Company behind Collinsville power plant fears it was used by Coalition to win election.

Extract from The Guardian

Energy

Shine Energy, run by Indigenous traditional owners, is yet to receive $4m in funding and doubts support is genuine

Adam Morton Environment editor

@adamlmorton

Fri 12 Jun 2020 03.30 AEST Last modified on Fri 12 Jun 2020 03.31 AEST

Shine Energy says it has not received promised funding for a feasibility study into a 1,000 megawatt coal-fired power station in Queensland. Photograph: Ben Smee/The Guardian

The company behind a proposed new coal-fired power plant in Queensland has questioned whether the Coalition used it as a pawn to help win last year’s federal election, saying it is yet to receive $4m in funding and doubts whether support for the project is genuine.
Shine Energy, run by Indigenous traditional owners from Birri and Widi country, said it was not confident it would get the promised funding for a feasibility study into a 1,000 megawatt coal station at Collinsville despite four federal ministers releasing a statement in February confirming it had been awarded.
Ashley Dodd, Shine’s chief executive, said the Morrison government had pressured him to step aside from running the company, and accused the Coalition of trying to “white clad” the company by installing an “Anglo Saxon” in the leadership role. The government denies the allegation.

Dodd told Guardian Australia the company had submitted a pre-feasibility report to the government as required, but not been given a timeframe on when it would receive the funding. He said he was concerned the Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek might have been correct when she told Sky News the government’s support for the plant was a “scam” and a “press release designed to cover up their lack of energy policy”.
“I’m very, very upset. I’m starting to feel like we’ve been used to win the election,” Dodd said. “We put in all the hard work based on what the government said they would deliver to us but it has been a go slow by the department. We’re starting to really feel that we’ve been used as a pawn in a game.”
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced the government’s support for a feasibility study before last year’s election, but the case for the plant remains unclear. The Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) had earlier noted there was an “energy surplus” in north Queensland, and new large-scale plants were not likely to be needed in the area until the 2030s.
Aemo has also found the lowest cost replacement for coal plants as they closed would come from renewable energy and “firming” support from a range of possible sources, not including coal.
Banks and other financiers are increasingly saying they will no longer support thermal coal mining and power plants as they introduce policies in line with the Paris climate agreement, but Morrison has left open the option of the government indemnifying the proposed Collinsville plant from future carbon risk.
The Coalition is split over support for coal. Some moderate Liberal MPs oppose underwriting a new coal plant, but the backbenchers Matthew Canavan and George Christensen have claimed the Coalition’s support for coal jobs was crucial to its surprise victory at last year’s election, when Labor was routed in regional Queensland.

A spokesman for Angus Taylor, the energy and emissions reduction minister, rejected Dodd’s claims. He said the government’s support for a feasibility study was based on an independent strategic study that found system strength in the electricity grid was a concern in central and north Queensland. He said new synchronous generation, which could be provided by coal power, was a priority to meet the energy needs of the region.
Dodd said the $1.7bn plant was financially viable and had support lined up from international investors, but declined to name them. The company has previously said it developed a business case with Canadian engineering firm WSP and the plant would allow for the “swifter phase-out” of dirtier coals plants, including one at Gladstone.
He said this was important for the economic future of the Birriah people, who were recognised in 2016 as the traditional owners of land and water between Mackay and Townsville. It was the first stage of a plan that could include jobs at new industrial developments. “That’s what drives us,” he said. “We’ve been working our backsides off. It’s our time to take control over our country, over our lives.”
Dodd said Michelle Landry, Collinsville’s local member and the assistant minister for northern Australia, had called him at Taylor’s behest to suggest he should step aside as chief executive so he could be replaced by “someone like Lucas Dow, the CEO of Adani Australia”. He said he took the suggestion to mean the government “can’t deal with traditional owners”.
“They don’t want to [deal with traditional owners] as far as I’m concerned. We’re too confrontational, too upfront, too honest. We tell the truth and they don’t like the truth,” he said.
Landry denied she suggested Dodd step aside, telling the Australian she suggested only that the company hire a “head-kicker” to manage government relations.

She said Dodd had done “an amazing job” in getting the project this far. “I am 100% behind Ashley Dodd, Shine Energy and their HELE [high efficiency, low emissions] coal project to deliver jobs and affordable power to central and north Queensland,” she said on Thursday.
Those to question the viability of the Collinsville plant include the energy boss Trevor St Baker, who said it would not be viable unless the Morrison government agreed to shield it from changes to climate policy, and the independent MP Bob Katter, who said it did not “stack up financially”.
In a 2017 speech to the Australian Industry Group, Morrison said the government would welcome investment in HELE coal plants in cases where the economics made sense, but it was important to “be real” and recognise the energy was estimated to cost two and a half times that from existing coal plants and they would take up to around seven years to set up.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels was likely to require global coal-fired power generation being cut by between 59% and 78% below 2010 levels by 2030, with deeper cuts by 2050.