Lethal Heating: 04/17/17

17/04/2017

Australia’s Climate Bomb: The Senselessness Of Adani’s Carmichael Coal Mine

The Conversation - David Holmes

AAP/Lukas Coch

Veteran environmental campaigner and former Greens senator Bob Brown has previously pointed to Adani's proposed Carmichael coal mine as the new Franklin River of environmental protest in Australia. Yet the future of this "climate bomb" hangs in the balance.
The ongoing contest over the mine's approval is about to get very heated. Some of the final decisions are to be made very soon.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared that native title claims would not impede the approval process, and that Adani would press ahead with its plans to seek A$1 billion in funding for the rail line needed to transport coal to Abbot Point for export.
The consequences of going ahead with the mine are almost incalculable. This is not simply because of the emissions it will produce, but from the fact it promotes and normalises the insanity that coal can still be "good for humanity".
Here's my list of the ten most-absurd things about the Adani mine.

As the largest coal mine in the Australia when completed, Adani will legitimise the idea of mining all of the coal in the Galilee Basin. If extracted and burnt, this will get the world one-third of the way toward 2℃ of global warming. The Adani mine alone will see up to 2.3 billion tonnes of coal extracted from an area five times the size of Sydney Harbour over 60 years. This is equivalent to putting out 7.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases. The global budget is now less than 500 billion tonnes in order to have an 80% chance of keeping global average temperature rise to less than 2℃.
The mine lies adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. The heaviest risk to the reef's future is a continued increase in greenhouse gases. You couldn't invent a greater insult to the beloved reef than begin mining operations that amount to an affront to those who have begun to mourn for its imminent death.
After years of bashing renewables as unviable without government subsidy, contemplating a $1 billion subsidy to the mine by the Turnbull government is quite perverse. Fossil-fuel companies already receive $2,000 in rebates and subsidies for every $1 they donate to Australia's major political parties. So, this additional subsidy makes a mockery of any serious attempt to tackle climate change.
With climate-change-induced extreme weather events exacting billions of dollars of damage across Australia, and especially in Queensland, the idea that public money would be used to increase these damage bills by injecting even more energy into the world's climate system by accelerating greenhouse gas emissions is absurd. Cyclone Debbie – a category-four cyclone – actually impacted on the areas of the mine itself, and delivered more peak rainfall than Cyclone Yasi, which was a category-five cyclone only six years ago. Since 2006, insurers have paid more than $6.8 billion in cyclone- and flood-related claims in Queensland alone. Debbie is expected to add another $1 billion.
That the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund could be used to subsidise the mine is in contempt of any claim to responsible climate – and financial – policy. That such a fund could be so directly controlled by so few people and have such enormous impact on greenhouse concentrations is a travesty.
The argument that the royalties from the mine would benefit Australia are not supported by the recent revelations that Adani has set up an elaborate network of subsidiaries and trusts which are ultimately owned and controlled from the tax haven of the Cayman Islands.
That the Queensland Labor government could buy into a jobs campaign around the mine when renewable technologies can carry the promise of even more jobs, and without risk to the Great Barrier Reef that is threatened by the dredging associated with the mine, and therefore is a danger to the tourism industry, is outrageous. Adani's own consultants have suggested the mine would produce fewer than 1,500 full-time jobs. This amounts to a public subsidy of $683,000 per job.
Adani's argument that somehow the mine will be lifting Indians out of poverty is a PR disguise for a company that has been accused of blatant human rights abuses. This argument, invented by the now-failed Peabody Energy and most famously popularised by Bjorn Lomborg, has also been a favourite of Coalition MPs. This argument is thoroughly patronising – not simply because India itself has declared renewables to be more important than coal, but because it is the oppressive legacy of colonialism that under-developed third-world countries in the first place.
The desperate plea by Resources Minister Matt Canavan, mounted in the face of a greater lunacy, that the coal Adani would export is "clean coal" that would actually cut emissions, has been dismissed by analysts at the International Energy Agency.
To commit to a mine that it supposed to run for 60 years as the price of coal continues to be devalued in the face of investment moving to renewables is business suicide. It does not even take account of what the world's climate will be like in 35 years. With the equator in a permanent heatwave and so much more storm-feeding energy in the system, coal won't just be the new tobacco. It will become the grim reaper we see in our rear-view mirror.

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John Hewson Says $1bn Loan To Adani The 'Last Thing' Coalition Should Be Doing

The Guardian - Gareth Hutchens

Former Liberal leader says Adani Carmichael coalmine a 'stranded asset' after Malcolm Turnbull claims it would create tens of thousands of jobs

The former federal Liberal leader Dr John Hewson says there is 'no way' the Turnbull government should lend Adani $1bn of taxpayers' money. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

A former Liberal party leader says the controversial Adani Carmichael coalmine is already a "stranded asset" and the last thing the Turnbull government should be doing is lending Adani $1bn.
Dr John Hewson, a professor in economics, has criticised the Turnbull government for considering lending Adani nearly $1bn in taxpayer money via the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF).
Hewson said the fund should only be used to help projects become commercially viable but the $1bn would be used by Adani to build a railway to a coalmine that Australia's major banks have refused to fund.
"If they're going to build it, they have to fund it themselves," he told Sky News on Sunday. "There is no way we should give them concessional finance.
"If you take a long-term view on emissions reduction, 85% of existing coal reserves cannot be mined and used in power generation if we're going to meet net zero emissions by 2050.
"We have an imperative in our own circumstances not to do it and certainly the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility's mandate is just to top up to make projects that are not viable commercially viable – that's the last thing we should be doing.
"I think it's already a stranded asset in the terms that I'd look at many of these fossil fuel assets."
In India last week, the Indian billionaire Gautam Adani told Turnbull his company would seek a loan of up to $1bn from Australian taxpayers to support his proposed Queensland coalmine.
Turnbull assured him that native title obstacles threatening the project would be "fixed".
"They are enthusiastic to make an application to the NAIF," Turnbull said.
But Dr Craig Emerson, a former Labor MP and professor in economics, said on Sunday it was "telling" that Turnbull had not said, when visiting India, that he was pleased to use taxpayer subsidies worth $1bn to support Adani's mine in Queensland.
"He didn't because he couldn't, and there's a very open question as to whether that should be allowed," Emerson said.
In December last year, the government's NAIF granted Adani "conditional approval" for a $1bn loan to Adani to build a rail line between its proposed Carmichael coalmine and the Abbot Point shipping terminal in Queensland.
The rail line, if built, would allow Adani to build the country's biggest coalmine and open up the Galilee Basin to further mines by linking them to an export terminal.
Coral scientists have argued the coal needs to stay in the ground if the Great Barrier Reef is to be protected from the impacts of climate change. The economic benefits of the proposed mine are also disputed.
Last week in India, Turnbull said the Carmichael mine would create "tens of thousands of jobs" if it went ahead – larger than the previously largest claim of 10,000 jobs.
Adani claims on its website the mine will create 10,000 jobs but does not provide evidence to support the claim.
The prime minister's office, when contacted by Guardian Australia last week, said Turnbull's figure of "tens of thousands of jobs" had come from a Pricewaterhousecoopers report commissioned by Adani but the report wasn't public.
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said on Sunday that the case had not been made for taxpayers to provide a low-concession rate loan of $1bn to a multinational mining company.
"I haven't seen the argument that somehow this concessional loan is going to unlock tens of thousands of jobs," Shorten said. "If this [project] is such a good deal, it won't need the taxpayers of Australia to underwrite it."
The Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm said on Sunday he was also opposed to the NAIF lending Adani any money.
"I wouldn't like taxpayers' money going to the benefit of a privately owned company," he told Sky News on Sunday. "If the mine doesn't stack up on its own merits then it shouldn't proceed, it shouldn't need taxpayers' money to kick it along."
The Adani board is expected to decide whether to approve the controversial project as early as May.

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Coalition Says Wind Turbines Increase Emissions, More Coal Needed

Renew Economy - Giles Parkinson

Coalition Senators say that wind turbines are likely to cause greenhouse gas emissions to increase, and insist that the best thing that Australia can do to combat climate change is to export more thermal coal.
The extraordinary conclusions – from Senators Chris Back and Jonathon Duniam – were included in the dissenting report to the Senate inquiry into the resilience of electricity infrastructure in a warming world. They also insist that coal and gas would remain the dominant sources for electricity around the world for “many generations to come.”

“Energy generated by wind turbines do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the electricity sector by the amount claimed. In fact, there is some evidence that the addition of wind energy onto the grid actually increases carbon emissions,” the Coalition Senators wrote.
It was one of four dissenting views on the report prepared by the Greens chair Sarah Hanson-Young, highlighting the impossible nature of Australia’s energy politics, and the apparent refusal of any parties to agree on anything, including facts.
One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts issued a dissenting report which simply claimed that there was no such thing as a warming world, or at least one caused by man. Nick Xenophon insisted that gas should play a prominent role in the energy transition, and also quoted a debunked Murdoch media report that there was a “20 per cent limit” on wind energy; while Labor issued a dissenting report because they didn’t want to be seen agreeing with the Greens, even though they largely did.
The main thrust of the Greens report was for the managed exit of coal-fired generation and the need to meet strict climate targets.
It said coal had “no role to play in a secure energy future”, questioned the role of gas as a transitional source of energy, and argued that storage technologies – including off-river pumped hydro, thermal energy storage, and batteries – are able to overcome the problems of intermittent generation and allow the grid to be converted to 100 per cent clean renewable energy at minimum cost.
It supported expanding and extending the renewable energy target, a carbon trading scheme, expressed its support for a change to the 5-minute rule, an investigation into the relaxation of settings on fossil fuel generators, and for widespread reform of the AEMC, the rule-making body considered by most to be too slow moving.
Labor said it broadly agreed with the contents of the report, but not its conclusions. It did support an orderly exit of coal generation, no government money for new coal power, support for new technologies, and market reforms to encourage those new technologies. And it wanted an emissions intensity scheme.
The contents of the Coalition’s dissenting report, however, are quite extraordinary, and highlight the difficulties that prime minister Malcolm Turnbull would have if he ever chose to implement sensible energy policies, or sought to implement the inevitable conclusions of the Finkel Review.
In essence, the Coalition’s report was a collection of renewable energy myths that might have been collected from far-right anti-wind and climate denying websites:
For example:

“Energy generated by wind turbines do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the electricity sector by the amount claimed. In fact, there is some evidence that the addition of wind energy onto the grid actually increases carbon emissions.”

and

“It is a legislated requirement that 600 million renewable energy certificates (RECs) will be issued between now and 2031, adding a cost of at least $50 billion to power bills. This represents a significant wealth transfer to wind power companies from Australian power consumers and achieves no measurable benefit to the environment.”

This assumes that the 600 million RECs will all be traded at the current price of $80. They won’t, and it is ridiculous to suggest they would. There is every chance that with a surplus from 2020 as more wind and solar farms are built, they will have negligible value.
That the Coalition allows such palpable nonsense to be issued in its name is staggering. But the main source of their information seem to be from the notorious anti-wind campaigners and economic analysts Alan Moran and Brian Fisher, who the two Senators quote throughout their report.
And the fossil fuel lobby:

“With Australia emitting less than 1.5% of the world’s GHG’s, our greatest contribution globally may be to supply high energy, low polluting coal to the burgeoning economies of China and India as they transition their populations from subsistence living to middle class aspiration.”

But perhaps the greatest piece of idiocy and ignorance came in this following paragraph, relating to the proposed change of the 30 minute settlement period to a 5 minute settlement, to align with the dispatch period.

“Coalition Senators comment that the market price is currently averaged over 30 minutes. If generators were expected to jump on and off the grid every 5 minutes, the stability of the grid will be compromised. “

Are you kidding? That is pretty much what is happening now as the generators suddenly withdraw capacity to push prices within a short period and then flood the market with suddenly available capacity

“Many generators need more than half an hour to synchronise to the grid and have set forward contracts.”

Er, yes, and that would be why people are proposing 5-minute rules to encourage fast-reacting and even instantaneous responses from new technologies to take over from the dumb, slow moving machinery that currently dominates the grid. If you can’t respond in 5 minutes, don’t. And don’t expect to be paid for something you can’t do!
Indeed, the Coalition presumptions on coal and the whole energy debate appear to be based on the very same climate denial conclusions of Roberts. Even the highly conservative IEA concedes that solar will dominate the world’s electricity grid if climate targets are to be met.
The only circumstance where coal does remain dominant is if climate science is ignored – something that the Coalition has, for all intents and purposes, chosen to do in its first four years of government.

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