Minerals Council of Australia : ACT Labor-Greens attack on Adani’s mine a futile gesture

ACT Labor-Greens attack on Adani's mine a futile gesture

Opinion piece from The Australian

There is a scene in the 1978 frat house movie Animal House when the lads from Delta decide it is time to make a stand. 'I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part! We're just the guys to do it.'

The scene perfectly captures the fatuity of the resolution passed by the ACT Labor-Greens government opposing Adani's Carmichael coalmine, which will provide thousands of direct and indirect jobs in central and northern Queensland.

It is a reminder of how virtue signalling and vanity poses continue to characterise elements of our energy policy debate. During the past month, the debate has struggled to find its bearings in firm ground.

Part of the problem is what John Belushi's intellectual soulmate Albert Einstein described as the 'confusion of goals and perfection of means (which) seems, in my opinion, to characterise our age'.

In the energy policy debate, we seem especially incapable of distinguishing between means and ends. In particular, the problem is that some people have made up their minds that the singular goal of energy policy should be a higher share of renewable energy.

More renewables should not be the goal of policy. The end is keeping the lights on at affordable cost and with lower emissions. More renewable energy is just one means to that end. Just as other energy sources, including gas, modern baseload coal and possibly nuclear, are a possible means to the goal.

It is an iron rule of public policy that turning one policy option into a policy goal will inexorably mean the costs will be higher and effectiveness lower.

One problem is that we have already ventured down this path with the renewable energy target, which guarantees market share at a guaranteed price.

With that advantage locked down there are now calls for the national electricity system to be transformed - at considerable expense - to account for the idiosyncrasies and shortcomings of renewables. As the Finkel review draft report put it: 'Solutions are available to effectively integrate variable renewable electricity generators into the electricity grid, but we will have to change the way we operate.' That is code for 'watch your wallet'.

There are also demands for interconnectors that would not be needed but for renewables. Now interconnectors are a rational option in a national market. But the cost of these systems never seems to be ascribed to the renewable generation sector when the accounting is done. Then there is the expectation that other energy sources will be patiently available to stand in when the sun goes down or the wind blows too weakly (or too strongly).

We need to re-examine how we approach this debate. The real goals of our energy policy are the security of our energy supply, the affordability of our energy supply and the emissions intensity of our energy supply. Probably in that order.

That means we must start by looking at the strengths and weaknesses of all energy options, not ordaining one the winner. Picking winners is a temptation that expert reviews expressly promise to avoid but are rarely able to resist. For its part, the Finkel review draft report seems to rule out certain options way too early, a mistake it should correct in its final report.

Dozens of countries in Asia (and elsewhere) have signalled that they plan to meet their Paris Agreement emissions reductions by embracing new super-efficient coal generation that can reduce CO2 emissions by half.

An estimated 725 of these units are in place in Asia alone with another 1100 planned or under construction. The key is the ability of these plants to operate at increasingly higher temperatures and pressures, and therefore achieve higher efficiencies than conventional plants. In this context 'efficiency' means reducing the volume of fuel required to generate electricity.

A 1 per cent increase in the efficiency of a coal generation plant results in a 2 to 3 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions. In other words, a plant operating at 45 per cent efficiency can generate electricity with up to 50 per cent lower CO2 emissions than one operating at 27 per cent. And these plants are an important step towards the deployment of carbon capture and storage, not least because they dramatically reduce the volume of CO2 to be captured, transported and stored.

Also, these plants virtually eliminate air pollutants. A recent International Energy Agency Clean Coal Centre report highlighted China's progress with these plants. According to the report, 'China has the world's most efficient and lowest emission clean-coal plants which have pollutant emission levels lower than a gas-fired power plant.' The good thing for Australia, both in an export and domestic energy context, is that these plants work best with the high-energy, low-impurity coal that is Australia's speciality.

And the IEA confirmed just last month that these high-efficiency, low-emissions coal plants are the most affordable source of power generation in the Asia-Pacific and will remain so for the next decade.

So it is odd that these plants are not on the Finkel review radar, especially when Australia is the largest supplier of the coal they need, which will help supply secure, affordable and low-emissions energy to tens of millions of people for decades. And some of that coal will come from the Carmichael mine in central Queensland.

Which brings us back to the ACT Labor-Greens alliance and its foot-stamping resolution against the distant mine operation.

Its futile stand is reminiscent of that of Animal House's beleaguered university administrator Vernon Wormer, driven to despair by Otter, Bluto and the frat boys at Delta Tau Chi: 'The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me!'

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