Australian energy giant AGL has announced the fast-tracked closure of its biggest — and Australia’s highest polluting — coal-fired power station by a decade.
Loy Yang A (not to be confused with Alinta’s Loy Yang B) was originally scheduled for closure in 2048. In February, that was revised to a more “ambitious” 2040-2045. Today, AGL told investors that all operations will wind down by 2035. It forms part of the company’s new and improved strategy to transition out of fossil fuels and into renewable energy.
Latrobe Valley coal power worker Tony Wolfe told Crikey that the decision comes as a shock to no one: “The writing’s been on the wall for some time. No one believed the previous dates. I think it’s a bit ambitious of them to think they’ll still be operating in 2035.”
The 13-year timeline falls short of Paris climate targets and shareholders’ repeated requests to finish up with fossil fuels fast. “They gave a clear message they wanted AGL to get out of coal sooner,” Wolfe said. “Personally, I think shareholders will be disappointed.”
In a statement lodged with the stock exchange, AGL said it had “accelerated exit from all coal-fired generation”.
Major AGL shareholder Mike Cannon-Brookes has been clear about the need for a complete company shake-up. He blocked a demerger, bid twice to buy the company outright, and yesterday nominated four new names to join the five-member AGL board.
But Wolfe says these decisions are “done in the dark” and include little consultation with the community and coal workforce. “There was no engagement with the people who work here. We’ve been left out to dry,” Wolfe said. “We usually hear about these things through the media.”
AGL’s decision to limit the lifespan of Loy Yang A could bring forward the closure of neighbouring operator Alinta’s Loy Yang B as they both share the same open-cut coal mine owned by AGL. So either Alinta shuts up shop earlier than its 2048 target or it takes over the mine.
Wolfe has worked in coal for more than 40 years and is under no illusions that the industry’s days are numbered. He’s part of a large cohort of coal workers who’ll retire before the industry is overrun by renewables, but that hasn’t stopped him from being a vocal advocate for hastening that transition.
“There is a lot of doom and gloom, but hopefully that’s short-lived. The fact that we have to rehabilitate all these sites, there’s decades of work in that alone,” he said. “We need to identify the skills we need for new infrastructure and start training our workforce for that.”
It is said we won’t know we have reached a tipping point of the climate until after we have passed it. Well, surely we have done that. The IEA predicts we will burn more coal next year than ever before in history. So it seems tipping points don’t matter a damn, and never did. Except, maybe, to people who understand the consequences.
Which is the bigger disaster, having the lights go out or having your house burn down? Finding another job, or sitting on your roof hoping for helicopter rescue from the flood? Our empty heads will lead to empty supermarkets and that is a tipping point we will all notice. Afterwards.
Anyone for colonising Antarctica?
is 2035 soon enough?
no – even if it were shutdown tomorrow, it’s still not soon enough
We passed tip-over point when the permafrost began thawing, circa late 90s.
This releases methane which is a far more deleterious GHG than CO2 but shorter lived before breaking down…into CO2.
Fun fact – more CO2 has been released into the atmosphere this century than had been in the previous 250 years, since the Industrial Revolution.
Climate change cannot be stopped so we must adapt.
Cutting pollution would be a good first, faltering step.
A 13-year timeline in Australia, makes my eyes water. Even road building doesn’t take that long.
Yes it has a soviet era 5 & 10 year plan vibe about it.
We should be so lucky.
The writing that has been on the wall for years is the relentless rise of gas. To all but the most hopelessly blind, it is clear that AGL bought these old power stations in order to increase our consumption of gas. Every assertion that the coal will be replaced with renewables is cynical, designed to flatter the delusions of the ignorant. Our ignorance is wilful, because even the kiddies know what happens when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow.
For decades, the renewables movement has paid no more than lip service to the concept of renewables-plus storage. Pumped hydro and batteries remain fantasies from the PR department. Meanwhile, synthetic fuel (from recycled CO2) has been possible for 100 years. Fissile fuel has been religiously denied as emphatically as US coal’s propaganda requires. Instead of taking us towards zero fossil consumption, every major installation of renewables is – and will be – accompanied by a matching commitment of gas to turn their intermittent output to on-demand power. Even as our leaders brag of the expansion of renewables, our power bills will increasingly pay for gas.
The Snowy Hydro has a pumped hydro system that has been operating since the 1970s.
It was part of the original design and generates 2/3 of the power required to run the system.
Snowy mkII is intended to use the ‘excess’ electricity from renewables especially off-peak (which the legacy generators have rorted to hell & back for 50yrs) to lift the water to be used later flow downhill to generate power for high demand periods – the loss of approx. 1/3 of the energy is irrelevant as it would not otherwise have been used.
Ideally this would be a closed system and could be a template for use in smaller, regional areas using sea water.
Always be careful when the nay-sayers talk about “electricity storage” and, quite properly, diss batteries – the future is ENERGY storage.
Electricity is easily produced and should only ever be used for its unique qualities with motive power being secondary.
It should NEVER be used to produce heat, the occasional tea kettle excepted.
I though the idea behind the pumped hydro in the original Snowy scheme was to balance generation and demand in a system dominated by inflexible coal power.
The pumped hydro enabled the generators to continue operating at night, whilst helping out when there were spikes in demand during the day.
Crikey needs to stop having a bet each way in its reporting: it is not realistic to continue to beat-up AGL (and the like) for not bowing out of coal much sooner only to turn around in the same article and spruke for those claiming ‘decisions are ‘done in the dark’ and “include little consultation with the community and coal workforce”.
The coal industry in this day and age provides employment for a tiny number of people per tonne compared to mid-late 1900’s and virtually all ‘technology’ and equipment is 100% imported with no value-add in this country.
In terms of community and workforce impact, the 2035 (13 years away) shuttering of Loy Yang needs to be put into a bit of perspective: General Motors was still promising continuing Australian operations for Holden throughout the 2000’s – indeed a bright future for R&D, Engineering and growth of our vehicle export business – only to direct $AUD billions in Government subsidies straight to GM’s bottom line ahead of annoucing cessation of all Australian manufacturing a mere 4 years prior to doing so in 2017.
[NB: I am hardly a fanboy for the fossil fuel industry by the way – the comments above are intended to illustrate, by way of example, that at least in this case there is somewhat more reasonable breathing room (13 years) for necessary planning etc. ahead of ‘life without Loy Yang’ in its current form.]
Although Loy Yang A only has under 500 direct jobs, it also supports a large number of local contractors, engineering services and regional purchasing. The flow on impact of all that is vast, even though the actual direct employment is nothing like it was 30 years ago.
And Holden’s closure didn’t cause “impact of all that” too? It is interesting that this point is always thrown up around the coal industry…most people are more than ok with [or oblivious to] the complete destruction of our large textiles and clothing industries with the advent of outsourcing everything [to China and Bangladesh largely] – what about huge number of people that lost jobs and factory towns gutted in that industry?
The point I was making above is that at least in this case there is a 13-year period to transition instead of less only 4-years. I am more than aware that there is more to it than “direct employment”. Additionally, AGL isn’t siphoning Government subsidies directly off-shore like GM [that I am aware of].
Holden also supported a large number of local – Elizabeth and greater Adelaide – and Australia manufactures [not importers] of advanced automotive components and the highly technical Engineering skill sets required to support such an industry. Volumes supplied to Holden right next door, or in-country, allowed many of these same manufacturers and providers of automotive engineering to go head-to-head in the export industry of components and services.
Objectively speaking:
(1) The only credible justification for pulling [thermal] coal out of the ground for the last 20-30 years or so has been to have a source of energy while we work to transition away from its use. [NB: I am talking of the energy-intensive, high-consuming West here; I am not referring to peoples whom, of necessity, may genuinely continue to need coal for heating and cooking for the time being.]
(2) Ongoing [metallurgical] coal use for manufacturing of steel is really only justifiable until new technologies reach more broadly adopted commercial maturity, e.g.: direct reduced iron using hydrogen by implemented currently in Germany.