The arbitrary nature of the decisions, led by a planning minister Jarrod Bleijie accused by some of \u201cgoing rogue\u201d has cast a deep shadow over the renewables industry in Queensland, despite efforts by its biggest energy user Rio Tinto, to try and source wind and solar to power its smelters in Gladstone, and support for the Copperstring link to Mt Isa.<\/p>\n
Treasurer and energy minister David Janetzki is due to release the state\u2019s updated energy plan on October 10, and is seen by most as a person trying to find a middle path between what\u2019s left of the moderate faction in the LNP, and the so-called \u201cpentecostals\u201d led by the likes of Bleijie, and those strongly affiliated with the Nationals.<\/p>\n
The state government has already promised to rip up the renewable energy targets set by Labor \u2013 50 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2035 \u2013 and there is concern it may also dilute the emissions reduction targets that it signed up for even from Opposition.<\/p>\n
See: Fossil fuel production has driven a staggering rise in Queensland\u2019s energy emissions<\/a><\/p>\n Most coal dependent state<\/p>\n Queensland remains the country\u2019s most coal dependent state, with a share of 66 per cent in the last 12 months, but its transition to green energy is seen as crucial to help federal Labor meet its national renewable target of 82 per cent by 2030, and key to its ability to set an ambitious emissions reduction target for 2035, due to be announced soon.<\/p>\n The difficulties were highlighted this week when the the LNP\u2019s Natural Resources Minister Dale Last promised \u2013 at a press conference called to announce funding for projects designed to help the climate threatened Great Barrier Reef \u2013 that the state-owned coal generators would operate for \u201cmany, many decades\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201c(There are) many, many decades of coal-fired power still to take place and we have always said there will need to be a balance between coal-fired power, renewable energy and gas-fired power stations,\u201d Last told journalists<\/a> at the gathering in Cairns.<\/p>\n Further south, Glen Kelly, the LNP MP for Mirani, in central Queensland, argued that the region\u2019s coal fired power stations should stay open \u201cas long as needed\u201d to be the backbone of the state grid.<\/p>\n \u201cI am committed to ensuring that our coal-fired power stations remain open and operating for as long as needed in Queensland\u2019s electricity system,\u201d he said, according to a report in Townsville Bulletin.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe need a strong diversified mix in our electricity grid, with reliable baseload and peaking power, including coal. Stanwell Power Station in my electorate provides 240 jobs for people in the Rockhampton region, as well as reliable power for the entire state.\u201d<\/p>\n Stanwell, according to the Open Electricity, has run on a capacity factor of around 65 per cent over the last 12 months, and is not due to close until 2045.<\/p>\n Even further south, the performance of the older Gladstone coal fired power station has fallen dramatically with outages, poor reliability and falling output taking its average capacity factor to below 45 per cent, according to a recent analysis by\u00a0Nexa Advisory<\/a>.<\/p>\n Unplanned outages<\/p>\n The report found that unplanned outage hours have risen 65 per cent since 2020, even with increased planned maintenance, and downtime has totalled an average of 14,800 hours a year \u2013 the equivalent of each unit being offline for more than a whole season (14 weeks annually).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cQueensland\u2019s major industrial economy is at risk because of the Gladstone Power Station. An industry which generates $6.7 billion in economic output is relying on a power station that is offline for the equivalent of more than half the time,\u201d Next\u2019s Stephanie Bashir said.<\/p>\n Rio Tinto clearly agrees.<\/p>\n It has made clear that the future of its Boyne Island aluminium smelter, which accounts for 13 per cent of state demand, and its two associated alumina refineries depend on a switch from coal power to renewables and storage, and it has already written contracts for two large scale wind farms, and a major solar and battery facility.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear yet how the LNP government will balance the dramatic transition from coal to green energy for the state\u2019s biggest energy consumer, and one of its biggest employers, and then argue that it should be allowed to occur in the rest of the state.<\/p>\n The suspicion is that the energy plan to be announced by Janetzki will be heavily focused on gas-fired generation, which is now regarded as equally damaging to coal because of its previous hidden methane leaks, particularly from the coal seam gas wells common across Queensland\u2019s farmland.<\/p>\n No firm closure dates<\/p>\n The failure to give any firm closure dates for coal-fired power generators, as canvassed by Janetzki, is problematic because it sends confused signals to developers of wind, solar and storage projects. That makes it hard for those developments to do financial modelling and lock in funding.<\/p>\n The Queensland Conservation Council says the LNP\u2019s pro-fossil fuel stance is ideological, a huge waste of taxpayer money and will risk energy reliability.<\/p>\n \u201cNo matter how hard the Crisafulli Government crosses their fingers and wishes, they can\u2019t hold together our ageing and increasingly unreliable coal clunkers with sticky tape,\u201d QCC campaign Stephanie Gray said, noting that more than $1 billion has already been spent on coal fired power station maintenance.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the last summer period, Queensland coal power stations were offline or broken down a staggering 78 times,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cNo matter how many billions of taxpayer dollars the Government is willing to funnel into coal, we\u2019re going to keep seeing explosions and breakdowns as the ageing power stations head towards the end of their technical lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAll Queenslanders should be concerned about how long the Crisafulli Government plans to subsidise these coal-fired power stations when they could be facilitating the shift to more affordable renewable energy backed by storage.\u201d<\/p>\n See also: Industry braces for more shocks in Queensland as LNP \u201ccalls in\u201d two more wind and battery projects<\/a><\/p>\n If you wish to support independent media, and accurate information, please consider making a one off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Renew Economy. Your support is invaluable.<\/a><\/p>\n Giles Parkinson is founder and editor-in-chief of Renew Economy<\/a>, and founder and editor of its EV-focused sister site The Driven<\/a>. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast<\/a>. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Queensland state LNP government has pledged to keep burning coal for power generation for \u201cmany decades,\u201d raising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,952,128],"class_list":["post-142838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-featured","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n