Antinuclear

Much is the wailing and gnashing of teeth at the move by the Queensland government to approve the project but this approval is entirely political.

The evidence is compelling. Carmichael is the whitest of white elephants.It is all about the appearance of commitment to jobs, jobs that will never occur unless the coal price doubles, and it is about the government not getting bashed up by the opposition for being anti-jobs and abandoning its election commitments.

Even Adani is coy. No sooner had the Indian conglomerate been granted approval than it deferred the project for another year. Buried in the detail of its press release was this: “opportunity for final investment decision and construction in 2017”.

Reaching “final investment decision” would require willing financiers with a cool $10 billion just for Phase One. But Adani’s bankers have long since fled the scene.

There would be no taxpayer support nor “dredging [of the reef] at Abbot Point [port] until Adani demonstrates financial closure,” said Resources Minister Anthony Lynham.

The head of the world’s biggest power provider, chairman Liu Zhenya of China’s State Grid Corporation, recently told a US energy conference the ramp-up of renewable energy and ongoing integration of wind and solar power projects into the grid were gathering pace.

“A fundamental solution [to address power needs and climate change] is to accelerate clean energy,” Liu told his audience of energy executives. The eventual aim was “replacing coal and oil”.