What you will find on this page: LATEST NEWS; Fossil fuel emissions have stalled; Analysis: Record surge of clean energy in 2024 halts China’s CO2 rise; does the world need hydrogen?; Mapped: global coal trade; Complexity of energy systems (maps); Mapped: Germany’s energy sources (interactive access); Power to the people (video); Unburnable Carbon (report); Stern Commission Review; Garnaut reports; live generation data; fossil fuel subsidies; divestment; how to run a divestment campaign guide; local council divestment guide; US coal plant retirement; oil conventional & unconventional; CSG battle in Australia (videos); CSG battle in Victoria; leasing maps for Victoria; coal projects Victoria
Huge task to decarbonise
Source: Australian Delegation presentation to international forum held in Bonn in May 2012
Latest News 18 November 2016, Energy Post, Why the future belongs to decentralised renewables, not centralised hydrogen and giga-scale nuclear. What the future of our energy system will look like continues to be a subject of heated debate. According to one well-established tradition, writes Professor John Mathews of Macquarie University in Australia, the route to decarbonisation will run via massive nuclear power systems to the hydrogen economy. But China and to some extent India are emerging as the principal practitioners of an alternative vision of energy growth, underpinning their vast industrialisation efforts with conventional renewables that are the products of manufacturing. According to Mathews, the world is much more likely to follow the second route. Renewables, he argues, are benign, provide energy security, create jobs and above all are the least expensive option. How we envision the future of our energy systems is important as this tends to drive our policies and decisions. In a new scientific paper, “Competing principles driving energy futures: Fossil fuel decarbonisation vs. manufacturing learning curves”, published this month in the journal Futures, I contrast two broad energy visions. Read More here 22 November 2016, One Step off the Grid, Victoria town (Newstead) calls for partners for 100% renewable energy plan. he Victorian town of Newstead is seeking proposals from potential project partners who could help refine its plan to reach 100 per cent renewable energy within 5 years, and which could act as a blue-print for other towns in the state to follow. Newstead, a town of around 500 people, is considered a flagship project project for the state, and is looking to build up its renewable energy capacity and then integrate these into the local grid with battery storage and new “energy market” ideas. Tosh Szatow, director for Energy for the People, which is advising the township, says the call for expressions of interest is designed to flush out ideas from solar companies, retailers, trading platforms and others that could be adapted to the town’s plans. “We have sketched out a plan, and know what a model could look like,” Szatow says. “Now we want to test some of this thinking and identify some of the partners that could help in the project.” The Newstead plan is seen as a fore-runner for other towns and cities in the state, and elsewhere in Australia. And far from being a rogue proposal, the idea has the support of the state Labor government and even the local network operator, Powercor, which is co-operating on data, network capacity and tariff design. Read More here 21 November 2016, Yale Climate Connections, Fuel Cells: Promising, but struggling to catch on. Fuel cells are efficient, generate clean electricity, and they run around the clock. So why aren’t we using them on a mass scale? Fuel cells have been the next best clean-energy thing for, well, a long time. The byproducts of that reaction are heat and water. The heat can be recycled into the fuel cell itself and/or used for external heating and cooling – generally referred to as combined heat and power. That makes stationary fuel cells – the kind used for electricity, as opposed to ones used in vehicles – extremely efficient and as clean an energy source as solar and wind.A technology with roots in the 1800s and modern-day use in every NASA-manned space flight from Apollo through the end of the space shuttle program, fuel cells just kind of look like a big box. Inside, they electrochemically combine hydrogen and the oxygen from ambient air to create electricity. But because the hydrogen source for most fuel cells comes from natural gas, they are generally not considered renewable, leaving them in an environmental limbo. Read More here 19 November 2016, One Step off the Grid, Enova reaches major milestone, looks to expand and try peer to peer trading. Australia’s first community-based electricity retailer, Enova Energy, has reached major milestone of 1,000 customers, and is already looking to expand its geographic base and push into new areas such as peer to peer trading. Enova, based in Byron Bay in the northern rivers region of New South Wales, says it has reached its 1,000 customer level several months ahead of target, as it seeks to reach its break-even goal of 4,000 customers within the first two years of operation. CEO Steve Harris says the retailer has also attracted a higher number of business customers – 70 so far – which will help revenues, and possibly offset a small impact on margins from rising wholesale prices and high prices for large scale renewable energy certificates. Harris says there is clearly a groundswell of community interest in alternatives to the big oligopolies, and a fair deal on renewable energy. Nova, which describes itself as a “community owned renewable energy company”, pays 10c/kWh for solar feed in tariffs, more than 50 per cent above most retailers. “The higher feed in tariff is paying dividends for us. But it’s about community and it’s about environment. Households and businesses are showing they are quite happy to switch from their existing provider,” Harris told One Step Off The Grid in an interview. Harris says Enova is also benefiting from partnerships, such as a solar bulk buy program on the south coast of NSW, and another solar initiative in the ACT. Read More here 18 December 2018, Renew Economy, Coalition has an energy vision: No more renewables, or emission cuts, before 2030. The Coalition government has effectively confirmed what is already suspected – that it expects no further investment in large scale renewables, and no more significant emissions cuts – from 2022 all the way through to 2030, should it stay in power. The admission came in a press release from the energy minister and accompanying data from the government’s Emissions Projections 2018 Report, which is due out later this week. Energy minister Angus Taylor said it showed that emissions from electricity generation in the National Electricity Market (NEM) – which covers most states apart from W.A. and the Northern Territory – will fall to 26 per cent below 2005 levels by 2022. “This means emissions in the NEM will drop to levels consistent with Australia’s Paris target eight years ahead of time,” Taylor said in a statement. Taylor noted that much of the decline will be driven by an increase in renewable energy, a direct result of the Renewable Energy Target, the mechanism that that the Abbott government tried to kill back in 2015, along with the carbon price, and only succeeded in reducing. But a 26 per cent reduction in emissions from the electricity sector, apparently, is enough – notwithstanding the recent IPCC report, the latest Bureau of Meteorology warnings, and the lack of any policy detail about how the rest of the economy can reach its share of the 26-28 per cent reductions that Australia signed up for in Paris. An excerpt from the report included by Taylor’s office shows that it expects emissions from the electricity sector remaining “relatively stable” from 2021 through to 2030. Read More here 9 November 2018, Renew Economy, Malcolm Turnbull’s double back-flip on 100 per cent renewable energy. Nearly four years after he gushed about electric cars and the thrilling prospects of a battery storage-driven energy revolution, Malcolm Turnbull has shaken off his political shackles and rejoined Team Renewables. In his first major media appearance since being ousted as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, Turnbull answered audience questions on ABC TV’s Q&A program – including one on energy from tech billionaire and founder of the new Fair Dinkum Power brand and movement, Mike Cannon-Brookes: “Our vision is that Australia can get to 100 per cent renewables and beyond, and that this transition… is not only good for the planet, it presents one of the greatest economic opportunities for our country,” Cannon Brookes said. “So my question to you is, what’s your advice to get politicians on board with our vision? And will you join us?” Turnbull – after some prevarication – conceded that running Australia on 100 per cent renewable energy generation was “theoretically” achievable, with the right mix of generation, storage and supporting technology. This is something he has acknowledge before, when speaking for instance at the launch of the BZE 100 per cent renewable energy plan when he was languishing on the Coalition back-bench. As prime minister, of course, he seized on the blackout in South Australia to demonise renewables and has been dismissing the federal and state renewable targets from Labor as “reckless”. But now he’s back on board with 100 per cent renewables, and it doesn’t seem quite so reckless. Read More here 3 November 2018, The Guardian, Adani yet to sign royalties deal despite claiming to be close to financing mine. The Adani mining company has still not signed a royalties agreement with the Queensland government, despite its claims to be just weeks away from green-lighting the Carmichael mine. This week, Adani’s Australian mining head, Lucas Dow, gave a series of interviews claiming the company was close to financing a slimmed-down, $2bn integrated Carmichael mine, rail and port proposal. Analysts say the strategy is to get the mine into production while spending as little upfront cash as possible. Guardian Australia understands it relies heavily on vendor financing agreements, in which payments to contractors and suppliers are effectively withheld for several years. Adani now insists it can start Carmichael for a fraction of the investment previously required. But Queensland government sources say the slimmed-down plan calls into question Adani’s eligibility to delay payment of royalties.The Queensland treasurer, Jackie Trad, confirmed in a statement that Adani had not yet signed any royalties deal. The government and Adani reached an in-principle agreement about royalties 18 months ago that it is understood would have allowed Adani to defer royalty payments analysts estimate are worth up to $315m in the early years of production. Three days before that agreement was reached, the government adopted a “transparent framework” to allow “first movers” in resource areas to defer royalty payments, which would accrue interest. The framework also served as a compromise to secure support from members of Labor’s left faction uncomfortable with providing direct assistance to Adani. “Our position was originally put to Adani in May last year and we are awaiting their agreement to these terms,” Trad told the Guardian on Friday. Guardian Australia understands clauses in that framework now appear problematic for any formal royalties deal. Access more here 2 November 2018, Renew Economy, A “bat symbol” for renewables: Cannon-Brookes launches “fair dinkum” power. Scott Morrison’s grasp on his favourite Alan Jones-approved energy policy slogan, “fair dinkum power,” continues to slip, as the campaign to reclaim it for renewables rather than coal gains serious momentum. As we reported here yesterday, tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes late Wednesday launched a series of tweets challenging the Morrison government over its labelling of “baseload” and coal power as “fair dinkum” generation, and called for a “movement” to embrace wind and solar – and to dub that “fair dinkum power”. Since then, Cannon-Brookes has registered the brand, created a new Twitter handle, crowd sourced a logo (see above), and is in the process of putting in place “some sort of licensing plan” to use @fairdinkumpower to promote local innovation in renewable energy, storage and other future-supporting technologies. “We’re going to give away the logo, we’re going to open-source it if you like, and try to get people to put their people power behind it,” Cannon-Brookes told The Project on Network Ten on Thursday night. “(It will be a sort of) bat symbol for renewable energy generation, if you like, for people to rally behind. “We’ll use it to promote a lot of Aussie innovations, put it on the side of the (Tesla/Neoen big battery in South Australia). Show the world what we do.” Access more here 19 March 2024, WMO: Climate change indicators reached record levels in 2023: WMO. The state of the climate in 2023 gave ominous new significance to the phrase “off the charts.” Key messages A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that records were once again broken, and in some cases smashed, for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat. Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones caused misery and mayhem, upending every-day life for millions and inflicting many billions of dollars in economic losses, according to the WMO State of the Global Climate 2023 report. The WMO report confirmed that 2023 was the warmest year on record, with the global average near-surface temperature at 1.45 °Celsius (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.12 °C) above the pre-industrial baseline. It was the warmest ten-year period on record. “Sirens are blaring across all major indicators… Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding-up.” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. “Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change.” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “The WMO community is sounding the Red Alert to the world.” “Climate change is about much more than temperatures. What we witnessed in 2023, especially with the unprecedented ocean warmth, glacier retreat and Antarctic sea ice loss, is cause for particular concern,” she said. On an average day in 2023, nearly one third of the global ocean was gripped by a marine heatwave, harming vital ecosystems and food systems. Towards the end of 2023, over 90% of the ocean had experienced heatwave conditions at some point during the year. Read more here 19 March 2024, Gavin Schmidt, NATURE: Climate models can’t explain 2023’s huge heat anomaly — we could be in uncharted territory. Taking into account all known factors, the planet warmed 0.2 °C more last year than climate scientists expected. More and better data are urgently needed. When I took over as the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, I inherited a project that tracks temperature changes since 1880. Using this trove of data, I’ve made climate predictions at the start of every year since 2016. It’s humbling, and a bit worrying, to admit that no year has confounded climate scientists’ predictive capabilities more than 2023 has. For the past nine months, mean land and sea surface temperatures have overshot previous records each month by up to 0.2 °C — a huge margin at the planetary scale. A general warming trend is expected because of rising greenhouse-gas emissions, but this sudden heat spike greatly exceeds predictions made by statistical climate models that rely on past observations. Many reasons for this discrepancy have been proposed but, as yet, no combination of them has been able to reconcile our theories with what has happened. For a start, prevalent global climate conditions one year ago would have suggested that a spell of record-setting warmth was unlikely. Early last year, the tropical Pacific Ocean was coming out of a three-year period of La Niña, a climate phenomenon associated with the relative cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. Drawing on precedents when similar conditions prevailed at the beginning of a year, several climate scientists, including me, put the odds of 2023 turning out to be a record warm year at just one in five. El Niño — the inverse of La Niña — causes the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean to warm up. This weather pattern set in only in the second half of the year, and the current spell is milder than similar events in 1997–98 and 2015–16. However, starting last March, sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean began to shoot up. By June, the extent of sea ice around Antarctica was by far the lowest on record. Compared with the average ice cover between 1981 and 2010, a patch of sea ice roughly the size of Alaska was missing. The observed temperature anomaly has not only been much larger than expected, but also started showing up several months before the onset of El Niño. So, what might have caused this heat spike? Read more here 9 March 2024, The Conversation: The Great Barrier Reef’s latest bout of bleaching is the fifth in eight summers – the corals now have almost no reprieve. For the fifth time in just the past eight summers – 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and now 2024 – huge swathes of the Great Barrier Reef are experiencing extreme heat stress that has triggered yet another episode of mass coral bleaching. Including two earlier heating episodes – in 1998 (which was at the time the hottest year globally on record) and 2002 – this brings the tally to seven such extreme events in the past 26 years. The most conspicuous impact of unusually high temperatures on tropical and subtropical reefs is wide-scale coral bleaching and death. Sharp spikes in temperature can destroy coral tissue directly even before bleaching unfolds. Consequently, if temperatures exceed 2°C above the normal summer maximum, heat-sensitive corals die very quickly. … This latest, still-unfolding event was entirely predictable, as ocean temperatures continue to rise due to global heating. Three of the seven mass bleaching events so far on the Great Barrier Reef coincided with El Niño conditions (1998, 2016 and this summer), and the remaining four did not. Increasingly, climate-driven coral bleaching and death is happening regardless of whether we are in an El Niño or La Niña phase. Average tropical sea surface temperatures are already warmer today under La Niña conditions than they were during El Niño events only three or four decades ago. The Great Barrier Reef is now a chequerboard of reefs with different recent histories of coral bleaching. Reefs that bleached in 2017 or 2016 have had only five or six years to recover before being hit again this summer – assuming they escaped bleaching during the 2020 and 2022 episodes. Attempts to restore depleted coral cover through coral gardening, assisted migration (by harvesting larvae) and assisted evolution (rearing corals in an aquarium) are prohibitively expensive and unworkable at any meaningful scale. In Florida, coral nurseries suffered mass deaths due to record sea temperatures last summer. The only long-term way to protect corals on the Great Barrier Reef and elsewhere is to rapidly reduce global greenhouse emissions. Read more here 28 February 2024, BIEN: New article about the effort to ban basic income pilots in the U.S. and who’s behind it. The Foundation for Government Accountability – a Florida-based lobbying group backed by the richest 1% – is working to get basic income experiments banned by state legislators across the U.S. As a well-known quote often wrongly attributed to Mahatma Ghandi says, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” As of 2024, the basic income movement in the United States is now firmly in the “then they fight you” stage thanks to a slew of bills introduced in state after state that are all attempting to ban the basic income experiments that have spread across the country. Over 150 guaranteed basic income pilots are now ongoing or recently completed in 24 states as of this writing, and so far, bills in seven states have been introduced to stop them. All of the bills are the result of efforts by the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) – a lobbying group with a billionaire-fueled junk science record every American should know about. …. Read more here 27 January 2025, Carbon Brief: A record surge of clean energy kept China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions below the previous year’s levels in the last 10 months of 2024. However, the new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, shows the tail end of China’s rebound from zero-Covid in January and February, combined with abnormally high growth in energy demand, stopped CO2 emissions falling in 2024 overall. While China’s CO2 output in 2024 grew by an estimated 0.8% year-on-year, emissions were lower than in the 12 months to February 2024. Other key findings of the analysis include: As ever, the latest analysis shows that policy decisions made in 2025 will strongly affect China’s emissions trajectory in the coming years. In particular, both China’s new commitments under the Paris Agreement and the country’s next five-year plan are being prepared in 2025. Read More Here 3 November 2020, Carbon Brief: Hydrogen gas has long been recognised as an alternative to fossil fuels and a potentially valuable tool for tackling climate change. Now, as nations come forward with net-zero strategies to align with their international climate targets, hydrogen has once again risen up the agenda from Australia and the UK through to Germany and Japan. In the most optimistic outlooks, hydrogen could soon power trucks, planes and ships. It could heat homes, balance electricity grids and help heavy industry to make everything from steel to cement. But doing all these things with hydrogen would require staggering quantities of the fuel, which is only as clean as the methods used to produce it. Moreover, for every potentially transformative application of hydrogen, there are unique challenges that must be overcome. In this in-depth Q&A – which includes a range of infographics, maps and interactive charts, as well as the views of dozens of experts – Carbon Brief examines the big questions around the “hydrogen economy” and looks at the extent to which it could help the world avoid dangerous climate change. Access full article here Fossil fuel emissions have stalled 14 November 2016, The Conversation, Fossil fuel emissions have stalled: Global Carbon Budget 2016. For the third year in a row, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry have barely grown, while the global economy has continued to grow strongly. This level of decoupling of carbon emissions from global economic growth is unprecedented.Global CO₂ emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and industry (including cement production) were 36.3 billion tonnes in 2015, the same as in 2014, and are projected to rise by only 0.2% in 2016 to reach 36.4 billion tonnes. This is a remarkable departure from emissions growth rates of 2.3% for the previous decade, and more than 3% during the 2000’s. Read More here Do you want to understand the complexity of energy systems which support our high consumption lifestyles? Most people don’t give too much thought to where their electricity comes from. Flip a switch, and the lights go on. That’s all. The origins of that energy, or how it actually got into our homes, is generally hidden from view. This link will take you to 11 maps which explain energy in America (it is typical enough as an example of a similar lifestyle as Australia – when I find maps for Oz I’ll add them in) e.g. above map showing the coal plants in the US. Source: Vox Explainers Mapped: how Germany generates its electricity – another example Power to the People – Lock the Gate looks back at the wins of 2015 And there’s lots more coming up in 2016. Some of the big priorities coming up next for the “Lock the Gate” movement are: If you want to give “Lock the Gate” your support – go here for more info This new report reveals that the pollution from Australia’s coal resources, particularly the enormous Galilee coal basin, could take us two-thirds of the way to a two degree rise in global temperature. To Read More and download report The 2006 UK government commissioned Stern Commission Review on the Economics of Climate Change is still the best complete appraisal of global climate change economics. The review broke new ground on climate change assessment in a number of ways. It made headlines by concluding that avoiding global climate change catastrophe was almost beyond our grasp. It also found that the costs of ignoring global climate change could be as great as the Great Depression and the two World Wars combined. The review was (still is) in fact a very good assessment of global climate change, which inferred in 2006 that the situation was a global emergency. Read More here The Garnaut Climate Change Review was commissioned by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments in 2007 to conduct an independent study of the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy. Prof. Garnaut presented The Garnaut Climate Change Review: Final Report to the Australian Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers in September 2008 in which he examined how Australia was likely to be affected by climate change, and suggested policy responses. In November 2010, he was commissioned by the Australian Government to provide an update to the 2008 Review. In particular, he was asked to examine whether significant changes had occurred that would affect the analysis and recommendations from 2008. The final report was presented May 2011. Since then the Professor has regularly participated in the debate of fossil fuel reduction, as per his latest below: To access his reports; interviews; submissions go here 27 May 2015, Renew Economy, Garnaut: Cost of stranded assets already bigger than cost of climate action. This is one carbon budget that Australia has already blown. Economist and climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut has delivered a withering critique of Australia’s economic policies and investment patterns, saying the cost of misguided over-investment in the recent mining boom would likely outweigh the cost of climate action over the next few decades. Read More here Live generation of electricity by fuel type Fossil Fuel Subsidies – The Age of entitlement continues 24 June 2014, Renew Economy, Age of entitlement has not ended for fossil fuels: A new report from The Australia Institute exposes the massive scale of state government assistance, totalling $17.6 billion over a six-year period, not including significant Federal government support and subsidies. Queensland taxpayers are providing the greatest assistance by far with a total of $9.5 billion, followed by Western Australia at $6.2 billion. The table shows almost $18 billion dollars has been spent over the past 6 years by state governments, supporting some of Australia’s biggest, most profitable industries, which are sending most of the profits offshore. That’s $18 billion dollars that could have gone to vital public services such as hospitals, schools and emergency services. State governments are usually associated with the provision of essential services like health and education so it will shock taxpayers to learn of the massive scale of government handouts to the minerals and fossil fuel industries. This report shows that Australian taxpayers have been misled about the costs and benefits of this industry, which we can now see are grossly disproportionate. Each state provides millions of dollars’ worth of assistance to the mining industry every year, with the big mining states of Queensland and Western Australia routinely spending over one billion dollars in assistance annually. Read More here – access full report here What is fossil fuel divestment? Local Governments ready to divest Aligning Council Money With Council Values A Guide To Ensuring Council Money Isn’t Funding Climate Change. 350.org Australia – with the help of the incredible team at Earth Hour – has pulled together a simple 3-step guide for local governments interested in divestment. The movement to align council money with council values is constantly growing in Australia. It complements the existing work that councils are doing to shape a safe climate future. It can also help to reshape the funding practices of Australia’s fossil fuel funding banks. The steps are simple. The impact is huge.The guide can also be used by local groups who are interested in supporting their local government to divest as a step-by-step reference point. Access guide here How coal is staying in the ground in the US Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign May 2015, Politico, Michael Grunwald: The war on coal is not just political rhetoric, or a paranoid fantasy concocted by rapacious polluters. It’s real and it’s relentless. Over the past five years, it has killed a coal-fired power plant every 10 days. It has quietly transformed the U.S. electric grid and the global climate debate. The industry and its supporters use “war on coal” as shorthand for a ferocious assault by a hostile White House, but the real war on coal is not primarily an Obama war, or even a Washington war. It’s a guerrilla war. The front lines are not at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Supreme Court. If you want to see how the fossil fuel that once powered most of the country is being battered by enemy forces, you have to watch state and local hearings where utility commissions and other obscure governing bodies debate individual coal plants. You probably won’t find much drama. You’ll definitely find lawyers from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, the boots on the ground in the war on coal. Read More here Oil – conventional & unconventional May 2015, Oil change International Report: On the Edge: 1.6 Million Barrels per Day of Proposed Tar Sands Oil on Life Support. The Canadian tar sands is among the most carbon-intensive, highest-cost sources of oil in the world. Even prior to the precipitous drop in global oil prices late last year, three major projects were cancelled in the sector with companies unable to chart a profitable path forward. Since the collapse in global oil prices, the sector has been under pressure to make further cuts, leading to substantial budget cuts, job losses, and a much more bearish outlook on expansion projections in the coming years. Read full report here. For summary of report USA Sierra Club Beyond Oil Campaign Coal Seam Gas battle in Australia Lock the Gate Alliance is a national coalition of people from across Australia, including farmers, traditional custodians, conservationists and urban residents, who are uniting to protect our common heritage – our land, water and communities – from unsafe or inappropriate mining for coal seam gas and other fossil fuels. Read more about the missions and principles of Lock the Gate. Access more Lock the Gate videos here. Access Lock the Gate fact sheets here 2014: Parliament of Victoria Research Paper: Unconventional Gas: Coal Seam Gas, Shale Gas and Tight Gas: This Research Paper provides an introduction and overview of issues relevant to the development of unconventional gas – coal seam, shale and tight gas – in the Australian and specifically Victorian context. At present, the Victorian unconventional gas industry is at a very early stage. It is not yet known whether there is any coal seam gas or shale gas in Victoria and, if there is, whether it would be economically viable to extract it. A moratorium on fracking has been in place in Victoria since August 2012 while more information is gathered on potential environmental risks posed by the industry. The parts of Victoria with the highest potential for unconventional gas are the Gippsland and Otway basins. Notably, tight gas has been located near Seaspray in Gippsland but is not yet being produced. There is a high level of community concern in regard to the potential impact an unconventional gas industry could have on agriculture in the Gippsland and Otway regions. Industry proponents, however, assert that conventional gas resources are declining and Victoria’s unconventional gas resources need to be ascertained and developed. Read More here 28 January 2015, ABC News, Coal seam gas exploration: Victoria’s fracking ban to remain as Parliament probes regulations: A ban on coal seam gas (CSG) exploration will stay in place in Victoria until a parliamentary inquiry hands down its findings, the State Government has promised. There is a moratorium on the controversial mining technique, known as fracking, until the middle of 2015. The Napthine government conducted a review into CSG, headed by former Howard government minister Peter Reith, which recommended regulations around fracking be relaxed. Labor was critical of the review, claiming it failed to consult with farmers, environmental scientists and local communities. Read more here Keep up to date and how you can be involved here Friends of the Earth Melbourne Coal & Gas Free Victoria 20 May 2015, FoE, Inquiry into Unconventional Gas: Check here for details on the Victorian government’s Inquiry into unconventional gas. The public hearings have not yet started, however the Terms of Reference have been released. The state government’s promised Inquiry into Unconventional Gas has now been formally announced, with broad terms of reference (TOR). FoE’s response to the TOR is available here. The Upper House Environment and Planning Committee will manage the Inquiry. You can find the Inquiry website here. The final TOR will be determined by the committee. Significantly, it is a cross party committee. The Chair is a Liberal (David Davis), and there is one National (Melinda Bath), one Green (Samantha Dunn), three from the ALP (Gayle Tierney, Harriet Shing, Shaun Leane), an additional MP from the Liberals (Richard Dalla-Riva), and one MP from the Shooters Party (Daniel Young). Work started by the previous government, into water tables and the community consultation process run by the Primary Agency, will be released as part of the inquiry.The moratorium on unconventional gas exploration will stay in place until the inquiry delivers its findings. The interim report is due in September and the final report by December. There is the possibility that the committee will amend this timeline if they are overwhelmed with submissions or information. Parliament will then need to consider the recommendations of the committee and make a final decision about how to proceed. This is likely to happen when parliament resumes after the summer break, in early 2016. Quit Coal is a Melbourne-based collective that campaigns against the expansion of the coal and unconventional gas industries in Victoria. Quit Coal uses a range of tactics to tackle this problem. We advise the broader Victorian community about plans for new coal and unconventional gas projects, we put pressure on our government to stop investing in these projects, and we help to inform and mobilise Victorian communities so they can campaign on their own behalf. We focus on being strategic, creative, and as much as possible, fun! The above screen shot is of the Victorian State government’s Mining Licences Near Me site. Go to this link to see what is happening in your area Environment Victoria’s campaign CoalWatch is an interactive resource that tracks the coal industry’s expansion plans and helps builds a movement to stop these polluting developments. CoalWatch provides a way for everyday Victorians to keep track of the coal industry’s ambitious expansion plans. To check what tax-payer money has been pledged to brown coal projects and the coal projects industry is spruiking to our politicians. Here’s another map via EV website (go to their website and you should be able to get better detail from Google Maps: Red areas: Exploration licences (EL). These areas are held by companies to undertake exploration activity. A small bond is held by government in case of any damage. If a company wants to progress the project it needs to obtain a mining licence. Exploration Licence applications are marked with an asterix in the Places Index eg. EL4684*. Yellow areas: Mining Licences (MIN). A mining licence is granted with the expectation that mining will occur. A larger bond is paid to government. Green areas: Exploration licences that have been withdrawn or altered due to community concern. Green outline: Existing mines within Mining Licences. Purple areas: Geological Carbon Storage Exploration areas for carbon capture and storage. On-shore areas have been released by the State Government, while off-shore areas have been released by the Federal Government. The Coal Watch wiki tracks current and future Victorian coal projects, whether they are power stations, coal mines, proposals to export coal or some other inventive way of burning more coal. To get the full picture of coal in Victoria visit our wiki page. Get more info and see the full list of Exploration Licences current at 17 August 2012 here August 2015, Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis – powerpoint: Changing Dynamics in the Global Seaborne Thermal Coal Markets and Stranded Asset Risk. Information from one of the slides follows. To view full presentation go here Economic Implications for Australia 83% of Australian coal mines are foreign owned, hence direct leverage of fossil fuels to the ASX is relatively small at 1-2%. However, for Australia the exposure is high, time is needed for transition and the new industry opportunities are significant: 1. Energy Infrastructure: Australia spends $5-10bn pa on electricity / grid sector, much of it a regulated asset base that all ratepayers fund much of it stranded. BNEF estimate of Australia’s renewable energy infrastructure investment for 2015-2020 was cut 30% from A$20bn post RET. Lost opportunities. 2. Direct employment: The ABS shows a fall of ~20k from the 2012 peak of 70K from coal mining across Australia, and cuts are ongoing. Indirect employment material. 3. Terms of trade: BZE estimates the collapse in the pricing of iron ore, coal and LNG cuts A$100bn pa from Australia’s export revenues by 2030, a halving relative to government budget estimates of 2013/14. Coal was 25% of NSW’s total A$ value of exports in 2013/14 (38% of Qld). Australia will be #1 globally in LNG by 2018. 4. The financial sector: is leveraged to mining and associated rail port infrastructure. WICET 80% financed by banks, mostly Australian. Adani’s Abbot Point Port is foreign owned, but A$1.2bn of Australian sourced debt. Insurance firms and infrastructure funds are leveraged to fossil fuels vs little RE infrastructure assets. BBY! 5. Rehabilitation: $18bn of unfunded coal mining rehabilitation across Australia. 6. Economic growth: curtailed as Australia fails to develop low carbon industries.
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3 May 2016, Carbon Brief, The global coal trade doubled in the decade to 2012 as a coal-fueled boom took hold in Asia. Now, the coal trade seems to have stalled, or even gone into reverse. This change of fortune has devastated the coal mining industry, with Peabody – the world’s largest private coal-mining company – the latest of 50 US firms to file for bankruptcy. It could also be a turning point for the climate, with the continued burning of coal the biggest difference between business-as-usual emissions and avoiding dangerous climate change. Carbon Brief has produced a series of maps and interactive charts to show how the global coal trade is changing. As well as providing a global overview, we focus on a few key countries: Read More here/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3915730/EIA%20coal%20power%20plants.png)
21 April 2015, Climate Council, Will Steffen: Unburnable Carbon: Why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.Stern Commission Review
Australia’s Garnaut Review
November 2014 – The Fossil Fuel Bailout: G20 subsidies for oil, gas and coal exploration report: Governments across the G20 countries are estimated to be spending $88 billion every year subsidising exploration for fossil fuels. Their exploration subsidies marry bad economics with potentially disastrous consequences for climate change. In effect, governments are propping up the development of oil, gas and coal reserves that cannot be exploited if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. This report documents, for the first time, the scale and structure of fossil fuel exploration subsidies in the G20 countries. The evidence points to a publicly financed bailout for carbon-intensive companies, and support for uneconomic investments that could drive the planet far beyond the internationally agreed target of limiting global temperature increases to no more than 2ºC. It finds that, by providing subsidies for fossil fuel exploration, the G20 countries are creating a ‘triple-lose’ scenario. They are directing large volumes of finance into high-carbon assets that cannot be exploited without catastrophic climate effects. They are diverting investment from economic low-carbon alternatives such as solar, wind and hydro-power. And they are undermining the prospects for an ambitious climate deal in 2015. Access full report here For the summary on Australia’s susidisation of it’s fossil fuel industry go to page 51 of the report. The report said that the United States and Australia paid the highest level of national subsidies for exploration in the form of direct spending or tax breaks. Overall, G20 country spending on national subsidies was $23 billion. In Australia, this includes exploration funding for Geoscience Australia and tax deductions for mining and petroleum exploration. The report also classifies the Federal Government’s fuel rebate program for resources companies as a subsidy.
