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The Forum > Article Comments > (R)evolving coal workers > Comments

(R)evolving coal workers : Comments

By Emma Pittaway, published 9/7/2008

Coal workers of the world are going to a better industry

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Unfortunately I think even as coal's problems become more clear people will tend to look the other way. The alternatives are expensive and may not offer the convenience of flicking on a switch any time we want. Even if the carbon price is kept artificially low for the first years of the emissions trading scheme, power bills could rise dramatically, say 50% in brown coal States. It's difficult to see what kind of compensation could help immediately; for example a subsidised hot water service is still expensive and will take years to recoup its outlay. Wind and solar don't currently offer the baseload electrical power which underpins the economy yet Greenpeace insist low carbon nuclear is unacceptable. It will take many years to build up renewable energy to major status and the investment returns may be mediocre even with carbon caps. Meanwhile desalination and electrified transport will increase demand for power. China and India will ask Australia for increased coal exports. So when it comes down to it I'm not sure we will cut coal use that much even if we want to.
Posted by Taswegian, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 9:45:12 AM
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Hi Taswegian

I appreciate your concerns about the transition ahead of us. The fact is, it is inevitable if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. So-called 'clean coal' won't be ready in time, if at all, and nuclear is not only an enormous liability for future generations but is prohibitively expensive as well (currently all renewable tehcnologies except solar PV are cheaper than nuclear). We've had so little policy support for renewables in Australia over the past decade that I think Australians don't realise that renewables are in fact proven technologies which are currently delivering reliable, affordable power in many parts of the world. They certainly can meet baseload demand, and with the introduction of energy efficiency regulations our power consumption can actually drop over the next several decades, even while population and GDP continue to grow. Just today the G8 and outreach countries are meeting to discuss climate change and have a chance to affirm the need for renewable technology transfer to countries like China and India so that they don't have to rely on coal into the future. There are achievable technical fixes to all of these problems: the real obstacle is a lack of political will.

I encourage you to have a look at recent modelling which shows that we could in fact phase out coal-fired power in Australia by 2030: http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/news/Climate-change/blueprint-energy-rev
Posted by EmmaP, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 10:15:08 AM
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Hi Greenpeace
If it is just so easy why don't you lead the way?
That is actually start financing and building alternative power plants? Then there is no need for your demo's or web pages and studies.
There could be no argument. Greenpeace are selling us cheap, clean electricity so the rest of the world would rush to you/us and everything would be hunky-dorey.
My question is whatever happened to the hole in the ozone layer? That was going to destroy our country wasn't it? An Australian scientist explained that ruse but now there is nothing comming from Greanpeace. Are you ignoring that previous "problem" or is this an embarrassed silence?
Posted by JBowyer, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 11:18:47 AM
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Thank you, Emma P. for covering this employment question so fully and clearly.
It's interesting that you mention "Greepeace's tactics".
I've always thought that Greenpeace's colourful and adventurous tactics were such a valuable, indeed, essential part of raising community awareness and education about the environment.

I think that it was, long ago, Florence Nightingale, who pointed out that a thousand study reports could gather dust on the shelf, and that direct action is essential, for change to be brought about.

However, nowdays, the interesting thing is that it seems that those "tree-hugging extremists", like FOE and Greenpeace, as well as highlighting issues by direct action, are taking the lead in researching and producing credible reports. They are explaining the economic, employment and other social aspects of environmental issues.

And, it seems that people world-wide are waking up to this. The fossil fuel and nuclear lobbyists have now got their work cut out, to begin to sound credible to a now better-informed and more sceptical public.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclear.net
Posted by ChristinaMac, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 11:30:14 AM
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It all sounds very interesting and positive Emma. Thankyou for putting up this article.

But I’ve got to say that the omission of population growth or the continuous rapid growth in energy demand from both your article and the report; ‘A just transition to a Renewable Energy Economy in the Hunter Region, Australia’ (as judged from a quick perusal of the executive summary) is most unfortunate.

It immediately makes me suspect the veracity of the report, which otherwise appears to be quite comprehensive and well written.

It could well be that rapid population growth in the greater Sydney - Newcastle area will cancel out and perhaps overwhelm all efforts to reduce coal-fired energy use, and that all alternative sources will be needed in addition to existing coal-fired stations.

Whatever the true magnitude of the impact of continuous population growth, will certainly make it a lot harder to wean ourselves off coal…and to achieve sustainability, which is another thing that we hear scant little about from Greenpeace.

I’ve been a member of Greenpeace for umpteen years. But I’ve always been critical of them for this blind spot.

Greenpeace needs to ‘lock down’ the PM’s office or a session of Federal parliament and demand that immigration be greatly reduced and our population be stabilised, as a fundamental part of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and converting our energy regime to a renewable basis….and in relation to all manner of other environmental concerns.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 12:16:50 PM
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Just read the report referred to in this article. I’m all for renewable energy but this report has some significant flaws - most notably it does not address the impact on electricity users of the inevitable rise in electricity prices that would be necessary if coal was to be replaced by renewables. For sure there would be a significant employment boost in renewable energy sector as renewables are more labour intensive than coal fired plants. But what about the countervailing negative impact of higher electricity prices on employment in electricity dependent heavy industry and on the incomes of electricity users in the rest of NSW. For balance, the debate needs to look at both sides of the equation rather than just focusing on jobs growth in the renewable energy sector.
Posted by Mark of Nth Melbourne, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 1:20:21 PM
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Its interesting that the greenpeace "research" piece Australia's Energy Revolution uses the lladiloes wind farm on its flyer. LLadiloes is contracted to supply 12.5MWatts. TWhen you compare this to a modern coal fired power plants 1000MWatts you see the true nature of the problem with wind power.

You need massive numbers of wind turbines, which requires large amounts of land, 2000 hectares for lladiloes for example, to provide power in the quantities required. Its certainly way more expensive than coal, even clean coal.

As much as greenpeace pretend that the technology is up to scratch it is clearly not.

Its all moot anyway because the Chinese and Indians have no intention of retarding their progress into the modern world by saddling themselves with carbon limits.

Finally this idea that nuclear is more expensive is absolute nonsense. Modern nuclear power investment includes ALL costs including decommissioning and waste storage and is still far cheaper than the renewable alternatives. see http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/TheBenefitsOfNuclearPower
Posted by Paul.L, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 2:18:29 PM
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All of the rational economic arguments above about the cost of one technology versus another are academic and to a degree irrelevant. "Economies do not exist in a vacuum and you cannot have an economy without an environment to sustain it". As for renewables, if they are more expensive; so what or how would we know, since both the coal and oil industries are massively subsidised and do not pay for the environmental damage they are causing.
Posted by thylacine, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 5:04:38 PM
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unfortunately the world's largest solar power plant in Germany is 40 megawatts. (for around 6 hours per day) The largest wind farm (in the US) is around 500mw when the wind is blowing. All up the combined wind farms in the US currently peak at around 2 - 3 gigawatts.

NSW power stations alone produce around 11 gigawatts from coal plus an additional 3.7GW from the Snowy.

let's get real eh?
Posted by Janama, Thursday, 10 July 2008 9:18:56 AM
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A couple of responses:

Ludwig - in response to your concern about population growth I will direct you to another report (http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/resources/reports/climate-change/energy-revolution-scenario-full) we released recently which models a "business-as-usual" energy scenario for Australia to 2050 against one in which energy efficiency and renewable energy technolgoies are rapidly introduced. The Energy [R]evolution Scenario report uses Australian Bureau of Statistics and Australian Bureau of Resource and Agricultural Econmoics statistics as well as figures from the International Energy Agency to model growth in Australian population and energy demand up to 2050.

The modelling shows that through the aggressive introduction of energy efficiency technologies and regulations (for buildings, appliances, transport and industry), we can decrease our primary energy consumption by 16% by 2020 and 38% by 2050 - even while our population grows according to projections. This is in fact the first step in making a transition away from coal-fired power, because energy efficiency is where the easiest and cheapest reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions can be made.

Mark - this partially answers the question you raised as well. Integral to this kind of energy revolution (you may also be interested in the above report) is the massive upscaling of energy efficiency technologies and standards in the domestic, commercial and industrial sectors. So although the price per unit of electricity will probably rise in the short term, overall consumption - and therefore cost of electricity bills - will fall. For example, in the Energy [R]evolution Scenario, households would achieve 10% efficiency by 2020, meaning that their overall power bills drop by 10%.

Secondly, on the topic of cost, renewable energy in fact ensures stability of supply over the long-term becasue it decouples energy prices from the volatile global fuel market (and protects it from the introduction of carbon pricing). The Energy [R]evolution Scenario shows how with a transition to energy efficiency and renewables we see a slight cost increase in the short-term but then a levelling out of energy costs, compared to the"business-as-usual" or reference scenario, where global fossil fuel prices continue to increase over the next 4 decades.
Posted by EmmaP, Wednesday, 16 July 2008 9:05:09 AM
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And a couple more:

Paul L: Wind power certainly can provide large amounts of electricity. In Spain, wind power contributes up to 40% of the electricity in their national grid. Here in Australia, a 1000MW wind farm has been approved for construction near Silverton (see: http://www.silvertonwindfarm.com.au/).

In addition, we are not talking about relying solely on wind power to replace coal-fired power. There are a number of proven, currently existing renewable technologies: wind, solar PV, solar thermal, geothermal, wave, tidal and biomass. These technologies must also be available for countries like China and India so that they can continue to increase their energy consumption while stabilising their emissions. It really is our responsibility as developed countries to ensure that these technolgies - and not ones that cause greenhouse pollution and toxic waste - are transfered to developing countries.

Finally, to build a nuclear industry from scratch in Australia would not only be very expensive but also simply couldn't happen in the timeframe required to avoid catastrophic climate change. The IPCC has said that developed countries' emissions need to peak by 2010. A nuclear energy industry in Australia would not be up and running until about 2025.

Janama - again I will underline that we are talking about a mix of many different technologies, not just wind and solar PV (which incidentally are the only two renewable technologies that DON'T provide constant power.) Our Energy [R]evolution Scenario (http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/resources/reports/climate-change/energy-revolution-scenario-full) demonstrates that by 2020, 40% of Australia's electricity can come from renewable sources and by 2030 coal-fired power can be phased out entirely. The capacities we are talking about bringing online in that timeframe are really quite small. For example, the report models the same amount of wind power installed in Australia over the next 12 years as will be installed in the US in the next 18 months (5000MW), and only half the solar thermal capacity (in 12 years!) that Spain is currently installing (4000MW).

There is no technical obstacle to an Energy [R]evolution - only a lack of political will.
Posted by EmmaP, Wednesday, 16 July 2008 9:46:42 AM
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My challenge remains unanswered Emma - as I thought.

Here is an impossible challenge - why don't Greenpeace publish their accounts? Who gets all their millions of dollars? Of course the travel bill for all you hot shots flying around the world (Business class?) would be an enormouse cost I realise.
All this hoo hah about 2010 as you know in Australia the drought will break and you will be unable to claim credit unless you have some runs on the board.
You then show you have the power to levy taxes on us and what a terrible weapon that is.
Show us your accounts Emma and explain why they have never been published before?
Posted by JBowyer, Wednesday, 16 July 2008 11:05:07 AM
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Hi JBowyer

In regards to your question of why we don’t finance and build power companies it is very simple: Greenpeace is a campaigning organisation not a business. If we were to become an energy retailer it would be impossible for us to retain our position as an independent lobbying/campaigning organisation, not to mention our status as an NGO. We do not accept money from corporations or governments, and would not accept profits made from an electricity retailer.

As you can see here http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/about/ we have a very clear definition of our values and mission, and would not compromise these fundamental principles and undermine 37 years of independent global environmental campaigning.

Our role is to provide solutions and run campaigns to ensure the preservation of life on our planet.

In regards to your question about the hole in the ozone layer you may be interested to know the following information:

After a series of rigorous meetings and negotiations, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was finally agreed upon on 16 September 1987 at the Headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal. In 1997 we saw the start of the ozone recovery thanks to this protocol.

Greenpeace campaigned to have CFCs and HFCs (used in refrigeration systems and one of the biggest contributors to ozone depletion) removed from refrigeration systems. In fact it was a campaign run in Sydney as a part of our green Olympics work that saw one of the biggest users of refrigerators agree to use Greenfreeze technology that does not produce ozone damaging gasses. You can read more about that campaign here http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/news/Climate-change/coca-cola-to-champion-our-cool-2

If you are interested in seeing where the donations people give to Greenpeace are spent please look here http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/about/financials. All of Greenpeace’s financial information is available there
Posted by Emma Pittaway, Wednesday, 16 July 2008 3:42:32 PM
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Having read the greenpeace report, I am in two minds as to whether they are merely naive (read incompetent) or deliberately misleading.

Most of the assumptions they make have holes you could fly a jet through, and others would appear to be made up.

GP has donned the mantle as high priests of the new religion of climate change, and as such expects its converts to quote its doctrine unchallenged.

I believe that climate change needs to be tackled, but would prefer to rely on projections from those that are technically competent and have no overt political objective.

A CSIRO report on the issue several years ago completely rubbishes the GP claims in the report.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 11:00:58 AM
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All this rubbish from Grinpiss assumes that the climate is changing due to emissions from human activity.

Well I, and a good many other people, many of them far more qualified to comment than Ms Pittaway, do NOT BELIEVE. Yes, I'm talking about holocaust.... oops sorry... AGW deniers.

It is totally obvious to anyone who has studied the figures regarding energy production from "renewables" that they cannot now, and will not in the foreseeable future, provide the level of base-load power required.

If you drive up the price of electricity to say double what it is now, yes, you will get demand destruction, and an impoverished lifestyle, which is what these lefty idiots seem to want so fervently.

For people who claim to be concerned about the future of humanity, the left sure seems to be doing everything it can to shorten people's lives; for that is what will happen to many older folk unable to afford electricity.
Posted by Froggie, Friday, 15 August 2008 9:22:56 PM
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