Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Coal world


Covers a lot of ground in 2 minutes, but there is a lot of ground that is planned to be uncovered in the coming years (to get at the coal underneath).

8 comments:

byron smith said...

CCR: Carbon price no obstacle to Oz coal expansion.

Far from signalling the "death of the coal industry" as the opposition have been claiming for some time, the carbon price doesn't seem to have dented the runaway growth of coal exploration and extraction.

Extract from The Economist, quoted in the post: "Asia has been responsible for over two-thirds of the growth in global energy demand over the past two decades…. China leads the world in coal production and consumption. It mines over 3 billion tonnes of coal a year, three times more than the next-biggest producer (America), and yet last year overtook Japan to become the world’s biggest coal importer. Over four-fifths of China’s electricity comes from coal-fired power plants. Burning coal is a big cause of the severe air pollution afflicting parts of China, and, through waste from coal-washing and underground leakage, of contaminated water and degraded soil…According to projections by McKinsey, a consultancy, even taking all this into account, China is still likely to consume 4.4 billion tonnes of coal in 2030, when its carbon emissions are expected to have increased from 6.8 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 2005 to 15 billion tonnes. Of these nearly 40% will come from power generation. On current trends, as estimated by McKinsey, India’s carbon emissions will increase by about two-and-a-half times by 2030, by which time its power industry alone will account for about one-tenth of the total rise in global emissions. Like China’s government, India’s points out that, per head, its people will still be producing far less carbon dioxide than Americans or Australians (though China is rapidly catching up with some European countries in pollution per person). And, in India’s case, total emissions (at 5 billion–6.5 billion tonnes) will remain well below China’s."

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Why Australia must stop exporting coal. And Australian energy white paper plans to burn, burn, burn it all.

byron smith said...

Guardian: More than 1,000 new coal plants planned worldwide. Three quarters are in China and India.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Why the Galilee Basin is worth worrying about. It is roughly the same size as the UK and "If all the [planned] projects go ahead, the annual emissions from burning Galilee Basin coal would amount to around 130% of Australia’s current total annual emissions".

byron smith said...

Guardian: Public health cost of India's coal.

byron smith said...

Guardian: The Coal Industry vs Everyone else.

byron smith said...

ABC: Coal fund earmarked for CCS quietly re-purposed for coal industry propaganda. Another fig leaf wilts and falls to the ground.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Expanding coal ports bad for Australia and for the world.

And:
If coal’s in trouble, why build more coal ports?