Earlier this month, Australia鈥檚 prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to 鈥渟tate-of-the-art clean coal-fired technology鈥�.聽 A week later, the federal treasurer gleefully passed a lump of coal around parliament. 鈥淭his is coal. Don鈥檛 be afraid, don鈥檛 be scared, it won鈥檛 hurt you,鈥� he .
Australia is trying to rekindle its relationship with the carbon-belching fuel, and it鈥檚 not alone. The US has also been seduced. Unveiling its in January, the Trump administration announced that in 鈥渞eviving America鈥檚 coal industry鈥�, it was 鈥渃ommitted to clean coal technology鈥�.
The trouble is, it鈥檚 not clean, and it鈥檚 not even what you might think of as 鈥渃lean鈥� coal 颅鈥� coal-fired power stations equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to trap emitted carbon dioxide. It鈥檚 just upgraded coal-fired power stations. And worse, the Australian government is looking to pay for it with money that was earmarked to support emerging green energy technologies.
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Exorbitant costs
Clean coal is a term that has been bandied about since the . The idea is that if you stop a power station鈥檚 emitted greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere, you can burn coal without adding heat to the atmosphere or contributing gas to further warm the atmosphere.
But this approach has largely been abandoned because of the exorbitant costs of capturing, transporting and storing such enormous quantities of carbon dioxide.
Neither government is advocating research into pushing this technology forward. The clean coal technology advocated by and instead refers to ultra-supercritical coal power stations. These operate at higher temperatures and pressures than conventional power stations, so that more electricity can be generated from less coal.
But to call these power stations clean is a stretch. They still produce of carbon dioxide for every megawatt-hour of electricity produced. In comparison, existing coal stations produce about per megawatt-hour. A power station equipped with CCS would aim closer to 50 kilogams.
Even if the US and Australia replaced all their coal plants with ultra-supercritical models, they would still the emissions targets they set as part of the Paris climate agreement.
And going with such technology would be a striking reversal of a downward trend 鈥� wind and solar farms generate no carbon dioxide during operation, while gas and nuclear power plants produce per megawatt-hour respectively.
Dirty dollars
However, the US and Australia have reached a crossroads: what should they do with their ageing coal power stations? Should they scrap these in favour of low-carbon alternatives? Or upgrade them to ultra-supercritical versions?
If you鈥檙e prioritising the environment, there is only one answer 鈥� you scrap them. And if you factor in the economics, the answer is the same. A recent by the US Energy Information Administration concluded that ultra-supercritical coal stations would be more expensive to build and operate than wind and solar plants. For this reason, Australia鈥檚 energy companies have to build ultra-supercritical coal plants. The only way they could afford them, they say, would be if the government gave them generous subsidies.
In response, the Turnbull government has hatched an audacious plan. Energy minister Josh Frydenberg that the government is looking into financing ultra-supercritical coal stations using Australia鈥檚 clean energy fund.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation was set up by the former government in 2012 to invest in no-emissions clean energy technologies like wind and solar. Taking money from this fund to prop up the coal industry is like taking money from anti-smoking programmes to give to the tobacco industry. For both Australia and the US, it鈥檚 time to let coal go.
