Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to The Guardian, Japanese offshore wind power and hydrogen will replace Australian natural gas exports at a faster rate than the Aussie government expects. But if there is such a market for green energy, why is government intervention required to realise this “opportunity”?
Australia’s reliance on gas exports questioned as Japan winds down fossil fuel power
Government urged to speed up transition to green energy as Australia’s biggest market shifts away from LNG and coal
Adam Morton Climate and environment editor
@adamlmorton Fri 23 Jul 2021 03.30 AESTA Japanese pledge to wind down gas and coal-fired electricity much faster than previously planned has sparked warnings Australia needs to speed up a transition away from fossil fuel exports.
A draft revised energy mix released by Japanese officials on Wednesday said the country – Australia’s biggest market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and thermal coal – would cut gas-fired electricity generation nearly in half and reduce coal power by more than a third by 2030.
The plan, devised to help the country ramp up emissions cuts by 2030, would require renewable energy to provide up to 38% of generation. Coal, LNG and nuclear energy would each provide about 20%.
While a shift away from coal has been widely forecast, the expected fall in Japanese gas-fired electricity is at odds with claims by the Australian government and the $36bn LNG export industry that its product would displace coal and help reduce global emissions.
Llewelyn Hughes, an associate professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, said the Japanese announcement was a “big deal” for Australia and consistent with the country’s target of having 45GW of offshore wind energy capacity – nearly equivalent to Australia’s current power grid – by 2040.
He said some thought it would be challenging for Japan to meet its revised targets, but the commitment showed the country was on a trajectory to using fewer fossil fuels. “It indicates a long-term decline in coal and gas,” Hughes said.
…
Rebecca Mikula-Wright, the chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change, said the draft energy mix was “a clear signal of the country’s intent to speed up its decarbonisation”. Australia’s other major customers in Asia – China and South Korea – were also heading towards net zero emissions and would reduce demand over the coming decade, she said.
“To remain competitive in global export markets, Australia needs to quickly put in place the right climate policy and investment signals to help ensure we are producing the green energy and other products that our major trading partners will increasingly demand,” she said.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/23/australias-reliance-on-gas-exports-questioned-as-japan-winds-down-fossil-fuel-power
Japan suffers frequent typhoons and the occasional earthquake driven mega-tsunami, and they have wind droughts like everyone else, so I’m a little dubious they will meet their target. There is only so much you can do to harden offshore wind turbines against hurricane force winds and pounding seas, and Japan has plenty of both.
But say Japan do start demanding imports of green hydrogen. Why would “the right signals” be required at any point from the Australian government? Why wouldn’t private investors come up with the cash, if an investment opportunity appeared?
To my knowledge nothing is stopping green energy entrepreneurs from raising private cash and building their solar hydrogen complex in the Aussie desert – other than an almost total lack of demand for their overpriced product.
As long as you don’t care when you get your electricity, wind is just fine. There’s a Nobel prize for whoever finds a way to make that work for a developed economy.
Send one to the UK then… works here
Always the fool
Trundling along for large periods with a couple percent from wind
That is not “running a modern economy on wind”.
From this energy site it appears the UK is running on mostly natural gas. And a lot of imported energy.
https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB
National Grid has already issued a warning that supply will be tight this winter as 2 nuclear power stations close in the Autumn. they are ‘confident’ it won’t all fall over but then what else could they say. Throw in a blocking high that kills the windmills and brings cold temperatures pushing up demand in all the interconnector countries and there won’t be anything left to send us. Our first major grid collapse comes closer every year.
Well that’s how to make ‘wind’ work – rely on gas, nuclear, imports, and just say you’re running on wind.
UK imports electricity from the EU via underwater HVDC interconnects. Without those interconnects UK grid would already have failed many times with current state generation. Japan and SK can’t depend on anyone but themselves.
In 2018 Japan’s energy mix was as follows
Natural Gas 36%, Coal 32%, Hydro 8%, Nuclear 6%, Solar 6%, Oil 5%, Bio fuels 4%, Wind 1%.
Until the Fukushima accident in 2011 nuclear generated 30% and it was expected to be 40% by 2017. The plan now is for 20% to be nuclear generated by 2030. Ten reactors have restarted since 2015 and 16 are in the process of restart approval.
Source: World Nuclear Association, Japan, update June 2021
Note that 1% wind!!
I hear the Japanese are going to restart at least one of their nuclear reactors.
There’s a huge difference between hasn’t failed completely and works.
Call back when the UK can keep ticking along without electricity for days at a time.
Griff is right!
“works here”
Sometimes.
What color is the sky in tour world?
Griff seems to still be the equivalent of a 30+ year old still living in his parents’ basement.
Proclaiming his independence, living a lavish lifestyle but always knowing he can live for free due to the affluence of his parents.
Typical Grauniad nonsensical wishspeak. In what griffian alt.universe is China heading towards net zero?
Btw is that Grauniad the UK, Oz, or Cleveland version?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cleveland.com/tribe/2021/07/inside-story-of-how-cleveland-indians-became-the-cleveland-guardians-terry-pluto.html%3FoutputType%3Damp
“over the coming decade”? China has agreed to start reducing its “carbon” output after 2030.
So I guess continued increase in output for 81/2 years then achieve net zero in 18 months. Sounds like something griff and Loydo would believe. Me, not so much.
China has not “agreed” to anything. For the Paris Accord, it said it planned on beginning to reduce its “carbon intensity” by 2030. Later, it said its “goal” is to be “carbon neutral” by 2060. Only the naive believe ChiCom “promises.” Hell, its gotten to the point I don’t even believe my own government anymore.
The Chicoms haven’t really made any promises. They just said they will re-evalute the situation in 2030. That doesn’t mean they are going to do anything to change what they are doing.
We may not even be talking about human-caused climate change by 2030.
On can only hope! But temps over the past 20 years have basically leveled out because of the recent El Nina but the climate hysteria just gets more ridiculous every day.
Japanese are slowly restarting their reactor fleet. They have to. And they know it
“According to The Guardian” says enough……
Sounds to me that Japan’s Ministry is just virtue signaling:
A) Draft
B) only a press release policy statement
C) There are funny numbers feeding this claim
D) this topic is under discussion, not actual policy!
1) Japan plans to reduce electricity use by 10% by 2030!
2) Japan phrases their increased renewables differently.
And 70% of almost nothing is still almost nothing.
“A)
DraftDaft”no charge for correction
“Japan plans to reduce electricity use by 10% by 2030!”
And what are their plans to increase EV use?
I see where General Motors Company has put out an alert on the Chevy Bolt Electric Vehicle after several battery fires recently. GM is telling Bolt owners not to park their cars in a garage, and not to charge them overnight unattended. And the alarmists want to put millions of these type of vehicles in your garage and on the road.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/gm-issues-second-recall-of-chevy-bolt-evs-after-vehicles-catch-fire.html
I would suggest that anybody reading the Guardian should suspend their disbelief and go into mirth mode.
Remember how we all looked forward to summer?
Beware summer! The season we used to anticipate as the lightest, brightest, balmiest time of the year now comes with a health warning.
For the first time in the UK, the Met Office issued an extreme heat advisory this week.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/24/as-the-climate-crisis-deepens-the-uks-attitude-to-summer-begins-to-shift
And again, nature made them look foolish.
2020
UK weather: 36.4C recorded on hottest August day for 17 years
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/07/uk-weather-being-outdoors-could-become-dangerous-during-heatwaves
Last year was way hotter than this year, in fact its hardly got to 30C – averaging 28C – or so when the warning was issued.
Better luck next year?
https://realclimatescience.com/2021/07/extreme-heat-warning-in-the-uk-2/
As we all know
Up is down, left is right etc
And Heller is dead right, ’76 was the best summer evah!
I have long since recommended Watts readers stop reading the Guardian. It only winds you up, why do it?
Because it is necessary to understand what the climate insane scientologist liars are saying in order to counter it
And mock it
Mocking is always fun
And some people appear to enjoy being mocked.
There is a psychology paper in that
Actually that’s a good point griff. It does wind me up sometimes. I think the answer though is: “know your enemy”.
And a chance to vent as well. We are all human after all.
Provisionally accepting that griff is not a bot
I read the Gardner every morning because I like to start my day with a laugh.
Free comedy – what’s not to like?
Say griff, can you also recommend to Watts readers the best era to live in?
1700 to 1775 perhaps? CO2 not an issue. Life expectancy about 30.
1800? CO2 still low. Life expectancy about 40.
1900? CO2 very benign. Life expectancy about 55.
2000? CO2 very dangerous, even deadly. Really, really dangerous stuff killing everyone around. Life expectancy over 75.
Good point there, Bob – CO2 levels have a direct inverse correlation with child mortality, and a direct correlation with life expectancy. Wouldn’t that be evidence that CO2 is good?
”I have long since recommended Watts readers stop reading the Guardian.”
LOL. But you are forever providing links to their propaganda.
Maybe you should practice what you preach.
thanks for sharing awesome one keep posting really appreciated amazing one i admired its incredible
I recognize every single word …
but have no idea what you are on
about!!Wasted energy?
But it is renewable, so it is FREE, so who cares if you waste it??
Possibly a griffbot malfunction?
Obviously, it’s a Chinese or Russian bot lacking any programming for proper English sentence structure.
Welcome to the New World Order.
The drive to quietly expand more natural gas production from the Timor Sea off Australia’s NW coast will only increase in the coming decade. This methane resource for electrical generation will push Asia generator fleets to switch to clean nat gas. Whether they waste additional gas on CCS schemes remains to be seen.
The Guardian, better have a grain of salt handy when reading. Any country going for wind reliability will have to control weather and geologic forces to make it work. It can be talked about but doing it will be difficult and dangerous.
so the Guardian is claiming that for the first time in history, renewable energy is actually going to reduce fossil fuel consumption?
UK offshore wind turbines withstand very severe weather…
and do note Japan has now halted future coal projects.
Because they are restarting nuclear
Smart move
Smart move? Because it is so well-known that Japan has abundant deposits of uranium within its own borders? 😉
Australia will be happy to sell Japan some uranium.
They need reliable power
They also don’t have coal or natural gas.
So if CO2 is a problem then nuclear is their only solution.
Or deindustrialize, that is always an option, preferred by 99 of 100 climate scientologists.
Coal is halted now that the Ichthys LNG Project is up and running. LNG tankers from Darwin will fuel Japan to allow coal retirement and allow emissions to fall.
The storms off Japan are both stronger and more frequent.
Because they shut down
Speaking of windmills, here’s an interesting article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/bat-dogs-wind-turbines/619482/
Are Wind Turbines a Danger to Wildlife? Ask the Dogs.
Humans are terrible at finding bats and birds killed by wind turbines. Dogs are great at it.
By Sarah Zhang
“Barley and Niffler are just two of the many conservation-detection dogs now employed by the growing wind industry. As turbines proliferate across the country, understanding their effect on wildlife is more important than ever. In the early days of turbines, scientists had focused on the danger they posed to eagles and other raptors—but it turns out those big bird carcasses were simply the easiest for humans to spot.”
end excerpt
Conservation-detection dogs. I guess finding dead animals is considered conservation by these people.
More likely the dogs are to find the dead bats and birds so they can removed as quickly as possible so that nobody else does and can make an accurate count of what they kill.
How does one “speed up a transition” on the supply side of a market? Refuse to sell the products (LNG and coal) when there are willing buyers? This doesn’t make sense.
“This doesn’t make sense.”
You nailed it.
In other words, the increasing rate of mistakes of others makes imperative that we respond with an increasing rate of mistakes of our own.
In the above article, Eric ends with:
“To my knowledge nothing is stopping green energy entrepreneurs from raising private cash and building their solar hydrogen complex in the Aussie desert – other than an almost total lack of demand for their overpriced product.”
Ummm . . . how about the lack of any efficient and low cost means to transport hydrogen (either as a cryogenic liquid or as a high pressure gas) over long distances . . . but then again that might just be rolled up as a large portion of “overpriced” adjective.
There is a trial LH2 tanker. It carries about 1/10 the BTU energy of an LNG tanker and costs 2x as much.
There will be improvements, but don’t hold your breath. For example:
During the 15th century infantry began firing the arquebus, and then the matchlock. Improvements brought the musket, and then the rifled muskets. These were pushed aside by such as the Pennsylvania Long Rifle in the early 1700s.
In 1982 the modern sniper rifle began – – Accuracy International AW sniper rifle (L118A1). In recent years rifles are built that are accurate out to 3,500 m (McMillan TAC-50); about 2.2 miles.
Folks saw a need for improvements.
LH2 tankers — not so much.
John, nothing in the record of rifle development that you noted was restricted by the basic laws of thermodynamics/physics . . .
LH2 tankers — not so much
Thus in griff’s “mind”, it works. It would continue to work if it turned out to cost five or ten times as much. The more it costs, in fact, the better to cripple western civilization.
Pretty sure the reference is to political barriers, like we face continually here is canada.
The latest this week, the Quebec Govt gave thumbs down to an LNG plant, with the genius environment minister actually say there is no evidence it would reduce co2.
Really
“Australia’s other major customers in Asia – China and South Korea – were also heading towards net zero emissions and would reduce demand over the coming decade, she said.”
And then she woke up.
Yet one more case of activists believing that something can be made to happen merely by stating that it is happening.
GREAT news
then we idiot aussies might GET our gas again at a decent price and supply
selling it cheap to japan and others has screwed our home supply and charges bigtime
“Give up gas our doom mongers cry. It’s not a transition fuel, it’s just dirty”
But that’s actually racist [or ethnist or something].
Stir -frying is a significant part of East Asian cuisine.
Try stir-frying with electricity. Very difficult if not impossible.
Stir frying requires a very hot heat source which can be provided by charcoal or gas.
Maybe you will able to use hydrogen but you will need to replace all your gas plumbing and i doubt that a way to reticulate hydrogen through cities has been developed yet.
So give up gas and remove stir fry from menus.
There is (at least) one nation that lies about their CO2/Energy future more than China does….and that’s the US.
There are no workable plans to build out the necessary mega-nuclear build (needed as back-up for a quasi-planned “Renewables” build-up)… or any reasonable cost analysis of any of the options. Only lots of hand waving about how much cheaper Renewables will be. In that dream world, the Market will stampede into the “Renewables Future”. Well, the reality is already being seen in Germany.
Germany’s (so far) failed attempt has fallen way short of the promised CO2 reductions and the promised “reduction in energy costs” by actually increasing those future costs by a projected 300 to 400% (with battery back-up… and double the wind and solar production to have energy available for storage… bc/o the significant losses incurred with storage). This crippling cost increase will occur by 2030…unless their economy grinds to a halt first.
It’s bad accounting and lies “All the Way Down”…And I don’t hear any real discussions about the costs.
What I do see is lots of talk and stupid Pipeline Closures and Oil Lease restrictions that have ZERO effect on CO2 emissions but have already driven up energy costs by 30%.