Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Ignoring Energy Market Operator’s forecast for coal, Matt Canavan keen to open new coal plants

Paris climate deal doesn’t stop us building new coal plants, Canavan says
Minister says agreement Australia committed to ‘doesn’t actually bind us to anything in particular’, Guardian, Katharine Murphy Political editor  @murpharoo 7 Sept 18  Australia does not need to quit the Paris climate agreement because our commitments are non-binding, and new coal plants can continue to be constructed, according to the resources minister, Matt Canavan.

Canavan told Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones on Friday he had never been to Paris, and was “happy to leave the Champs-Élysées for others”, but people needed to be clear the treaty Tony Abbott committed Australia to in 2015 “doesn’t actually bind us to anything in particular”.

Abbott said in 2015, when he announced Australia would be signing up, that the government was making a “definite commitment” to a 26% reduction in emissions by 2030 and “with the circumstances that we think will apply … we can go up to 28%”.
But Canavan said on Friday the Paris commitment was a three-page document that allowed Australia flexibility to build new coal plants. The resources minister said rather than focusing on the situation in 2030, “what I want to focus on is solving the crisis we have in energy today”……
Broadcaster Alan Jones declared the prime minister, Scott Morrison, needed to “recall Marise Payne and replace her”. He said the Morrison government would have no hope of winning the next federal election if it wanted to “persist with the global warming rubbish and the Paris agreement”.

The 2GB host said Paris needed to be “ripped up”.

A recent forecast by the Australian Energy Market Operator predicted 30% of Australia’s coal generators will approach the end of their technical life over the next two decades, and it said it was important to avoid premature departures if the looming transition in the national energy market is to be orderly.

But it was also clear that the most economical replacement for the ageing coal fleet was not new coal, but “a portfolio of utility-scale renewable generation, storage, distributed energy resources, flexible thermal capacity, and transmission”.

Aemo concluded that mix of generation could produce 90 terawatt hours of energy per annum, “more than offsetting the energy lost from retiring coal-fired generation”. ….https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/07/paris-climate-deal-doesnt-stop-us-building-new-coal-plants-canavan-says

September 8, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, energy | Leave a comment

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