There is nothing Gautam Adani will not do for money. In this sense, he is admirably dedicated to greed, so much so he has become its foremost caricature worthy of permanent enthronement. Mark this man’s name in the scriptures of eternity: There was nothing he did not do for the filthy lucre.
Source: Corrupt and Fraudulent: Laying Bare the Adani Group – CounterPunch.org
Can Dominic Perrottet and Chris Minns “do a Palaszczuk” and hike coal royalties on multinationals now reaping super-profits from the War in Ukraine, or are they too scared of a coal lobby backlash? Michael West reports on the Budget crisis facing NSW as voters head for an election in three months.
Source: Annastacia Palaszczuk leaves Perrottet and NSW in the dust on coal super profits – Michael West
In a year marked by record-smashing floods, fires, heatwaves and droughts, the urgent need to act on climate change has never been more apparent. And yet, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has found coal burning for electricity generation will reach record levels this year.
Why? Largely because rising natural gas prices, due to sanctions on Russia, is driving demand for less expensive coal to fill the gap in energy supply. The report finds Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has “sharply altered the dynamics of coal trade, price levels, and supply and demand patterns in 2022”.
The good news is the world’s coal use has peaked – and will soon rapidly decline. Australia is leading the way, and the rest of the world must soon follow.
Source: Global coal use in 2022 is reaching an all-time high, but Australia is bucking the trend
Coal from the Carmichael mine in Queensland was supposed to alleviate poverty in South Asia but instead, it’s further entrenching deep energy inequality and debt in Bangladesh, according to a new report.
Source: Adani’s Carmichael mine worsening Asian energy poverty crisis
In a historic ruling today, a Queensland court has said the massive Clive Palmer-owned Galilee Basin coal project should not go ahead because of its contribution to climate change, its environmental impacts, and because it would erode human rights.
Source: First-Nations-Led Youth Win Climate/ Human Rights Case against Mammoth Coal Mine in Australia
In what world is this a believable statement. If Alice went down the rabbit hole today she’d find this group around the Mad Hatter’s table. Is it because BP is Australia’s largest investor in solar energy? It has one foot on the subsidy accelerator, pays little in tax and has the other foot on the renewables brake. They don’t mind a reduction in output as long as prices continue to rise and renewables are kept under firm control
Ms King vowed to back new gas and coal fields to combat the energy crisis. She also expressed support for the ongoing role of gas to power mining and refining, which will support a net-zero emissions economy.
Source: Coal and gas ‘natural ally’ of renewables – Michael West
“Extremely investor friendly” is how the latest fossil fuel buyer describes Australia. Along with the twilight of the coal era with its astronomical profits has come the rise of squalid public relations tactics. Zacharias Szumer investigates the case of Liechtenstein-based coal trader Sev.en Global Investments, its billionaire owner Pavel Tykač and Sev.en’s propaganda associates.
State budgets may be raking in royalties from thermal coal exports now but governments need to prepare for a bleaker future, and job losses.
Source: Aussie coal in permanent decline: report – Michael West
The mine employs 2000 people, just under 10 per cent of the state’s coal mining workforce. The mine has been digging up coal since 2002 and can produce 20 million tonnes of thermal coal per year.
Source: BHP announces NSW’s largest coal mine to close by 2030
Another problem with “natural” gas as a bridge is that much gas production in the US is now via hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” which releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Methane does not stay in the atmosphere as long as CO2, but it is 25 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas. Our current methane crisis appears to derived from fracked wells that have been left uncapped.
Source: It is now Cheaper to Switch from Coal directly to Wind and Solar than to Natural Gas
The mess the LNP helped create and blamed others for.
What happens from here is unclear, but the company’s turmoil can’t be divorced from the Coalition’s policy failures
Always the salesman pushing coal. Morrison will lose the election but will he become the Coal Industry’s Mad Man into the future?
IN A PRESS RELEASE on 20 March, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that his Government is donating 70,000 tonnes of thermal coal to Ukraine, in response to a ‘direct request’ for the fuel, made through the Polish Prime Minister. Morrison said: And today, in response to a direct request from Ukraine, Australia will donate 70,000 tonnes of thermal coal. This will help Ukraine’s power generators operating and supplying electricity to the power grid at this critical time. They need that before the end of May and we have arranged the shipping for that to take place and are working with other countries to ensure it can get to Ukraine. So it’s our coal. We dug it up. We’ve arranged the ship. We’ve put it on the ship and we’re sending it there to Ukraine to help power up their resistance and to give that encouragement.
The closing of Australia’s biggest coal-fired electricity plant is getting publicity on the other side of the planet, but the Australian Government isn’t saying anything. Mind you, they are currently running Tax Payer funded Political Campaign Ads illegally, telling us their policy (plan) is to be Carbon Neutral by 2050. Morrison doesn’t lie does he?!! He just refuses to sign any agreement validating a LN-P committment to a “Promise”;
Coal supplies the world with about 800 gigwatts of its electricity, and if all those coal plants were suddenly shut down and replaced with wind-solar-battery, the world would save $3 billion a year in electricity costs plus make the planet substantially healthier. In the last week of December, the state of South Australia, about as populous as West Virginia, which lies just to the west of New South Wales, generated all its electricity for seven days in a row from wind and solar. Tesla built a megabattery for South Australia and is making one for Victoria, as well. There’s a new boss in town, and it is wind-solar-battery. Coal will just have to get out of the way.
In a major step forward for Australia’s clean energy transition, the country’s biggest coal-fired power station Eraring is set to close seven years early in 2025, Origin Energy announced this morning. Eraring has been operating for 35 years in the central coast of New South Wales. Last year, it alone was responsible for around 2% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, based on calculations from electricity market and emissions data. The fundamental reason for its early closure is the brutal impact the growth of renewable energy is having on the profitability of coal plants. Origin has announced it will be building a large, 700 megawatt battery on-site in its place to store renewable energy.
Grattan Institute energy experts say News Corp’s eye-watering figures on the projected costs and job losses of an improbable moratorium are ‘inflated’
In addition, the U.S. and China issued a joint declaration on enhancing climate action with specific focus on reducing methane emissions.
As China seeks to reduce reliance on Australian coking coal in the long term, much will depend on the steel technology path chosen in countries such as India, where steel demand is set for continued growth. India is already a significant user of DRI technology using gasified domestic thermal coal as the reductant but it is also a major importer of Australian coking coal for its blast furnaces.
However, the Indian Government is now eyeing steps to increase the domestic supply of coking coal and reduce dependence on imports while also aiming to diversify imports away from Australia.
Given ongoing resource security concerns and advancing alternative technologies, the days of coking coal being protected from the kind of investor and financier pressure on emissions faced by thermal coal look increasingly like they are over.
Source: Twilight of the coal boom as banks run out of excuses to fund coking coal – Michael West Media
Do Nothing Morrison will bow and take the credit.
Coal plants are being retired faster than anticipated and Australia’s national energy market could operate without the fossil fuel by 2043. This would produce $29 billion in net market benefits, the Australian Energy Market Operator forecasts.
Why is it we don’t hear of these disasters at solar or wind farms? Oh yes, Trump said that wind was America’s biggest bird killer on Fox this week without a word of pushback from Fox’s Hannity. Coal mines are dirty, dangerous, and destroying the planet and have asked people to die to dig the stuff out. It’s fast becoming a rapidly obsolete energy source that the electorate “doesn’t want” but the government and it’s donors do. Who works for who in a Democracy? Morrison has made it clear he’s got his foot on the brake of any trnsition.
Moscow: A fire at a coal mine in Russia’s Siberia has killed at least 14 people and injured more than 40, with dozens of others remaining trapped, authorities said. Unconfirmed Russian news reports have raised the death toll to 52. At least 11 miners died in the initial accident, when coal dust ignited in a ventilation shaft in the Listvyazhnaya mine in the snowbound Kemerovo region, filling the mine with smoke, the TASS news agency cited local emergency services as saying.
Source: Dozens trapped underground after fatal coal mine fire in Siberia
No leadership on the Government’s part. They’ve all gone to Hawaii. Morrison sent a telegram to Australia and the world “I’m not holding the hose” However no mention of the money paid to send him on that holiday. The enrgy sector is now free to sort itself out with the subsidies left and the biggest government not gone only on holiday
The international climate summit in Glasgow aimed to “consign coal power to history”. But while some major coal-consuming countries have agreed to phase out the fossil fuel in the 2030s, Australia is not one of them. Under its recently released plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the federal government modelled a scenario where the electricity sector still burns coal in 2050 – but only a very small amount. Despite the federal government’s insistence on keeping coal alive, the states are making progress phasing it out. But a messy, state-by-state approach is almost certainly a higher-cost outcome for consumers than if Australia had a credible, enduring climate and energy policy at the national level. As recent Grattan Institute analysis finds, if the phase out of coal is managed well, we can keep the lights on and slash emissions at low cost.
Source: Coal plants are closing faster than expected. Governments can keep the exit orderly
What the world really thinks of Australia and why Morrison is reluctant to attend COP26. Morrison sees no space for a positive photoshoot.
In a world racing to reduce pollution, Australia is a stark outlier. It is one of the dirtiest countries per head of population and a massive global supplier of fossil fuels. Unusually for a rich nation, it also still burns coal for most of its electricity. Australia’s 2030 emissions target – a 26% cut on 2005 levels – is half the US and UK benchmarks. Canberra has also resisted joining the two-thirds of countries who have pledged net zero emissions by 2050. And instead of phasing out coal – the worst fossil fuel – it’s committed to digging for more. So it’s no surprise that Australia is being viewed as a “bad guy” going into the COP26 global climate talks in Glasgow, analysts say. Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government is under huge pressure to do more.
Source: Climate change: Why Australia refuses to give up coal – BBC News
In the tradition of Coalition environment ministers, Sussan Ley has knocked back a large renewable energy project while waving through three new coal mines. Callum Foote reports on an Environment ministry which has found more renewable projects “clearly unacceptable” than coal mines.
Coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has succeeded in blocking the part of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill that would have moved the U.S. electricity grid quickly to green energy. This development is very bad news for the earth, since human beings burning coal, petroleum and natural gas contribute the bulk of the 6.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide that the United States farts out into the atmosphere every year, and which is causing the earth rapidly to heat up to uncomfortable levels. Although the U.S. only has 4% of the world’s population, it is responsible for 20% of global CO2 emissions. And that is just today. Through modern history, only Britain has been more of a carbon hog than America.
The COP26 climate negotiations are just weeks away, and the tide is now turning against international finance of coal-fired power generation. The implications for Australia cannot be ignored.
Source: Asia’s energy pivot is a warning to Australia: clinging to coal is bad for the economy
With the new pledge on overseas coal, Yuan Jiahai believes China has demonstrated its conviction to become a leader of global climate actions. “China’s carbon neutrality pledge does not cover the carbon emissions incurred by its companies in other countries. But if China wants to be a true leader, there is a need to be consistent with what it does domestically and what it does overseas,” Yuan said.
Source: The End of Coal? In Huge News for Climate, China to Stop Building new Coal Power Projects Overseas
The LNP arguments about not being contributors to the world’s CO2 emissions are rather pathetic. By our exports we are contributors to the largest global emitters.
there is no denying the ugly. As is true almost everywhere else, coal goes hand-in-hand with corruption. The projects commissioned by provincial governments were characterised by crony capitalism, with officials being bribed to provide cheap capital and disregard environmental and safety requirements. Centrally directed anti-corruption campaigns have had limited effects, particularly in provinces like Shanxi and Inner Mongolia where coal mining and new power plants are concentrated. There is little we in Australia can do to influence China. Our only contribution at this point will be to manage a transition away from dependence on thermal coal as an export industry. Sadly, there is no sign that our leaders are willing, let alone able, to undertake this task.
CAN YOU SMELL IT, dear reader? That faint but unmistakably putrid odour of dank memes and moral decay? It can only be one of two things: a truck full of rotting fish has crashed into the abandoned vomit factory, or Clive Palmer’s political grift is back on. Unfortunately, it’s the latter. The United Australia Party are already gearing up for the coming election as Palmer attempts to recapture the same triumph as 2019, where he spent $83 million to secure zero seats in either house. However, it contributed to the skin-of-the-teeth return of the coal-friendly Morrison Government who celebrated their win by immediately opening the Galilee Basin for coal mining.
Energy giant AGL’s record loss has supercharged the end of coal in Australia and called into question the Morrison government’s commitment to expanding gas. That is the message from energy experts who are concerned that Australia’s heaviest emitters are not reading the writing on the wall and transitioning fast enough. The warning follows this week’s release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPPC) report, which found the Earth is just 10 years away from heating 1.5 degrees on top of pre-industrial levels. On Monday, the IPCC delivered a damning assessment of Australia’s role in climate change, warning the planet was heating at a faster-than-anticipated pace. Just days later, the country’s biggest emitter posted a multi-billion-dollar loss.
Source: AGL’s record loss supercharges the end of coal in Australia, experts say
Ocean waters are now warmer, more acidic and hold less oxygen. Ocean ecosystems, already stressed from overfishing and pollution, face escalating risks of further degradation. With melting sea ice, rising sea levels and growing extreme weather events, human health and well-being now face many threats, most aimed at coastal populations.
Source: Top 5 Ways Coal and Gasoline-Driven Ocean Change can Threaten Human Health
Union mine workers in Alabama are taking part in a historic strike, the first of its kind in four decades, accusing Warrior Met Coal of first exploiting its workers and now inspiring violence against them on the picket line. Freelance journalists are on the ground and local news has been covering the story from the start — yet more than three months into the strike, the historic labor action has not received so much as a single mention from CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC, according to a new analysis from Media Matters.
The regulator’s latest figures, to be released on Friday, reveal the flood of renewables and accelerating clean energy revolution have contributed to wholesale power price falls of up to 58 per cent, with the average prices falling below $70 a megawatt-hour for the first time since 2015. These price falls will add to the financial pain facing coal generators, which are more expensive to run than new wind and solar plants, and raise the risk of more coal-fired generators bringing forward their closure dates due to falling profitability.
Source: Falling cost of renewables creates coal test for federal government
In correspondence between an employee and Dow regarding a query by Guardian Australia on available aqueous sources, it was suggested “we do not give [the paper] anything more than what is already on the public record from us. They are clearly struggling to work out where we are getting our water, so I don’t think we give them any further clarity.” Dow approved of the measure.
Source: Let the Vandalism Begin: Adani Strikes Coal – » The Australian Independent Media Network
What would Mathias Corman do if he were still with us “go for it”
Australia is the only OECD country to propose new coal mines on a scale so large that it will effectively double our emissions output, a new report has revealed. Global Energy Monitor’s report, released on Thursday, found Earth will surpass the four degrees of warming as outlined by the Paris climate agreement if all the world’s currently approved coal mines come to fruition. The report found coal producers are actively pursuing 2.2 billion tonnes per annum of new mine projects around the world.
Source: Approved coal mines will set world on track for over 4 degrees warming
Australian politicians and companies are being urged to abandon plans for new coal power, gas and oil investments after a major report by the world’s leading energy agency found fossil fuel expansion must end now if the planet is to address the climate crisis. The International Energy Agency (IEA) found a “narrow and extremely challenging” pathway to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – a target set by more than 100 countries, and which the Morrison government says it would “preferably” like to achieve – would require advanced economies such as Australia to have a zero-emissions electricity grid by 2035.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has hit out at right-wing media outlets and former coalition colleagues for their advocacy for the fossil fuel sector, accusing them of fetishising coal.
Source: Malcolm Turnbull lashes out at right-wing media over coal advocacy
At almost $20,000 per minute, the Government spends more on fossil fuel subsidies than on the Australian Army, writes Rod Campbell.
Source: Where’s Wally: find your favourite taxpayer subsidy to the fossil fuel giants – Michael West
Prime Minister Scott Morrison appears to be testing the waters of a zero net emissions target by 2050, saying the climate goal will be “won” by Australia’s mining and energy sectors, factories and industry.
Source: PM says mines and factories will help us reach zero net emissions
With support from the Australian government, the Adani corporation is pushing ahead with an environmentally destructive coal mine in Queensland. But the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land, the Wangan and Jagalingou nation, are waging a determined fight to stop them.
The decision comes as a flood of new renewable energy has been driving down daytime power prices and piling enormous pressure on Australia’s fleet of ageing coal-fired power plants, which are far more expensive to operate and, increasingly, struggling to compete.
Victoria’s Yallourn coal power plant to close early as clean shift slashes prices
AGL IS ONE OF Australia’s largest energy companies with a marketing budget to match, so that money can be chucked at everything from sports teams to community festivals. But all of the spin and sponsorship hides a grim truth. In the villainous league of Australia’s worst coal-burning polluters, AGL is the number one offender — literally, the worst of the worst.
AGL is leading the way in harmful coal pollution
Australia must commit to a net-zero carbon emission target to avoid becoming an international pariah, writes Professor John Quiggin.
Morrison missing the memo on climate change
Some Chinese energy providers have been told to stop importing Australian coal amidst trade tensions between our countries, writes Professor John Quiggin.
China tightens the screws on Australian coal imports
Toxic emissions from burning coal can cause serious health damage to not only the environment but to all humans, including the unborn, writes David Ritter.
Coal burning causes capital crimes against humanity and nature
They often call selling roadkill on the stock market as offering a share shouldn’t be better called a dead or dying parrot. Remember Howard’s 2nd tranche of Telstra shares?
The giant coal port Dalrymple Bay is up for sale. The financial engineering wizards from Brookfield want out. Brookfield’s debt is humungous, and green hydrogen is looming as a mortal threat to coking coal. They can’t offload it to professional investors, so they are now targeting the mums and dads for a float on the ASX, while even angling for a bail-out by the Queensland Government. Michael West reports on one of the trickiest financial juggling acts you will ever see.
Desperate Dalrymple: Brookfield dumps coal port on mums and dads in ASX float as Queensland moots bail-out – Michael West
Crisis has proved renewable energy is now a safer investment, and accelerated the shift
The document marked “not for public disclosure” notes the banks recognises “the time has come” to make the transition
ANZ is the biggest lender to coal mining in Australia
The bank loans money to Whitehaven Coal, the operator of the controversial Maules Creek mine
Globally in 2018, coal-fired electricity generation accounted for 30% of CO2 emissions and coal power facilities were the single largest contributor to the growth in emissions. Australia is the largest coal exporter in the world and is responsible for more than a quarter of world trade.
So, it is fair to say that coal is the single greatest driver of the climate emergency that has led to Australia’s catastrophic spring fire season.
Source: 
olddogthoughts 