Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t observa; Premier Crisafulli has upset greens by affirming Coal’s place as the energy backbone of one of Australia’s sunniest states.
Coal-fired power stations to operate in Queensland until least 2046 as energy road map unveiled
By Rachel Stewart
Topic: Energy PolicyQueensland’s energy minister has announced the state’s coal-fired power stations will operate until least 2046 as he unveiled a long-awaited energy road map.
The five-year plan lays out what role coal, gas, wind, solar, pumped hydro and battery storage will play over the long-term in Queensland.
“The former Labor government’s decision to close coal units by 2035 regardless of their condition is officially abolished today,” David Janetzki said on Friday.
“This is a sensible and pragmatic plan built on economics and engineering, not ideology.”
The LNP has reset all of the state’s coal-fired stations back to their “technical life span end date”.
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Renewables, such as wind and solar, will continue be part of the state’s energy mix, Mr Janetzki said.
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Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-10/queensland-government-to-establish-400m-energy-fund/105874318
Greens were quick to respond;
October 10, 2025
CRISAFULLI GOVERNMENT’S RECKLESS ROADMAP SIGNS QUEENSLANDERS UP FOR A MORE EXPENSIVE, UNRELIABLE, POLLUTING FUTURE
The Crisafulli Government’s Energy Roadmap is set to sign Queenslanders up for outdated, unreliable, and expensive coal power until the 2040’s – a move that threatens to drive up household bills, worsen climate pollution and put thousands of clean energy jobs at risk.
The plan sits in stark contrast to projections from the Australian Energy Market Operator, which show all of Queensland’s coal power stations closing by 2035.
Extending the life of Queensland’s ageing coal-fired power stations and considering new gas developments flies in the face of Queensland’s legislated 2035 emissions target of a 75% cut on 2005 levels, which the Crisafulli Government reaffirmed during the 2024 election less than a year ago. Extending and expanding coal and gas power stations locks in more harmful climate pollution for longer, driving more frequent and extreme weather events that harm Queenslanders.
Climate Council energy expert Greg Bourne said: “Chaining Queensland to coal clunkers for 20 years is a bet against Queensland’s future. It’s bad economics, bad for the climate, and bad for Queensland households. This is a reckless plan from a government that said it would cut climate pollution and lower costs.
“This roadmap is more of a road block to progress. Queensland’s coal power stations failed 78 times last summer, costing taxpayers billions to keep them on life support. The government is throwing good money after bad – money that should be building renewable energy and storage projects that deliver cheaper, cleaner power for everyone.”
Climate Councillor Associate Professor Joel Gilmore said: “This plan will leave Queenslanders worse off. The evidence is clear that renewables backed by storage are the cheapest and most reliable way to power our homes and businesses. Every delay in building a cleaner energy system means higher bills and more pollution.
“The sunshine state should be leading Australia’s clean energy boom, attracting investment and creating tens of thousands of regional jobs. Instead, this roadmap risks driving that investment interstate, leaving Queensland with an outdated, expensive system that is falling apart.”
ENDS
For more information visit the Climate Council’s website – Everything you need to know about Queensland’s upcoming Energy Roadmap
For interviews please contact the Climate Council media team on media@climatecouncil.org.au or call 0485 863 063.
The Climate Council is Australia’s leading community-funded climate change communications organisation. We provide authoritative, expert and evidence-based advice on climate change to journalists, policymakers, and the wider Australian community.
For further information, go to: climatecouncil.org.au
Or follow us on social media: facebook.com/climatecouncil and twitter.com/climatecounci
Source: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/crisafulli-governments-reckless-roadmap/
The good news is this move to protect Queensland coal from the green madness will shield Queensland to an extent from the renewable follies of other states. The bad news is that protection is incomplete – those same renewable heavy states keep driving up energy prices in Queensland, whenever other states’ unreliables crumble under the strain of having to provide energy when it is needed.
From June this year;
‘Bailing out bad decisions’: Queensland slams Victoria over gas supply
James Hall, Angela Macdonald-Smith and Sumeyya Ilanbey
Jun 13, 2025 – 5.55pmVictoria cannot rely on pulling more gas from Queensland to shore up an energy system pushed to the edge by a cascading set of breakdowns and concerns over the reliability of renewables, with the pipeline flowing south already at full capacity.
Queensland’s Liberal-National government remains staunchly opposed to further propping up the southern state’s energy grid, saying it doesn’t have the gas supply capacity to keep “bailing out Victoria’s bad decisions”.
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“Queenslanders should not be penalised over unscientific decisions down south that favour ideology over economics and engineering,” he said.
“We don’t have the pipeline capacity to keep bailing out Victoria’s bad decisions. The solution to the southern state gas crisis is for the southern states to develop their gas reserves. We’re not asking them to do anything we haven’t done ourselves.”
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Read more (paywalled): https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/bailing-out-bad-decisions-queensland-slams-victoria-over-gas-supply-20250613-p5m762
Despite this encouraging step towards energy sanity, I don’t imagine this move will stir much enthusiasm for new Aussie coal plant investment.
There is no guarantee the new 2046 target will stick – the 2035 target could be restored by a future Queensland administration. And anyone seeking to invest in coal would also have to contend with our radical green federal government.
“Queensland’s coal power stations failed 78 times last summer”.
That is not bad. Queensland’s solar generation fails every night, reliably.
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As a 5th generation Queenslander with 2 children born in Queensland, it is so pleasing to see engineering, experience, science and common sense applied to this future energy map, instead of PYD, planning by dogma.
Geoff S
As another Qld’er, I agree wholeheartedly…… Renewables are unreliable, green madness and driving up the cost of electricity generation which in turn drives up the cost of every single item in the market place. Australia use to have cheap electricity, particularly QLD…. all based on coal.
There is no denying the facts.
Failure is the only thing reliable with wind and solar
“Cheaper”? Where?
It’s about time that people start taking their countries back.
Well done Mr Premier.
You are following in the steps of the great Jo Bjelke
Yes, Joh knew how to run an economy and deliver cheap energy.
This plan is still a disaster for Queensland because it will create an energy generation system that is uncompetitive due to its cost. Business will be handicapped to compete with those using coal power in 2047 and beyond and individual citizens will have their wealth and lifestyles eroded by high energy costs. It’s sad that a disaster for Australians from which they will not be able to recover is based on the modern equivalent of rain-dancing.
Australia is blessed with large coal and NG reserves. The CO2 emitted is also a blessing, growing food for the world. All Asia knows this, and now Australia is admitting the truth. Those supporting renewable energy are supporting a retreat into the Medieval.
You are correct. However households and business have responded to the high costs and are installing rooftop solar and battery. Most Queenslanders I know pay very little or nothing for electricity.
The simple fix that would lower grid costs immediately would be to change the bidding system from 5-minute to at least 24 hour and only dispatchable generators allowed to bid. That does not exclude grid wind or grid solar but they have to be paired with a dispatchable source.
Rooftops would have to pay to export to encourage more household batteries.
Then start building new or upgrading two coal fired power stations.
You clearly dont know many qld’ers. Electricity costs up and up based on unreliable renewables…. we are all paying for the grids as there are two…(one for reliable energy and one for unreliable energy) through our monthly connection fees and higher rates. Everything in QLD that is operated with electricity…every school, hospital, govt building, sets of traffic lights, street lights have to be paid for.
I suggest you stop thinking about domestic consumption as the only consumption… and consider the way bigger picture.
PS… now its smart meters being installed which again are driving up prices..plus new tariffs being introduced so there is no escape from rising prices.
Can’t have 2 grids, maybe you mean something else
Two systems feeding power into the grid. Worse-than-useless wind and solar, and dispatchable coal, oil, gas, nuclear (varies by country) that provide the baseload power, frequency management, and backup when the renewable crap doesn’t work.
The answer is to have technology neutral contracts with all the special treatments of wind and solar eliminated.
In the unlikely event companies want to go out to tender for intermittent, then wind and solar will win every bid. If they want to go out to tender for dispatchable, wind and solar will lose every time.
Something similar happens in telecoms. At the moment there is no special treatment or regulation of mobile broadband compared to fiber or copper broadband, and that is how it should be. Customers, whether domestic or commercial, buy whatever suits them in their usage and application. Same with wifi and ethernet in local networks, where you may choose wif, ethernet over powerlines, fiber or coax.
The whole massive problem started when governments decided they wanted to pick technology winners in power generation and obscure the real costs to countries of their chosen favored solutions. The result has been proliferation of unreliable power generation technologies and costs of using them spread over the whole network so that there is no one place where you can see them all.
Just say to generators that all bidders have to supply dispatchable power to the same standard and you would see the full costs of delivering usable power from wind or solar on one income statement. And the wind and solar industries would die immediately.
Now they need to build a couple of new modern ones to replace the ones that really are getting tired.
Stop destroying forest and habitats with wind turbines and solar industrial estates.
That is the only way to go. We need 100% coal the cheapest and most reliable.
It looks like Queenslanders are on the wrong side of both technology and history:
1) “Renewables have overtaken coal to become the world’s leading source of electricity for the first six months of this year in a “historic first”. The analysis, from the thinktank Ember, found the world generated “almost a third” more solar power in the first half of the year, compared with the same period in 2024, while wind power grew by “just over 7%,” . And
2) According to the report, China and India were “largely responsible for the surge in renewables”, while the US and Europe “relied more heavily on fossil fuels,”. China built more renewables than every other country combined in the first half of this year.
Both points are based on selective editing. 1. “…almost a third more solar power…” but it is still minuscule compared to fossil fuel use. 2. China and India “largely responsible for the surge in renewables…” only due to their size and population. They still rely primarily on fossil fuels.
You didn’t read. Renewables exceeded coal for the first time.
And you believed it.
You can have 200% over supply of solar during the day and by the numbers, you therefore have more than 100%, ON AVERAGE, or ruinable power.
BUT you will still have no power at night. If that’s the winning solution, who wants to play?
Grid diversity and batteries solve this
No.
Do you turn the smelter off overnight and on cloudy days? Diversity….. DEI screws another pooch.
Wazza, you missed this bit of fact buried in the body of the “analysis” –
Ember counts hydroelectric as a renewable. That accounts for half of their total. They also count burning wood. Looking at wind and solar, alone, it’s about twelve percent.
I have read that PV solar panels have short operational life times of 20 years or less. Replacing them in the future will be very expensive.
In the US thermal plants using coal are being replaced by thermal plants using nat. gas and CCGT technology.
I live BC where hydro power supplies 95% of the electricity. We also have abundant nat. gas for space and water heating.
They start degrading in performance from the day they are installed. Ambient particles in atmosphere start creating power loss by reflection or refraction effects simply from microscopic surface scratching.
Unless they are reliably cleaned after every rain- or snow-storm, dirt accumulation can reduce their performance drastically. Cleaning can very easily produce the reflection/refraction effects noted above.
What about photo bleaching? Does the glass cover filter out the UV A and B rays?
Can you imagine how many people must be employed to clean the panels?
Have to have a hail storm defense system, too.
There is an error in this statement. There is no source of electricity generation that is renewable. I have my own example. I have had solar panels on my roof for 14 years now and there is no sign of them renewing. A better word to describe their situation is decaying. They still perform to spec if I take action to clean them every year or so. Solar panels are a form of weather dependent electricity generation – they are not “renewable”. Maybe replaceable but there are no wind farms being replaced. They stop working and continue to decay:
Clearly not renewable!
The economic error is comparing essential generators with yo-yo generators. You will find in almost every case, there was no reduction in the peak demand (installed capacity) for fossil fuelled generators. So their high standby costs had to be spread across reduced volume meaning their unit cost goes up dramatically so they remain viable. South Australia has the highest penetration of WDG sourced electricity in world – 73% in the past 12 months. Their retail price of electricity is 56c/kWh. All industry has left or is on taxpayer support.
Agreed. The term “renewable” belongs with “settled science” and “safe and effective”.
Using the word “intermittent” is much closer to reality.
According to the Oxford dictionary, the word renewable has a definition applicable to SV and WTG. Basically, fuel is not depleted. Wind and sunshine are variable, of course, but do not deplete.
The real issue is they implied social definition is used to make the “look, oooo shiney,” happen.
Very few people look up the meanings of words anymore. Most defive a meaning from context usage and most get the words wrong as a result.
Well, yes. Since ready energy storage on large enough scale is not economically feasible, anything that cannot perform on demand is supplementary at best. A forest hedgehog can get it. Then again, hedgehogs are not fed for failing to understand the simplest cause-effect relations.
Which is why methane is a more interesting case. It’s obviously much less unreliable and intermittent by nature, and more responsive in that methane can be stored (this may have some rather expensive quirks, but still not as bad as accumulators) and used up when needed.
Yet in the areas affected by energiewende disease instead of growing useful methane-based infrastructure we can plainly see a spreading toxic quagmire. This demonstrates how the problems are caused by regulatory/cartel dances around “renewables” even without the inherent limitations of intermittent power sources.
The claim that renewables have overtaken coal has already been shredded in another post here on WUWT. Wind and solar are still failures. They only survive with massive subsidies as well as regulatory mandates.
Agree and of course where does the money come from forthe massive subsidies….
THE TAXPAYER.!!!
If Climate Change is the greatest scam ever, then renewable energy is a close second.
Solar and wind have been cheaper than fossil fuels for more than a decade. No subsidies required.
Data dredging to get the answer you want is not science.
“Warren also assumed worldwide responsibility for Government Affairs at Emerson Climate
Technologies. In this role, he provided leadership for Emerson on the Board of the Alliance
for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, where he worked with the US Environmental Protec-
tion Agency, State Department and Congress on energy efficiency, stratospheric ozone de-
pletion and climate change. He also worked with Congress on the American Clean Energy
and Security Act, which included a Cap and Trade provision to reduce greenhouse gas emis-
sions. The bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009, although it failed in the
Senate, and brought attention to the need for climate change action.”
Is this you ??
BS Alarm.
Which explains why the more wind and solar are added to the grid, the more electricity prices go UP.
OH WAIT!
🙄
Real data shows Ember are incorrect…
ie they are trying to CON gullible people.. and succeeding in your case.
China, and particularly India, have had huge surges in COAL fire electricity since 2020, far more extra electricity production from coal than from wind and solar.
Updated electricity production in China 2024
COAL… 5,800TWh
Solar……. 991TWh
Wind……. 834TWh
Data for India electricity generation 2024
COAL…. 1534TWh
Wind……..134TWh
Solar……… 81TWh
“Wrong side of history” is how the Soviets described critics of their “perfect” economic system.
It’s really weak as a form of argument, isn’t it?
Perhaps “mark my words” would be more apt but if there is one thing the anti-scientific elite don’t like its being accountable for false predictions.
Our dams will never fill again. Perth will be the world’s first ghost metropolis. These injections are safe and effective. The science is settled!
All feeble words from feeble minds.
There are…. Lies, damned lies, and statistics…..and you fell for them.
Because they want to sell the rest of the world solar panels and windmills. China has over 1100 coal fired power stations and opens a new one every two weeks.
I had carnal relations with two women yesterday, 100% more rumpy-pumpy in the second half of the year, compared with the same period in 2024.
Do you see how stupid it is to start from a low point and claim a huge increase in solar?
It turns out that the above statement is derived from a very limited subset of Ember’s data compilation.
Ember’s report can be downloaded, as a PDF file, using the (green rectangular) “Download PDF” button near the top of the following webpage :
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-mid-year-insights-2025/
.
Monthly data from January 2019 to May 2025 can be downloaded from the following webpage :
https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/
Select “Display : separated” and “Reported by : month“, then click on the “Download data” button at the bottom-right of the graph (below the “dates selection” slider).
NB : The main report (PDF file) contains some absolute numbers for “1H 2025” … Coal = 4896 TWh, Solar = 1303 TWh, Wind = 1365 TWh and “Renewables” = 5072 TWh … but most “June 2025 / 1H 2025” numbers have to be calculated using “changes from 1H 2024” statements instead.
.
An alternative view of the claim that “renewables have overtaken coal”.
What a mountain of bullshit “the greens” spew.
Renewables are cheaper (that’s why your electricity prices go UP)
Renewables are more reliable (about as reliable as anything “weather dependent” is)
And they whine about issues with coal plants that haven’t seen the upkeep they would if the government didn’t FORCE grid operators to PRIORITIZE the haphazard, intermittent garbage power “renewables” contribute.
No they won’t. They are not renewable or replaceable. They are already stranded assets in Queensland.
Last week in QLD wind served 112GWh but was economically curtailed for estimated 73GWh. Grid solar 120GWh served and 74GWh curtailed.
Meanwhile rooftops met 245GWh. Coal did the heavy lifting of 724GWh
https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/qld1/?range=7d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed
Considering rooftops have only been on the scene for 10 year or so and they are already taking a large slice of the grid wind and solar demand. It is very clear where it is heading. Last month was the biggest month for rooftop installation yet in Australia and by far the biggest for household batteries. Payback on rooftop solar in Queensland is a few years and batteries around 5 years now as China dumps them into The Australian market.
Of course rooftops are not going to run smelters but neither are grid wind or solar because their economics are destroyed by rooftops. BSL will only remain viable while there is coal generation and it gets a sweet deal on electricity price.
The only source of electricity in Australia that is now competitive with rooftops is coal supplied with royalty free cost plus margin. Selling coal to generators at world parity price just guarantees heavy industry demise.
I have a sister living in Queensland and she pays nothing for electricity. I figure there are many home owners in a similar situation.
No its not. The sensible plan would be to change the bidding system in the NEM to at least daily and only dispatchable generators bidding. Households have to pay to export.
Smelters could not be run on grid wind and/or solar simply because of being intermittent.
I have a sister living in Queensland and she pays nothing for electricity. I figure there are many home owners in a similar situation.
Thats impossible… someone has to pay for the power she uses… whether she pays with her taxes, is subsidised or she invested in batteries which take years to pay off and then need replacing. Not to mention you cannot use the last 20% of the battery so you have to buy bigger capacity batteries than household use requires to cover the 20%…. regardless, no-one gets free power.
With homeowners, the monthly grid charges alone are now being eating up by the reduced solar input tariffs.. Many tariffs offering ZERO for solar input and now lucky to get .04c per kwh for solar which means ten kwh solar input needed for one kwh of nighttime use. It’s all a scam based on UNscientific nonsense.
She still has a handsome FIT and lots of solar panels installed by the previous house owner. Not sure if their cost was included in the price but she is now the beneficiary of a house with solar panels.
Indeed everything has to be paid for. TANSTAAFL after all.
But for the time being I’m one of the privileged group who receives a zero dollar power bill every month. In fact AGL pays me.
That’s good enough for the time being.
The first impulse is to applaud, until I realize that the energy market is still controlled by laws and regulations. Free market, not so much. Looks pretty much like socialism to me.
The only regulation that matters is that all generators be dispatchable and that is not the case in Australia. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can connect an inverter to the grid and pump in power as they please. That is the main factor in driving up grid costs.
If Climate Change is the greatest Con Job ever, then renewable energy must be a very close second.
The low fat diet has to be considered in that mix!
The gov’t approved food pyramid is responsible for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of deaths every year; while driving up medical costs, and torturing and maiming countless other victims! But it does provide healthy profits for Big Food, Big Pharma, and the medical industrial complex!
As a Brit ( aka Pommy Barstard) nice to see our Aussie friends in Queensland taking sensible energy policy , just a shame they’re not so good at rugby and cricket .
I’d love to see someone test the expertise of green council energy expert Greg Bourne.
Queensland needs to tell the CAGW clowns to take a hike. Wind, solar and storage are not cheaper than coal. Coal is not intermittent. Queensland should update all fossil fuel plants that are worth updating and build new fossil fuel plants. It should pass a message along to Victoria that as soon as the new gas plants are ready to fire up the gas going to Victoria will instead be used by Queensland. Also consider building nuclear plants. Tell Victoria that if they would help Queensland build nuclear plants reopening the gasline will be considered.