Three Reasons Why Coal Power Won’t Make A Comeback In Australia

RenewEconomy - Sophie Vorrath

While the vast majority of Australia’s energy industry gets on with the shift to renewables, the federal government continues to tie itself in knots over the future of coal-fired power.
Beholden to a powerful fossil fuel lobby, and hamstrung by a number of die-hard coal fans within its own party ranks, the Turnbull government refuses to let go of the notion that the nation’s ageing coal fleet should somehow be preserved.
It even believes  that new “clean” coal plants might be built to support the northern reaches of the National Electricity Market.
But this is not the reality. And you don’t have to take our word for it.
Rather, take it from Chloe Munro – an energy market expert whose extensive industry experience ranges from helping to “lovingly craft” the NEM more than 20 years ago, to chair of the Clean Energy Regulator, to recently advising the Finkel Energy Review, to independent chair of AEMO’s expert panel.
Speaking in a panel discussion on how to achieve 50 per cent renewables without comprising grid stability, Munro told the ABB Customer World conference in Melbourne on Thursday that by about 2030-35, half of Australia’s remaining coal power fleet would be gone. And wouldn’t be coming back.
“In my view,” she said, “It’s not likely much of it will be replaced with (new) coal. And there are three reasons for this…”

1. Coal power is expensive
“First is simply cost: A new coal-fired power station is an expensive thing to build; renewables are still coming down that learning curve … so we will see the continuing shift to renewables on the supply side,” Munro said.

2. It’s not flexible enough
“There’s certainly a role for gas in the transition (to renewables) … being able to ramp up and down quickly. But there really isn’t the demand for baseload power that just chugs along and is really only efficient if it is operating at near full capacity, consistently, 24/7. The demand for that is just (not there).
“So that’s the second reason. it’s not flexible enough,” Munro said.

3. Because it’s emissions intensive
The third reason why new coal power won’t be built on Australia’s future NEM, said Munro, is because it’s a major source of the sort of greenhouse gas emissions that we should be eradicating from our electricity sector if we are to have any hope of meeting our Paris climate targets, pledged to by the Turnbull government.
“We really need to get serious about emissions reduction and that means that there’s going to be less coal in our whole fleet going forward,” she said.

Links

• NSW Court To Hear 'Landmark' Challenge To Coalmine Over Climate Change Impact
• Natural Gas Killed Coal – Now Renewables And Batteries Are Taking Over
• Plunging Costs Make Solar, Wind And Battery Storage Cheaper Than Coal
• Banks Slash Coal Loans By 50 Per Cent As Investor Pressure Mounts
• Lloyd's Of London To Divest From Coal Over Climate Change
• A Future Without Coal-Fired Power Stations Is Inevitable
• Audit Office Slams Australia’s Dud Investments In “Clean Coal”
• NSW Coal Mines In The Pipeline Are 'Bigger Than Adani', Lock The Gate Says
• Coal-Fired Plant Shifted $1bn Offshore While Pocketing $117m From Australian Taxpayers
• One of the World's Biggest Miners Is About To Go Coal-Free

Billion-Dollar Polar Engineering ‘Needed To Slow Melting Glaciers’

The Guardian - Robin McKie

Underwater sea walls and artificial islands among projects urgently required to avoid devastation of global flooding, say scientists

The Jakobshavn fjord in western Greenland. One proposal is to build a 100-metre high wall across the fjord’s entrance. Photograph: Bob Strong/REUTERS

Scientists have outlined plans to build a series of mammoth engineering projects in Greenland and Antarctica to help slow down the disintegration of the planet’s main glaciers.
The controversial proposals include underwater walls, artificial islands and huge pumping stations that would channel cold water into the bases of glaciers to stop them from melting and sliding into the sea.
The researchers say the work – costing tens of billions of dollars a time – is urgently needed to prevent polar glaciers melting and raising sea levels. That would lead to major inundations of low-lying, densely populated areas, such as parts of Bangladesh, Japan and the Netherlands.
Flooding in these areas is likely to cost tens of trillions of dollars a year if global warming continues at its present rate, and vast sea-wall defences will need to be built to limit the devastation.
Such costs make glacier engineering in polar regions a competitive alternative, according to the team, which is led by John Moore, professor of climate change at the University of Lapland.
“We think that geoengineering of glaciers could delay much of Greenland and Antarctica’s grounded ice from reaching the sea for centuries, buying time to address global warming,” the scientists write in the current issue of Nature. “Geoengineering of glaciers has received little attention in journals. Most people assume that it is unfeasible and environmentally undesirable. We disagree.”
Ideas put forward by the group specifically target the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic because these will contribute more to sea rise this century than any other source, they say. Their proposals include:

• Building a 100-metre high wall on the seabed across a 5km wide fjord at the end of the Jakobshavn glacier in western Greenland. This would reduce influxes of warming sea water which are eroding the glacier’s base;
• Constructing artificial islands in front of glaciers in Antarctica in order to buttress them and limit their collapse as their ice melts due to global warming;
• Circulating cooled brine underneath glaciers such as the Pine Island glacier in Antarctica – in order to prevent their bases from melting and sliding towards the sea.

In each case, the team – which includes scientists in Finland and the US – acknowledges that costs would be in the billions. Construction is also likely to cause considerable disruption. For example, building a dam across the Jakobshavn fjord could affect ecology, fisheries and tourism, and large numbers of workers would have to be shipped in to complete the project.
Similarly, building artificial islands in front of glaciers would mean importing about six cubic kilometres of material, a task that would be immensely difficult in stormy Antarctic waters. And drilling through ice that is kilometres thick to pump down cooled water would also stretch the capabilities of engineers.
However, the team insists that such projects should be carefully assessed now as the likely costs appear to be compatible with those of other large energy and civil engineering works being planned across the globe. The issue is simple, they state: should we spend vast sums to wall off all the world’s coasts, or can we address the problem at its source?
“Potential risks, especially to local ecosystems, need careful analysis,” they conclude. “In our view, however, the greatest risk is doing nothing.”

Links

• How Engineering Earth’s Climate Could Seriously Imperil Life
• Geoengineering is not a quick fix for climate change, experts warn Trump
• So You Want to Geoengineer the Planet? Beware the Hurricanes
• Keystone species
• What Is CO2 Sequestration?
• Could spraying particles into marine clouds help cool the planet?
• If We Start Geoengineering, There's No Going Back
• Dimming the Sun to cool Earth could ravage wildlife: Study
• Scientists warn of 'devastating' halt to geo-engineering
• We're about to kill a massive, accidental experiment in reducing global warming
• Here's the reason we'd never halt a geoengineering project midway through
• Geoengineering could cause more harm than climate change
• The world's melting glaciers
• Melting glaciers
• Melting ice sheets are hastening sea level rise, satellite data confirm
• Drones proving useful in polar regions to study the melting of the ice
• The glaciers are still shrinking – and rapidly
• Thinning glaciers driving polar ice loss, satellite survey finds
• The world's melting glaciers
• Potentially dangerous consequences for biodiversity of solar geoengineering implementation and termination

Arnold Schwarzenegger Joins Increasing List Of Those Suing Big Oil For Climate Change

Newsweek - Dana Dovey



Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his plans this week to sue Big Oil for its contributions to climate change. Schwarzenegger joins a growing list of cities and now private citizens who hope to bring Big Oil to court.
In a Politico podcast delivered Monday, Schwarzenegger announced his plans to sue Big Oil, a term often used in reference to the seven largest oil companies. The former governor of California said he wanted to take action against the companies for “knowingly killing people all over the world,” according to CNBC.
"I don't think there's any difference: If you walk into a room and you know you're going to kill someone, it's first-degree murder; I think it's the same thing with the oil companies," he said.

Big Oil may soon have to pay several U.S. cities for damages caused by climate change induced natural disasters. 

In addition to Schwarzenegger, nine U.S. cities, including New York, have also filed lawsuits against oil, gas and coal companies, Think Progress reported. The San Francisco suburb of Richmond was the most recent city to file a civil case against Big Oil in late January. The city claimed the oil companies knew the impact their industry would have on climate change for decades and purposely kept this information from the public. The city said it wanted the companies to help pay for damages caused by rising sea levels, Reuters reported.
Gillian Lobo, a lawyer who works on the strategic climate litigation team at Client Earth, told Newsweek that despite the damaging effects of climate change, suing Big Oil is still difficult.
“Climate change is [a] very unique problem, because it covers cross-border issues,” Lobo told Newsweek . According to Lobo, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact effects of climate change in court because many have yet to occur.
Lobo also explained that it takes time to gather the information necessary to sue such a large number of powerful corporations. Still, the environmental lawyer feels that the time to take action is now and cites precedents, such as the Paris agreement, as an example of the government's ability to make environmental changes. Lobo also explained that the Paris agreement has helped the public understand the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“I think these cases are already important, because they change the profile of climate change [as] they raise awareness,” said Lobo. “It’s increased the standard and quality of the debate on climate change, who should be held responsible, and how should you go about it.”

Links

• Should Climate Change Be Called Murder? What Do You Call Knowingly Killing People?
• Arnold Schwarzenegger Is Suing Big Oil for Climate Change
• Arnold Schwarzenegger looking to terminate big oil with legal action
• Schwarzenegger to Sue Big Oil for 'Murder'
• Schwarzenegger To Sue Oil Companies, Compares Them To Murderers7 Myths Big Oil Is Using To Convince People It Can Solve Climate Change
• Oil Companies Must Pay New York City For Climate Change Impact, Lawsuit Says