We need coal more than ever to fire up the economy

It took eight weeks for Adani to build its massive 600 tonne excavator to work on the Carmichael mine project.

Before dawn one morning this week at construction sites west of Mackay in central Queensland, more than 500 high-vis uniforms were put on and about 500 serves of bacon and eggs were eaten. Then, as the sun was rising, the engines of excavators, utes, dozers and trucks started up. This is Adani’s Carmichael mine and rail project, which was granted its final approvals one year ago.

Construction of the project’s roads, railway, accommodation camps and mine infrastructure is well under way. The thermal coal project is one of the newer cogs in the machinery of the Australian resources industry that will cushion our country from the worst of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic and that is leading the economic recovery.

Job numbers on our construction project are ramping up and are on track to exceed 1500 direct jobs, which will create a further 6750 indirect jobs in the community and supporting industries.

That these are being created when Australia needs them most is fortuitous and a testament to the logic and economic rationalism of those who backed our project despite the ferocious campaign against it by anti-fossil fuel activists. These activist groups include The Sunrise Project, the anti-fossil fuel body that donated $495,000 to GetUp before the federal election last year; the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, which has been falsely predicting the imminent demise of the coal and gas industries for most of the past decade; Galilee Blockade; and Market Forces.

We have stared down those groups that bully and intimidate Australian workers and small-business owners by occupying their workplaces and harassing them with phone calls, text mes­sages and social media.

Activist groups have based their scare campaign against Adani on numerous false claims: from spreading lies that the project would not be funded, to the claims that it would not create a single job and that there would be no market for thermal coal. Each of these claims has proved to be false. Despite COVID-19, the outlook for thermal coal remains strong, with energy demand in the Asia-Pacific region forecast to grow exponentially as people in countries such as India join the middle class and begin to live the kind of life we take for granted — meaning they buy and run cars, fridges, airconditioners, stoves and work in energy-dependent ­industries. Coal will be needed alongside renewables to provide affordable reliable energy, while reducing emissions intensity.

The anti-fossil fuel activists have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at Adani to try to stop our project, but they have failed.

What the activists blatantly ignore is the $1bn in contracts we have awarded and the many individuals, small businesses and large organisations that are proud to partner with us and be part of Australia’s coal industry, our country’s second-biggest exporter.

Our ability to see off the activists’ challenge rested to a large ­extent on the common sense of everyday Australians who could see through the myths the activists used to demonise Adani. They knew our mine was 300km inland, not under the coral of the Great Barrier Reef; that we would have to meet the high standards of environmental regulation; and that the 10 million tonnes of coal a year we will produce is a small fraction of the more than 300 million ­tonnes of coal Australia exports each year.

What has further confounded our opponents is Adani’s rapid ­expansion in renewable energy. That the Adani Group company Adani Green Energy Limited ranks as one of the world’s top 10 solar companies is hard for many to come to grips with. AGEL has a market cap of $US8.66bn ($12.4bn) and 15 gigawatt capacity of renewable generation under operation, construction or under contract. At the control room in the company’s headquarters in India, workers monitor generation from solar farms scattered across the country alongside generation from thermal power plants. What is it about this scene that is so hard to come to understand? The reality is that coal and renewables are needed to provide a sustainable energy mix.

We agree that as renewable technology improves it will supply proportionally more energy. This will take time as thermal power stations won’t be retired until they reach the end of their lives. That is why for us the future is not about coal or renewables. It is about coal and renewables.

As Australia claws its way out of the pandemic recession, we will need every job we can get. It’s time to pay less attention to the full-time anti-fossil fuels activists trying to destroy our jobs, people’s livelihoods and shut down our exports, and pay more attention to everyday Australians who are striving to create opportunities for themselves and their families.

Lucas Dow is chief executive of Adani.