A
t a time when there are
suggestions – though not in
northern Queensland – that
the industry will wither away,
yielding to wind turbines and solar arrays,
industry veterans can recall wistfully the
prospects outlined by the Queensland
Resources Council just six years ago.
At the time the state was mining 50 million
tonnes of coal a year, and this was expected to
reach almost 400 million tonnes by 2020.
It had achieved half that i gure by last year,
a credible rate of growth in most industries,
but well short of the expectations in 2011.
h e bitter opposition to the great Adani
project indicates how coal is no longer the
talisman for Queensland’s future.
h e problems accompanying prosperity
were acknowledged – building up to six
additional ports for 66 resource projects,
requiring the spending of $142 billion.
Plenty of work for everyone, these new
projects would need 40,000 workers, 5000
megawatts of electricity and an ocean of
fresh water, 200,000 megalitres.
h e council today is more cautious in its
expectations, though still a strong advocate.
h e prospectus of ered in 2012 was a sketch
of the possible, an exercise undertaken by
many industries.
Certainly the debate about rising global
temperatures and how Australia should
respond could give the impression that
within a few years a lump of coal will be a
quaint artifact.
h e global picture of new coal-i red power
station builds gives a dif erent impression
though.
A survey published by the federal
Department of Industry estimates that
286 coal i red power stations are under
construction, or planned, around the world.
Signii cantly for Australia, more than a
third of these would be in China and 55 in
India.
Surprisingly, Japan is the biggest importer
of Australian thermal coal. Last year it
bought 80 million tonnes, more than twice
China’s imports.
It was, in fact, only a little ahead of South
Korea.
h e key factor about the future coal i red
stations listed by the department was that
they would employ “advanced technology”,
a term that has been emphasised in the
Australian government’s proposal that more
coal i red capacity could be added here.
h is is obviously regarded as the game
changer among the nearly 30 countries listed
as prospective builders of new coal i red
stations.
h ere is a vast literature on the ways coal
could be made more acceptable but in the
past the technology seemed to be always just
out of reach, or likely to add costs that made
the fuel non-competitive.
h e advocates are still producing lengthy
explanations about how this can be achieved.
An article in a EE Publishers’ technical
journal suggests the technology alreadyexists and is being employed in power
stations under construction.
h ese “clean coal” technologies have the
potential to reduce CO 2 emissions by a i t h- “it is imperative that these technologies
be employed as widely and as quickly
as possible ... the i rst step towards ...
achieving near-zero emissions from coal
with carbon capture, use and storage”, the
journal reports.
It says that successful technologies are
commercially available and, if deployed, can
reduce CO 2 emissions from the entire power
sector by about 20 percent. “h ey are the
low-hanging fruit” in global CO 2 mitigation
which should be given more attention.
h e International Energy Agency points
out that only about 29% of the existing
coal-i red power l eet can be retroi tted for
carbon capture, utilisation, and storage.
h us, ei ciency improvements are the
i rst step on the road to major emissions
reductions.
h e paper claims the average ei ciency of
carbon capture technology around the world
today is 33%, well below the achievable rate
of 45% and even “of -the-shelf ” rates of
about 40%.
Meanwhile, the debate over the future of
one of Australia’s biggest exports continues.
Forecasts by HSBC suggest average prices of
thermal coal will increase in the short-term - from an average of $66 a tonne last year to
$86 this year, but in the longer term it will
fall back to little more than $60 a tonne.
Don’t look back in anger
While things are looking up at the moment for battered coal miners, many may
hanker for the bullish feelings they had just a few years ago. By John McIlwraith
28 AMM December 2017 http://www.miningmonthly.com
COAL
http://www.internationalcoalnews.comHad the coal dreams come
to pass, up to six more ports
would have been needed.