It is certainly a major area of dispute. A few years back, the current PM brought a lump of coal into Parliament, holding it up for all to admire, and saying "How good is coal!"
It is a very difficult problem for the Labour Party opposition. There are a handful of seats in rural/coal mining areas in NSW and Queensland where the coal miner's unions are very strong. If the Labour Party cannot gain those seats, even if they win in inner cities, they will probably fail to unseat the current government at the next election. So, their support for renewables and opposition to coal is considerably muted...
They'll need to talk about coal in a different way - we all do. The jobs issue is something to address head on: these jobs are going - clinging to them politically is counterproductive. Miners are engineers with transferable skills. To start with they're the perfect people to safely decommission existing coal production, so let's train them to do that. And they're also perfectly placed to help build and maintain the infrastructure needed to replace coal, so let's guarantee them a job in the growing renewables sector. This is all pretty straightforward in a technocratic sense, but not so straightforward when it comes to addressing communities whose economies, and even their sense of identity, have traditionally been focused around the pithead or the mine works.
Without coal and coal miners our entire way of life would look completely different. Coal miners literally powered the world with their sweat and toil, and many paid with their lives so we could keep the lights and the factories open. That should be officially recognised, and honoured - both nationally and in every coal town. To be from a coal mining family or tradition is something people should be rightly proud of, and given their contribution it seems only fair and right, in these pressing times where we need to leave coal in the ground and start working on addressing the very real issues that fossil fuels have created for us, that the welfare of miners and their families should be secured for the future. And what better way than by offering them a leading role in renewing our approach to energy as we develop new technologies and new ways of managing our energy use.
That's the kind of thing I'd say anyway.
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"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
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"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
I agree completely, and there are some moves in that direction. Planning for large scale solar farms, for example, and the jobs they create should be biased towards the location of these coal mines near inland communities.
Ontario eliminated coal in a decade as an electricity source. ( it was 25% of the mix - then became zero )
The Nanticoke station was the biggest single source of CO2 in Canada. The has been closed and solar and windfarm use the same transmission corridors.
Ontario is about half the size of Australia in GDP and population so it can be done.
A lot of the issue for us revolves around coal exports, which are still substantial earners, even though most know that it will be a smaller income source in future. Domestic consumption for electricity production is declining as more renewables kick in.
I can't see a rationale for stopping selling fossil fuel resources that remain in demand as long as income is used to move the supplying country to carbon neutral as Norway has done.
Stopping subsidies for FF resources tho I think is mandatory.
four other countries invited to attend this year’s summit—Australia, India, South Korea, and South Africa—have continued to provide outsized financial support for fossil fuels: committing more than $189 billion to support coal, oil, and gas between January 2020 and March 2021, while clean forms of energy received only $147 billion,
Yeah, our current coalition government are fossil fuel dinosaurs. Unfortunately, a lacklustre Labour opposition means that they have a good chance of remaining in power after the next election...
They'll need to talk about coal in a different way - we all do. The jobs issue is something to address head on: these jobs are going - clinging to them politically is counterproductive. Miners are engineers with transferable skills. To start with they're the perfect people to safely decommission existing coal production, so let's train them to do that. And they're also perfectly placed to help build and maintain the infrastructure needed to replace coal, so let's guarantee them a job in the growing renewables sector. This is all pretty straightforward in a technocratic sense, but not so straightforward when it comes to addressing communities whose economies, and even their sense of identity, have traditionally been focused around the pithead or the mine works.
Without coal and coal miners our entire way of life would look completely different. Coal miners literally powered the world with their sweat and toil, and many paid with their lives so we could keep the lights and the factories open. That should be officially recognised, and honoured - both nationally and in every coal town. To be from a coal mining family or tradition is something people should be rightly proud of, and given their contribution it seems only fair and right, in these pressing times where we need to leave coal in the ground and start working on addressing the very real issues that fossil fuels have created for us, that the welfare of miners and their families should be secured for the future. And what better way than by offering them a leading role in renewing our approach to energy as we develop new technologies and new ways of managing our energy use.
That's the kind of thing I'd say anyway.
Coal shouldn't be burnt.
It can still be mined and used as a feedstock for the new materials required for a renewable energy economy. Each lithium ion battery requires carbon for its electrodes, carbon nano fibres and particles will be creating new approaches to efficient chemistry. Activated carbon from coal is used in nearly every water treatment works, and should be used in wastewater plants to remove emerging and micropollutants.
It is the starting point for many polymers, and actually and quite ironically has a lower carbon footprint than biopolymers. Who would've thunk?
Coal started as the raw material for the chemical industry and remains significant. The alternative here is crude oil. You can't make organic chemical from non-carbon sources.
Sure, but the volume needed for such uses is minute compared to the volume that is burnt for electricity production, so the workforce needed to mine coal for those uses will be tiny compared to the current workforce.
Metallurgical coal, mainly for smelting iron is another significant use, but there are moves afoot to use hydrogen (which can be sourced via renewable electricity) as a reducing agent.
Metallurgical coal, mainly for smelting iron is another significant use, but there are moves afoot to use hydrogen (which can be sourced via renewable electricity) as a reducing agent.
I'm not a big fan. The carbon footprint isn't good when hydrogen needs to be transported to the steel mill. Coal mines and steel plants are situated in the same regions for this reason, and the transport costs per energy-km are lower for coal.
Good technology exists for the removal of CO2 from the waste gasses from steel/iron production. Storage of this CO2 in ultramafic ores and clays is quite encouraging.
The biggest use of coal outside of the power industry is making cement. This a difficult to substitute, and possibly here sequestration should be mandated.
...so coal should have a future, but not with the power industry.
There are technologies currently in use that can turn cement into a carbon sink.
From Unavoidable CO2 Source to CO2 Sink? A Cement ...https://pubs.acs.org › doi
by H Ostovari · 2021 — The cement industry emits 7% of the global anthropogenic greenhouse gas ( GHG) emissions. Reducing the GHG emissions of the cement industry is ...
World’s First Carbon-neutral Cement Plant
Photo of Energy Industry Review Energy Industry Review3 weeks agoLast Updated: June 2, 2021 61 2 minutes read
The HeidelbergCement Group, which includes Swedish manufacturer Cementa, announced its intention to develop the world’s first carbon-neutral cement plant in Slite on Gotland. When the installation is commissioned in 2030 and begins capturing up to 1.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, of which an increasing proportion is biobased emissions, the plant that currently accounts for 3% of Sweden’s total emissions can even become a carbon sink.
In 2026, SSAB aims to supply the market with fossil-free steel at a commercial scale. Volvo Cars aims to also be the first car maker to use fossil-free steel for its own production cars.
There are technologies currently in use that can turn cement into a carbon sink.
From Unavoidable CO2 Source to CO2 Sink? A Cement ...https://pubs.acs.org › doi
by H Ostovari · 2021 — The cement industry emits 7% of the global anthropogenic greenhouse gas ( GHG) emissions. Reducing the GHG emissions of the cement industry is ...
World’s First Carbon-neutral Cement Plant
Photo of Energy Industry Review Energy Industry Review3 weeks agoLast Updated: June 2, 2021 61 2 minutes read
The HeidelbergCement Group, which includes Swedish manufacturer Cementa, announced its intention to develop the world’s first carbon-neutral cement plant in Slite on Gotland. When the installation is commissioned in 2030 and begins capturing up to 1.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, of which an increasing proportion is biobased emissions, the plant that currently accounts for 3% of Sweden’s total emissions can even become a carbon sink.
In 2026, SSAB aims to supply the market with fossil-free steel at a commercial scale. Volvo Cars aims to also be the first car maker to use fossil-free steel for its own production cars.
Thank you for the links. Certainly a cement or steel plant can claim to be carbon neutral, by selecting their energy suppliers.
They don't say how exactly the CO2 will be captured and stored.
The technology has been around for many years - to sorb the CO2 onto amines. With heating the CO2 comes off as a concentrated stream.
Pumping this underground and hoping that future generation will find a better way, is a bit shortsighted IMO.
It seems straightforward enough to say that Australia etc shouldn't be subsidising coal exports and should move to phase exports out completely, but we also have to look at where coal is going and how it's being used - particularly in the less developed, poorer regions of the world where systems of climate change adaptation are needed now. These region cannot meet the challenges climate breakdown is posing without the energy needed to develop and build appropriate alternative infrastructures.
One idea is that while the Westernised economies should swiftly phase out coal for domestic energy, exports should continue to be subsidised where coal is being used to drive mitigation and adaptation measures in less developed regions. It seems somewhat contradictory to say that coal needs to be used in order to phase out coal more quickly, but only until we look at things in global terms.
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"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
Frank Zappa
"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
Ummm less developed regions aren't the problem and China is quite aware of the climate issue and certainly doing a lot to mitigate while still supplying thermal power of necessity.
It is ridiculous that Germany abandoned nukes to retain coal.....so did Japan.
Little enough urgency and IMNSHO the world will fall well short.
Rhetoric and frame analysis of ExxonMobil's climate change communications
Abstract
This paper investigates how ExxonMobil uses rhetoric and framing to shape public discourse on climate change. We present an algorithmic corpus comparison and machine-learning topic model of 180 ExxonMobil climate change communications, including peer-reviewed publications, internal company documents, and advertorials in The New York Times. We also investigate advertorials using inductive frame analysis. We find that the company has publicly overemphasized some terms and topics while avoiding others. Most notably, they have used rhetoric of climate “risk” and consumer energy “demand” to construct a “Fossil Fuel Savior” (FFS) frame that downplays the reality and seriousness of climate change, normalizes fossil fuel lock-in, and individualizes responsibility. These patterns mimic the tobacco industry's documented strategy of shifting responsibility away from corporations—which knowingly sold a deadly product while denying its harms—and onto consumers. This historical parallel foreshadows the fossil fuel industry's use of demand-as-blame arguments to oppose litigation, regulation, and activism.
Rationalia relies on voluntary donations. There is no obligation of course, but if you value this place and want to see it continue please consider making a small donation towards the forum's running costs.
Details on how to do that can be found here. .
"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
Frank Zappa
"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
