Tricky maths in Australia. Should we save $800 million dollars and get stable cheap modern electric power or give that money to renewables giants to help them compete with our fifty year old coal fleet and get us 0.0001% better weather in 2100*? Hmm. What to do?!
A new HELE Coal plant (also known as an Ultra Super Critical — USC– coal generator) would cost $2.2 billion. We currently pay $3b a year in renewables subsidies. A modern coal plant would make 1,000MW of electricity 24 hours a day (and stabilize the grid for free). Renewables subsidies get us free electricity at random moments which we may or may not need, they need expensive gas back up, and add enormous costs to stabilize the grid.
If we get one modern hot coal plant we might catch up to countries like Indonesia, and Malaysia, though we’ll still be far behind India and Japan, which is building 45 USC plants. As of May 2017, China has at least 90 USC plants. The USA has one. What does an “advanced economy mean”?
The Minerals Council has a new report out with some Fun Facts and numbers screaming for attention:
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The Minerals Council of Australia produced detailed costings of electricity production. Ignore the CCS fantasy stats.
- USC coal plants are the lowest cost generation option at $40-$78 per MWh in (2017 prices) on a long run marginal cost basis.
- Other synchronous generation had higher wholesale costs, including combined cycle gas at $69-$115 per MWh and open cycle gas at $179-$430 per MWh.
- Variable renewable energy (VRE), which is not available 24 hours a day, also has higher costs, including solar at $90-$171 per MWh and wind at $64-$115 per MWh.
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Like Australia, the USA coal fleet is old and cold:
“Among the top 100 most efficient plants in the United States, the initial operating years range from 1967 to 2012. In China, the oldest plant on the top 100 list was commissioned in 2006, and the youngest was commissioned in 2015,” GreenTechMedia
If we cared about emissions intensity, these figures look wildly impressive — is that an 85% reduction in emissions intensity?:
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is important and replacing the existing coal fleet with HELE technology would save 44.2 million tonnes of CO2 or over 25 per cent of National Electricity Market coal generation emissions. At an individual power station level, with the future adoption of CCS, emissions intensity of USC plants would fall from 0.773 to 0.106 tonnes CO2/MWh.
— Minerals Council of Australia
So that’s a 25% reduction in our CO2 emissions from coal if we converted all our coal plants to USC. The Greens, of course, will hate it.
Geoff Chambers in The Australian: “Clean coal is cheaper”
It comes just four months after it was revealed taxpayer subsidies to meet state and federal renewable energy targets reached $3bn in the 2015-16 financial year, with about 75 per cent of the cost being collected from consumers paying extra in their electricity bills.
The overall cost of subsidising renewable energy generation has nearly doubled since 2011, and the RET continues to be a political headache for the Turnbull government.
It is sticking to the 23.5 per cent target by 2020, despite calls by former prime minister Tony Abbott, who was involved in establishing the RET, to freeze it at the current rate of 15 per cent — a move he says would dramatically lower power bills.
With up to 1200 HELE plants being planned or built in Asia, and similar technology anchoring electricity production in Japan and Germany, senior government MPs, including Mr Abbott, have backed investment in coal-fired energy.
Information from the Minerals Council of Australia:
*0.0001% Better weather? OK, fair cop, this may be a wildly optimistic estimate. If the world cools, reducing CO2 may make the weather worse.