This week in Australia energy and climate collided; it’s a global story
that the NSW government would extend the life of Australia’s biggest coal-fired power station was neither a surprise to energy observers in this country nor unique in a world struggling to at once battle climate change and keep pace with soaring energy demand.
“We can’t stop trying because every small difference over 1.5 makes a massive difference to people who are relying on us to make a change.”Complicating this already extraordinary project even further is the fact that governments have come to realise they cannot survive the briefest interruption to energy supply. Indeed, even the whiff of it can snuff out investment.
And because the renewable energy systems being brought in to replace the old coal plants are, by nature, intermittent, we need far more generation capacity in the system as a redundancy, and all this needs to be “firmed” with batteries and pumped hydro and even gas peaking plants to be flicked on if supply becomes tight.
The Eraring power station in NSW will stay open to buy time for the renewables revolution to meet energy needs.This also explains why the NSW government, which has bound itself with legislated emissions reduction targets it is not on track to meet, has proved willing to pay the private sector to keep the nation’s single dirtiest machine open for two extra years, and why Bowen voiced his support for the decision.
The sums included in it are almost beyond comprehension. The 2023 roadmap said the world needed to invest US$4.5 trillion a year by 2030 on clean energy to cut global emissions by half to, in turn, keep on track to Paris goals.
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