Coal-fired power plants: Energy bosses clash with Shorten
Energy and resources chiefs argue the market case for a low-emissions power plant will be strengthened by Labor’s targets.
Energy and resources chiefs have clashed with Bill Shorten over the outlook for cleaner coal, arguing the market case for a new high-efficiency, low-emissions power plant will be strengthened by Labor’s higher renewable targets.
A day after six Nationals rebels pushed Scott Morrison to promise to build a new power station in regional Queensland, energy baron Trevor St Baker argued that it was inevitable there would be a new coal-fired plant in Australia.
Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane also said there was a growing incentive for competitive power to supply energy-intensive industries under higher renewable targets.
He argued a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030 would take a “monumental amount of firming up” and there was a need to “see the full potential for a high-efficiency, low-emissions, coal-fired plant on the east coast grid explored further”.
The positive forecasts for coal came after a Hong Kong-based investment company reached an initial agreement with state-owned conglomerate China Energy Engineering Corporation and local company Cavcorp Australia to develop two 1000-megawatt, ultra-super-critical coal plants in the NSW Hunter region.
But the Opposition Leader yesterday played down the prospect of new coal plants getting off the ground and attacked the Liberal and Nationals parties for “fighting each other” after The Australian revealed a group of Nationals rebels had called for shelved “big stick” laws to be put to a vote in budget week in a bid to bring energy companies to heel.
“What we see is that most investors aren’t interested in spending a whole lot of money on new coal-fired power stations without massive taxpayer subsidies,” Mr Shorten said.
“A government I lead is not going to invest taxpayer money in uncommercial, unenvironmental, new coal-fired power stations”.
A series of Nationals MPs yesterday backed new coal-fired plants, including Ken O’Dowd, who holds the Queensland seat of Flynn on a margin of 1.04 per cent. Mr O’Dowd told ABC News Radio that “coal is the way into the future to ensure the fast, reliable, guaranteed supply of energy”.
Nationals frontbencher Michelle Landry, who holds the Queensland seat of Capricornia on a margin of 0.6 per cent, also said that “we believe that we have to stand up for the coal industry”.
Mr St Baker has pulled together a $6 billion, China-backed plan to develop Australia’s first high-efficiency, low-emissions coal plants in Victoria and NSW and a pumped hydro facility in South Australia.
While Mr St Baker has applied, under the government’s underwriting scheme, for taxpayer assistance for his plans — including a 1300MW coal-fired plant in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley — he said a future Labor government would have to face the reality of a new cleaner coal plant being built.
“Australia needs these no matter what government comes in to power at the next election and into the future,” he told The Australian. “I don’t think any prospective prime minister of either shade wants to be the prime minister over the closure of the Portland aluminium smelter.”
Mr Morrison yesterday distanced himself from the prospect of new coal-fired power stations being built in the Hunter region.
He made clear the “big stick” laws were not a priority for the final sitting week of parliament.
