Coal Plant Construction Extends Dive - But Not Fast Enough: Report

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Coal-fired power is on track to start shrinking globally by 2022, dimming prospects for exporters of the fossil fuel, including Australia, according to a report by environmental groups.
China and India, which have dominated construction of new power plants for more than a decade, both cut new capacity sharply for the second year in a row in 2017, the annual Boom and Bust report by Greenpeace, Sierra Club and CoalSwarm found.

On current trends, coal plant capacity worldwide could peak by 2022. Photo: AP

Taking into account plants that closed, China's net addition in 2017 was its lowest since 2003. For India, last year's newly operating capacity of 9 gigawatts was the smallest since 2009.

"China and India were once seen as countries blocking progress on climate change," Nikola Casule, a Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner, said. "That's clearly no longer the case."
By most measures, world approvals and construction of new coal-fired plants extended declines for a second year. Newly completed power stations were down 41 per cent compared with two years earlier to 60.2 GW, while construction starts were down 73 per cent to 45.9 GW, the report said.
With 97 GW of coal plants retiring in the past three years alone - almost half of that in the US - the world's coal fleet is on track to begin shrinking by 2022, it said.

Still, since coal plants typically have a design life of 40 years or more, the rates of retirements and cancelled projects both need to speed up if global carbon emission reduction targets are to be reached.

"In order to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the current pace of progress must be accelerated, including cancelling coal power projects under development and hastening retirement of aging coal fleets in Europe and the United States," it said.

The global trends raise questions about the outlook for Australia's coal export markets, and the wisdom of government support to open up major new mines such as Adani's planned Carmichael project in Queensland's Galilee Basin, Dr Casule said.
"The worst thing you could do is to build one of the world's biggest coal mines," he said.

The Australian Financial Review this week reported Adani is refusing to set a funding deadline after admitting that it would fail to meet a set-imposed target for the end of this month.

Tumbling prices for renewable energy, particularly solar panels, combined with the global agreement to reduce carbon emissions, mean the challenges for the thermal industry will continue to mount.
Instead, it was incumbent on governments and industry to prepare coal-mining communities for their inevitable decline.

"It would be a betrayal of Australians if we didn't plan for that transition," Dr Casule said.
The NSW Minerals Council declined to comment. Earlier this month, the industry lobby group said exports of thermal coal used in power plants reached 140 million tonnes in 2017, slightly down on 2016 but 15 per cent higher than five years earlier.

Matt Canavan, federal resources minister, said coal would "continue to be an important power source for decades to come".

“The International Energy Agency predicts Asian coal demand will increase by almost 12 per cent from 2016 through to 2040," he said.
“The greater use of Australia's higher quality coal will help bring down emissions because Australian coal has more energy content and hence generates fewer emissions."

The mining industry has highlighted prospects for new coal-fired power in south-east Asia.
Indonesia has the most new coal power under construction after China and India, the report found. Still, even there support may be waning as projects get cancelled.

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Links

• Boom and Bust 2018 - Tracking The Global Coal Plant Pipeline (pdf)
• NSW government's power plan reveals huge renewable energy resources
• Adani won't commit to fresh funding deadline for $16.5b Carmichael mine
• Latest figures confirm strong demand for NSW thermal coal in 2017