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06-10-2015, 07:35 AM
Five-year deadline for clean coal: International Energy Agency
The coal industry has less than five years to prove “clean-coal” technologies are commercially viable or face demand constraints caused by climate change policies, the head of the International Energy Agency has declared.
IEA executive director Fatih Birol said commercialising carbon capture and storage was critical for the coal industry, which has accounted for 15 per cent of Australia’s exports over the past five years.
“Demand for coal will be depending on whether or not the coal industry will be able to make use of the clean-coal technologies, including carbon capture and storage,’’ Dr Birol said.
He was speaking after the G20 energy ministers’ meeting in Turkey, where he met Australia’s Resources Minister, Josh Frydenberg, who told him Australia was significantly increasing its use of renewable energy and pursuit of energy efficiency, but this was not mutually exclusive to continuing energy exports, particularly coal and gas.
With a month to the start of the Paris climate change conference, Dr Birol said he was “really impressed’’ by the Australian commitment to renewables and energy efficiency.
The IEA predicts worldwide energy demand will grow a third by 2040 and three-quarters of that additional demand will be met by fossil fuels. The wildcard was the Paris conference.
“If we receive a signal from Paris that climate change is becoming more and more important in economic decisions, then we will see an acceleration in the renewable energies and acceleration of the energy efficiency investments,’’ Dr Birol said.
He declared the medium-term prospects for Australia’s LNG export industry were bright despite current low prices, which would be prolonged by the prospect of new supply coming online.
Dr Birol said whatever the signal from Paris, gas would increase its market share “even in a carbon-constrained world’’.
Australia is expected to be the biggest exporter of LNG by the end of the decade.
Dr Birol predicted renewable technologies such as hydro-electric power, solar and wind would comprise half of the new power generation capacity added worldwide over the next five years.
He said while wind and solar were becoming cheaper, and some of the best wind sites were becoming commercially competitive with fossil fuels, renewables in general would likely still need government subsidies to compete with fossil fuels by 2020, although less than current levels.
While the prospects for the gas industry were strong, it would first have to weather difficult times over the next few years.
He expected low prices could produce a slowdown in investment, but this would be a “temporary situation’’.
Rising demand for electricity in the Asia-Pacific region would drive demand for Australian gas which would ultimately fuel a further round of investment growth in the industry.
Dr Birol played down predictions by environmentalists of the end of the coal industry. “To declare that coal is dead may be in my view (is) a rather premature way of thinking,’’ he said.
Rising demand from India, which has 350 million people without access to electricity, would underpin coal demand, but he said new coal plants should be high-efficiency, low-emissions plants.
He said carbon capture and storage remained a “most critical technology’’ for the coal industry and declared the “signals’’ from current efforts to develop the technology in Australia, Canada and the US “not as strong as I would like to see’’.
“You really need to see in the next four or five years that CCS is now ready to go,’’ he said. CCS technology was still “promising’’.
Technology problems had to be solved and it had to be proven economically viable quickly because investments were being made now and it was difficult to retrofit existing plants.
The first commercial-scale CCS electricity project began operating last year in Canada in the Boundary Dam power plant. Australia has several trial plants operating, including a project in the Otway Basin in Victoria. The giant Gorgon gas project in Western Australia will also sequester carbon as part of its operations.
Internationally, there are 14 plants in operation across all industries and eight under construction.
The IEA predicts gas will gain significant levels of a market share, while oil and coal will slightly lose market share under its current growth scenarios.
- THE AUSTRALIAN
- OCTOBER 6, 2015 12:00AM
- PRINT
- Sid Maher
[Image: sid_maher.png]
National Affairs Editor
Canberra
[img=650x0]http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/048bb07b7dfb333c7025ce2aa6d7bd7e?width=650[/img]
[*]The International Energy Agency's executive director Fatih Birol says commercialising carbon capture and storage was critical for the coal industry.
The coal industry has less than five years to prove “clean-coal” technologies are commercially viable or face demand constraints caused by climate change policies, the head of the International Energy Agency has declared.
IEA executive director Fatih Birol said commercialising carbon capture and storage was critical for the coal industry, which has accounted for 15 per cent of Australia’s exports over the past five years.
“Demand for coal will be depending on whether or not the coal industry will be able to make use of the clean-coal technologies, including carbon capture and storage,’’ Dr Birol said.
He was speaking after the G20 energy ministers’ meeting in Turkey, where he met Australia’s Resources Minister, Josh Frydenberg, who told him Australia was significantly increasing its use of renewable energy and pursuit of energy efficiency, but this was not mutually exclusive to continuing energy exports, particularly coal and gas.
With a month to the start of the Paris climate change conference, Dr Birol said he was “really impressed’’ by the Australian commitment to renewables and energy efficiency.
The IEA predicts worldwide energy demand will grow a third by 2040 and three-quarters of that additional demand will be met by fossil fuels. The wildcard was the Paris conference.
“If we receive a signal from Paris that climate change is becoming more and more important in economic decisions, then we will see an acceleration in the renewable energies and acceleration of the energy efficiency investments,’’ Dr Birol said.
He declared the medium-term prospects for Australia’s LNG export industry were bright despite current low prices, which would be prolonged by the prospect of new supply coming online.
Dr Birol said whatever the signal from Paris, gas would increase its market share “even in a carbon-constrained world’’.
Australia is expected to be the biggest exporter of LNG by the end of the decade.
Dr Birol predicted renewable technologies such as hydro-electric power, solar and wind would comprise half of the new power generation capacity added worldwide over the next five years.
He said while wind and solar were becoming cheaper, and some of the best wind sites were becoming commercially competitive with fossil fuels, renewables in general would likely still need government subsidies to compete with fossil fuels by 2020, although less than current levels.
While the prospects for the gas industry were strong, it would first have to weather difficult times over the next few years.
He expected low prices could produce a slowdown in investment, but this would be a “temporary situation’’.
Rising demand for electricity in the Asia-Pacific region would drive demand for Australian gas which would ultimately fuel a further round of investment growth in the industry.
Dr Birol played down predictions by environmentalists of the end of the coal industry. “To declare that coal is dead may be in my view (is) a rather premature way of thinking,’’ he said.
Rising demand from India, which has 350 million people without access to electricity, would underpin coal demand, but he said new coal plants should be high-efficiency, low-emissions plants.
He said carbon capture and storage remained a “most critical technology’’ for the coal industry and declared the “signals’’ from current efforts to develop the technology in Australia, Canada and the US “not as strong as I would like to see’’.
“You really need to see in the next four or five years that CCS is now ready to go,’’ he said. CCS technology was still “promising’’.
Technology problems had to be solved and it had to be proven economically viable quickly because investments were being made now and it was difficult to retrofit existing plants.
The first commercial-scale CCS electricity project began operating last year in Canada in the Boundary Dam power plant. Australia has several trial plants operating, including a project in the Otway Basin in Victoria. The giant Gorgon gas project in Western Australia will also sequester carbon as part of its operations.
Internationally, there are 14 plants in operation across all industries and eight under construction.
The IEA predicts gas will gain significant levels of a market share, while oil and coal will slightly lose market share under its current growth scenarios.