It would be unwise for BHP to get out of coal mining
Your article on BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie’s speech (“BHP warns of ‘existential’ climate risk”, 24/7) is proof the real risk comes from lack of understanding by captains of industry of the forces that drive the climate.
Simple arithmetic shows the fossil fuels that have lifted mankind from the swamps of subsistence living to high levels of longevity and wellbeing, will never be exhausted — by the time we have scratched the surface of fossil fuels laid down over millions of years of solidified sunlight through the miracle of photosynthesis, we will have found new ways to use the gifts we have inherited.
But there will be little to bequeath if we blow up reliable coal-fired power stations and pour money into windmills and solar cells to blot the landscape and leave only the folly of stupidity and the costs of burying the rubbish.
Andrew Mackenzie (no relation) would fully understand that coal has a limited future. It will soon be overtaken by renewables as the energy provider of economic choice — and necessity. BHP is not “demonising” coal, it is making a sensible business decision. To his credit, Angus Taylor supports BHP’s plan to reduce its carbon footprint and avoiding increases in the price and unreliability of energy and materials. Taylor also said “the government is taking a sensible and balanced approach to reducing global emissions”, but “doing that with policies that will not wreck our economy”. Unless all nations do their share of emissions reduction, climate change could wreck all their economies.
BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie certainly talks the talk, but does he walk the walk? The company no longer produces thermal coal but uses fossil-fuel sourced electricity and remains a leading coking coal, oil and gas producer.
Given his leaning to renewable energy, in support of his corporate services mantra, couldn’t he build wind turbines and solar cells in the Pilbara, where land is cheap, winds strong with long hours of sunshine. All his diesel equipment would become electric powered making the air cleaner. He may care to use some electric cars and batteries, converting the Pilbara operations into a 24/7 operation.
I don’t how this would affect the balance sheet, but he would be able to market a unique Australian product — green iron ore.
Andrew Mackenzie’s speech — where he warns us of unsubstantiated carbon dioxide-based climate change while he extols the benefits of fossil fuels and the limitations of renewables — seems to be an each-way bet to appease shareholder activists. His only suggestion from a BHP perspective, is to somehow get involved in customer CO2 emissions programs which will likely send a chill down the spine of BHP shareholders. One would have preferred a pronouncement of intent to increase investment in CO2 abatement and storage.
If Mackenzie believes in a looming “existential” crisis from CO2 emissions and, given his lack of confidence in renewables, he should seriously consider investing in nuclear power. Already an exporter of uranium, a new-generation nuclear power plant on South Australia’s Spencer Gulf would service BHP’s own power requirements and provide stability to SA’s fickle supply. It would provide the nation with an introduction to the only form of reliable and emissions-free energy source available.
How is it possible that one man’s belief in an unproven hypothesis can move the world’s biggest mining company on a course of existential destruction? BHP has not consulted its owners nor its employees before embarking on a course of green policies that have the aim of stopping mining.
The “existential” risk of climate change is the loss of rationality, objectivity and perspective that is propelled by a propaganda campaign. Corporate hubris is on display as the company that gave its shareholders the financial disasters of Magma Copper, HBI, Ravensthorpe, Yabulu and the US shale oil acquisition says it knows something that is “indisputable”. The idea that an organisation whose products all add to global emissions can ask their customers to reduce their emissions is laughable.
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