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Click on the links for extra reading and listening practice. As you read and listen, try to identify the following:
a. topic
b. main idea or issue
c. any examples provided
d. any evaluations made
e. any suggested implications
f. any recommendations
g. author or speaker attitude

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A common argument for expanding renewable energy sources is that technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines are responsible for far less carbon dioxide than power plants that burn fossil fuels. But two other powerful benefits should also be getting much more attention: the switch can save vast quantities of freshwater, and can create a large number of new, high-paying jobs. Want proof? Let's look at the data that our detailed research has revealed.
NOTE: Tapping a graphic, or placing a cursor over it, will reveal interactive information.
Only about 3 percent of the Earth's water is freshwater.

Most of that is frozen in glaciers-which means only 0.8 percent of the planet's water reserves can be tapped for human use. Water is a precious, but limited, commodity. And nearly 1 billion people worldwide lack access to clean water.

In the U.S., 45.3 percent of the water withdrawn from lakes, rivers and underground aquifers is used to cool off thermoelectric power plants: nuclear reactors and plants that burn fossil fuels.

This is more water than used nationwide for irrigation, and it far exceeds any other source of demand, including public consumption.

To provide electricity for an average home, a nuclear power plant requires 615 gallons of cooling water a day, a coal-fired plant requires 199 gallons per day, and a natural gas power plant requires 114 gallons per day. The stunning volume is a quiet thief that threatens the U.S. water supply.

But to make sure we are comparing apples to apples, let's look at how much water each power source withdraws to generate one megawatt-hour of electricity.

Nuclear reactors are the highest, at 13,000 gallons. Then comes concentrated solar (heating a fluid with the sun), coal, natural gas and biomass such as wood. The water needed by solar panels and wind turbines is orders of magnitude lower. Note that these data only reflect operations to generate electricity; they do not include water used to obtain the fuel or generate the power, which can be substantial. For example, fracking can use hundreds of thousands of gallons each time a rock deposit is cracked to release natural gas.

A portion of the water extracted is lost to evaporation. The rest is sent back to the environment, but some of that is contaminated with chemicals, and most of it is hot, which can kill fish and plankton and stress the ecosystem.

Making matters worse, the power sources that have high water withdrawal per MWh are also the largest suppliers of electricity.

Natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants ranked one, two and three in 2016, in terms of the total amount of U.S. electricity generated in a year. And natural gas is projected to become even more important through 2050.

From the point of view of conserving freshwater, it seems clear that the country should shift toward renewables. This move would make more freshwater available for food production and human consumption, particularly as population grows. It would also significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But what might a switch to solar and wind do to jobs growth?

It turns out that expanding renewables creates far more jobs than expanding fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants combined. Some of the benefit is from construction jobs to build out solar infrastructure. U.S. coal and oil jobs have been disappearing, and the delivery and burning of more natural gas adds few jobs because the operations are highly automated, requiring few people. ("Other" represents jobs that cannot be assigned to a single category because they cut across multiple energy sectors.)

Jobs are enticing if they pay well.

Solar jobs pay roughly the same median salaries as fossil fuel jobs. Nuclear power jobs still pay the highest, because they are very technical and involve large risk. Wind jobs pay less, on average.

More good jobs sounds promising. But how would a shift toward renewables affect the other big money question: the price of electricity consumers must pay?

The answer is called the levelized cost of energy: the total expense required-capital investment, operations, fuel and so on for a power plant's lifetime-divided by the total energy that plant could produce in that time.

Fuel and operating expenses are very high for fossil and nuclear plants, and are very low for solar and wind. The bottom line is that the levelized cost of electricity from solar panels and wind (on land) is very similar to that of natural gas. And electricity cost from those technologies is less than that from nuclear and especially clean coal. (Oil is not included because it is disappearing as a fuel for electricity generation in the U.S.)

These data and calculations make it apparent that a big shift to renewable energy in the U.S. can greatly reduce water use, lower carbon dioxide emissions, create new high-paying jobs and keep electricity costs low.

The same transition could benefit other countries as well. Electricity already costs much more in Germany and Ireland. Unemployment is high in many countries. Today many people worldwide do not have access to safe, clean water. And hundreds of thousands of people die each year because of poor sanitation, which in many places could be greatly improved using water for sewage systems.

Switching to renewable energy can help the world conserve water for personal use, sanitation and food production, and help improve living standards with good jobs. The move could help solve these interdependent issues together.

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Renewable Energy Saves Water and Creates Jobs

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A common argument for expanding renewable energy sources is that technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines are responsible for far less carbon dioxide than power plants that burn fossil fuels. But two other powerful benefits should also be getting much more attention: the switch can save vast quantities of freshwater, and can create a large number of new, high-paying jobs.

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Australia is moving closer to becoming a global leader in ocean energy, with a tidal turbine in Queensland pumping electricity into the grid, providing power to homes and industry.

Predictability of tidal flow offers great potential for power generation, researchers say

Gladstone Ports Corporation planning to install multiple tidal turbines

Researchers say tidal energy could be perfect for powering remote communities

Turbines secured in free-flowing waters convert kinetic energy into renewable power and are seen as a complementary energy source to wind and solar generation.

Australian companies spent decades trying to find a cost-effective way of harnessing tidal power, with turbine prototypes trialled in Tasmania, Sydney and Japan.

Experts at a tidal energy conference in Perth this week were briefed on an Australian first at Gladstone Port, with a commercial-ready turbine sending power into the city's grid.

It was installed by Sydney-based MAKO Tidal Turbines and company boss Douglas Hunt said there were vast numbers of pylons and piers along the Australian coast that could potentially house pairs of turbines.

"Battery storage need only take into account a four- to six-hour window without power until the tide once again flows and the batteries are recharged," he said.

"But really our focus is beyond Australia. We're already in discussion with parties to put a similar configured turbine in South East Asia and we see that as an enormous market for us."

The predictable nature of tidal flows is the industry's biggest advantage and ports with existing grid connections are considered ideal to host turbines.

The trial in Gladstone is only a demonstration scale project with one turbine, but the Gladstone Ports Corporation has plans to install more.

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A prototype of the turbine was tested in Japan

Gladstone Ports CEO Peter O'Sullivan said they had a tidal range of up to 5 metres.

"It's basically a bit like a propeller, so it's about 2 metres in diameter and as the tide moves through the port it turns the propeller just like other turbines, where steam turns them or water turns them in hydro, so that produces electricity," Mr O'Sullivan said.

The power is then transferred through a cable to either the Barney Point coal terminal or connected to local energy providers via substations and then distributed into the local grid.

"We hope that this may be the start of a long-term partnership so we can continue to grow the number of turbines and look at investing in how this technology may advantage us but also the rest of Queensland as well," Mr O'Sullivan said.

"We know exactly what velocity of water is going to be moving through the port and that means we know how much electricity is going to be produced.

"So unlike some other renewables, where the clouds may come over and interrupt solar or the wind may drop off, every day of the year we can predict exactly how much power this type of renewable energy produces, and that allows a lot of planning, to integrate with other power sources as it can get a full range of dispatchable power."

Mr O'Sullivan said the 2-metre turbine generated enough power to run about one household per day, and could be attached to existing infrastructure for a low cost.

Dr Irene Penesis from the Australian Maritime College at the University of Tasmania, said 1 megawatt turbine could power 600 to 800 homes and as an industry add about 3.2 gigawatts into the renewable energy mix.

As water is much denser than air, tidal turbines are much smaller than wind turbines.(Supplied: Mako )

Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO, Dr Mark Hemer said Australia arguably had the "largest ocean renewable energy resources of any country in the world" combining tidal, wave energy and offshore wind.

The biggest opportunities were in the north-west shelf and across the Northern Territory, Queensland and Torres Strait where tides could rise and fall as much as 11 metres.

Dr Penesis said ambitions for the turbines go beyond ports and marinas, with researchers looking at remote coastal locations with power issues.

"In Australia where we have a lot of islands that are running on offshore diesel, and to see some of those resources being replaced by renewables, and the tidal resource is one of those predictable resources we should be exploiting more in this country," she said.

No negative impacts detected so far

The Gladstone trial is being closely monitored for environmental impacts.

"So far there's been no evidence that suggests there is any negative impact on the marine life or sites where we've seen tidal turbines being deployed at," Dr Penesis said.

She said while there were still challenges facing commercialisation of tidal turbines, the technology was more advanced than wave generation research.

"We need to understand the characteristics of these sites, to try and reduce some of the costs," she said.

Dr Hemer said industries in Australia's marine and coastal areas were growing three times more rapidly than the rest of national economy.

"[Becoming] a large-scale contributor into the grid will be a challenge for tidal, but it certainly fills a gap and will be a contributor into that final energy mix," he said.

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Tidal power the new wave in renewable energy generation

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Australia is moving closer to becoming a global leader in ocean energy, with a tidal turbine in Queensland pumping electricity into the grid, providing power to homes and industry.

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Scott Morrison said it would be about as useful for the electricity system as the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour or the Big Prawn at Ballina in NSW.

South Australia's Tesla battery was initially dismissed by critics

Market operator finds the battery dispatches power faster than conventional stations and pushes down prices

Energy analyst says the battery has helped shore up the entire energy grid

"By all means have the world's biggest battery, have the world's biggest banana, have the world's biggest prawn like we have on the roadside around the country," he mocked when the Tesla big battery in South Australia was commissioned.

"But that is not solving the problem."

Resources Minister Matt Canavan reportedly dismissed the big battery as "the Kim Kardashian of the energy world: it's famous for being famous [but] doesn't do very much".

Yet no less an authority than the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) disagrees.

"Its ability to respond very, very quickly to the different types of conditions that we see on the power system has been very encouraging for us," AEMO's executive general manager of operations Damien Sanford told the ABC.

AEMO's data shows that it can dispatch power far more rapidly and precisely than conventional thermal power stations and more swiftly and accurately than the market operator thought possible - while also pushing down prices.

"We've been pleasantly surprised and would encourage more of this technology into the grid," Mr Sanford said.

Tesla battery 'providing much-needed competition'

In the partisan ideological debate over power, that message hasn't universally sunk in.

The big battery, located on a windfarm about three hours' drive north of Adelaide, continues to be derided by critics as too small to be of any use: 100 megawatts of power, a drop in the ocean of demand.

But this misunderstands what the battery was designed for and what it has achieved.

The results are in: Tesla's giant battery is responding faster and more precisely than traditional coal and gas generators to stabilise the national energy grid.

Australia's electricity grid requires regular small adjustments to keep the supply and demand of electricity in balance and keep the system operating at the required frequency - a tight band around 50 hertz.

The Tesla big battery is registered to provide these "frequency control ancillary services" or FCAS.

According to AEMO, the speed, precision and agility of the battery is unprecedented in dealing with these regular, small frequency variations as well as major power disturbances.

Conventional coal-fired or gas-fuelled generators might take seconds; the battery takes milliseconds.

Not only are its responses technically superior, it has also lowered the cost of providing these services.

The South Australian Government has contracted to buy most of the power at a cost of $4 million a year as an emergency reserve.

But that expense is being more than offset by the downward pressure the battery is putting on the cost of crucial network services.

In the first quarter of this year, the cost of FCAS fell by nearly $33 million, or 57 per cent, according to AEMO - in large part because of the introduction of the Tesla big battery.

"It's providing much-needed competition in a highly concentrated market," said Dylan McConnell, an energy analyst with the Climate and Energy College at Melbourne University.

Battery 'protects the system'

The Hornsdale Power Reserve can respond to power fluctuations in a quarter of a second.(ABC News )

Politicians and others hostile to renewable energy feed a constant message that wind power and solar power are a threat to reliable energy supply, yet their output is highly predictable.

But Mr McConnell said the bigger threat came from coal-fired power stations suddenly and unexpectedly breaking down - something that has happened on numerous occasions in recent times, particularly in hot weather.

In these circumstances, the Tesla battery has helped to play a role in stabilising the grid, according to AEMO and other experts.

"We sense something on the system and the automated protections kick in, then a battery can operate at around 200 to 250 milliseconds - so very much sub-one second response - to protect the system," Mr Sanford said.

"Normally we would trip load under those conditions; this type of technology affords us to do a rapid injection of power to protect the system."

Mr McConnell said the battery helped shore up the entire grid.

"We have seen several occasions where large coal-fired power stations have tripped and the Tesla battery has jumped in to help control frequency," he said.

He dismissed some claims from enthusiasts who had implied that the big battery has single-handedly saved the electricity system from collapse when big coal-fired power generators have failed - it's not big enough for that.

But it has played a role and responded extremely rapidly, demonstrating the potential of the technology.

Said Mr Sanford: "This technology, as it becomes more common in the system, can actually contribute to a more secure and reliable system."

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'Pleasantly surprised': Tesla battery swift, accurate and pushing down energy prices

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Scott Morrison said it would be about as useful for the electricity system as the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour or the Big Prawn at Ballina in NSW.

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Sydney professor becomes first Australian to win prestigious Global Energy Prize

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Martin Green, a Sydney professor credited with reducing the cost of solar panels, beats the likes of Tesla boss Elon Musk to take home the Global Energy Prize.

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Coal will be overtaken by gas and solar within two decades, the International Energy Agency predicts.

The agency's World Energy Outlook, released on Tuesday, uses existing policy and its predicted effects to model the sector's future.

Thermal coal is slated for long-term decline, although carbon dioxide emissions are increasing from energy sources despite global commitments to the Paris targets, the report says.

IEA predicts thermal coal trade will decline 3.7 per cent a year and its contribution to the global power sector will drop by 80 per cent by 2040.

"Coal's long goodbye has well and truly begun," IEA's Tim Buckley says.

"It's time to plan for a transition.

"We don't believe global coal consumption will ever regain the 2014 peak and, given relative pricing trends, we can expect to see more coal forecast downgrades in the 2019 report."

The modelling predicts financial institutions will increasingly turn away from insuring coal assets, following the lead of two global financiers, Standard Chartered and Marubeni Corporation, which are stepping away from the resource.

India's coal market is expected to have the biggest growth but Mr Buckley says the nation's banks have lent $US100 billion ($138 billion) of "non-performing loans" to thermal power plants.

Solar costs will decline by 3.75 per cent annually, IEA also predicts, built on costs halving in two years in India, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and Australia.

The agency admits it's difficult to create modelling based on technological disruption, leading to conservative projections.
-AAP

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Gas and solar forecast to topple coal by 2040 | The New Daily

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Coal will be overtaken by gas and solar within two decades, the International Energy Agency predicts. The agency's World Energy Outlook, released on Tuesday, uses existing policy and its predicted effects to model the sector's future. Thermal coal is slated for long-term decline, although carbon dioxide emissions are increasing from energy sources despite global commitments to the Paris targets, the report says.

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Record year for rooftop solar as Aussies seek to cut power bills

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Australian homeowners are turning to renewable energy to cut power costs, with rooftop solar installations at record levels. Total household solar energy storage more than doubled in 2017, according to a report by the Clean Energy Council (CEC) released on Wednesday.

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A study published this week in the journal Nature says that a third of all oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80% of current coal reserves would need to remain in the ground for the international community to reach its goal of staying below a maximum two degrees Celsius global average temperature rise.

The study, compiled by University College, London, says that the greenhouse gas emissions contained in present estimates of global fossil fuel reserves are around three times higher than can be burnt for the world to stand a chance of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

The authors draw attention to the need for governments to turn promises into reality as they work towards the new global climate change agreement in Paris, to be concluded at the end of this year.

Our results show that policy makers instincts to exploit rapidly and completely their territorial fossil fuels are, in aggregate inconsistent with their commitments to this temperature limit.

The report details the type and geographical distribution of fossil fuels that must remain in the ground to keep the average temperature rise to within the agreed limit. The results are illustrated in this infographic, compiled by the Guardian newspaper:

Also this week, the World Bank warned of the impacts of low oil prices and called on governments to cut oil subsidies in order to make clean sources of energy more competitive.

In its Global Economic Prospects for 2015 publication, released on Wednesday, the World Bank authors wrote:

If sustained over the medium-term, low oil prices may encourage a move towards production which is more intensive in fossil fuels or energy more generally (...) This runs counter to broader environmental goals in many countries.

World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu said governments should use this drop in prices to offset the medium-term incentives for increased oil consumption by changing tax policies on energy use.

With oil likely to remain cheap for some time, oil-importing countries should lower or even eliminate fuel subsidies and rebuild the fiscal space needed to carry out future stimulus efforts,

Last year, the latest scientific report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) addressed the crucial role of redirecting investments to achieve the 2 degrees goal, stating that "substantial reductions in emissions would require large changes in investment patterns."

At the time, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called upon companies to reduce their investment in fossil fuels, or to divest completely. He said:

I have been urging companies like pension funds or insurance companies to reduce their investments in coal and a fossil-fuel based economy to move to renewable sources of energy.

In his call, Ban Ki-moon joined a growing list of high-level figures advocating for divestment from fossil fuels including Archbischop Desmond Tutu, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres.

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Experts: "Leave Bulk of Fossil Fuels in the Ground, Stop Subsidies" | UNFCCC

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A study published this week in the journal Nature says that a third of all oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80% of current coal reserves would need to remain in the ground for the international community to reach its goal of staying below a maximum two degrees Celsius global average temperature rise.

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The stars are aligning for Australia to transition to 100 per cent renewable electricity. Our fossil fuel infrastructure is ageing, which means we will soon need to invest in new power generators.

New technologies such as battery storage could revolutionise long-standing business models. With care, the transitions away from fossil fuels could offer greater job opportunities.

Our latest research, which corroborates previous work, shows the technology already exists to solve many of the remaining questions around technological capability.

For instance, the fact that wind and solar don't generate electricity when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining can be dealt with by installing a network of diverse generators across a wide area, or by increasing our use of energy storage.

One of the biggest remaining barriers to transition is cost. But this is also rapidly changing. Much work is going into reducing the cost of renewable energy, including the latest funding announcement from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) of $92 million for 12 solar projects.

The cost of building renewable energy

The cost of renewable energy is highly variable across the world and even within Australia. The picture is not simple, but it does help to start by looking at the big picture.

Average capital costs of constructing new wind, solar PV and ocean/tidal generators are already lower than equivalent coal generation infrastructure.

Research suggests that, overall, the cost of moving to 100 per cent renewable energy is not significantly higher than the cost of hitting a lower target.

The capital cost of investment in renewable energy generation technologies is also falling rapidly. In its 2014 report on global renewable power generation costs, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) showed that the total cost of installation and operation over a lifetime of small-scale residential PV systems in Australia has fallen from $US0.35 to $US0.17 per kilowatt-hour between 2010 and 2014.

In part this has been because of reduced installation costs, together with our exceptional abundance of sunshine.

As a result, Australian new residential solar installation has soared to the fifth-highest in the world. Installed capacity accounts for 9 per cent of national electricity generation capacity and 2.8 per cent of electrical energy generation.

The historical reductions in installation costs for wind energy are similar globally and in Australia. Recent 2016 reverse auctions in the Australian Capital Territory have received Australia's lowest-known contract price for renewables with bids at $77 per megawatt-hour.

Beyond building

But the capital cost of building generation infrastructure is not the whole story. Once the generator is built, operations and maintenance costs also become important. For most renewables (biomass excluded) the fuel costs are zero because nature itself provides the fuel for free.

Other costs that we must consider are variable and fixed costs. Fixed costs, such as annual preventative maintenance or insurance, don't change with the amount of electricity produced. Variable costs, such as casual labour or generator repairs, may increase when more electricity is produced.

The variable costs for some renewables (biomass, hydropower and large-scale solar PV) are lower than coal. For other renewable technologies they are only slightly higher. Fixed costs for almost all renewable technologies are lower than for coal.

We also need to think about costs beyond individual generators. The vastness of our Australian continent is a bonus and a challenge for building 100 per cent renewable energy.

It can be used strategically to give a 100 per cent renewables supply reliability by using an interconnected network of generators. For instance, it may be very sunny or windy in one region. Excess electricity produced in this region can fill a gap in electricity demand in less sunny or windy places elsewhere.

But this also poses challenges. To take advantage of the reliability that a highly distributed renewable electricity system can provide, we must also consider the costs associated with expanding the transmission network.

For example, in our research we investigated one possible 100 per cent renewables electricity scenario. This was conservatively based on current technology and demand (conservative because technology is likely to change, and electricity demand has been unexpectedly falling).

The scenario required a transmission grid two-and-a-half times larger than our current grid, including new cross-continental linkages between Western Australia and the Northern Territory, which currently stand alone from the well-integrated eastern Australian networks.

The challenges of transitioning to a renewable electricity sector are no doubt great, but our ageing generator infrastructure means that an overhaul will soon be due. Even though the price of electricity from old coal power plants is currently cheaper than that from many new renewable plants ( because the former are already paid off), cost reductions mean a strong business case now exists for renewable technologies investment.

In a recent article on The Conversation, John Hewson wrote that "renewable energy is one of our most 'shovel ready' business opportunities".

Now is the time to pre-empt the looming deadline for infrastructure overhaul to ensure future economic resilience for Australia.
Bonnie McBain is a tutor in Sustainability Science at the University of Newcastle. Originally published in The Conversation.

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Renewables getting cheaper all the time - here's why

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The stars are aligning for Australia to transition to 100 per cent renewable electricity. Our fossil fuel infrastructure is ageing, which means we will soon need to invest in new power generators. New technologies such as battery storage could revolutionise long-standing business models. With care, the transitions away from fossil fuels could offer greater job opportunities.

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An Australian physicist is leading a push to pioneer a new type of low-cost solar energy he believes could make signing up for energy accounts as straightforward as taking up a mobile phone plan.

In May last year, the University of Newcastle professor Paul Dastoor used organic printed solar cells to power screens and displays at an exhibition in Melbourne.

Less than one millimetre thick and held down with double-sided sticky tape, the panels are similar in texture to a potato chip packet and can be produced for less than $10 per square metre.

Dastoor has been working on the technology for more than a decade, but has now begun a 200 square-metre installation - the first commercial application of its kind in Australia and possibly the world.

"The low cost and speed at which this technology can be deployed is exciting as we need to find solutions, and quickly, to reduce demand on base-load power - a renewed concern as we approach another summer here in Australia," he said.

Organic printed solar cells on sub-millimetre thin plastic sheets being installed at the pilot project. Photograph: Newcastle University

And as Canberra is again gripped by energy policy inertia, he said the commercial pilot was an example of industry and academia "just getting on with things".

"If we reflect on where we've come from in the last decade and what we've seen in the last couple of weeks in Canberra, one of the things this project highlights is that universities and industry are coming together to just to get on with things and that's exciting."

The printed solar technology is not as efficient as the silicon-based one, and degrades much faster.

But Dastoor believes its low production and installation costs would make it competitive.

"The point of this technology is that if you look at it in terms of raw efficiency numbers, it's much lower than typical silicon cells [and] it doesn't last as long but actually those aren't the important numbers," he said.

"The question is how much does the energy cost? These materials are so cheap to make, manufacture and install that when you calculate the total cost of energy when manufacturing at scale, it's going to give you a competitive product."

Dastoor said it would be easy for companies to sell energy "plans" for consumers to sign up in the same way they do with mobile phones.

The commercial installation was completed in a day by five employees, and a lab-size printer can produce hundreds of metres of the product in one day.

The panels are similar in texture to a potato chip packet and can be produced for less than $10 per square metre Photograph: Newcastle University

"The caveat to that is I'm obviously not sure exactly how the commercial reality will manifest, but if I was going to guess I would say that this technology is one that does not last an extremely long time [but] is also likely to improve rapidly," he said.

"Both of those factors are similar with what we faced with mobile phones [so] I think it points to a model where you will simply have all of that done for you - it will be some sort of plan with constant upgrade and replacement.

"The cost to produce it is so low and to roll out another set of solar cells is going to be extremely easy. I think over time our current picture of how we view solar energy and cells is going to fundamentally change."

The pilot installation is due to last six months, and is the final stop before the technology becomes more widely available in the next few years.

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Low-cost, printable solar panels offer ray of hope amid energy gridlock

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An Australian physicist is leading a push to pioneer a new type of low-cost solar energy he believes could make signing up for energy accounts as straightforward as taking up a mobile phone plan. In May last year, the University of Newcastle professor Paul Dastoor used organic printed solar cells to power screens and displays at an exhibition in Melbourne.

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Page not found - Minerals Council of Australia

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Sign up for news, policies, updates and new publications.

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Why we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground | Keep it in the ground

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With Malcolm Turnbull desperate to keep burning coal for electricity, just how important is the mining industry to our economy? Short answer: not nearly as much as it wants us to believe, and has conned our politicians into believing.

Because people like me have spent so much time over the past decade and more banging on about the resources boom, we've probably left many people with an exaggerated impression of the sector's importance.

It's true that, thanks to a quadrupling in the value of its physical capital, mining now accounts for about 7 per cent of our total production of goods and services (gross domestic product), compared with less than 5 per cent in 2004, at the start of the boom.

But 7 per cent ain't all that much, and if you measure mining by how much of our workforce it employs, it's even less: 2 per cent.

Capital expenditure is a dirty word in the commodities sector. Credit:Max Mason-Hubers

That's just 230,000 people, about as many as are employed in the arts and recreation.

It compares with 300,000 workers in agriculture, 400,000 in financial services, 800,000 in accommodation and food services, 900,000 in manufacturing, almost a million in education, a million in construction, another million in professional services, 1.2 million in retailing and 1.5 million in healthcare.

Still think the economy revolves around mining?

How can an industry account for 7 per cent of our production but only 2 per cent of our jobs? Because it's so "capital intensive" - it uses a lot of expensive equipment, but not many humans.

Illustration: Glen Le Lievre.

Because it employs so few people directly, the industry is always paying "independent" economic consultants to estimate how many people it employs "indirectly" as dollars earned from mining are spent in other parts of the economy.

This is always a good way to impress judges - who know a lot about law, but little about economics - when you're trying to persuade them to let you despoil the environment.

The dramatic coal price rally of 2016 was not enough to bring Yancoal into profitability. Credit:AP

It's true that money earned from mining has a "multiplier effect" when spent. But it's just as true of money earned from any other industry. Or money spent by the government.

Normally I'd be happy to defend an industry against the idea that it didn't contribute much because its capital intensity meant it directly employed few workers.

Adani's proposed Carmichael coal mine would be so huge it would lower the world price of coal.

That's because what matters most is how much income the industry earns from its production. When that income is spent - by employees, suppliers, tax-receiving governments or profit-earning shareholders - jobs will be created somewhere in the economy.

In the case of mining, however, there's weakness in the argument. Our mining industry is about 80 per cent foreign-owned - mainly by BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Glencore - which, in econospeak, adds a huge "leakage" to the "circular flow of income" around our economy.

(Another leakage is that most of the heavy equipment the miners and natural gas producers use is imported.)

If most of the profits made by our (highly profitable) mining industry don't belong to us and end up being spent in some other economy, this greatly reduces the economic benefit we get.

Which makes it doubly important the mining companies are paying a fair rate of tax on their earnings in Oz.

Here, the industry often pays "independent" economic consultants to write reports showing what huge amounts of tax it pays.

But these usually rely on the legal fiction that the minerals royalties the miners pay to state governments are a tax. In economics, a tax is something you pay the government for nothing specific in return (if you are paying for something specific, it's a "user charge").

Royalties are a user charge. The miners are buying access to valuable mineral deposits owned by us. Royalties are levied on different bases but, overall, they're probably charging less than the minerals are worth.

So the miners shouldn't expect brownie points for paying for the minerals we hand over to them. The Rudd government did try to ensure we taxed their profits more fairly and adequately but, as you recall, the miners objected and so Tony Abbott abolished what was left of the tax.

But, whatever their profits, they're paying 30 per cent of them in company tax, right? Right in theory but, as we've realised, in practice not so much.

Our big foreign mining companies are heavily into minimising the tax they pay by moving profits offshore, claiming to do their "marketing" in Singapore, where the tax rate is lower.

All of which makes you wonder how well we do from our foreign-dominated mining industry, considering all the environmental and economic disruption we have to put up with.

But it's worse than that. Our politicians, state and federal, are so desperate to create the temporary appearance of progress and jobs that mining projects bring - and, no doubt, to say thanks for the generous political donations the miners make - that they often use the offer of hefty subsidies to attract them.

The subsidy comes in the form of governments building railways, ports and other infrastructure on the miners' behalf. (Not to mention the federal government's exemption of mining from paying the diesel fuel excise, worth billions a year.)

Take the Indian Adani company's proposed Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland, which is so huge it would lower the world price of coal, to the disadvantage all existing Australian coal miners.

Queensland's Newman government was so keen to use the project as proof of progress it offered Adani a "royalty holiday". Now the Turnbull government is offering a $1 billion-plus concessional loan in the name of developing Northern Australia.

Both the miners and the politicians indignantly deny the industry receives any subsidies. But that's not what the West Australian and Queensland treasuries say in their submissions to the Commonwealth Grants Commission, revealing how poor the mining companies keep them.

If the nation is ahead on the mining deal, it ain't by a lot.

Ross Gittins is the Herald's economics editor

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Mining's economic contribution not as big as you might think

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Updated first published at Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size With Malcolm Turnbull desperate to keep burning coal for electricity, just how important is the mining industry to our economy? Short answer: not nearly as much as it wants us to believe, and has conned our politicians into believing.

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The glory days for coal are over.

The reality is that it's now cheaper to build new wind and solar farms for electricity than it is to build new coal-fired power plants. So from an economic point of view, it just doesn't make sense to build new coal plants.

Renewables are also more efficient than ever before. The largest coal-fired power stations in Australia, the Eraring power station near Newcastle, produces enough electricity to power about two million homes - but it produces tonnes of harmful CO2 in the process. By contrast, a mix of renewables and battery storage can produce the same amount of electricity and be 'carbon-neutral' after only a few years.

Renewables could contribute to 45% of Australia's energy generation by 2030 and over 94% by 2050, says research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance in June this year. And the Australian Energy Market Operator expects that 30% of coal-fired power plants will be replaced with renewables by 2038.

So it's time to say goodbye to coal and carbon dioxide and hello to the future with these impressive renewables.

How wind power works: Wind turbines have two or three propeller-like blades connected to a rotor which then joins up to a generator to create electricity. Needing nothing more than a gentle breeze of two to five metres a second to work, wind turbines are a reliable source of power as they can create energy about 70-80% of the time.

As sure as the sun (and hot air) will rise, there will always be a gentle wind to power wind turbines. This is because with the transition between day and night the air above land heats up and cools down quite quickly, and heavier cooler air rushes in to take the place of the rising hot air. Turbines are usually placed in a location where this gentle heating and cooling of air is most reliable.

One thing you rarely hear about with wind turbines is what's in the middle of the big metal pole they stand on. You might be interested to know that it's just a hollow tube with a stairwell. The towers are so high because wind speed increases with distance from the ground, so the higher the tower, the better the potential to capture energy and generate electricity.

How much energy can wind turbines produce? Most land-based turbines operate with a capacity of between two and three megawatts - enough to supply about 1,500 standard homes with electricity. Bear in mind that this is just for one turbine on its own - most turbines are grouped together on a wind farm, and of course a whole farm generates much more energy. For example, the Macarthur wind farm in Victoria, which was built by Meridian Energy (a company we invest in), generates enough electricity to power 154,000 homes.

We recognise that resources are needed to manufacture wind turbines, but a 2014 study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that turbines are usually the least emissions-intensive form of electricity available and that most of the time they can 'pay themselves off' environmentally after just three years of use.

How we've invested in wind: We've found wind energy to be a profitable investment through a number of companies, such as wind turbine manufacturer Vestas and Infigen, one of Australia's largest publicly listed owners of wind farms.

SOLAR

How solar power works: When sunlight hits a solar panel, the energy from the heat of the sun is absorbed into photovoltaic cells. These cells change the energy into direct current (DC), which is converted to alternating current (AC) that can be used for electricity. DC is battery power and it works like water moving one way through a hose where electricity is only sent in one direction - whereas the AC power that comes out of a power point sends the same electricity back and forth very fast so it's more efficient and can be transported long distances. Solar panels can't produce power at night - they need sunlight to work.

Solar is incredibly easy to set up - even in small spaces - and it's very low maintenance, making it a popular and versatile choice. In fact, the International Energy Agency released a report in 2017 that solar has become the fastest-growing power source in the world.

How much energy can solar panels produce? There are many different types and sizes of solar panels, so it's not really possible to give a clear-cut quantity on this. The more panels there are the more electricity can be produced - and when combined with batteries, the potential is limitless.

In 2017, just over a fifth of Australia's renewable energy came from rooftop solar on our own homes - but where there's the biggest potential for impact is with large-scale solar farms that can feed reliable energy into the grid on a regular basis.

We recognise that energy and resources are needed to manufacture solar panels, but a 2018 study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems found the efficiency of photovoltaic cells is increasing all the time.

How we've invested in solar: We've invested in lots of profitable solar companies. For example, there's First Solar, a solar power station builder, operator and a manufacturer renowned for their affordable, efficient panels. Their Nyngan and Broken Hill solar farms in NSW were the first utility-scale solar projects in Australia. We also love that they offer panel recycling at the end of their panels' 25+ year lives. They can recover up to 90% of the materials from old panels to make new ones.

How hydro power works: When lots of water is stored in a reservoir, it will fall with a lot of force into a lower basin thanks to good ol' gravity. Water is stored in a high location and allowed to fall down through a turbine to create energy.

Also, one of the best ways currently available to store large amounts of energy is by storing water in dams. When energy is needed, water can be released.

How much energy can hydro produce? Hydro is one of the most efficient ways to generate power. Up to 90% of the energy available can be converted to electricity - in comparison even the most efficient coal-fired power plants only run at about 50% of their potential efficiency.

In 2017, hydro was the largest contributor to renewable energy generation in Australia at 40% of the total renewable energy made that year. And in good news, research shows that there's very little water lost, evaporated or wasted when electricity is created this way.

How we've invested in hydro: While there can be some negative impacts on the environment from building dams, we only invest in 'run-of-the-river hydro'. Run-of-the-river hydro means that the natural flow of the river is not disrupted. We also don't believe dams should be built in areas that disrupt communities - either when they are built or afterwards. The Hume and Burrinjuck dams (that we invest in through Meridian) are run-of-the-river hydro stations that generate enough renewable energy to power about 56,000 homes in NSW. In total, all of Meridian's hydro stations generate enough electricity to power about 1.4 million homes a year.

GEOTHERMAL

How geothermal works: Geothermal creates less than 5% of the greenhouse gases of coal-fired power plants. There are two ways to capture geothermal energy from the Earth's naturally-heated core temperatures. The method used to create grid electricity is pushing steam created by the Earth's heat through loops of underground pipes, which are then pushed through a turbine at high pressure to make power. There is another type of geothermal energy that provides heating and cooling for buildings by simply piping warm air or water closer to the structure that you want to regulate. All geothermal only really works in areas where heat from the Earth's core comes close to the surface - so near locations that have hot springs, or even volcanic and seismic activity.

How much energy can geothermal produce? Only 0.6% of the world's renewables are geothermal, but it's estimated that only 6.9% of its global potential has been tapped so far. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that the power potential of geothermal is in the range of 35 gigawatts to 2 terawatts, which is the equivalent of powering up to 2.5 billion homes.

How we've invested in geothermal: We invest in Ormat who are involved in all aspects of geothermal energy - from exploring, designing, developing, building, owning and operating geothermal power plants all around the globe.
WHAT ABOUT BATTERIES?
Although not considered 'renewables' as such, batteries are a crucial component of the renewable energy mix. Renewables generate power when the natural elements allow it - such wind, sun, or rainfall - so renewables only operate at certain times and it's unlikely to correspond with times of peak electricity use. A fossil-fuel powered plant can create energy when it's needed to supply peak demands. But by using high storage batteries to stockpile the energy created from renewables, clean electricity can still be used when it's needed most.

In 2014 the world's first utility scale battery was connected to the grid in Germany and has supported a reliable supply of renewable energy ever since. Battery storage has also made it possible for islands like Ta'u in American Samoa to switch to being completely solar powered.

How we've invested in batteries: South Australia currently hosts the world's biggest lithium ion battery, built by Tesla (who we invest in). This battery not only increases the security of energy supply, in its first quarter of operation it reduced the state's cost of energy supply by $33 million.
WHAT ABOUT NUCLEAR?
Some people consider nuclear a renewable power source, but we don't. True renewables are constantly being renewed by natural, harmless means - but the waste product left over from uranium mining and nuclear generation is potentially harmful to people, the planet and animals.

Why we won't invest in nuclear: At this point, we've decided that nuclear energy isn't safe enough for us to support. The three primary risks we've identified are the catastrophic failure of nuclear power stations, the challenges involved in safely mining uranium and the potential for misappropriation of nuclear technology in materials for weapons manufacture. We are also concerned about the difficulty of storing uranium and long-lived nuclear waste. Because we can reduce warming with non-nuclear zero-emissions sources (like renewables and energy storage), we'll concentrate on those alternatives.

CLEAN ENERGY IS THE FUTURE

The facts show that globally, we no longer need to rely on fossil fuels. The time for clean energy is right now.

We believe in the power of society and the market to create much needed, positive change towards a better future. So now it's just a matter of encouraging politicians and policy makers to catch up with the market and society.

Interconnected sources of generation from wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and other renewables combined with energy storage can produce reliable, cost-effective energy which doesn't wreck the planet.

At Australian Ethical, we won't invest in fossil fuel companies that generate income from coal, nuclear, oil and gas because we know it's not the way forward. Instead, we invest in renewable energy, as well as energy efficiency and battery storage. Get competitive returns and help build a clean energy future by joining now.

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Wind, solar, hydro and geothermal: They've all been touted as the answer to our climate woes. But how much do you actually know about renewables and how they work? Here's an intro to everything you ever wanted to know about the different types of renewable energy.

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Australia Debates: Does a Warming Planet Really Need More Coal? (Published 2017)

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Backers of a giant mine promise thousands of jobs, but the plan has provoked one of the most fervent environmental campaigns in Australian history.

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AS THE world turns away from coal, Australia seems to be holding on more tightly than ever and one figure may reveal why.

Australia is already the fourth-largest coal producer in the world and contains the fourth-largest coal resources, after the United States, Russia and China.

With so much wealth in the ground, it's something that's not easy to give up.

Just ask the dozens of companies which have coal mining projects in the works.

While Indian giant Adani's Carmichael mine has been in the spotlight in recent years, the International Energy Agency's Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2016 released in December highlighted just how many projects are in the pipeline.

In fact, the IEA found a staggering 63 proposed coal mining projects in Australia, according to publicly available information.

This compares with 22 projects in South Africa, 12 in Russia, 11 in Canada, seven in Indonesia, six in Mozambique and five in Colombia.

Some are committed but others are still in feasibility stage. The projects in Australia have been put forward by dozens of companies like BHP Billiton, Yancoal, Cockatoo Coal, Stanmore Coal, Qcoal, Waratah Coal, White Mountain, Peabody Energy, New Hope, Acacia Coal and many others.

But there's very few new coal mining projects coming online around the world, with the majority postponed.

Low and decreasing prices for coal have discouraged investment and the IEA doesn't expect this to change.

Prices have been dropping for more than four years. While there was a rebound in 2016, this was mainly attributed to policy changes in China to cut coal output, which pushed prices up.

The IEA expects prices to fall again, although they may recover a bit closer to 2021.

"Hence we do not see the momentum building for new mining investment," the report says.

SO IS COAL DEAD?

While the International Energy Agency found global coal demand had stalled it was "too early to say that coal is dead".

In the medium-term, from 2015 to 2021, demand for coal globally is expected to keep growing - at a low rate of 0.6 per cent per year - and the main driver of growth will be India.

One way to understand this potential is to consider this fact:

India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh combined account for more than one quarter of the world's population but only 7 per cent of its electricity use.

In fact many of the citizens don't have electricity, even though they live in countries with large coal reserves.

However in India, these reserves are mostly low-quality coal and this is where Australia has an opportunity.

Australian coal is typically of high quality, its thermal coal has a high-energy and low-ash content that makes it suitable for modern high-efficiency low-emissions coal-based power generation technologies.

Although it seems counter-intuitive, an IEA spokesman, said world demand for coal would still likely support the construction of a new mine.

Long-term demand trends in the IEA's World Energy Outlook continue to forecast increased coal demand through to 2040 under its central scenario.

"Whereas the increase is very slow, there is a need for new mines in order to replace the production loss in some of the existing mines," the report says.

"Therefore, our central scenario is assuming production of new coal mines."

While low carbon technologies have been found for power generation (including wind and solar), finding viable options for decarbonisation of industrial processes, like producing steel and making cement, has been more challenging.

"Therefore, coal and CCS (carbon capture and storage) will likely need to be used," an IEA analyst told news.com.au.

But the report also noted the difficulty in getting finance for coal mining investments, which are penalised by the policies of many international financial institutions, investment funds, banks, university funds and others which are turning away from financing coal, particularly in the US and Europe.

In Australia railway capacity has also traditionally been a limiting factor for coal exports.

In fact the future of Adani's mega Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin may ultimately depend on whether it can get financing and whether Australia agrees to give it a $1 billion taxpayer funded loan to build a rail line.

THE IMPORTANCE OF 'CLEAN COAL'

While there's still going to be demand for coal, meeting targets set in the Paris Agreement is going to be an issue.

"Without CCS (carbon capture and storage) or technological innovation to use captured carbon for commercial purposes, coal must be virtually eliminated if Paris targets are to be met," the IEA report said.

"(This) can be challenging in power generation and even more so in industrial applications."

Coal use is responsible for 45 per cent of energy-related carbon emissions, which need to be cut back if global warming is to be kept under two degrees.

"Yet one year on from Paris, there is little indication governments are acting to enforce limits on carbon emissions that would allow investment in CCS to happen," the report said.

However, critics are sceptical that coal can actually be clean and private companies have been unwilling to put money into the risky venture. The IEA said this meant government funding was essential to getting CCS projects off the ground

"Especially in light of the lengthy time frames that are often involved in developing first-of-a-kind, large-scale integrated projects," the report said.

The IEA noted that without new policy or financial measures, momentum for CCS projects would likely stall by 2020.

"There has been limited CCS project activity in recent years, with no final investment decisions for large-scale projects announced since 2014," it said.

In fact two projects were abandoned in the UK after government funding was withdrawn.

As of November 2016, there were 15 large-scale CCS projects including for coal-fired power generation. Six more projects are expected to start operating before the end of 2017, including the world's first large-scale bioenergy with CCS project.

AUSTRALIA BUCKING THE TREND

While globally, coal supply decreased for the second year in a row in 2015, India and Australia managed to buck this trend.

In Australia, producers continued to cut costs, helping to increase production by 4.1 per cent despite harsh market conditions.

Australia is the world's largest coal exporter and Hunter Valley Coal Chain in NSW is the largest export operation in the world.

More than 80 per cent of the country's coal is exported. In 2015 most of this went to Japan (33 per cent), China (18 per cent), Korea (15 per cent) and India (12 per cent).

Australia earned $US28 billion from its coal exports in 2015 but this was about 20 per cent lower than in 2014 because of lower prices.

Several mines also closed in 2015 due to low prices.

But Australia's healthy result was helped by a 7 per cent increase in exports to India, which also managed to increase its own coal production by 5.1 per cent because of growing domestic demand.

India is now the second highest consumer of coal after China, consuming 11.8 per cent of the world's resource in 2015.

Despite the recent growth, the IEA predicts the use of coal for energy will drop from 41 per cent in 2013 to about 36 per cent in 2021.

"Our forecast shows a slight increase after a few years of decrease, reaching 2014 levels only in 2021," the report says, adding "such a growth path would depend greatly on the Chinese".

But coal markets are harder to predict than ever, with the IEA saying actual demand had been below forecasts since 2013.

It's unclear how long Australia can continue to ride a wave of prosperity on the back of coal, and while it has enough accessible high-quality hard coal to last another 125 years, much of it may ultimately need to remain in the ground.

Email: charis.chang@news.com.au | Twitter: @charischang2

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Is coal really dead? Why Australia is clinging to a dying industry

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AS THE world turns away from coal, Australia seems to be holding on more tightly than ever and one figure may reveal why. Australia is already the fourth-largest coal producer in the world and contains the fourth-largest coal resources, after the United States, Russia and China.

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Demand from the Asian market is pushing prices for both thermal and coking coal up and, according to analysts, the trend is set to continue.

So much so, a study commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia predicts a 400 million tonne increase in annual demand by 2030 - double Australia's total thermal coal export level in 2017.

As demand for Australian coal escalates, an horizon dotted with coal ships waiting to enter Newcastle Harbour - the world's largest coal port - is a typical sight.

Executive director for coal Greg Evans said the increase in demand built on last year's market turnaround.

"The 2017 year was actually a record year for coal exports, some $57 billion," he said.

The increase in demand has been attributed to infrastructure building programs throughout Asia, along with increased industrialisation and urbanisation.

Mr Evans said that went hand-in-hand with the need for affordable energy.

"That's the economic expansion story which is happening in Asia. It's happening from Pakistan through to Vietnam, with economic development and population growth," he said.

"Breaking it down and looking at where demand is coming from, there will still be continued demand from those North Asian countries which have been the bedrock of the Australian coal industry in terms of Korea, China and Japan, but what's interesting now is that demand is developing in South East Asia, in countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.

"The question is for Australia, to what extent can we participate in the benefit of that higher import demand?"

Ship queues at Australian coal ports

The increase in demand comes after the market dimmed in 2013, sending shockwaves through mining communities in New South Wales and Queensland.

Senior coal analyst with S&P Global Platts Mike Copper said prices hit rock bottom in 2016.

"We saw US$40 [per metric tonne] for Newcastle, and for Queensland coking coal it was about US$80 per metric tonne," he said.

But that price doldrum has now recovered.

"For the coking coal market, prices are around US$200 per tonne coming out of ports in Queensland and for Newcastle Port, the grade that goes to Japan, thermal coal is trading at US$120 per metric tonne - that's the highest since the post Fukushima accident in 2011," Mr Cooper said.

As well as the rising dollar figure, the stark demand for coal has been illustrated by the high number of ships waiting to load at Australian ports.

"We haven't seen queues at these levels for several years," Mr Cooper said.

"Newcastle Port has had queues going up to about 22 ships, all waiting to get coal delivered down to the port.

"In Queensland, Dalrymple Bay Terminal, Gladstone Port, they've had queues up in the double figures."

Housing market in mining communities on the upswing

Renewed demand for Australian coal has had flow-on benefits for rural towns in the mining supply chain, including Muswellbrook on the Hunter coalfields.

Local real estate agent Grant Jupe said it was a welcome boost for the region's property market.

"Rentals are going very, very strong and vacancy rates are pretty much non-existent," he said.

"During the lull that we did experience a few years ago, there was over 400 vacant homes in town, so it has taken time for that to turn around, but we're definitely at that point now.

"I think a lot people sat tight seeing what would happen, and now buyers are starting to get back into the market again."

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Demand for Australian coal is surging, driven by Asian growth

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Demand from the Asian market is pushing prices for both thermal and coking coal up and, according to analysts, the trend is set to continue. So much so, a study commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia predicts a 400 million tonne increase in annual demand by 2030 - double Australia's total thermal coal export level in 2017.

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In February of 2016 Whitehaven's share price hit 37 cents. Earlier this month it hit $4.77 only slowing down on the back of lowered production guidance figures last week.

"Whitehaven has managed their balance sheet well," MineLife analyst Gavin Wendt says.

Deutsche Bank forecasts a 75 per cent increase in net profit for Whitehaven after tax for 2019 spurring free cash flow levels upward by 77 per cent.

Whitehaven chief executive Paul Flynn said the demand has always been there for coal, but the price is only now catching up as less viable supply has left the market.

"Prices are around US$107 from Newcastle, to put that in perspective, any price with an eight or nine in front of it is considered good," Stephen says.

"With demand at these prices, New Hope is strongly profitable. I think most coal producers in Australia will produce strong financial numbers in their first half results."

Stephen says the company is continuing to focus on expansion and gaining approvals for its Acland Stage 3 project and the possibility of bringing new coal mines in the Surat Basin online as soon as 2023.

Yancoal is also starting to chart a recovery a massive slump in its share price after it announced its intention to acquire Rio Tinto's Hunter Valley Operations and Mount Thorley Warkworth thermal coal mines.

Rio's rival, BHP, used its quarterly production announcement this week to spruik an expectation defying result for its energy coal division.

Production was up 8 per cent quarter on quarter, and up 4 per cent for the December 2017 half year from the previous corresponding period, with 14,029 kilotonnes produced during the December

Glencore has maintained its focus on thermal coal, telling Fairfax Media it is aiming to continue growth in the area, although it is still seeking to divest its Rolleston coal asset.

"We will continue to make investments in coal where it makes sense," a spokesman says.

Even an underperformer like Wollongong Coal - which recently posted a half-yearly loss of $23.7 million amid multi-million tax bills and $40 million in legal claims - has still managed to ride the wider positive sector waves, reaching a 12-month share price high in January.

Social support

Coal mining regions are welcoming this revival of the industry and the flow-on social and economic effects it will have.

"This is most definitely a positive for the Singleton region," Singleton Mayor Sue Moore says.

"The industry has been ticking upwards for the last six months, and we're seeing a turnaround, although it is slow. We expect to see this flow through to the local business sector over the next 12 months, beyond just the mining industry.

"Generally, this is [recovery of the thermal coal industry] is a positive all round."

But not all Hunter region councils were as supportive of the industry, taking a more prosaic view of sector's role in their future.

"The truth, whatever is said to the contrary, is that capital investment and long-term opportunities in traded thermal coal - which is approximately a fifth of the overall thermal coal market, are diminishing globally," Muswellbrook Council Mayor Martin Rush says.

"That doesn't mean that the Hunter's high quality and low-cost product won't experience periods of intermittent growth - including in the near-term as it displaces lower quality and higher cost product elsewhere in a demand-constrained market - or that the thermal coal industry will disappear by the end of next decade.

"It means that as a region we need to set aside the language of 'support' and 'oppose', take a greater stock of the economic fundamentals and work in a purposeful way to transition the Hunter economy to a low-carbon intensive future. If that exercise is to be done most efficiently and with the least impact on employment, it will

require using some of the enormous wealth presently generated by coal mining to diversify our economic base."

Newcastle, home of the largest coal port in the world, is looking beyond coal to future energy.

''The City of Newcastle recognises the role that coal plays in our local, state and national economy," Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes says.

What's powering coal's revival?

Those companies that made it through thermal coal's recent collapse are facing a much-improved market and positive sentiment driven by energy demands

Fat Prophets analyst David Lennox says the changing face of the world's energy needs will eventually have a major impact on thermal coal, but the growth of renewables will not negate coal in the near to medium term.

"Even though we're seeing significant interest for renewables, we'll still see thermal coal power stations for a long time," Mr Lennox told Fairfax Media.

"Australia as a whole has done a good job rebasing its costs quickly as supply and demand has tightened," Mr Flynn said.

"What we've observed is very strong demand out of Asia fuelled by their demand for high-quality coal to fuel their supercritical power stations."

Another major Australian coal miner agreed, stating that significant growth is forecast from South East Asia.

"Thermal coal's story hasn't changed, we've always had an optimistic view of it in the medium to long-term. China's domestic consumption even reached an all-time record last year," the miner's spokesman says.

This was further strengthened by the demand specifically for Australian coal, which has a higher energy content and fewer impurities compared to Chinese or Indonesian coal.

"Australia's coal is trading at a premium, and we've seen price increases of up to 25 per cent in the last six months," Mr Wendt says.

China's failed attempt to move from coal to gas also helped lift prices.

The Chinese government had planned to convert homes in its northern provinces to gas heating, instead of coal, to meet air pollution reduction targets. This plan was then cancelled due to gas shortages, causing a scramble to obtain coal in early December as temperatures dropped, pushing prices northwards.

Can coal maintain the pace?

Deutsche Bank believes Chinese governmental policy will impact prices, and while they remain high early on China lifting production could soon reverse these gains.

"We raise 2018 price forecasts by 10 to 15 per cent from Newcastle FOB US$81 per tonne to US$93 per tonne," DB says.

"Our forecasts remain below front-month as we believe the Chinese government will raise domestic production in accordance with its intention to lower power tariffs."

He says this trend will continue.

"I don't think we'll see the price collapses we saw previously. There is a very healthy price outlook for thermal coal," he says.

"This is a new, tighter, rising market."

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Confidence returns for Australian coal miners

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In February of 2016 Whitehaven's share price hit 37 cents. Earlier this month it hit $4.77 only slowing down on the back of lowered production guidance figures last week. "Whitehaven has managed their balance sheet well," MineLife analyst Gavin Wendt says.

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Leave fossil fuels buried to prevent climate change, study urges

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New research is first to identify which reserves must not be burned to keep global temperature rise under 2C, including over 90% of US and Australian coal and almost all Canadian tar sands

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Every tonne of coal burnt is a tonne off the carbon budget to keep warming below 2C. david_a_l/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Ninety per cent of Australia's current coal reserves will need to be left in the ground for Australia to play its role in limiting warming to no more than 2C. That's according to a report released today by the Climate Council, " Unburnable Carbon: why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground ".

The new report uses a " carbon budget " approach. This figures out how much carbon can be let into the atmosphere while limiting warming to 2C, and is a different method to the "targets and timetables" method favoured by international climate negotiations. These are are highly complex and difficult to interpret and put into practice.

A carbon budget instead shows how much carbon humanity can spend without blowing the budget. And the more we dip into the carbon piggy bank, the more serious climate impacts become.

Time is running out

Global temperatures have already risen by nearly 1C. Extreme weather events are set to become significantly worse in Australia.

To track emissions against the warming limit of 2C above the pre-industrial level, the most commonly used method in the policy world is the "targets and timetables" approach. This is often based on a target reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by a certain date or over a specified period.

Examples of targets and timetables include the United States target of reducing emissions by 26-28% by 2025 against a 2005 baseline and Australia's target of reducing emissions unconditionally by 5% by 2020 against a 2000 baseline, and conditionally by 15-25% depending on international action.

In practice, the complexity of the targets and timetables approach, especially the number of variations, makes it difficult to compare the level of effort of one country against another and to assess combined international efforts to stabilise the climate system.

Flipping the carbon coin

The carbon budget is a scientifically robust, conceptually simple way of estimating how much more CO ₂ we can emit to the atmosphere before we raise global temperature above 2C. It gives a single, globally aggregated amount of CO ₂ that can be emitted before the world's economy must be decarbonised. Other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide are accounted for in the construction of the budget.

The higher the probability we want of preventing a global temperature rise of 2C, the more stringent the budget. For instance, if we want a 50% chance (the toss of a coin) of limiting warming to 2C, the budget from 2012 is 1112 billion tonnes of CO ₂.

For a 66% chance, the budget is 1,010 billion tonnes of CO ₂. And for a 75% chance, the budget is 672 billion tonnes of CO ₂. If we want a greater than 75% probability of not exceeding the 2C warming limit, the carbon budget drops sharply to values much lower than 672 billion tonnes of CO ₂.

To keep this challenge in perspective, current human emissions of CO ₂ are about 36 billion tonnes per year. At this rate, we would burn through the budget by 2032 if we want a 75% chance of meeting the warming limit.

What does this mean for fossil fuels?

From setting a carbon budget we can work backwards to figure out how much coal, oil and gas can be extracted and burned.

An initial study in 2013 by the Carbon Tracker and Grantham Institute 2013 compared the known global fossil fuel reserves (coal, oil and gas) with the carbon budget. They estimated that if all of the world's indicated reserves of fossil fuels were burned, 2,860 billion tonnes of CO ₂ would be emitted to the atmosphere. This is more than 2.5 times greater than the allowed budget for a toss-of-the-coin chance of succeeding.

Recently, Christophe McGlade and Paul Ekins at University College London examined further the implications of the carbon budget for the use of fossil fuels. They used an economic optimisation method: how to gain the most economic value from the limited amount of coal, oil and gas that can be burned, and in what regions.

This analysis, again based on just a 50:50 chance of preventing a 2C rise in global temperature, estimates that 88% of global coal reserves, 52% of gas reserves and 35% of oil reserves are unburnable and must be left in the ground.

Put simply, tackling climate change requires that most of the world's fossil fuels be left in the ground, unburned.

Australia's beached coal whales

According to the study mentioned above, for Australia to play its role in preventing a 2C rise in temperature requires more than 90% of our coal reserves to be left in the ground unburned.

Energy policies that continue to support substantial fossil fuel use are inconsistent with tackling climate change. A case in point is the proposed coal expansion in the Galilee Basin, which is not viable economically if the carbon budget is respected. The Galilee coal is lower quality and high cost to extract, meaning under a carbon budget limiting warming to 2C other reserves would be more viable, leaving other assets stranded like beached whales.

But there is hope. Limiting global warming to no more than 2C - a goal Australia shares with 194 other countries - can open up opportunities for the Australian economy to prosper.

For example, many of Australia's coal-fired power plants are inefficient and nearing the end of their lifetimes, while concurrently the costs of renewable energy technologies such as rooftop solar and wind continue to fall. Work by ClimateWorks Australia and ANU shows Australia can decarbonise the economy with little or no cost through energy efficiency, low-carbon electricity (renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage), and electrification and fuel switching (from petrol to electricity or biofuel).

With the carbon budget rapidly running out, it is urgent that global emissions begin to track downward in the next few years. Ultimately, most of the world's fossil fuels must be left in the ground, unburned.

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Unburnable carbon: why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground

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Ninety per cent of Australia's current coal reserves will need to be left in the ground for Australia to play its role in limiting warming to no more than 2C. That's according to a report released today by the Climate Council, " Unburnable Carbon: why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground ".

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he Paris-based International Energy Agency was born in a crisis. In the wake of the 1973 oil shock, as Arab petroleum producers withheld supply from countries that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur war, the then US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, called on the OECD to set up a new body to ensure its members would always have the reliable and affordable energy they needed.

Over time, as the agency has expanded its focus to map broader energy trends, it has sometimes faced accusations of conservatism - that it has underestimated the uptake of renewable energy, and has been overly bullish about the future of fossil fuels. But last month it released a report that pointed to a rupture more far reaching than the 70s oil embargo.

It suggested investment in new coal power across the globe has peaked and is on the verge of a steep decline. In a coinciding media briefing, the IEA chief economist, Laszlo Varro, declared the "century of coal" that started in 2000 - evident in the extraordinary wave of investment by emerging Asian nations - may already be over.

"It is becoming clear that Chinese coal demand has peaked," he went on. "The outlook for imports [to] India and other countries is uncertain."

What does this mean for Australia, producer of about 30% of the world's coal trade, as it plans a vast expansion in production in outback Queensland?

The future of coalmining is really two separate questions, with their own answers. Neither is clear-cut, but thermal coal - burned in power stations to provide electricity - is on a different trajectory to higher-quality metallurgical coal, mainly used in producing steel.

About 55% of the coal Australia exports is thermal, but the 45% metallurgical coal is more lucrative, reaping nearly two-thirds of the revenue. The bulk of the thermal coal is exported from the Hunter Valley of New South Wales; most of the metallurgical product comes from Queensland. Combined, coal exports were worth $55bn last financial year. Only iron ore brings in more.

Until last year, coal prices had been on a steep downward trajectory since 2011. The surge in demand last decade prompted investment in mines across the globe but demand had slowed by the time they became operational, resulting in oversupply. By 2014, global coal use had stopped growing. In 2015, it started to decline.

Several factors were at play, many of them long-term trends. China stopped growing as rapidly, took steps to limit choking air pollution, and began to shift its economy from relying on industrial exports to a greater emphasis on services and consumption. Climate change policies began to cut into coal's market share in developed countries. In the US, the rapid development of cheap shale gas projects made coal uneconomic before the introduction of Barack Obama's emissions policies.

By early 2016, the IEA was reporting that 80% of Chinese coalmining operations were losing money and the companies responsible for about half of US coal production were bankrupt.

It triggered a reaction. The Communist party forced the closure of some mines, restricted operation at others, to cut Chinese production by more than 10%. The global thermal coal price quickly doubled. The price of metallurgical coal surged further, tripling in April this year after Cyclone Debbie ravaged large parts of Queensland, reducing supply from some mines. Australia's export revenue from coal exports soared 57% in a year. Both events illustrated the potential for volatility in coal markets owing to the weather or government fiat. But the bounce was brief.

Market analysts at Citi Research last month warned investors that the outlook for coal stocks was pessimistic: major banks were financing fewer projects; Donald Trump's much-vaunted pro-coal and anti-climate change stance was having little impact in the US.

Chinese workers ride in a boat through a large floating solar farm project, billed as the largest in the world, under construction on a lake in collapsed and flooded coalmine in Huainan, Anhui province. Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

In a report for the Australian Conservation Foundation, consultants ACIL Allen agreed. "At present, there is considerable pessimism regarding the long-term outlook for prices of thermal coal in international markets," it said. "This is reflected in forecasts by credible Australian and international agencies."

Citi forecasts modest growth in Australian thermal coal exports in the near term, including the potential expansion of a couple of mines. But with prices expected to fall to US$60 a tonne by the end of the decade, down from a US$110 peak late last year, it sees no incentive for investment in new major projects - especially given public opposition and investor apathy towards coal.

It makes for an unlikely environment in which to develop a mega-mine backed by public money. But that is what Australia is considering.

The Indian billionaire Gautam Adani's $21bn proposal to build a giant mine in the Galilee basin, about 340km south-west of Townsville, dates back to 2010. It has outlasted three Australian prime ministers and survived the signing of a global deal to combat climate change. Unsuccessful court battles have been waged and lost by opponents, promised imminent start dates have come and gone, and government support has steadily increased.

Though known as the Carmichael mine, if fully developed it will actually be 11 mines: six of them open-cut and five underground, spread over a length of 50km. Eventually, the company says, it could yield up to 60m tonnes a year to be shipped to burn in Indian coal plants. The rail and port infrastructure necessary would open up the possibility of reviving some of the dormant coalmining plans in the basin, with a total potential additional output of about 150m tonnes of coal a year.

Greenpeace activists unveil a giant banner on Newcastle coal stockpiles, calling on the Commonwealth Bank to stop investing in coal. Photograph: Dean Sewell

To put that into context, Australia now exports about 200m tonnes. It is, by any measure, a massive expansion that could push the world measurably closer to breaching the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

The details of the Adani proposal have moved over time. It was initially proposed to run for 150 years but that has been scaled back to 60. The company promised it would create 10,000 jobs; an ACIL Allen Consulting economist contracted by the company later conceded in court a more likely figure was 1,464. And the project is promised to initially start on a smaller scale, producing 25m tonnes a year.

It has environmental approval, has been granted access to groundwater from the Great Artesian Basin, and won a four-year deferment before it has to start paying royalties to the state. In June Adani announced it had made a final investment decision and was ready to go ahead. In truth, this was spin - it was still yet to secure finance for the project (Australian banks have not been willing) - but it was ramping up pressure on the Australian government to approve a $900m low-cost loan through its Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to help to fund a railway that Adani would own and operate for itself and other potential Galilee basin miners.

Adani's biggest champion has been the recently resigned resources minister Matt Canavan, who argued the mine should go ahead on economic, humanitarian and, most audaciously, environmental grounds. Specifically: bring jobs and growth to struggling north Queensland; help improve the lives of the 240 million Indians living without electricity; and be better for the planet given that India is building coal plants anyway, and Australian coal is a cleaner product than what is dug up in other parts of the world.

All three points have been contested. There has been significant pushback against the idea that, in a world where the demand for coal is flat at best, existing Australian mines would not lose out if the Galilee basin were developed. The coal consultancy Wood Mackenzie was commissioned to look at the issue by the $2bn Infrastructure Fund, which owns a stake in the coal-reliant Port of Newcastle, and found existing mines in southern Queensland and NSW would be hit. "Put simply, either the $1bn loan to Adani will have a significant impact on coal production and jobs in the Hunter Valley, Bowen basin and Surat basin, or the business case for the Adani rail line is deeply flawed and the promised jobs for north Queensland unlikely to materialise," it reported.

Testing the humanitarian and environment arguments requires a closer look at the changes under way in the Indian electricity market. India is the world's second largest importer of thermal coal. It doesn't want to be. Its coal minister, Piyush Goyal, has repeatedly said he wants to cut imports completely. It won't happen in the short term - some of the country's plants were built to run using higher-quality coal, which is not available domestically - but a shift is under way. Reuters reported that demand for imported thermal coal in India fell 13% in the first seven months of this year.

Galilee Blockade protesters gather outside Bill Shorten's office in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne. Photograph: James Ross/AAP

Meanwhile, the country is seeing extraordinary reductions in the cost of large-scale solar power - 40% in a year - to the point where it is cheaper than domestic coal for the first time. There are questions over whether this is sustainable, but India has set an ambitious solar target of 100 gigawatts within five years. A draft national electricity plan released in December found no new coal-fired plants would be needed for a decade, and proposed coal plants with a capacity of 13.7GW - more than half Australia's total coal fleet - were cancelled in May alone.

What does this mean for the Carmichael mine? Goyal says India does not need it, but will use the coal. Tim Buckley, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, says a two-week trip he took to India to meet energy executives and government officials suggested a different story. "There was almost zero discussion on Carmichael," he says. "The project is not on the radar, not expected to happen, immaterial for India's energy plans given the progressive move away from imported thermal coal and just unbankable for Indian banks given excessive Adani group debt."

India is not the only country rethinking the scale of its coal commitment. China has not cut imports - it is more focused on closing inefficient domestic mines - but its coal consumption peaked three years ago. It has an incredibly large fleet of generators likely to operate for decades to come, but they are running at less than 50% capacity. It cancelled 103GW of proposed coal-fired plants (more than twice the capacity of Australia's east coast grid) this year.

Government officials note what is happening - the chief scientist Alan Finkel's independent review of Australia's electricity security noted that China is diversifying its energy mix, India limiting imports and South Korea cutting coal power to reduce pollution - but this shift receives little clean air in the Australian political debate, where the Minerals Council is an influential player and the major parties are supportive of a long-term source of jobs and revenue.

Misinformation is rife. Peter Freyberg, the head of coal at the mining giant Glencore, claimed that the IEA had projected that fossil fuels would provide almost 70% of energy in 2030, even if the world got its act together to limit global warming to an increase of less than 2C. He was making a point about coal's longevity but, in reality, the IEA paints a different picture.

Yes, it estimates 64% of energy would come from fossil fuels in 2030 under this scenario - if you count electricity generation, industrial processes, transport, heating and cooking, and if you assume carbon capture and storage suddenly becomes viable. Even then, the biggest chunk would be expected to come from natural gas, which is considered a cleaner transitional fuel. The IEA found burning coal to generate electricity would decline sharply, with wind and solar providing more than half the world's needs within 13 years. Traditional coal-fired power would be gone by mid-century.

Metallurgical coal is not expected to decline as quickly - in simple terms, there is not the readymade alternative to coal in steel manufacturing that there is in electricity generation. The IEA has forecast only a 15% drop in global trade of metallurgical coal by 2040 should the world deliver on the headline Paris agreement goals. Australia has about a fifth of the global market, and higher quality coal than many competitors, suggesting its market share should more or less hold up.

As the government points out, Australia also offers higher quality thermal coal than its competitors. But Tony Wood, energy program director at the Grattan Institute, says the numbers are compelling even once this is factored in.

"Malcolm Turnbull says coal will be part of the energy mix for the next several decades, and this is true, but it is a declining part of that mix," Wood says.

"We may have a bigger share, but it is still a bigger share of a declining market. Unless someone does something with carbon capture and storage - or the world turns away from acting on climate change, which doesn't seem likely - this is not an industry with a long-term future."

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Coal in decline: Adani in question and Australia out of step

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he Paris-based International Energy Agency was born in a crisis. In the wake of the 1973 oil shock, as Arab petroleum producers withheld supply from countries that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur war, the then US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, called on the OECD to set up a new body to ensure its members would always have the reliable and affordable energy they needed.