World's Largest Coal Port To Be 100% Powered By Renewable Energy (theguardian.com) 61
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world's largest coal port has announced it will now be powered entirely by renewable energy. The announcement from Port of Newcastle comes as coal power generation in Australia's national electricity market fell to its lowest level in the final three months of 2021. Though the port continues to export an average of 165Mt of coal a year, the move is part of a plan to decarbonize the business by 2040, and to increase the non-coal portion of its business so that coal only makes up half its revenue by 2030. It has signed a deal with Iberdrola, which operates the Bodangora windfarm near Dubbo in inland New South Wales, for a retail power purchase agreement that provides the port with large scale generation certificates linked to the windfarm.
Chief executive officer Craig Carmody said the Port of Newcastle's title as the largest coal port in the world "isn't as wonderful as it used to be" and that change was necessary to avoid what happened in Newcastle and the steel industry closed. "I would prefer to be doing this now while we have control over our destiny, while we have revenue coming in, than in a crisis situation where our revenue has collapsed and no one will lend us money," Carmody said. "We get 84 cents a tonne for coal shipped through our port. We get between $6 and $8 for every other product. You can see where I'd rather have my money." As part of its transition the port has converted 97% of its vehicles to electric and engaged in other infrastructure projects to decarbonize its operations. "It's a good thing they're looking at it, but 50% income diversification by 2030, it's still a decade away," said Andrew Stock, climate councillor and retired energy executive who was a founding board member of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. "That's still a lot of coal that's going to go through that port particularly when the IEA and the IPCC have made it clear we have to move. And 50% by 2030 is still 50% coal income."
He went on to say that governments should encourage a "rapid advance in the uptake of renewables" similar to what has occurred in South Australia, which is powered by 100% renewable energy on some days.
Chief executive officer Craig Carmody said the Port of Newcastle's title as the largest coal port in the world "isn't as wonderful as it used to be" and that change was necessary to avoid what happened in Newcastle and the steel industry closed. "I would prefer to be doing this now while we have control over our destiny, while we have revenue coming in, than in a crisis situation where our revenue has collapsed and no one will lend us money," Carmody said. "We get 84 cents a tonne for coal shipped through our port. We get between $6 and $8 for every other product. You can see where I'd rather have my money." As part of its transition the port has converted 97% of its vehicles to electric and engaged in other infrastructure projects to decarbonize its operations. "It's a good thing they're looking at it, but 50% income diversification by 2030, it's still a decade away," said Andrew Stock, climate councillor and retired energy executive who was a founding board member of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. "That's still a lot of coal that's going to go through that port particularly when the IEA and the IPCC have made it clear we have to move. And 50% by 2030 is still 50% coal income."
He went on to say that governments should encourage a "rapid advance in the uptake of renewables" similar to what has occurred in South Australia, which is powered by 100% renewable energy on some days.
Renewable energy and money go hand in hand (Score:5, Insightful)
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> while there's still time to do so.
12 years, huh.
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Re: Renewable energy and money go hand in hand (Score:2)
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Are you arguing that in Australia, carbon credits are not offsets traded on a market, but rather "just" a green energy promotion tax?
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Haha ... --- Nelson Muntz (Score:3)
World's Largest Coal Port To Be 100% Powered By Renewable Energy
LOL, this is even funnier than oil in the Persian Gulf being pumped around by solar energy or MAGA hat wearing Red Staters sitting around confident that their energy is produced by ideologically correct, patriotic, coal when those states lead the list over wind energy adopters.
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Somewhere, someone with your narrow mindset holds an executive position at some [coal, gas, oil] [port, refinery, hub] and he's decided not to utilize green energy... because he's insecure about the optics. -- The human race ladies and gentlemen.
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Or Norway. Everybody has an electric car. All paid for by oil exports.
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Or Norway. Everybody has an electric car. All paid for by oil exports.
You can pull that factoid out as often as you want but in the end internal combustion engine is still obsolete technology.
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You can pull that factoid out as often as you want but in the end internal combustion engine is still obsolete technology.
I don't think obsolete is the correct term.
The vast majority of motor vehicles sold today are still ICE powered and fully functional for their intended purpose, and that is unlikely to change without government intervention. I don't think obsolescence is something really determined by government edict. Our government here in Canada plans to ban AR-15 rifles, but that does not make them obsolete, only proscribed.
Whole pack of PR nonsense there. (Score:3)
So they are going to buy all their energy from a wind farm.
When the wind doesn't blow, they'll be relying on... what? Given it's in NSW, coal.
If they didn't buy the wind energy other people would. Net effect on CO2 emissions: zero.
Greenwashing is the term.
Re:Whole pack of PR nonsense there. (Score:4, Interesting)
Export coal vs domestic coal.
To an extent it's greenwashing but on the other hand it's retail politics between (a) the state Liberal/National coalition government that have set a target for domestic decarbonization against (b) the federal Liberal/National coalition government that positions itself as a protector of coal mining jobs.
Same party, different messaging.
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Right now, if places like China are going to use coal they're going to use coal. If you stop selling them coal, there are other places that will. All you end up doing is destroying jobs, the taxes from which can be used to develop green technology by providing research grants to universities, startup grants to businesses, and financing businesses that wish to start producing 'green' products.
I'm not talking about assembling either. The Ontario government in Canada in the early 2000s introduced a 'green' ini
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If you look at the weather history for the wind farm site, there's only a handful of days each year where the wind is too low to generate electricity, something like less than 5% of the time. That's probably why they put a wind farm there.
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cite please. Just because they are turning 95% of the time doesn't mean they are producing enough to power the port when it needs it.
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Bodangora Wind Farm is supposed to generate on average 361 GWh of energy annually [wikipedia.org]
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That's the average over the year (incidentally they only did 335 last year in a full year of operation ) and is irrelevant to your 95% claim
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total not average
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Why do you assume that experts in the field who know what they are doing are somehow completely inept and ignorant compared to someone on the internet who knows absolutely nothing about any of it?
Where have you been the past two years? Experts don't know shit. You know how we know this? Because people did their research.
Re: Whole pack of PR nonsense there. (Score:2)
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The number of wind turbines isn't fixed forever
It's one of the good things about wind farms - it's relatively simple and quick (provided the geology and geography supports it, permitting, etc.) to add additional supply. That's relatively simple, not simple simple, by the way.
fucky-face.
Unnecessary.
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When the wind doesn't blow, they'll be relying on... what? Given it's in NSW, coal.
Base load is base load. If the wind doesn't blow then it will be made up by firing up gas plants. You don't regulate peaks with coal.
Greenwashing is the term.
Spending money on green energy which directly leads to investment in green generation is not greenwashing. There are so very many problems with green energy in Australia, don't go making up new ones, it's less effort to just focus on the ones which are there.
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So they are going to buy all their energy from a wind farm.
When the wind doesn't blow, they'll be relying on... what? Given it's in NSW, coal.
If they didn't buy the wind energy other people would. Net effect on CO2 emissions: zero.
Greenwashing is the term.
And by buying up all that energy from a wind farm they're increasing the demand for renewable energy and driving further investment into renewables.
It's always amusing how these supposedly clear-eyed rational capitalists suddenly forget about things like supply and demand when trying to criticize renewables.
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If they didn't buy the wind energy other people would. Net effect on CO2 emissions: zero.
If those people that would have wanted to buy the wind energy that the Port of Newcastle is now buying decided to not buy green energy sure there would be no net effect on CO2 emissions. There is a very high probability though that those people will still want to buy green energy so there is a market that someone can exploit by building more green energy generator. Those new green energy generators will help to reduce the CO2 emissions thus the Port of Newcastle purchasing green energy does have an effect o
Coal and Oil ARE Green (Score:2)
Coal and Oil are green. We just need to clone dinosaurs like in Jurassic Park. Problem solved.
So... (Score:3)
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The butcher is a vegetarian?
Why not? People are still going to eat meat so people are still going to butcher meat.
The fact the butcher doesn't want to eat meat shouldn't put them out of a job. If anything, if you want more people to be vegetarians, a vegetarian butcher introducing their customers to non-meat alternatives is a really good thing.
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I guess it all comes down to the reason why the butcher is a vegan. If it is for moral reasons that they opposed the cruelty of farming animals than it is hypocritical to be a butcher. If the butcher is a vegan because they believe it is just a healthier lifestyle than remaining a butcher doesn't really go against that philosophy.
a vegetarian butcher introducing their customers to non-meat alternatives is a really good thing
Except that that is kind of like biting the hand that feeds you but I guess since you are a vegan/vegetarian you would bite the hand so I guess you are ok? 8^)
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Doh.
Should proof read better.
"[B]ut I guess since you are a vegan/vegetarian you would bite the hand" should be "but I guess since you are a vegan/vegetarian you wouldn't bite the hand".
Good? (Score:2)
Coal plant utilizing natural alkaline minerals to neutralize emissions can be carbon neutral. So far, this doesn't seem to be the most economical way to produce climate safe energy, but every incremental step helps. Long term, who knows?
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Re: Good? (Score:2)
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It might not be that easy to do. I found this article that talks about reducing atmospheric CO2 via enhanced weathering of silicate rock.
But it’ll take a lot of rock — to neutralize one year of carbon emissions, it takes a cube of olivine 6.34 miles on each side. Though it’s not as much as the coal mined each year, that cube would be taller than Mt. Everest, which is just under 5.5 miles high. And that’s not the only challenge.
https://news.medill.northweste... [northwestern.edu]
That is one hell of a lot of rock needed each year. Although, as also stated in the quote, we currently mine more than that in coal each year already.
This is part of the process (Score:1)
Coal is not used only for energy. Part of the process of switching to alternative fuels is that we will see minerals mined originally for energy, find uses that are not in energy, then as the energy market disappears the non-energy uses dominate. Coal is used to refine steel and aluminum. The process still effectively burns the coal so it's not reducing CO2 emissions any. Another use of coal is to "upgrade" petroleum. There's greater value in gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuels so oil companies buy up
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"Australia is on the path to building a nuclear power industry. ....the Australian Navy will be getting nuclear powered submarines with a deal made with the USA and UK. With this will come the technology to built civil nuclear power plants,"
Australia will never have a nuclear (fission) power industry (apart from what's needed to power the submarines), renewables are too cheap given our size and climate and it would be political suicide.
There is as yet no contract for these submarines, the reactors apparentl
Re:This is part of the process (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you imagine the utter insanity of building a nuclear plant in a country with vast, vast wind and solar resources?
As for nuclear subs leading to civilian nuclear applications, they won't. The naval reactors are heavily classified and extremely expensive, not at all suitable for civilian use.
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Even pro nuclear as I am, it would be daft.
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Australia is on the path to building a nuclear power industry.
On a path? A country with zero nuclear power plants and zero contracts to build any is about as much on the path to a nuclear industry as I am on the path to climbing Everest sitting by sitting on the couch and watching a documentary about mountains.
Oh, the irony (Score:3)
nft
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Well, you beat me to it. Yes, the irony of a carbon industry using renewables to power itself. I wonder if it can carbon credit itself like this and reduce the burden on its customers. :-)
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Therefore subsidising coal (Score:2)
Lipstick on a pig (Score:2)
Ignore that big pile of polluting coal sitting there. Look at our bright lights powered by renewable energy.
Extreme greenwashing.
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Coal (Score:2)
Coal is renewable energy. It just takes a long time.
If that ain't lipstick on a pig ... (Score:1)
... nothing is.
The world's largest Coal Port running on 100% (Score:1)