Lethal Heating: 09/25/20

25/09/2020

(AU) Fire Lessons From Australia’s South Coast

New York Times - Damien Cave

Australia’s South Coast was hammered by last year’s fires. Now it’s time to prepare for another fire season.

Paul and Bethany Allen burning off fire hazards on their property in Mogo. Credit...Matthew Abbott for The New York Times

By this time last year, I had already written my first bush fire story of the season — with a headline that called the destruction of the Binna Burra Lodge an omen of the future.

Now, watching another round of unprecedented blazes destroy the American West, I’m reminded of all the interviews I did with scientists who have been telling the public for decades that climate change will make the worst fires hotter, bigger and more frequent.

They were right. They are still right. And the consequences, like clouds of smoke, reach further and linger longer than most of us would have imagined.

That’s one of the things I took away from a recent trip to the South Coast for a story about preparations for another fire season. What I found was that — in an area where you can’t drive more than a few minutes without seeing blackened trees — any thoughts of the future are being colored by the recent past.

Mentions of last year’s fires came up in almost every conversation I overheard in cafes. Recovery, healing, kindness, prevention and paranoia all burst into view as the urge to take control of something, anything, has led to a surge of preventive burning, chopped down trees and never-ending calls to tell fire officials about potential hazards.

Are neighbors burning too much? Too little? Both lead people to ring 000 for help.

“People have started seeing the bush in a very different way,” said Angus Barnes, the operational officer for the Rural Fire Service in Moruya.

We were sitting in a back room at the fire shed, with a map spread out on the table from January showing huge blobs of fire. A call came in on his radio about someone burning leaves on their property. Then another about smoke.

“There’s heightened anxiety about fire in the community,” he said. “We’re trying to explain to people that this year is different. By this time last year, we were already chasing fires.”

But for many, the landscape will never look quite the same again. “There’s still a lot of fuel around,” resident after resident told me. Downed trees, dead and ready to combust. Swaths of forest that escaped the fires last year, sitting near vulnerable homes. Even grasses now look like sparks for bigger blazes.

And the intense focus on the land has upended human relationships too. There are more arguments in families and among neighbors. There are friends who have simply left for good without saying goodbye, their fears, sadness or losses getting the best of them.

No one seems to have much faith in the government either, especially when it comes to climate change, which the country’s leaders continue to shrink from discussing like mumbling teenagers asked about overdue homework.

But there are also signs of resilience and changes at the local level that could grow into strength over time.

Mr. Barnes said there were 438 new recruits for the Rural Fire Service on the South Coast — a surge unlike anything seen before.

A group of Walbanja elders who conduct cultural burns that focus on sustaining native plants and wildlife also told me that their services have been in high demand over the past few months, suggesting that Aboriginal knowledge about fires is finally getting the respect it deserves.

“We’re happy to have more people come on board to learn,” said Andrew White, an Aboriginal land manager who has been doing the burns. “We see it as a way to heal country, get community involvement, and heal the community too.”

Julie Taylor Mills, who has worked with Mr. White and his team for a handful of small burns on her 40-acre property in Meringo, said there are new models of interaction emerging. People are walking in the dark toward a climate-changed future.

“It’s really complicated,” she said. “No one’s got their head around it.”

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(AU) What Australia's Gas-Led Recovery Will Mean For The Country's Carbon Emissions

ABC News - Michael Slezak

An Australia Institute report estimated hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon would be emitted if all of Australia's potential gas projects went ahead. (ABC Southern Queensland: Nathan Morris)

Australia's economic recovery from COVID-19 will be largely rebuilt on fossil fuels, according to the Government. Specifically, on gas.

New basins will be opened up. New pipelines will be laid. New gas-burning power stations will be built.

What will all this mean for climate change and Australia's commitment to cut emissions?

Much has been said about the new gas hubs, power stations and pipelines.

But emissions from those will be chump change compared to the emissions that will likely result from the opening up of even a single large gas basin.

The Government is talking about developing five new basins that it will help fund.

Such a move is a proverbial red rag to conservationists who are fighting to stop global warming at 2 degrees Celsius and whose mantra for years has been, "Keep it in the ground".

Take the most advanced of these basins, already backed by the Government: the Beetaloo sub basin in the Northern Territory.

A clearing in the Beetaloo basin, with a small well in the centre, is part of gas exploration in the region. (ABC News: Jane Bardon)

If developed, government estimates show it could result in as much as 117 million tonnes of CO2 being added to our emissions each year — almost a quarter of our current total yearly emissions.

Adding that to our emissions tally will make meeting Paris targets much harder — and it means we'll have to find cuts in other areas, which the Government doesn't yet have a plan for.

Estimates have suggested there's enough gas in the Beetaloo basin to satisfy Australia's demand for 200 years.

But if we need our emissions to hit net zero in about 30 years, it's unlikely the demand for gas will last anywhere near that long.

Some big fossil-fuel companies have acknowledged that. BP's latest modelling suggests there will only be a small increase in the demand for gas if the world does nothing to combat climate change.

Dozens of potential gas projects

The Government has listed dozens of new gas projects that have been proposed by industry around Australia.

A report by The Australia Institute, commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation, added up how much greenhouse gas would be released into the atmosphere if these projects all progressed to their full potential.

The figure is not realistic since they wouldn't all progress, and of those that do, not all their gas would be extracted.

But it's indicative of how carbon intensive a gas-led economy could be.

Gas-fired path to COVID recovery?

The Federal Government's National COVID Coordination Commission has a lot of gas industry players involved, and it appears to be showing in its policy recommendations. Read more

Combined with the gas from the Beetaloo basin, the progressive think tank estimated the potential projects would result in an average of 332 million tonnes of CO2 being emitted each year.

That's about two thirds of our current total emissions.

It's a carbon bubble that would be hard to make up for in other sectors.

The figure combines estimates of the CO2 emitted when the gas is burned, as well as fugitive emissions of methane — essentially, gas leaks.

But there are also concerns even after gas wells are closed, they might continue to leak methane into the atmosphere, making future action to stop emissions difficult.

UN report singles out Australia

The dilemma posed by opening up new fossil-fuel reserves has been analysed by the United Nations in what's called the Production Gap Report.

It notes specifically governments' support of the production of fossil fuels, including gas, "undercuts efforts, sometimes by these same governments, to reduce emissions".

Overall, the report found around the world, countries are planning to produce 50 per cent more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be needed to limit warming to 2C and 120 per cent more than is consistent with 1.5 degrees.

The planned production of coal, oil and gas is far greater than what is required to limit climate change. (Supplied)

Australia was one of a handful of countries singled out in the report, with the Federal Government's support of gas and other fossil fuels sharply criticised.

Australia's proposed fossil-fuel projects represent "one of the world's largest fossil-fuel expansions", the report said.

"The rise of hydraulic fracking has also opened the door to discussions on tapping into the country's vast resources of unconventional gas."

The report notes that while global coal production needs to drop by about two thirds by 2030, gas production needs to drop significantly too — by about 20 per cent by 2030 — in order to keep warming at 1.5C.

Under the rules of the Paris agreement, we don't need to worry about the emissions from much of our coal and gas because it's exported, and therefore counted in other country's emissions targets.

According to the UN's report though, the whole world is ramping up production of fossil fuels, so the question of who will take responsibility for that carbon remains.

Gas vs coal

Federal Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor has also argued gas produces lower emissions than coal, and using gas instead of coal will help lower emissions.

"The success of our LNG exports means that we can help lower global emissions below what they would otherwise have been by up to 27 per cent of Australia's annual emissions," Mr Taylor said.

The UN's Production Gap Report dealt with this argument head on, noting increasing the supply of gas would drive its uptake.

Gas-led recovery without the $6b price tag

The Government could simply force Australia's big gas exporters to sell more of what they already produce at home, argues Ian Verrender. Read more

It concluded: "The continued rapid expansion of gas supplies and systems risks locking in a much higher gas trajectory than is consistent with a 1.5 degree Celsius or 2 degree Celsius future."

"Barring dramatic, unexpected advances in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, these declines mean that most of the world's proven fossil-fuel reserves must be left unburned," the report said.

Making the unexpected happen is something the Government is betting on.

As part of its Technology Investment Roadmap, it's investing in CCS, which has the potential to bury some of the emissions from these projects underground.

The world's largest attempt at this is taking place at Chevron's Gorgon gas project in Western Australia.

The project planned to offset only 40 per cent of its emissions using CCS — and it's been plagued with problems and delays, and didn't capture any carbon for the first three years of its operation.

And, since the world including Australia, has committed to stopping global warming, it's hard to see exactly where our domestic gas push is leading.

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(AU) When Investors Won't Back Gas, Why Should Taxpayers?

Sydney Morning Herald - Bruce Robertson

Is this really an industry we want to trust with our economic recovery?

A Santos project near Narrabri ... ... the government insists gas is part of a greener energy solution. Credit: Rob Homer

Author

Bruce Robertson is a gas analyst with the Institute of Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis

With their announcement this week of subsidies for a major new gas plant in the Hunter Valley, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Energy Minister Angus Taylor have made it clear: whatever the roadmap, there's only one destination – gas.

It is dressed up as a measure for job creation, cheaper gas for consumers and energy security. But instead of gearing the country towards investment in industries that will shape our long-term future and create jobs to get Australians back to work, throwing public money at gas will benefit only one sector – the gas industry.

Let's be clear: manufacturing needs a secure, reliable and affordable energy source. Gas does not fit the bill.

Globally, gas prices are at unsustainably low levels. Gas companies simply cannot make money at these prices and are going broke. Yet Australians are paying way too much for their own gas. That's because a handful of companies on the east coast controls the price and they fix it at levels above international parity pricing.

Simple, the government tells us. Increase the supply of gas and the price will come down. If only it were that easy.

It wants the private sector to step up to the plate and throw its money at "nation-building" gas projects. There's a glaring problem here: the private sector, for the most part, can't get away from gas fast enough. Our gas industry took $25 billion in asset write-offs in the first six months of this year alone.

Yet the government says if private industry won't do it, it will. It proposes to build a gas-fired peaking gas plant for the Hunter Valley to "bring down prices". But if investors won't back it, why should taxpayers?

Gas usage for power production in Australia has fallen 58 per cent since 2014. That's because it has become unaffordable. The only thing that can arrest that fall is government subsidies.

The gas industry around the world is in dire straits. A global oil and gas glut, brought about by building too many LNG plants and over-expanding gas field capacity, was compounded by a drop in demand due to the coronavirus pandemic, combined with a vicious price war between Saudi, Russian and US oil and gas producers. Global gas prices went into freefall and the industry entered a long-term slump.

Gas companies around the world are declaring bankruptcy and major projects are being shelved. Australian industry, too, is struggling, despite the bravado of companies such as Santos, which has been talking up the earning potential of its Narrabri gas project even as it takes a crushing $1 billion writedown on its failed east coast coal seam gas export ventures.

Is this really an industry we want to trust with our economic recovery? Not satisfied to trust the business acumen and investment expertise of the private sector, the government is proposing a program of streamlined approvals, underwriting projects or the establishment of a special-purpose vehicle with a capped government contribution to get gas projects going.

These are radical measures that would involve the government bypassing the market and attempting to "pick winners" in a high-risk field. It is backing a losing horse.

Gas in Australia doesn't adhere – as Angus Taylor suggests it will - to the normal economic rules of more supply equalling lower prices. Gas production tripled on the east coast of Australia following the opening of the three export plants at Gladstone in 2014. Prices also tripled. Essentially we pay more than our customers in Japan do for Australian-sourced gas.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has clearly shown that gas sets the price for wholesale electricity prices in the national electricity market as it is the most expensive source of generation. It has reported repeatedly since 2015 on the price-fixing, and it's been repeatedly ignored by those in power. Their "solution" – opening more high-cost gas fields – simply plays into the cartel's hands. It will export existing low-cost sources of gas and burden the domestic consumer with high-priced gas out of, for example, the Narrabri field.

But high domestic prices have led to lower consumption. Gas usage in the domestic Australian market is down 21 per cent since 2014. It is cheaper to heat your home with an air-conditioner and cook with an induction cooktop. Nothing in the government's plan mitigates the price-fixing problem.

Manufacturers are already beginning to move away from gas, with readily available heat-pump technology that is up to five times more efficient than gas-fired power quietly being installed in factories, meatworks and shopping centres across the country.

The Australian Energy Market Operator, the only agency to model a future electricity grid, has shown that by 2040 the role of gas in a renewable-rich grid will be smaller than today. The government is not taking the advice of its experts in the energy policy sector. Rather, it pins its hopes on a declining industry and exposes taxpayers to the risk of stranded assets and expensive white elephants. It isn't just uneconomic – it's irresponsible.

Unlike the federal government, every state and territory has some sort of net zero-emissions target, which does not align with gas expansion.

Meanwhile, while global gas prices are currently very cheap, supply is shrinking, companies are going bankrupt and exploration and production budgets are being slashed. There will be a price rebound and gas will prove to be a very expensive source of power in the medium term. If we see a change of government in the US, a carbon price is inevitable.

Gas is a dying industry. Subsidising gas is flogging a dead horse and taxpayers will pay for it.

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