Much of Queensland’s vision splendid is coloured black - coal, coal and more coal. Three more mines and a 40% increase in exports, to be exact.
On the eve of the Government’s official response to the Garnaut report on an emissions trading scheme, Queensland has announced moves to dramatically expand coal production.
Despite dire warnings of catastrophic consequences of climate change, the Queensland Premier Anna Bligh today announced a “trifecta” of proposals for the Bowen, Galilee and Surat coal basins, during a budget estimates committee hearing.
They are expected to boost coal exports by 40 per cent.
Exquisite timing, again.
The emissions count where the stuff is burnt, not where it’s mined, so that’s OK then.
James Hansen has just told the National Press Club and the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming (largish pdf) that we should build no more coal fired power plants that do no capture and store the CO2, plus we should phase out all coal-sourced CO2 in developing as well as developed countries by 2025-2030 (slides 30-31).
When we burn coal each carbon atom (atomic weight 12) is joined by two oxygen atoms (16) to make a molecule that is 3.667 times heavier than carbon. So every tonne of coal, allowing for impurities, turns into something like 3.2 tonnes of CO2. That’s a lot of gas.
So there is the usual talk about geosequestration, but talk is probably as far as it will get.
Meanwhile, we have been told that China’s emissions will treble by 2030:
In a paper with ANU colleagues Frank Jotzo and Stephen Howes, Professor Garnaut warned that under business as usual, China’s carbon dioxide emissions would more than treble by 2030 - when they would make up 37% of global emissions, three times those of the United States.
“With China’s emissions now growing at more than 10% a year, they urged it to adopt the goal of cutting emissions growth to half the growth in GDP - slowing emissions growth to 3% to 4% a year over the medium term.”
On the paper mentioned see also Roger Jones’ comment.
It’s no wonder that Cannadel, Raupach et al (pdf - slide 6) found that emissions were running at above the IPCC’s worst scenarios:
When scientists make forecasts about regional climate effects, like how much water there is going to be in the Murray River, I understand they use a mid-range of the IPCC forecasts of emissions.
Looks like more unpleasant surprises coming up.
Incidentally, I grew up in a district call Downfall Creak a bit east of a railway siding called Guluguba, which is just south of Wandoan, which is just south of where one of the coal mines will be. It used to have a police station, a railway station (the end of the line), a school, a store, a dance hall, some show grounds and a picture theatre, which burnt down and was never rebuilt. I understand it’s been humming for some time. It’s nice farming country, or was.
Nice to know that Queensland is doing its part to wreck the world.
Local pride dictates we must be up there with the best, Sam.
Don’t worry anyone: as long as we keep turning off lightbulbs when we leave the room, doesn’t matter if we keep emitting CO2. We’ll just ignore Dr. James Hansen’s recommendations of 350 ppm by 2050, or Philip Sutton’s, wait-for-it, no emissions. I mean, Queensland has the sunshine coast after all!
Ball park math - assumes that each tonne of coal is pure carbon but this is not the case. Check and redo. Perhaps we’d be better off putting the coal in space rockets and shooting it into the sun?
OK Here it is then:
Elemental analysis gives empirical formulas such as C137H97O9NS for bituminous coal and C240H90O4NS for high-grade anthracite.
Pappinbarra Fox, you’ll have to give us a bit more than that. I’m simply repeating what I read in what I thought were reputable sources.
The idiots in charge of the states need taking over (we have the same problem in W.A), the state governments just don’t get global warming issues. However given Rudd’s weak kneed decision on fuel excise don’t expect them to do this. We have now entered the region of magical thinking : disaster coming shortly.
You know how various apologists and den
yiers trot out the line that Australia tightening its carbon belt will be like a pimple on a pumpkin re: reducing global emissions, because there’s not that many of us ( to which the standard rejoinder is yeh, but per capita, we’re just about the worst): does anyone have numbers at their finger tips as to just how much of the global CO2 load has as it’s origin (pardon the power company pun) australian/queensland coal?If coal’s a drug, we’re the Mr. Big of pushers. Good thing there aren’t global lynching mobs visiting retribution on major eco-paths, (as in sociopath), we’d know how Dennis Ferguson feels when he looks out his window.
And what have we done with all the money that the coal is being dug up in the name of making and taxing? Built the world’s best health system? Education? Water supply? Transport? Public Housing?
Smart state? Where the government paid out 85 million dollars to teachers who could prove they were duds, and promised to get out of teaching? Maybe they went on to populate the upper levels of queensland’s public service, and they are responsible for advising on blindingly short-sighted decisions and policies like this, that might explain it.
Activists shut down train operations at the coal terminal in Newcastle for approximately 8 hours on Sunday and Monday. This terminal exported 78 million tonnes of coal in 2004. It is hard to estimate the impact on coal exports of the disruptions to the Hunter Valley Coal Chain, but it would have reduced emissions by quite a few kilotonnes of CO2.
OK lets take one formula : C137H97O9NS. This means that there are 137 atoms of C, 97 atoms of hydrogen, 9 atoms of oxygen and uncalculated nitrogen and sulphur in the mix. Thus about half of the coal molecule is carbon. But we need to keep in mind that nitrous and sulphrous oxides are pollutants as well and possibly have a bigger green house impact per molecule than carbon though there are fewer of them.
What I am really saying is that the chemistry is much more complicated than the opening ambit might suggest. The chemistry can be calculated and quite readily by those with two brains but it is the consequent effects of changing the chemistry in the atmosphere that is not quite so clear. The first change, that is global warming, seems generally accepted now (although the time frames and extent are still being debated) but the flow on effects of that - such as changed weather patterns etc are probably more guesswork that hard science.
Pappinbarra Fox are you a high school student ? Coal is a complex hydrocarbon , as is oil , so what.It burns to form CO2 as well as other things. We are as certain about global warming as we can be about the behaviour of a complex system. We may not be so certain about weather patterns but global warming of at least 2 degrees C is assured. Read the IPCC report.
Face facts people. Australia is a coal junkie.
Every government, state and federal, is addicted to coal. Until that addiction is broken, nothing will be done about climate change in this country, because no government will bite the hand that feeds it.
Whatever spin and waffle Wong presents today at the national press club, you can be 100% certain it won’t address coal exports, which is by far Australia’s largest contribution to global greenhouse emissions.
Hey Bill,Nice to meet you.
Though your tone seems condescending you don’t say anything I didn’t say already. So I am in complete agreement with you, as you are with me.
What a friendly little group this is.
PS Bill, in case you didn’t pick it up I was just responding to Brians request at 6. I am not normally that erudite but thanks for the compliment of comparing me to a high school student. Ta.
Ignore Bill, PF. He seems a little upset that someone with some technical knowledge on the subject has crashed the little party. I, for one, would love to see a more comprehensive contribution tailored to the laypersons around here. Please, if you have the time, continue.
BBB
“So there is the usual talk about geosequestration, but talk is probably as far as it will get.”
If you want to be taken seriously by moderates you’ll have to do far better than a sniffy dismissal of geosequestration. James Hansen’s opinion on coal fired power stations is not the be all of everything, in fact it is way outside the scope of his expertise. As I understand it, Australia is at the forefront of geosequestration research and the outlook is actually quite positive. In any event, nothing will stop India and Chain building between them 10 or so new coal fired power stations each month. If geosequestration doesn’t prove viable we’ll have to be very inventive if we want to make serious cuts in atmospheric GHGs.
The CSIRO on geosequestration: http://www.csiro.au/science/CO2geosequestration.html
The CO2 CRC on geosequestration http://www.co2crc.com.au/
I urge people to treat this issue seriously and to actually check the science directly themselves, rather than having it filtered through Brian’s ideological lense.
“Ball park math - assumes that each tonne of coal is pure carbon but this is not the case. Check and redo.”
It makes no such assumption at all! CO2, as brian says, is about 3.667 time the weight of elemental Carbon, so 1000kg Carbon = 3667kg CO2. Brian says “every tonne of coal, allowing for impurities, turns into something like 3.2 tonnes of CO2.” (emphasis added). 3200kg is less than 3667kg.
You continue:
“C137H97O9NS. This means that there are 137 atoms of C, 97 atoms of hydrogen, 9 atoms of oxygen and uncalculated nitrogen and sulphur in the mix. Thus about half of the coal molecule is carbon.”
From your quote, a mole of Coal (heh) has a bit over half a mole of Carbon, but we’re talking about mass. The coal you describe is about 85% carbon by mass, so 1 tonne of Coal is about 850kg of Carbon. Multiply as Brian describes for the addition of 2O and you get… 3116kg of CO2. Point: Brian.
d
Pappinbarra Fox @ 10
“OK lets take one formula : C137H97O9NS. This means that there are 137 atoms of C, 97 atoms of hydrogen, 9 atoms of oxygen and uncalculated nitrogen and sulphur in the mix. Thus about half of the coal molecule is carbon.”
Chemistry 101
Carbon: atomic weight 12 x 137 = 1644 atomic mass units (amu)
Hydrogen: atomic weight 1 x 97 = 97 amu
Oxygen: Atomic weight 16 x 9 = 144 amu
Coal: Formula weight = 1644 + 97 + 144 = 1885 amu
Assuming Nitrogen and Sulphur are negligible, then carbon is about 87% of coal by atomic mass, not half. This would accord with the calculation in the article that 1 tonne of carbon to 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide, as carbon is 27% of carbon dioxide, by atomic mass.
17 and 18 true
Con, there was a silver-tongued spokesmouth from the CRC for Greenhouse Gas Technology on Radio National this morning. He sounded very, very convincing, if you didn’t listen too carefully.
While it’s true that the toy project in the Ottways appears to be working, they’re pumping the CO2 back down the well they pulled the gas from to run the power station which is just about on top of said well. I don’t think it’ll scale well to the coal-fired power plants in NSW which are about 1000km from the nearest suitable hole in the ground (not to mention the energy requirements to pump the CO2 to wherever it’s to be buried).
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love geosequestration to be technically feasible, but it isn’t and wishful thinking won’t make it so.
19 ungracious
Australia could become a global player in NEGATIVE emissions by capturing carbon - if we wake up to Soil Carbon.
Prof Peter Grace from QUT has estimated that changing to more environmentally sustainable and appropriate management on Australia’s 437 million hectares of grazing land could sequester more than 900 million tonnes of CO2 per annum.
The “low-hanging fruit” as far as Soil Carbon is concerned (see http://www.soilcarbon.com.au) would be the very large scale grazing properties in the arid and semi-arid regions of Australia. As these properties are mainly in the headwaters of the Murray-Darling Basin if we could get them to change their management practices to those that are proven carbon capturers it would boost the regions adaptive capacity and ecosystem resilience.
I will leave it up to you to visualize the massive positive impact this would have on our Nations most important river system.
If you’ve been around the Co2CRC researchers snivelling for support/recognition/a free lunch at any of our Universities you’ll realise how insecure they are about what they’re doing, let alone everyone else. This is not about ideology, but chosing a suitable risk management plan based on the evidence of two decades of policy experience and numerous scientific reports on the viability of CCS in the mix.
Pappinbarra Fox, now I’m wondering why you felt the need to say anything at all.
Con Little, thanks for the links. When we last did geosequestration here, as we have done frequently, the anti-geosequestration arguments won hands down. I don’t claim scientific expertise and I’d be delighted to be proven wrong. Unlike most people who comment here, I’ve consistently said we should spend money on the research.
But we can’t wait for an answer.
I’m about to upload another post which might explain why, and also explain why Hansen is in a hurry (I don’t think he claims any expertise on geosequestration and both he and Al Gore have virtually counted on it in plotting their strategies for the way forward.)
Soil carbon, there was a fascinating segment on this on Bush Telegraph today.
(Go there, click on latest Program” and then download the audio. Tomorrow you’ll have to click on Home, the Archives, find the program by date and then download. It’s well worth a listen.)
yeh Brian, me too. But we both did learn something from the exchange. And if anyone has misconstrued my posts they were not sarcastic but genuine.
FDB at 21 I am not quite sure what you mean.
I thought that blithely accepting you’d been wrong all along, without offering any apology to Brian for being (as I saw it) a little condescending, was a tad off colour, that’s all.
All a bit petty and now irrelevant - apologies.
WRT soil carbon, I’ve been reading some interesting stuff on digging charcoal into soil (eg, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta). I’m not quite sure how to use this for sequestering atmospheric CO2, but it’s thought-provoking, particularly as it has a beneficial effect on soil fertility.
David, another term is biochar. There’s another reference here and a site devoted to it.
The basic thing is that you have to grow the trees first. This needs to be done in an environmentally sensitive way and should not compete with food growing IMHO.
I remember reading that the stuff is actually available here, but I imagine not in great quantities.
“When we last did geosequestration here, as we have done frequently, the anti-geosequestration arguments won hands down. I don’t claim scientific expertise and I’d be delighted to be proven wrong.”
The reason for the first sentence is provided in the second sentence. Generally blogs end up being echo chambers.
This sort of comment that is narrowly ideological and not made in good faith:
“If you’ve been around the Co2CRC researchers snivelling for support/recognition/a free lunch at any of our Universities you’ll realise how insecure they are about what they’re doing, let alone everyone else.”
And this is simply ignorant:
“Don’t get me wrong, I’d love geosequestration to be technically feasible, but it isn’t and wishful thinking won’t make it so.”
Geosequestration has been used successfully in Norway for over a decade and in Canada since 2000:
“The Weyburn oil field, operated by EnCana, Canada’s largest oil company, is 130 km southeast of the city of Regina in Saskatchewan province. In 1997, the Dakota Gasification Company agreed to send all of the waste gas (96% CO2) from its lignite-fired Great Plains Synfuels Plant through a pipeline to the Weyburn oil field, with delivery beginning in September 2000. The Weyburn oil field has a total of 720 wells, drilled in a “9-spot” grid pattern, with eight producing wells in a square around an injection well. The CO2 is pumped into the injection wells, helping oil to flow toward active producer wells. It is predicted that the CO2-EOR operation will enable an additional 130 million barrels of oil to be produced, extending the field’s commercial life by approximately 25 years. It is also anticipated that about 20 million tonnes of CO2 will be injected and become permanently stored 1,400 m underground over the lifetime of this project. There is worldwide interest in this test of the viability of underground storage for large-scale reduction in CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Current cost of suquestration is $20 US / Tonne of CO2.”
http://www.co2crc.com.au/demo/weyburn.html
The world may well need to act in a hurry but China and India will inevitably continue building 300 plus new coal-fired power stations each year well in to the future and the many thousands already in existence- with lifespans of 50 years plus- will not close down any time soon.
As Brian is no doubt aware, the IPCC notes we have a global capacity to geosequester 2 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
We need real world plans rather than the soft-headed panic and lefty finger pointing displayed on this thread.
To be frank, Con, your attitude to civil discussion is starting to piss me off. Everyone who has a contrary position is either ideological or acting in bad faith. And if you think this forum is an echo chamber where ideas are not contested, then you are looking like a blow-in who has decided to set us all to rights.
So, if you are not in the least bit ideological yourself you are by definition assuming a position of objectivity. No such position is attainable by a mere human.
More seriously you might like to tell us what your interest is in this matter. Is it purely intellectual, or something else?
OK, so we sorted out the atomic numbers and hence mass of CO2 from a tonne of coal. The other factor is the greenhouse EFFECT. Methane is about 25 times worse a greenhouse gas, kilogram for kilogram, is it not? So crude masses are a start, but ONLY a start, in assessing impacts (I think). Why is “natural gas” favoured over coal, BTW, as a fuel?
I can understand why BROWN coal is so bad, being approx 70% water, so a huge amount of the combustion energy is used in drying the next batch of fuel (imagine trying to burn et newspaper or wet firewood).
“So, if you are not in the least bit ideological yourself you are by definition assuming a position of objectivity. No such position is attainable by a mere human.”
Obviously.
But you and your camp followers chose to believe what the scientists are telling us on GHG but appear to dismiss what they tell us about CO2 geosequestration with little more than a condescending sniff. If I’m wrong about you and you’ve in fact reached a conclusion based on a disinterested examination of the available evidence, then please be kind enough to share with us what you know. I’ll certainly closely examine your arguments and the contents of any links you provide.
You are, I think. There’s still an attitude problem, Con. If you weren’t here when it was being discussed, you don’t know.
It’s been done over many times and if others want to have another go, it’s up to them.
Personally, if what I wrote came across as a “condescending sniff” I’m sorry. Usually I don’t put as much colour in my writing as many. Possibly I’m not all that good at it.
Ambigulous, James Hansen has some hope that we can reduce the extra GHGs to virtually nothing. He does suggest that we should have separate programs for each, as we did with CFCs. He thinks they are more amenable to solving than CO2. He could be right, I wouldn’t know.
Brian, take no notice of Con, would be my advice. If there’s anyone out there who’s condescending, it sure ain’t you. Much as treating RWDBs like human beings with a serious point might be theoretically desirable, they should first reflect on the “Golden Rule”. In short, almost nothing they have to say is in good faith, and any response should take that into account.
Kim, no doubt you are right. In fact my experience confirms the first part of your last sentence.
Well, Brian, “Con E Little” could take the time to click on your name and read all the posts you’ve written about these issues in the past, but I rather doubt he/she will go to the trouble. It’s very easy to be a “skeptic” if you don’t want to take the time to inform yourself, isn’t it?
Actually I googled Con Little, Kim, since he/she/it didn’t take up my suggestion:
Google seemed to think I meant Little Con!
Brian, thanks for the desmogblog link. I’d already looked at the Cornell Uni site, the Aust company that’s doing it (biochar?) and a couple of other how-to-do-this-at-home ones as well. From what I’ve gathered, the idea is to carbonise wood slowly, then put the charcoal in a drum and piss on it. I’m trying to work out an environmentally sensitive way to do this to my 20 acre paddock.
Whoa, wait a moment, there’s an even bigger problem regarding that foul element carbon.
With a current world population of 6,710,503,425 (as of 01:35 GMT (EST+5) Jul 17, 2008), each person containing about 18% carbon, and assuming 50 kilograms mass per person, there is some 72,473,426 tonnes of carbon poised to enter the environment at any one moment.
Worse, it’s reproducing, and is increasing in mass every day. Every day. Every. Single. Day.
This is intolerable! What shall we do?!!??!?
Yes, Lovelock pointed out that the human race breathes out as much carbon as all the aeroplanes in the world. So henceforth you will be limited to half the number of breathes you normally take. I’m watching you!
So henceforth you will be limited to half the number of breathes you normally take.
A splendid idea! Shall we have a contest, then? The first person to stop breathing wins.
Your turn!
I heard one of these synchronised swimmers say she could do 3 laps of a 50m pool under water. We’ll all need to take lessons!
I’m not a RWDB. I’ve always voted ALP. I takes the AGW issue and merely take issue with the ideologically motivated dismissal of CCS.
I note this from Brian in 2006:
“Secondly, Gore, Hansen and others who express confidence in the success of mitigating action mostly seem to rely on the geosequestration of CO2 from burning coal as a central part of the answer. If this proves impossible, what then?”
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/10/05/facing-the-knowns-and-unknowns-of-climate-change/
Since CCS has been in use since 2000, some 6 years prior to you declaring it potentially impossible, I can only surmise you have not properly investigated the issue. The fact that you and Kim resort to personal abuse and hysteria when facts like these are brought to your attention does your cause no favours at all. Manners cost nothing.
What does RWDB stand for?
I am achronymistically challenged.
Right Wing Death Beast.
Red Lad
Are you redundant? Have you been offered “redundancy”? Is some part of you redundant? just asking.
A hangover from an attempted joke at Currency Lad’s expense, Ambi. Nothing to see here…
sorry, FDB i’m terribly slow,
i had surmised rwdb was “right wing DingBat”
Ambigulous, FDB remembers the origin of RWDB better than I do, but I think it was invented by someone from the right, possibly Currency Lad himself, who had some fame at the time.
Con Little, I’m playing a pretty straight bat on this one. If Kim said RWDB it was because some of the phrases looked like it.
I’m not apologising this time. I could have taken offense at how I was characterised, but mostly these days I can’t be bothered.
So let’s just put it down to experience and draw a line, OK?
I do own the comment from 2006. A bit has changed since then. For example, there has been quite a bit of talk about geoengineering from time to time. Robert Merkel first posted about it in April 2007, I think.
Also we’ve become aware of the potential for other kinds of sequestration, such as soil carbon sequestration.
There was an interesting article by Barry Brook in The Age yesterday. Brook reckons the coal reserves are generally wobbly and no-one knows how much China, India, Russia and South Africa have.
If the price goes up we could be left with stranded investments.
Also investment in CCS might not be wise until coal reserved are reliably known.