Extract from The Guardian
Australian resources minister says coal will help the world’s
energy-poor, but they are mostly out of reach of the expensive grid
structures coal relies on
Australian coal, Frydenberg says, offers salvation to some of the 2.6
billion people who currently live without access to safe cooking
facilities.
Photograph: Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images
Australian energy minister Josh Frydenberg’s “strong moral case”
for coal is at odds with the policies and research of the World Bank,
the UN and the world’s most austere energy agencies and has been called
“deranged”, “oxymoronic” and “wilfully deceptive” by observers.
In making the case for the government’s reapproval of the Carmichael coalmine, Frydenberg invoked the lung-clogging pollution produced by the rudimentary wood, coal, petrol and dung-fired cooking stoves commonly used in the developing world. Australian coal, he said, offered salvation to some of the 2.6 billion people who currently live without access to safe cooking facilities.
But Frydenberg’s moral imperative for his country’s second-biggest export commodity rests specifically on reaching those currently living without electricity.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which the minister quoted as an authority on energy poverty, centralised power sources such as coal rely on expensive grid infrastructure to deliver power. This means they are most useful in urban areas. But 84% of those living in energy poverty worldwide live outside cities. Of these, the IEA said less than a third were within cost-effective reach of an expanded grid.
The IEA, the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All program and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) all emphasise the overwhelming importance of decentralised renewable energy, particularly solar, in delivering the electricity component of remote community energy. None of their reports mention expanded coal imports from Australia as a prerequisite.
The IIASA’s influential 2012 report on energy access notes that grid expansion to many remote communities would take decades – whereas with the correct financial support solar panels can be delivered any day.
Anthony Hobley, the CEO of the UK think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative, said its analysis showed renewable energy was the fastest, most cost-effective way to lift most people out of energy poverty.
“In our view, arguing that coal is the answer to energy poverty is an intellectual and financial oxymoron,” he said.
“This is, I’m afraid, either wilfully deceptive or just stupidity,” said Colin Butler, professor of public health at the University of Canberra. “Frydenberg also seems ignorant of or indifferent to the idea that coal exports worsen climate change, and that will also worsen the health of many people in India, starting with the poor, the same group Frydenberg professes to care about.”
Given its impacts on the climate, human health and ineffectiveness at delivering to communities in need, the World Bank has banned the finance of new coal power under its $8-10bn annual energy development budget, except in exceptional circumstances where no other option is available. The bank said this exemption clause has not been used to fund any new coal plants in the five years since the ban came in – although there is evidence the bank is getting around the ban in other, less transparent ways.
Frydenberg’s particular focus was on India, the home nation of the company behind the Carmichael mine, Adani. There is undoubtedly a growing demand for coal in the country that will become the world’s second-largest consumer of the fuel around 2025. The Australian government has identified this as an economic opportunity for its coalminers.
But India’s former energy secretary EAS Sharma wrote in the Guardian that the addition of 95,000MW of mostly coal-fired generation (double Australia’s total capacity) since 2001 has failed to expand energy access to those without it. Rather, the extra is taken up by those industries and customers already on the grid.
Polling released on Sunday by the leftwing Australia Institute think tank found more Australians supported a global moratorium on new coalmines than opposed it. On the same day, Frydenberg’s comments were taken up by News Corp. columnist Miranda Devine who called climate science “spurious” and erroneously said China’s demand for coal was growing. According to the US government, it is not.
Greens deputy leader Larissa Waters called Frydenberg’s comments “deranged”.
“Four out of five people without electricity in India are not connected to an electricity grid so can’t access coal-fired power,” she told AAP.
But Frydenberg’s contortion goes further. His focus on the use of stoves powered by the burning of dung, coal and wood envisages a scenario in which coal-fired electricity is delivered into each home powering an electric stove.
The UN’s Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves says the impact of electric stoves is limited by the need to connect to the grid “which varies widely between rural and urban areas in developing countries”. A World Bank report notes that electricity is only one way for cooking and heating to be cleaned up. In Brazil, the challenge was overcome through expanding access to natural gas for cooking. This can be done off-grid using delivered gas bottles. In that country, 98% of homes now cook with gas.
However, World Bank authors said that the truly disruptive technology in this field is the clean gasifier biomass stove, which allows the continued smokeless burning of traditional fuels. The biggest inhibitor of access to these stoves is money. International funding for improved cookstoves equates to just $30–$250 for every person who dies prematurely from household air pollution. Whereas diseases like malaria and HIV, which the minister notes kill fewer people, attract $2,000-$4,000 per death.
And yet Frydenberg’s government, which professes such concern for those drowning in the bronchial dust of cooking smoke, is one of the few major western countries not listed as a donor to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.
In making the case for the government’s reapproval of the Carmichael coalmine, Frydenberg invoked the lung-clogging pollution produced by the rudimentary wood, coal, petrol and dung-fired cooking stoves commonly used in the developing world. Australian coal, he said, offered salvation to some of the 2.6 billion people who currently live without access to safe cooking facilities.
But Frydenberg’s moral imperative for his country’s second-biggest export commodity rests specifically on reaching those currently living without electricity.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which the minister quoted as an authority on energy poverty, centralised power sources such as coal rely on expensive grid infrastructure to deliver power. This means they are most useful in urban areas. But 84% of those living in energy poverty worldwide live outside cities. Of these, the IEA said less than a third were within cost-effective reach of an expanded grid.
The IEA, the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All program and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) all emphasise the overwhelming importance of decentralised renewable energy, particularly solar, in delivering the electricity component of remote community energy. None of their reports mention expanded coal imports from Australia as a prerequisite.
The IIASA’s influential 2012 report on energy access notes that grid expansion to many remote communities would take decades – whereas with the correct financial support solar panels can be delivered any day.
Anthony Hobley, the CEO of the UK think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative, said its analysis showed renewable energy was the fastest, most cost-effective way to lift most people out of energy poverty.
“In our view, arguing that coal is the answer to energy poverty is an intellectual and financial oxymoron,” he said.
“This is, I’m afraid, either wilfully deceptive or just stupidity,” said Colin Butler, professor of public health at the University of Canberra. “Frydenberg also seems ignorant of or indifferent to the idea that coal exports worsen climate change, and that will also worsen the health of many people in India, starting with the poor, the same group Frydenberg professes to care about.”
Given its impacts on the climate, human health and ineffectiveness at delivering to communities in need, the World Bank has banned the finance of new coal power under its $8-10bn annual energy development budget, except in exceptional circumstances where no other option is available. The bank said this exemption clause has not been used to fund any new coal plants in the five years since the ban came in – although there is evidence the bank is getting around the ban in other, less transparent ways.
Frydenberg’s particular focus was on India, the home nation of the company behind the Carmichael mine, Adani. There is undoubtedly a growing demand for coal in the country that will become the world’s second-largest consumer of the fuel around 2025. The Australian government has identified this as an economic opportunity for its coalminers.
But India’s former energy secretary EAS Sharma wrote in the Guardian that the addition of 95,000MW of mostly coal-fired generation (double Australia’s total capacity) since 2001 has failed to expand energy access to those without it. Rather, the extra is taken up by those industries and customers already on the grid.
Polling released on Sunday by the leftwing Australia Institute think tank found more Australians supported a global moratorium on new coalmines than opposed it. On the same day, Frydenberg’s comments were taken up by News Corp. columnist Miranda Devine who called climate science “spurious” and erroneously said China’s demand for coal was growing. According to the US government, it is not.
Greens deputy leader Larissa Waters called Frydenberg’s comments “deranged”.
“Four out of five people without electricity in India are not connected to an electricity grid so can’t access coal-fired power,” she told AAP.
But Frydenberg’s contortion goes further. His focus on the use of stoves powered by the burning of dung, coal and wood envisages a scenario in which coal-fired electricity is delivered into each home powering an electric stove.
The UN’s Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves says the impact of electric stoves is limited by the need to connect to the grid “which varies widely between rural and urban areas in developing countries”. A World Bank report notes that electricity is only one way for cooking and heating to be cleaned up. In Brazil, the challenge was overcome through expanding access to natural gas for cooking. This can be done off-grid using delivered gas bottles. In that country, 98% of homes now cook with gas.
However, World Bank authors said that the truly disruptive technology in this field is the clean gasifier biomass stove, which allows the continued smokeless burning of traditional fuels. The biggest inhibitor of access to these stoves is money. International funding for improved cookstoves equates to just $30–$250 for every person who dies prematurely from household air pollution. Whereas diseases like malaria and HIV, which the minister notes kill fewer people, attract $2,000-$4,000 per death.
And yet Frydenberg’s government, which professes such concern for those drowning in the bronchial dust of cooking smoke, is one of the few major western countries not listed as a donor to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.
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