The World Is Going Slow On Coal, But Misinformation Is Distorting The Facts

The Guardian - Adam Morton

A recent story on 621 plants being built globally was played up in various media – but the figure is way off the mark

China still uses a stack of coal but data shows it has stopped construction at 33 sites in the past three months. Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

This is a story about how misinformation can take hold. It’s not always down to dishonesty. Sometimes it’s just a lack of time, a headline and the multiplying power of ideological certainty.
Last week, China announced it was stopping or postponing work on 151 coal plants that were either under, or earmarked for, construction.
Last month, India reported its national coal fleet on average ran at little more than 60% of its capacity – among other things, well below what is generally considered necessary for an individual generator to be financially viable.
Neither of these stories gained much of a foothold in the Australia media. But one story on global coal did: that 621 plants were being built across the planet.
The line was run in print, repeated on national radio and rippled out on social media among likeminded audiences. Some politicians and commentators claimed it showed it was strange, maybe even ridiculous, that MPs, financiers and energy companies said new coal power stations had no role to play in Australia.
But the figure is wrong. Way off, in fact. According to the most recent data, there are 267 coal stations under construction. More than 40% of those are not actually new ones, but expansions of existing generators.

Global coal power construction as at July 2017

A bit of background: the figure dates back to 19 June, when Nationals senator John “Wacka” Williams asked the parliamentary library to answer a few reasonable questions. How many coal plants are there in other countries? How many have been built recently or are being built? How many have closed? According to the parliamentary library analysis, he wanted the answers by 4pm the same day.
Fast forward to September, and the Australian ran a page one story quoting the analysis under the headline “World building new coal plants faster than it shuts them”. The Oz (correctly) reported that the library found 621 coal-fired power units were being built. This was mis-repeated by several people who don’t accept that climate change is a present threat – including blogger and broadcaster Andrew Bolt and government backbench energy and environment committee chair Craig Kelly – as 621 plants being built.
In reality, coal power stations are usually made up of several units. Victoria’s Hazelwood, which shut in March, had eight. But the distinction mattered little once Bolt had provided the shareable online headline: “New coal-fired power stations: World 621, Australia zero. Now understand?”
While the stations/units confusion is relevant, it is not the main issue. The 621 is incorrect, however you cut it.By the time it appeared in the media, it was more than a year out of date. How do we know? The guy behind the data that was the initial source for the library analysis says so.
The parliamentary library used as its source the Comstat Data Portal, a trade-focused African website not known for its energy expertise. As the library noted, the African portal copied its data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker, the widely respected database run by US-based anti-coal organisation CoalSwarm and used by the OECD, International Energy Agency and Bloomberg publications. But none of the players involved in spreading this story in Australia contacted CoalSwarm directly to check if the African database was accurate.
It’s not. Ted Nace, the director of CoalSwarm, says there appeared to be numerous transcription errors. More significantly, the data on Comstat is out of date – from August last year. It did not reflect that new construction of coal plants plummeted in 2016 and 2017 following declines in construction in China and India.
More coal-fired capacity is still being built than closed each year, though the gap has narrowed significantly.

Global coal power capacity built and retired, 2010-2017

Guardian Graphic | Source: Global Coal Plant Tracker, July 2017 *(up to July)

But, crucially, coal stations are not being used as much. The amount of electricity produced across the planet by burning coal has fallen each year since 2013.
“A distinction needs to be kept in mind between capacity and electrical output,” Nace says. “Even though there are more power plants, the actual production of electricity from those plants – and likewise the amount of coal used worldwide – has fallen every year since 2013, with a small drop in 2014 and larger drops in 2015 and 2016.”

Yearly change in coal production, 2010-2016

Guardian graphic | Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy

The parliamentary assessment, and subsequent reporting, would have benefited from a closer glance at a report released in March by CoalSwarm, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Titled Boom and Bust 2017, it found an extraordinary 62% drop in new coal plant construction across the globe last year, and an 85% fall in new coal plant permits in China.
Analysis of CoalSwarm’s database shows that in July, construction was taking place at 300 plants globally. Of those, 183 were new power stations and 117 extensions of existing plants. But that number is changing rapidly.
As in so many things, the extraordinary story in coal comes from China. It still uses a stack of it, and is still building plenty of power stations. But according to a breakdown of the latest cancellation data announced last week by Simon Holmes à Court, senior adviser at the University of Melbourne’s energy transition hub, it stopped construction at 33 sites in the past three months alone.
It means that since July, the number of new coal stations being built in China has fallen from 103 to just 74. There has also been a slight decrease in the number being expanded, down to 46. The reason? A glut in the Chinese electricity market. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found its coal fleet ran at only 47.5% capacity last year.
India is the other big player, with 45 power stations under construction – 19 new plants and 26 being expanded. While debate continues to rage over whether the Australian government should subsidise Adani’s planned giant export coal mine in outback Queensland, existing Indian coal plants – including those owned by Adani – are struggling.
Among countries comparable to Australia in terms of development, Japan – which signalled it would make a significant investment in coal after shutting down its nuclear fleet following the Fukushima disaster six years ago – has 14 construction projects, many of them small by Australian standards.
Germany has been held up by lobby group the Minerals Council of Australia as an industrialised country investing in “high efficiency, low emissions”, or HELE, coal technology. It has one station under construction. Building work at what is known as Datteln 4 started a decade ago next month. After several delays, it is due to be commissioned next year.
It is the only coal station being built in western Europe. Britain’s Conservative party has promised to phase out coal by 2025, and Justin Trudeau’s Canadian government by 2030. The two countries last week said they would work together to push other countries to join them. Despite Donald Trump’s grand promises about reviving the coal industry, there are no new stations under construction in the US.
What does all this mean for Australia? In terms of the political debate, probably very little. Given the modern aversion to the persuasive power of evidence, misinformation will find a way.
But don’t let yourself be kidded into thinking only local investors are leaving coal behind.

Links

• Tony Abbott needs to explain U-turn on climate change, Julie Bishop says
• New coal plants have a role in Australia's energy future, Josh Frydenberg says
• Alan Finkel defends clean energy target as Coalition turns its back
• Government 'clean coal' push would be likely to make Australia's emissions worse
• Hard facts unmask the fiction behind Coalition's 'coal comeback'
• Scott Morrison brings coal to question time: what fresh idiocy is this?
• Why coal-fired power handouts would be an attack on climate and common sense
• How Malcolm Turnbull could ignore the facts and fund the myth of 'clean' coal
• Australia dubbed 'fossil of the day' after lobbying for coal mine at climate talks
• Australian unions call for 'just transition' from coal-generated electricity

Australia Debates: Does A Warming Planet Really Need More Coal?

New York Times - Jacqueline Williams

An enormous expansion at Abbot Point, Australia’s most northern deep water coal port, is planned as part of a controversial mining project. David Maurice Smith for The New York Times

ABBOT POINT, Australia — In a desolate corner of northeastern Australia, about 100 miles from the nearest town, a grassy stretch of prime grazing land sits above a vein of coal so rich and deep that it could be mined for decades.

The Australian government is considering a proposal to build one of the world’s largest coal mines in this remote locale, known as the Galilee Basin, where acacia and eucalyptus trees grow wild between scattered creeks.

An Indian conglomerate, the Adani Group, has asked for a taxpayer-financed loan of as much as $800 million to make the enormous project viable, promising to create thousands of jobs in return.

But the plan has met intense opposition in Australia and abroad, focusing attention on a question with global resonance: Given the threat of climate change and the slowing global demand for coal, does the world really need another giant mine, especially at the public’s expense?

Adani has proposed building six open-cut pits and five underground complexes capable of producing as much as 66 million tons of coal a year. New infrastructure to support the mine — a rail line to the coast and an expanded port — would also make it economically feasible to extract coal from at least eight additional sites in the Galilee Basin.

That could more than double coal output in Australia, which already produces more coal than any other nation except China, the United States and India. About 88 percent of the 487 million tons of coal mined annually in Australia is exported.

Mick Derrick, center, a volunteer from the North Queensland Conservation Council, conducting a survey in Townsville, Queensland, about the proposed Adani coal mine. David Maurice Smith for The New York Times

For many environmentalists, what happens in this mining case is a test of the world’s commitment to fighting climate change. Its failure would register as an unmistakable sign of an international shift away from the fossil fuels behind climate change. But if Australia agrees to subsidize the mine — even though several commercial banks have shunned it — the project would demonstrate the lasting allure and influence of the coal industry.

“How it can be constructed — at a time when the whole world is committed to move away from fossil fuels — is madness that most people just can’t understand,” said Geoffrey Cousins, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

The project, known as the Carmichael mine, has provoked strong resistance in part because of its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, a natural wonder that is already dying because of overheated seawater blamed on climate change. Adani plans to deliver most of the coal to India on shipping routes that critics say would further damage the ecosystem of the world’s greatest system of reefs.

The debate over the mine has dominated headlines in Australia for months and fueled one of the most fervent environmental campaigns in the nation’s history. Protests have grown in size and frequency, and polls show Australians who oppose the mine outnumber those who support it by more than two-to-one.

A group of Indigenous Australians is also challenging Adani’s claim to the land.

But Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull supports the project, and it just needs financing to proceed. A government agency established to support private-sector infrastructure investment is reviewing Adani’s loan request, and the company has said it is also lining up money overseas.

“This is a tipping point,” said Maree Dibella, a coordinator of the North Queensland Conservation Council, referring to the mine’s role in the global campaign against coal.

The Collinsville coal mine, the oldest in Queensland. Proponents of a new mine say it would bring thousands of jobs to Queensland. David Maurice Smith for The New York Times

Around the Galilee Basin, where a population of less than 20,000 is scattered across an area the size of Britain, opinion is divided.

Bruce Currie, a cattle farmer who lives near the site and has traveled to India to investigate Adani’s record, said he is worried the mine will drain too much groundwater, calling it “yet another burden our small business has to bear.”

Several hours drive north in Collinsville, one of the area’s oldest mining communities, Roderick Macdonald, 57, a retired miner, said Adani had come to the town promising to build mining camps and employ local people.

“From what I can hear and see, Mr. Adani’s going to do nothing for this town,” Mr. Macdonald said, referring to Gautam Adani, the billionaire founder and chairman of the company.

But others in the region are more hopeful. Mining accounts for as much as 7 percent of the Australian economy, and the northeastern state of Queensland, where the Galilee Basin lies, has suffered a downturn in recent years because of slowing demand for natural resources, especially from China.

“I need jobs for Queenslanders,” said the state’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, of the Adani proposal.

Roderick Macdonald, a retired miner in Collinsville, Queensland. “From what I can hear and see,” he said, the proposed coal mine project would “do nothing for this town.” David Maurice Smith for The New York Times

Towns along the coast have been vying for potential contracts with the mine for maintenance work, construction and other services. “People are really rooting for this because of the economy,” said Stephen Smyth, a local union leader, who started working in underground mines at 17.

The Carmichael mine, he added, is “offering that thing of hope, hope for a better life, secure employment and better wages so people can live a reasonable life.”

Adani has said the project will create as many as 10,000 jobs in the region. But a consultant hired by Adani said the employment claim was overstated in court testimony given in a case where a conservation group was looking to block the mine. Critics have also noted that other mines in Australia may need to scale back production if Carmichael opens, meaning job losses elsewhere.

A host of Australian celebrities — including the rock band Midnight Oil — and international groups have urged Mr. Turnbull to kill the project, arguing that such a large mine would violate Australia’s commitment in the Paris climate accord to work to prevent temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

In April, Mr. Turnbull met with Mr. Adani and later told reporters that the mine “will create tens of thousands of jobs,” adding, “Plainly, there is a huge economic benefit from a big project of this kind, assuming it’s built and it proceeds.”

If Adani and other mines in the Galilee Basin go ahead and reach maximum production, coal from the region would release as much as 700 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, or nearly as much as Germany generates in emissions, according to a study by Greenpeace.

Coal awaiting export at the Abbot Point port. David Maurice Smith for The New York Times

Australia has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, but the coal it sells to India and other countries would not be counted in its total.

It is unclear if India even needs the extra coal. After years of big increases in coal consumption, the growth rate slowed last year as the nation has improved energy efficiency and shifted to solar, wind and hydropower. India’s coal-fired power plants are running below 60 percent of capacity, a record low, experts say.

That has raised questions about the economics of the Carmichael mine. Australia’s four largest banks have publicly ruled out financing it, and analysts have argued that the mine would face stiff competition from local sources of coal in India and elsewhere.

Globally, coal consumption actually decreased by 1.7 percent in 2016, according to a BP report on energy trends, leading the company to declare that “the fortunes of coal appear to have taken a decisive break from the past.”

Critics worry Adani could default on the government’s loan or flood the market, lowering prices worldwide and allowing coal to make a comeback as an energy source.

The Adani Group’s business record has also drawn scrutiny. The conglomerate, whose interests span natural resources, logistics, energy and agriculture, has faced allegations in India of environmental degradation, money laundering and bribery, but it has denied any illegal activity.

Mike Brunker, a member of the Whitsunday Regional Council, supports the coal mine, viewing it as a potential creator of much needed jobs in the area. David Maurice Smith for The New York Times

Adani leased about 460 square miles of land in the Galilee Basin nearly a decade ago. It can take two to three days to get to the site from the coast, with the last leg of the trip on unpaved roads. Surveying, soil testing and design work has begun, including on an airstrip, mining camp, access roads and the rail link, said Ron Watson, a spokesman for Adani Australia.

Coal from the mine would be transported by rail about 240 miles through grazing land to Abbot Point, the nation’s most northern deep water coal port, which is already used to ship coal to China, Japan and South Korea. Adani has signed a 99-year lease of the port and plans an expansion that would allow it to double the amount of coal going through.

From the air, the piles of coal and equipment at Abbot Point are a striking contrast with the turquoise waters of the Coral Sea. The closest coral of the Great Barrier Reef is just 12 miles away.

A 30-minute drive southeast from Abbot Point is the seaside town of Bowen, where parts of the Nicole Kidman epic “Australia” was filmed a decade ago during better times. Now, the streets are dotted with “For Sale” signs beyond the main drag.

“We had miners living in the high parts of town,” or the most expensive neighborhoods, said Mike Brunker, who represents Bowen in the Whitsunday regional council and is a supporter of the mine for the jobs it is projected to bring. “That was the boom time. They had to leave, they had to go to other mines, or they’ve just gone broke.”

Further up the coast is Townsville, home to Adani’s headquarters in Australia, where protesters sometimes congregate and residents exemplify the conflicts felt by many in the region.

“You don’t know what’s good for us,” one man snapped at an environmental activist conducting a survey recently.

Not too long after, another resident told the activist, “I oppose the mine even though I applied for a job.”

Links

• Mining Companies Buy Political Influence in Australia, Report Says
• Dunedoo Journal: Coal Mining’s Promise Falls Through for Remote Australian Town
• Op-Ed Contributor: Australia’s Addiction to Coal
• Australia's Mining Boom Is Pied Piper for Workers
• Op-Ed Contributor: Help for Australia’s Coal Workers
• Large Sections of Australia’s Great Reef Are Now Dead, Scientists Find

Tony Abbott Launches Warning Shot On Climate Policy

Fairfax - Mark Kenny

Tony Abbott has fired a telling shot across Malcolm Turnbull's bow, warning that any energy package agreed to in cabinet must also pass a party room wary of anything approaching a clean energy target or other subsidy scheme for renewables.
It came as the Turnbull government received more bad news in the fortnightly Newspoll series, prompting Mr Abbott to declare a future return to the leadership was possible but would occur only if he was drafted by colleagues, which he described as "almost impossible to imagine".

Tony's climate complex
Tony Abbott's speech in London "Daring to doubt" reveals how far the former PM needs to travel to find a receptive audience for his climate change denial. Artist: Matt Davidson

Signalling that Coalition MPs will be no rubber stamp on energy, the dumped former prime minister said the backbench deserved "plenty of chance to digest" the formula.
Mr Abbott's blunt message sets the stage for another showdown over a policy area that has divided moderates and conservatives within the Coalition for a decade, and become a constant cipher for simmering leadership rivalries.
Just hours before the Turnbull cabinet was due to discuss the contentious energy affordability and reliability formula, itself a reframed clean energy policy due to internal frictions, Mr Abbott used a regular radio chat with 2GB host Ray Hadley to lay down some political markers.
Acknowledging the government was now just nine losing Newspoll surveys away from the 30-poll benchmark Mr Turnbull set as his trigger for challenging Mr Abbott in September 2015, Mr Abbott emphasised the importance of "getting the right policy".
"I don't think this is something that should be, as it were, rushed through, but nevertheless, it's got to be got right," he said.
"We have to get it right, and I hope that a lot of very serious thought has been given to this matter by [Energy] Minister Josh Frydenberg; he's a bloke I respect, he's very capable, he's very talented, and let's see what he comes up with."

Warning shot on energy: former prime minister Tony Abbott, pictured with then-assistant treasurer Josh Frydenberg at Parliament House in March 2015.  Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Abbott, who famously rose to the leadership of the Liberal Party in 2009 at Mr Turnbull's expense by championing a pivot away from Mr Turnbull's pro-emissions trading stance, dismissed any suggestion he would challenge, despite a growing sense that the government was headed towards defeat.
"This was the test the Prime Minister set for leaders; it's his test not mine," he said, while pointedly leaving one avenue open to his return.
"The only way an 'ex' could ever come back is by way of a draft and that's almost impossible to imagine," he said.
"That's a pretty rare and unusual business in politics."
Mr Abbott's own political hero, John Howard, was drafted back to the top position in the 1990s after an initially unsuccessful stint as opposition leader in the 1980s. Mr Howard went on to be prime minister for almost a dozen years.
Others have also made leadership returns after leaving or losing, including Kevin Rudd, Kim Beazley and, of course, Mr Turnbull himself.
Jeff Kennett and Colin Barnett returned to the party leadership to become Liberal premiers of Victoria and Western Australia respectively.

Links

• Turnbull should stand and fight Abbott on climate: Hewson
• Green scheme costs must be 'proportionate'
• This is the only way Abbott's vendetta will end
• Clean Energy Target: There's nothing in the ACCC report that suggests it should be axed
• Senate crossbench looms as government's only path to energy policy deal
• Abbott warns against energy policy 'rush'