Although power plants within China were not included in the study, that country could face 8,870 premature deaths per year due to cross-border pollution from other Asian countries.
The extremely high death rate for Indonesia comes down to the country’s dense and rapidly growing population, the large number of planned projects, and its relatively weak emissions standards.
“Indonesia allows more than 10 times more pollution from a new coal-fired power plant than China does, which is quite astonishing,” study co-author Lauri Myllyvirta, air pollution specialist for Greenpeace East Asia, told Mongabay.
The densely populated island of Java was found to be a hotspot for projected air-quality impacts. “The power plants built next to large population centers have the worst overall health impacts,” Myllyvirta said.
That doesn’t mean that shifting plants to less populated areas is without costs. “If you are one person living, let’s say, 50 kilometers from a power plant the personal health risk is the same,” he explained. “It’s just because of the fact that more people are exposed that you see the bigger impact.”
The Wujiata Open Pit Coal Mine near Ulan Moron, China, fills the air with coal dust. Photo by Qui Bo/Greenpeace.
Improving emissions standards could lead to “a very substantial decrease in health impacts,” Myllyvirta said. This is a perhaps even more true in Myanmar: “They have no standards, every project is just choosing what they like, what they want to do in terms of controlling emissions, so that’s definitely a particular worry.”
However, Myllyvirta said he hopes the study’s findings will encourage policymakers to look at more than just emissions controls. “For a number of reasons – the public health impacts, the impacts of coal mining on communities, the impacts of this coal expansion on the climate, for all these reasons – it would make sense for Southeast Asia to shift new investments into renewable energy as soon as possible,” he said.

CITATION: Koplitz, S., Jacob D., Sulprizio, M., Myllyvirta, L., and Reid, C. (2017). Burden of Disease from Rising Coal-Fired Power Plant Emissions in Southeast Asia. Environmental Science and Technology, Publication (Web): Jan. 12, 2017.

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Australia Should Invest In Coal Power To Reduce Emissions, Minister Says

The Guardian - 

Economists and energy analysts question environmental and economic case for Matt Canavan’s coal push
Federal minister for resources Matt Canavan has touted new research on the benefits of replacing Australia’s existing coal power stations with ‘ultra-supercritical’ technology. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP
Research touted by the resources minister that reportedly suggests Australia can rely on coal to meet emissions reduction has been attacked by experts and appears to have been misreported.
The Australian reported on Tuesday that research conducted by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science – and commissioned by Matt Canavan, the federal minister for resources – showed Australia could cut its emissions by 27% if it replaced its existing coal power stations with the more efficient “ultra-supercritical” technology.
If true, that would get the country close to its 2030 target, which is a reduction of 28% below 2005 levels.
However, a summary of the analysis seen by Guardian Australia suggests the new coal technology – under a very expensive demolition and construction program – could reduce Australia’s emissions by 12% at most.
In fact, to reduce Australia’s emissions by 27% by relying on reductions in the electricity industry alone, the sector’s emissionswould need to be reduced to almost zero. Australia’s entire electricity sector only accounts for about a third of its carbon emissions.
On the basis of the analysis, Canavan released a statement attacking “people who oppose the coal industry for ideological reasons”.
“Coal has an important role to play as Australia, and the rest of the world, reduce carbon dioxide emissions,” he said. “Australia has the resources to be a low-cost and efficient energy superpower. Access to affordable and reliable power underpins our economy and is the key to long-term jobs in the manufacturing sector.”
But energy analyst Olivia Kember from the Climate Institute said locking in decades of emissions from new coal generators would jeopardise longer-term commitments made in Paris, including reaching net zero emissions in the second half of the century.
“Australia has committed through the Paris Agreement to achieve net zero emissions. Building new coal stations that can go no further than a reduction of 25% to 34% doesn’t achieve the net zero goal, and would lock Australia into decades of high-carbon electricity while the rest of the world is switching to clean power,” Kember said.
“That’s such a risky outcome that I doubt any financial institutions would even finance investments in ultra-supercritical coal in Australia.”
Australia’s chief scientist reached a similar conclusion in his preliminary report on the future security of the electricity market, which was commissioned by the Turnbull government.
In the report Alan Finkel said: “Owner-investors are exiting emissions-intensive power stations as these reach the end of their design lives. It has been clear from our consultations that no one is contemplating investing in new ones, nor would financial institutions provide finance.”
Rod Campbell, an economist at the Australia Institute, said an ambitious plan to replace all of Australia’s existing coal power stations with brand new ones would drive up electricity prices. And it would do so by more than if coal was replaced with renewable energy.
Campbell pointed to government-funded clean-coal research from 2015, which already showed energy from some new-built wind farms was cheaper than advanced coal power stations. And that report claimed that by 2030, all wind and solar would be cheaper.
But more up-to-date analysis from the US financial advisors, Lazard, shows that almost all new wind and and solar power is now cheaper than almost all new coal power.
Labor’s spokesperson for climate change and energy, Mark Butler, said Canavan’s intervention was part of an ideological attack on renewable energy.
“For a government that has been so vocal about not picking winners, the Turnbull government seems to be very comfortable picking coal as Australia’s future energy source,” he said in a statement.
“The latest intervention by Minister Canavan trumpeting coal isn’t about securing a reliable and affordable energy future; at its core it is just the latest ideological attack on renewables by a government desperate to draw attention away from the fact it has no plan on energy and climate,” Butler said.
Brendan Pearson, the chief executive of the mining lobby group, the Minerals Council of Australia, welcomed the departmental report saying it showed “new coal generation technologies can reduce Australia’s emissions sharply while providing reliable and affordable energy to households and businesses.”
“It is simply common sense that these technologies be part of Australia’s efforts to meet its emissions reduction targets while maintaining affordable and secure energy supply,” he said in a statement.

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Australia Joining US In Openly Trashing Global Climate Efforts

Fairfax - Bill McKibben*

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Here we are – Donald Trump is about to become the 45th president of the United States and we have to prepare for the onslaught.
It beggars belief that in 2016 an outright climate change denier could rise to the highest office in the US, dragging with him a Republican controlled Congress hungry to revive the old glory days of coal, gas and oil, not to mention a Secretary of State that until last month ran the biggest oil company on earth.
Bill McKibben (black cap) was among activists arrested outside the White House in 2013 protesting against the proposed expansion of the Keystone oil pipeline. Two years later, the expansion was canned. Photo: Getty Images
Yet while Australians may groan and worry at the destruction that Trump will bring, take a look at your own Trump-like administration.
Washington DC may be awash with fossil fuel operatives, but Australia is no stranger to fossil fuel barons holding political sway either – indeed, you elected one to Parliament a few years ago in the form of Clive Palmer. And as Trump thrusts the US firmly into a position as international climate pariah, we are sadly joining Australia as two rogue developed nations openly trashing global climate efforts.
Bill McKibben warns Australia risks missing out on the new jobs and investment opportunities offered by renewable energy industries. Photo: Nic Walker
Similarly, while Trump and his team talks big about slashing environmental regulations and opening up new federal lands to drilling, the Turnbull Government is pushing ahead to develop the first new minerals basin in 40 years through the Adani coal mine project in Queensland.
Driven by Resource Minister – and coal zealot – Senator Matt Canavan, the Adani proposal runs roughshod over the wishes of the local Traditional Owners and the glaringly obvious science that shows to stay within the safe limit of 2 degrees of warming there can be no new fossil fuel projects.
If all the coal in this mega mine is dug up and burned it will produce as much pollution as all the European Union countries put together and would put not only the Great Barrier Reef in harm's way but clearly the global climate.
The call for no new coal, oil and gas is not an ideological position. It is basic physics. It is the Trump and Turnbull governments that are pursuing their dangerous ideological agendas in the face of facts, science and the Paris climate agreement.
Illustration Matt Golding
Let's be clear – there is no mandate for these governments to destroy the global climate. Trump was not exactly swept into office – he lost the popular vote by more than 3 million people and aided by mass electoral interference by a foreign country.
I have met Malcolm Turnbull and I actually believe he wants (or once wanted) to see action on climate change. He believes, I think, in the role of science and innovation to create a cleaner future and a strong economy, but is being held hostage by fringe elements in his party and sadly seems unable to provide strong leadership. He has shrunk into his role and allowed rabid climate deniers to prevent Australia from benefiting from the rapidly growing low-carbon economy.
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org Photo: Supplied
The fossil fuel era now has an expiry date. Investors know it, businesses know it and global markets know it.
Large scale renewable energy projects are now cheaper than new coal power plants and every year the costs get cheaper. This year China has pledged to spend $US360 billion ($482 billion) over the next four year on renewable projects. This is as much as the whole world spent over the past four years.
Can you imagine what this will mean for clean technology in China? Not only will it create 13 million new jobs, but an investment of this size will drive even greater innovation. By vacating this space not only are Australia and the US blocking faster action on climate change, they are opting to miss out on the new jobs and investment opportunities offered by these industries.
We all have a role to play in ensuring our governments remain culpable for their failures and seize the opportunities of tomorrow. When our governments and laws fail to act in our best interests we have a responsibility to step up and take action.
That is why I will continue to protest the Donald Trump Presidency and all it stands for. I expect my friends in Australia to do the same. The next few years are going to test us. But with the cresting power of clean energy at our backs, we have a chance.

​*Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org, an author and former New Yorker staff writer.

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