BNEF has just released a paper called “Australia’s nuclear-powered distraction threatens net zero” I will link to it as soon as I can find a link. This is based upon articles about the article
Summary
The issue is not really whether a case could be made for nuclear in Australia, but whether the Coalition policies will deliver:
More emissions, and
More expensive electricity.
That would seem to be the case from the mess of their policy, and their repeated requirement that we trust them to give details after the election.
The plan, even if completely successful will certainly not add that much to Australia’s energy supply, and there is no point going with small amounts of nuclear if we are going to increase emissions through rolling back on renewables.
Political Obstructions?
Despite nuclear energy technology having been banned in Australia since 1998, under Coalition PM, John Howard, with three of the high population states also banning it, the federal Coalition opposition has proposed seven sites for nuclear plants which they claim could be operational as soon as 2035, which is improbable. As Bloomberg states, it will be “a slow and challenging” effort to overturn existing bans, and to force people to accept nukes on the sites selected without consultation.
Nuclear is expensive
Nuclear could reduce emissions, but it is usually a very expensive technology in markets with limited experience, unsupportive politics and uncertain regulation — such as Australia. We have already mentioned that cost overruns are normal even with experienced builders. Another problem is that people cannot be held to contract prices as we do not want cheaply built and unsafe reactors, so we have to assume they are not deliberately underquoting.
Renewables are cheaper and easier
The usual estimates are that renewables are cheaper than Nuclear. Bloomberg said that going by existing nuclear industries in western nations, the cost would be “at least four times greater than the average” for Australian wind and solar plants with storage today.
Furthermore, Australia has plenty of wind and solar resources with large areas of semi-vacant land, and lots of people vying to build wind or solar power. There appears, as yet, to be no one volunteering to build nuclear in Australia, certainly not seven power stations worth by 2035.
To repeat, SMRs do not exist commercially so we have no idea what they would cost, or how much energy they would produce. So it is pointless budgeting for them.
Australia’s coal fired power stations will largely be phased out by 2035. So, to avoid power supply shortfalls and high electricity bills between the gradual shutting down of coal energy and the beginning of nuclear, we have to increase renewables and energy storage. If we do not do this, then electricity prices will increase massively or emissions from Gas will increase.
Nuclear will also add significantly to the costs of energy. To pay off the huge capital investment, which it seems will be carried by taxpayers, prices will have to rise.
Conclusion
if the debate serves as a distraction from scaling-up policy support for renewable energy investment, it will sound the death knell for decarbonisation ambitions – the only reason for Australia to consider going nuclear in the first place.
The quick summary is that the Coalition’s nuclear plan will not significantly add to energy availability or emissions reduction in Australia. It will, however, cost a lot.
Peter Dutton, the leader of the Australian Opposition, has declared that he has released the policy which will make Australia Nuclear if the Coalition get into government.
The first thing to note is that his policy release is completely uncosted, despite the main scientific organisation in Australia, saying that nuclear would be at least 50% more expensive than solar and wind and would not be available any sooner than 2040, and previous attacks on CSIRO estimates by the Coalition, with the CSIRO denying those attacks had any validity. Oddly perhaps if Labor released uncosted policies that simply ignored the costings by the CSIRO, then the Coalition and Murdoch media would be jumping up and down in dismay, shouting about irresponsibility. But not now.
Some costs for the newest design large scale reactors:
Construction cost experience with generation 3 nuclear projects in US and Europe
AGL Energy’s CEO Damien Nicks said “There is no viable schedule for the regulation or development of nuclear energy in Australia, and the cost, build time and public opinion are all prohibitive…. Policy certainty is important for companies like AGL and ongoing debate on the matter runs the risk of unnecessarily complicating the long-term investment decisions necessary for the energy transition.””
Andrew Forrest, says “I simply want to see fossil fuels removed from Australia’s energy mix as soon as possible, but as an industrialist, I’ve looked at nuclear and it does not stack up,”
Kyle Mangini, of IMF investments, said it was “virtually impossible” for the private sector to take on the financial risk of building nuclear reactors without taxpayer subsidies. “If you look at where the nuclear facilities are being built globally, they’re almost in all cases being built by governments,” adding “”In Australia, there’s never been a nuclear facility built, so there’s no skilled labour force.”
As we proceed it will become reasonable to suspect that the main aim of the plan is to stop renewables, and keep the fossil fuels burning. The leader of the National party David Littleproud.. [said]
“We want to send the investment signals that there is a cap on where [the Coalition] will go with renewables and where we will put them…. Earlier on Monday [he] told ABC radio the Coalition’s energy policy will show investors Australia doesn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms, whether they be offshore or onshore”.
As well the Coalition will drop all 2030 targets, and so encourage the build up of emissions, even if they make the 2050 target. The whole point of the change in energy is to reduce GHG emissions. It is doubtful whether this proposed change will do much if anything to reduce those emissions, and emissions reduction is urgent. Over the last year, much to many scientists surprise the average temperature has crossed 1.5 degrees C, reaching 1.63 degrees C. It is likely to cross 2 degrees relatively soon, and then spiral out of control. Innes Willox, chief executive of national employer association Ai Group summarises the policy, by saying:
“With no delivery projected until the middle of the next decade, the proposal does not immediately help with short-term emissions reduction or the cost and reliability of energy in the short term.”
While it maybe true that the reactors are cheaper than Labor’s Plan…. are they a useful source of power and emissions reduction? If they are not, then it is money and time wasted.
The Press Release and after
The Priority is not climate change
The official press release of the policy opens by making it clear the priority is not dealing with climate change
Every Australian deserves and should expect access to cheaper, cleaner and consistent electricity…
Right now, in households and businesses around the country, Labor’s expensive renewables-only approach is failing.
In a classic move, the reason for changing energy systems has been ignored. However, they do recognise one problem with the energy system
90 per cent of baseload electricity, predominantly coal fired power stations, is coming to the end of life over the next decade…
a future Federal Coalition Government will introduce zero-emissions nuclear energy in Australia, which has proven to get electricity prices and emissions down all over the world
Nuclear certainly has not reduced electricity prices everywhere in the world. The unfinished Hinkley Point being an obvious example. However, the propaganda aim seems to be to associate cost of living increases with the current government, imagined cutbacks in fossil fuels, and the rollout of renewables, which is a tactic borrowed from either Trump or his corporate think-tanks. There is no consideration of the inflationary effects of fossil fuel company profiteering, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and hence more competition for gas, or even the local break down of old coal mines and power stations.
Locations
The proposed locations are:
Liddell Power Station, New South Wales
Mount Piper Power Station, New South Wales
Loy Yang Power Stations, Victoria
Tarong Power Station, Queensland
Callide Power Station, Queensland
Northern Power Station, South Australia (SMR only)
Muja Power Station, Western Australia (SMR only)
SMRs do not exist commercially yet.
It appears likely these sites were chosen because they have cabling infrastructure (grid) already in place. Others state:
Some of the sites, particularly Loy Yang in the Latrobe Valley, are very close to earthquake fault lines. Several have no obvious water source, which is essential. They appear to have been chosen for political saleability, not science.
A later comment from Ted O’Brien implies that the Coalition have not even decided the number of reactors involved
Ted O’Brien, who designed the plan, told the ABC’s Insiders the amount of energy generated would depend on the type and number of reactors built at each site, and that neither of those things could be known until a Coalition government could establish a nuclear expert agency to undertake studies.
Rather optimistically Dutton claims the sites “will start producing electricity by 2035 (with small modular reactors) or 2037 (if modern larger plants are found to be the best option).” Again this is with currently non commercially available SMRs, plus clearing all the political and economic barriers which are discussed below. Loy yang one of the sites is not closing until 2034 at the moment, so building could not start until after then. Again the CSIRO estimated the earliest anything could be running would be 2040 given a 12-15 year build.
The latest AEMO integrated system plan “forecasts the retirement of 90% of Australia’s remaining 21 gigawatts of coal generation by 2034-35, with the entire fleet retired by 2038.” To overcome that issue requires plenty of gas backup, or lots of renewables and storage. The Coalition is not saying how much energy they hope their nukes will generate or how they plan to make up the gap, but given the announced hostility to renewables, the plan most likely depends on gas as a major source and not a backup. Ted O’Brien said the obvious solution to the collapse of Coal was to “pour more gas into the market” but also said he would “welcome all renewables”. So their plan is to increase emissions, and it seems obvious that parts of the Coalition do not want more renewables, and more renewables is not part of the plan
AEMO is worried that renewables are not being rolled out fast enough to fill in the gaps in 2024-5, and nuclear cannot be ready in that time. It will be interesting to see what happens there. The climate council says:
Seven standard nuclear reactors would deliver approximately nine gigawatts of energy capacity [possibly more than that depending on design and what you are counting]. While [AEMO claims] Australia will need at least 300 gigawatts by 2050
We apparently use 22 GW of coal at present, so the planned nukes are unlikely to even replace coal use now, never mind the energy from other sources.
O’Brien strangely argued that “Australia already is a nuclear nation. We know that nuclear technology saves lives, we know that because we have a nuclear reactor operating here in Sydney. It’s been operating for decades, saving lives, especially diagnosing and treating cancers.” However, there is a massive difference between the size and complexity of Lucas Heights and that of a nuclear power station
“It must be recognised that this is a ‘zero-power’ pool reactor where the complexities of high pressure, high power, high radiation environments do not exist.”
People who moved into the reactor’s area, already knowing it was there, have objected to its presence for a long time. Even a small reactor is not accepted by everyone.
The big question, however, is what level of energy will these 7 reactors provide? And the answer appears to be “completely inadequate.”
Ownership, Funding and Control?
In a later interview/speech Dutton said:
The assets will be owned by the Commonwealth – a very important point – and we’ll work with experts to deliver these programmes…… [and] The Australian Government will own these assets, but form partnerships with experienced nuclear companies to build and operate them.
So taxpayers will be funding the building, and probably covering decommissioning and insurance. This will be expensive, and how will it be paid for? By increasing taxes, increasing the deficit, decreasing Medibank or social security, or getting huge loans? Hopefully the reactors will not be given to the private sector after the taxpayers have funded them, although the second statement implies they may be run privately, but we have no idea who will be involved. The main builders currently in operation are Russian and Chinese, who we might assume would not be acceptable.
On the other hand Renewables are under private, community or household funding and control, which is usually said to be a good thing.
We also need to remember that nuclear is potentially dangerous and we need heaps of trained and experienced people, and good regulation for Australian circumstances, to keep it safe and to cover fuel handling at all stages.
Supposed Economic Benefits
The sales pitch is that:
Not only will local communities benefit from high paying, multi-generational jobs but communities will be empowered to maximise the benefits from hosting an asset of national importance by way of:
A multi-billion dollar facility guaranteeing high-paying jobs for generations to come;
An integrated economic development zone to attract manufacturing, value-add and high-tech industry; and
A regional deal unlocking investment in modern infrastructure, services and community priorities. Press release
The leader of the Nationals promoted the idea that this plan would be beneficial for rural economies. Apparently locally owned and controlled renewables are not. Susan Ley again emphasised the economic side saying “So, our vision is to make sure that we underpin our economic success with jobs for decades to come in industries where Australia has that competitive advantage.” She did not say what the advantage would be. Ted O’Brien said “Labor is turning the lights out. Prices will soar, jobs will be shed and industries will collapse. Australians will be left poorer and our nation weaker.” LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION – TRANSCRIPT – JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE WITH THE HON DAVID LITTLEPROUD MP, THE HON SUSSAN LEY MP, THE HON ANGUS TAYLOR MP AND MR TED O’BRIEN MP, SYDNEY
However:
A 2023 PricewaterhouseCoopers report into offshore wind found the energy source was expected to add $40bn to GDP between 2027 and 2040, supporting 19,000 jobs in the peak of construction and 7000 to 14,000 operational roles in regional areas. According to International Energy Agency estimates, 17.5 gigawatts of offshore wind will be added to global capacity in 2024 compared with around 8.5GW of gross nuclear capacity
Coalition at odds on energy strategy. The Australian 19 June 2024: 4
Part of the promotion is that renewables are a “wrecking ball through the Australian economy” and that families “know it because it’s harder in their own budgets”, Again the plan is to associate the current multi-causal world wide inflation with Labor’s renewables’ policy. However,
Dr Dylan McConnell, an energy systems analyst at the University of New South Wales, says only about $100 of a household’s annual electricity bill is made up of charges related to environmental programs, such as feed-in-tariffs for rooftop solar or financial incentives for large-scale renewables projects.
[and] In the last quarter, the biggest price rises were in rents, secondary education, tertiary education and medical and hospital services… insurance premiums have gone up 16.4% in the last year… ABS data also shows electricity prices are a small part of Australian household expenditure, at just 2.36% of overall costs.
And the Coalition’s programme not only seems to include 7 expensive reactors, but to need back up in terms of more coal or gas because those reactors will not replace lost coal generation and will not make up for lost renewables. All of this will put more financial strain on taxpayers and customers as they cost more than renewables as will be discussed in the next section. The price is usually set in Australia by the most costly source, so relying more on gas than on renewables, will boost electricity prices. At the best, the prosed nuclear sites will do nothing to reduce the current increase in prices as they won’t exist for some while. So the Coalition’s implied end of rising electricity prices is false.
Problems
An ex-Prime Minister writes:
A nuclear power plant would face the same economic challenges that coal-fired generators do now – for much of the day it would be unable to compete with solar and wind. During those times of excess supply the nuclear plant would add to the excess. That surplus electricity would be taken up by batteries and pumped hydro which would then compete with the nuclear plant during the night.
So the only way the economics of a nuclear plant could be assured in our market would be for the rollout of solar and wind to be constrained. That seems to be Dutton’s intention
So unless renewables are destroyed nuclear may not be profitable.
The Coalition’s lack of costing is obvious, except to insist seven nuclear stations are cheaper than near 100% renewables. However, in one interview the leader of the Nationals was asked how much the plan will cost and whether it was around the CSIRO’s $8.5 billion to $17 billion estimate. He replied “Yeah, look, we’re not disputing that,” (Nationals leader pressed on how much nuclear will cost Aussies).
The lack of costing also does not include the cost of climate disruptions, fires, floods, droughts, heat deaths etc. They also say that “the investment that we’re making, it’s over an 80 year period” which might imply that they are going to build these 7 reactors very slowly. We don’t know as there is no timeline for the building. We have no estimation of the cost of electricity produced by nuclear power despite the CSIRO estimating it would be over 50% more than renewable energy. We don’t know what reactor types are involved, including the experimental SMRs, we don’t know about waste disposal (waste will be kept on site until it isn’t), we have no plans for emissions reduction in the rest of the economy (so talking of 2050 net zero is fantasy). We don’t know who are the likely builders and it is foolish to expect that nuclear energy can be built by Australian companies so campaigning for nuclear energy is campaigning to export billions of Australian money overseas. And, as argued above, nuclear as proposed by the Coalition will only partially replace current coal power. It will not supply the new energy Australia needs. There is a massive gap which we can presume will require more fossil fuels to fill.
in March 2023 Dutton said:
I don’t support the establishment of big nuclear facilities here at all, I’m opposed to it, but for the small modular reactors, we can have them essentially replacing brownfield sites now, so you can turn coal off and put the small modular reactors in and it’s essentially a plug and play. You can use the existing distribution networks
But that was a year ago…. and he may have realised that SMRs are largely fiction and not high energy sources able to replace coal power. An SMR is expected to produce 300 Megawatt electric (MWe) producing 7.2 million kWh per day, less than a third of a large scale reactor at 1,000 MWe producing 24 million kWh per day. So if we don’t go with 5 normal reactors we would have to have over 15 SMRs to replace them. In any case the 5 large scale rectors and 2 SMRs would, according to Simon Holmes a Court, “be expected to generate 50 TWh a year – less than 15% of the new generation needed”.
I have encountered arguments which suggest that submarines have SMR’s. However we have had nuclear submarines since 1958, so we have had them for at least 60 years. No one, not even the military, has appeared to successfully use them on land, and this is despite various militaries having had no problem using long term poisons and mutagens, even when their own troops could not be protected. Whatever, the reason it has not discouraged large scale nuclear building, so there is no reason to think the conversion would be easy or even plausible.
While the Coalition encourages local communities to oppose renewable energy, it appears they may not tolerate opposition to gas, oil or nuclear. The Deputy leader of the Nationals stated “if a community is absolutely adamant then we will not proceed but we will not be looking beyond these seven sites,” to which David Littleproud (the leader) said:
“No, she is not correct,… We made this very clear. Peter Dutton and David Littleproud as part of a Coalition government is prepared to make the tough decisions in the national interest.
To be confusing he also talked about “proper consultation.” In 2019 Ted Obrien in an official Coalition Government media release said:
“Australia should say a definite ‘No’ to old nuclear technologies but a conditional ‘Yes’ to new and emerging technologies such as small modular reactors.
“And most importantly,” said Mr O’Brien “the Australian people should be at the centre of any approval process”
I presume they are intending a neoliberal consultation in which people are told what is happening and ignored, and local businesses bribed. They would also have to deal with the issue that property values would likely decline near the site, although that can be dealt with by telling people that it is their problem.
Importantly there is Federal legislation forbidding nuclear power. Its not clear how changes to that legislation would pass through the Senate. Various states also have legislation (nuclear power is banned in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland), and even the Coalition at state level is not welcoming the project. According to The Australian, Queensland LNP leader David Crisafulli has ruled out lifting the state’s nuclear ban if he wins the Queensland election in October (Coalition at odds on energy strategy. 19 June 2024: 4). The main plan to overcome the problem seems to be bribery (“Somebody famously said ‘I would not stand between the premier and a bucket of money’,”). However Dutton has implied several times that consultation could just involve the Commonwealth overruling the States, again an authoritarian neoliberal consultation process.
However, it is perhaps not surprising that the Minerals Council of Australia (the mining company Union) is in favour of nuclear but wants the ‘free market’ to sort it out, which effectively opposes the idea of government ownership (Tania Constable, End the ban on nuclear energy, and let the marketplace sort it out. The Australian 19 June 2024: 20). So they don’t have complete support from the plan there.
Apparently:
The United Arab Emirates is often put forward of an example Australia could follow. It took just 13 years to connect its first nuclear power plant, and is the only country in the world that has managed to successfully build nuclear from scratch in the last 30 years.
It is obviously not easy to do and that is 13 years after clearing all the political hurdles in Australia, If the Coalition gets in in 2025, and we assume 1 year to get the politics, money, ‘consultation,’ site acquisition, choosing builders and training workers out of the way, and start building, then it would be absolute best practice to have it running by 2039 – somewhat more in keeping the the CSIRO’s predictions that the Dutton predictions. However, Ted O’Brien and David Littleproud are now flagging that there might be two and a half years of local community consultation before the site details were finalised, although communities could not veto the sites. So that adds another year to year and a half to readiness times, making the best practice date 2040, not 2035-37 as promised.
The level of Coalition competence on design is also not impressive. Peter Dutton tweeted that:
“This [image] is the concept design of a zero emissions small modular reactor [SMR].”
This seems frighteningly naïve when it comes to any complex and potentially deadly technology.
That picture is not a concept design for an SMR, it is just a design for a building and setting, which might hold an SMR, a library, a country restaurant, or a cheese display.
A concept design would tell us something about how the SMR is supposed to work, what the materials it will be constructed out of are, what the cooling system is, what the safety system is, where the uranium and waste is stored etc…. You may note that this ‘concept design’ does not even have a fence, it is that insecure and open to terrorist attacks…. this is an empty fantasy drawing, not a design of any practical value.
Foreign Policy
It may now happen that our neighbours think we are going to acquire nuclear weaponry, a normal product of nuclear power, and make moves to defend themselves. This is not fiction. When the Coalition decided to buy nuclear submarines from the US
the US made it plain to senior members of the Morrison government that if there was any suggestion the submarine deal could precipitate any broader policy change in Australia – anything at all that could generate speculation about acquiring nuclear weapons, no matter how fanciful – the deal was off. It must not, under any circumstances, give rise to any extraneous suggestion that the US was bending non-proliferation rules.
That included any talk of establishing a civil nuclear industry.
So they broke their agreement and are now using the argument that nuclear powered submarines are safe, to imply nuclear energy is always safe.
Nuclear vs Renewables.
Apart from over-optimism, and abandonment of emissions reduction, the problems for nuclear and renewables come down to:
Which technology reduces emissions with most speed
How much energy do we need? Can either supply that amounts
Which is most cost effective
Can an economy run on renewables
Which produces less long term environmental problems
What kind of social organisation is required for either of them
Going backwards
6) Renewables will be obstructed by fossil fuel companies for several reasons; the first is the obvious that renewables almost immediately start reducing emissions and the need to make emissions, and potentially cause loss of profit for fossil fuel companies and leave investments in fossil fuels stranded, as they replace fossil fuels. In this policy, it seems that Nuclear as planned does not reduce emissions; it may increase them as gas is used for backup with inadequate power generation. Renewables also allow the slow and modular building of Community controlled energy supplies, local level energy, resilience if they can function when the grid is down, and give the community political power and local finance, as money does not leave the local area. Renewables can be used to encourage independence, local political engagement and choice. Nuclear does not, it remains under outside control. Given the Coalition’s apparent hostility to renewables, the aim seems to be to keep centralised control, fossil fuel company profits and corporate power rather than to solve the emissions problem. In fact there is no real sense from the nuclear position that pollution and emissions are a problem. So it may be that neoliberal corporate dominance is one of many systems incompatible with solving the challenge of climate change, and hence needs to be curtailed.
5) Both nuclear and renewables disrupt environments. Renewables can be built so that farming can continue. Wind farms can also be built offshore and are likely to acts as artificial reefs and attract marine life to boost fishing and tourism. With proper design renewables should create little non-recyclable waste, but that does require the right designs. Nuclear requires ongoing costs of fuel and damage from mining, transport of radioactive supplies and waste, often through residential areas. Waste needs safe storage, and nuclear involves very expensive decommissioning at the end of its life because of high risk to those cleaning up and the local environment. Nuclear portends continued threats to environments.
4) It is possible that a modern corporate economy cannot run on renewables, but then a modern corporate economy cannot run on only 7 nukes. A modern corporate economy cannot run with climate change worsening either. Renewables are expandable, so they might be able to deal with the energy requirements. We might just have to change the economy and lower energy requirements, but that will involve a lot of struggle.
3) The CSIRO is clear on cost. Renewables are far more cost effective than nuclear. Nuclear cost blowouts are apparently worse than cost blowouts for the Olympics. Renewables are cheaper to install even including storage and cables. If well designed they should allow farming. I would rather trust the CSIRO’s estimates than those of a politician who is not itemizing the costs, and may never itemize them. As a further statement, Tim Buckley, director of thinktank Climate Energy Finance says:
“The international experience shows that the western nuclear industry is plagued with massive delays and cost blowouts,”… noting the Vogtle nuclear power plant expansion in the US blew out to cost $35bn, while Britain’s Hinkley Point C plant has been delayed to 2031 and is on track to cost £33bn pounds ($63bn).
2) The question of the energy we need is hard to answer, because this changes all the time. If we have to change the economy, then we change the energy we need. Earlier I mentioned that coal is fading out, and we may need 300GW in the 2030s. This energy cannot be delivered by 7 nukes. It might be that the ideal solution is to develop both nuclear and renewables, but it seems clear that the Coalition does not want to do this, they want to restrict renewables and support gas as with their technology neutral gas led recovery from Covid. Again we may need to change the economy to survive.
1) Either technology could reduce emissions, if the policy and the technology is well designed and implemented. Again the problem seems to be that with only 7 nukes the Coalition’s policy is not designed to reduce emissions. It seems to be designed to generate more gas use at great expense to taxpayers. So the chance of using nuclear and renewables together has been abandoned.
The Conspiracy?
The Dutton nuclear plan
bear a striking resemblance to a policy Trevor St Baker and SMR Nuclear Technology have been advocating for several years, in evidence and submissions to federal and state parliamentary committees, in think tanks and in energy forums.
[St Baker is a patron of the extremely wealthy] Coalition for Conservation, One of its aims is to reach out to environmentalists, renewable energy experts and climate scientists to garner support for Coalition members
I’m not absolutely against nuclear energy, it could be really useful, but I am against nuclear energy when its being used as:
a) a distraction from reducing emissions;
b) in support of continued fossil fuel burning and;
c) to disrupt the replacement of fossil fuels by renewables.
All of these factors seem to be features of Dutton’s policy. The policy will not produce enough energy to make a difference to emissions. It will at best, and probably not at all, generate enough energy to replace some of the phased out coal. We probably need to build at least 40 full scale nukes with continuing expansion of renewables to make a difference; with no sign of that level of build out and the suppression of large scale renewables, the only way to give Australia the energy it wants is through more gas burning. There seems to be no guarantee that the plans can get through the various governmental oppositions. There is no evidence to suggest that it is really intended to. Chucking out the 2030 targets because they are too difficult, suggests that the 2050 targets will become too difficult too, which is great for fossil fuel companies. If the Coalition wanted nuclear to be successful they should have started about 20 years ago.
However, while some people say the deception is easily seen through, Dutton’s choice is not a death wish. He will get funding from mining and fossil fuel companies, he will get corporate and pro-Trump think tanks churning out material to justify him and clog social media. He will get support from Murdoch and probably most of the rest of the media. He will get unity in his Party, and he may even get some Russian and Chinese support through social media.
But then, taking a cue from the Anti-Voice campaign, which is much more appropriate for this policy at the moment….. Peter Dutton wrote:
“In refusing to provide basic information and answer reasonable questions on the Voice, you are treating the Australian people like mugs… your approach will ensure a dangerous and divisive debate grounded in hearsay and misinformation.”
For non-Australians, Peter Dutton is the leader of the opposition right wing party.
Whether you think Dutton is a bad thing is of course a matter of opinion.
Some people apparently think protecting fossil fuel company sales and profits is good, because they are the people who built the modern world and we should continue down that path.
Some people think climate change does not matter because a socialist conspiracy of scientists all over the world is far more probable than a conspiracy of right wing politicians, and corporations who are profiting, to deny climate change.
Some people think that not acting is a really bad choice that will kill Australians and lead to more floods, fires and droughts.
Some people think it is a really bad choice that will kill Australians and lead to more floods, fires and droughts, so we need the money from gas and coal exports….
Peter Dutton does not want fossil fuel energy to be replaced with renewable energy. As a result he has has claimed the 2030 Labor Party emissions targets are difficult and so are unobtainable, and they are bad for the economy, so he won’t bother to have any emissions reduction targets, or at least won’t bother to announce them before the next election. This protects fossil fuel emissions, and so he seems to be serious about protecting fossil fuel company profits.
In the old days would ‘Conservatives’ have shrunk from a problem because it was difficult?
His respect for the corporate economy seems much greater than his respect for human lives and the property of ordinary people. He seems to expect that it will be possible to attain the cutbacks by 2050, but of course with enough delay from not having any targets now those later targets probably won’t happen because they have also become way too difficult.
That is why he is proposing nuclear energy, which the CSIRO has said will be far more expensive than renewables plus all their oncosts of storage, cabling etc. At the best nuclear won’t be ready to run in Australia until 2040, which means at least another 16 years of fossil fuel profits. He almost certainly knows nuclear energy will not really get going, so as to replace all fossil fuels, for another 20 years after that, even if he wanted to. The problems of building the necessary 20 to 50 nuclear power stations at the same time in the one country nowadays are severe or possibly insurmountable, so it won’t happen. [We now know that they have no intention of replacing all fossil fuel generate energy with nuclear] Nuclear power also has huge costs for decommissioning, and for insurance (if you can get any). Taxpayers should not have to pay this or the billions in costs to build.
Nuclear energy also involves water for cooling so, in Australia, this probably means seaside plants only, as the rivers are already drying up. Nukes in France were shut down a year or so ago because of lack of water.
From a reducing climate turmoil point of view, Labor’s targets are inadequate as well, but far less inadequate than Dutton’s.
Dutton is also running around the country campaigning against windfarms at sea (10 or more Km away from habited zones), supposedly for both ecological and consulting with community reasons. Likewise National Party leader David Littleproud spent a day meeting with fishing and anti-wind farm groups opposed to plans for up to 200 floating turbines offshore between Wombarra and Kiama and said the Coalition was committed to overturning the two offshore wind zones now declared for the Illawarra and Port Stephens in the NSW Hunter.
“We should have a slow transition from some of our coal-fired power stations to nuclear power plants that are zero emissions and firm that up with gas and carbon capture storage, which is zero emissions as well,”
However the Coalition have never opposed offshore drilling despite it producing continual noise at depth, and being notably damaging to marine life. I’m also prepared to bet that he won’t go on endlessly about community consultation for nuke installation, if he is serious about it [again this does seem to be correct]. People will just have cop it, especially in Labor electorates, or it will not go ahead and fossil fuel company profits are guaranteed for even longer. which in his eyes seems good.
The latest move the US elites through the Atlas network, corporate bought think-tanks and Murdoch media, in their fight to preserve oil company profits, is not to focus entirely on denial of climate change or scientific conspiracy, as they are perhaps getting a little unpersuasive, but to try and get people worked up about industrial size renewables and their possible local ecological destructiveness. They do not seem to promote objection to industrial coal, gas or even diesel energy and mines, despite their documented detrimental ecological and health effects, especially when at sea, and so it seems less well organised.
There is some evidence to suggest that money is also following this trail from the USA to Australia, along with faked academic papers [2], and other fake news [3], [4], and ‘community resistance’ which has in some places been purchasing support. These activists also make sure not to ever mention the possibility of community led renewable energy – because it is (by definition) not corporate, and they do not bother to compare known effects of climate change with less likely effects of offshore wind warms.
Peter Dutton may well be following his American sponsors. He is probably also betting that Trump will win the next US Presidential election (which seems likely), and that result will be unrestrained action for oil companies and polluters (“Drill, baby, drill.”). Dutton, wants to support his American allies, because he wants to be on the winning side.
Whatever his policies are, Dutton’s choice is not a death wish as some have alleged. He will get funding from mining and fossil fuel companies, he will get corporate and pro-Trump think tanks churning out material to justify him, pay his supporters, and clog social media. He will get support from Murdoch and most of the rest of the media. He will get unity in his Party (who seem to be largely climate deniers), and the whole fossil fuel and corporate ‘Deep State’ will be behind him. He is obviously courting Gina Rinehart [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. He may even get some Russian support through social media, as Putin is keen to continue to sell fossil fuels, and may logically think climate change will make Russia more habitable and gain northern ports.
In terms of gaining victory Dutton is not making a foolish choice, in terms of looking after Australia, its people, wildlife and future, he is.
Even the inadequate Labor Party actions will not be allowed to continue if he wins.
Much of this writing depends upon observations by my PhD student Priya Pillai in India. This primarily about solar and wind. It does not cover biofuels.
Solar farms
Solar panels do not require much labour once they are installed. There are no moving parts, little to be serviced, nothing to be regulated, nothing to be consumed. On the whole, unless one of the electrical components breaks down, which requires skilled labour, there is almost nothing to do.
It is extremely unlikely that there would be enough demand to hire a local person to do this generally non-demanding labour, full time, unless it was a huge field.
The panels do need washing, which requires labour. However, it is repetitive, boring and often out in the heat unless the panels are designed so that air conditioned cleaning cars can drive between them.. Some sunlight will be reflected by the panels making the air hotter. (This needs checking but it seems plausible). If the panels are high enough for agriculture underneath, then it may require the cleaners to carry ladders in the heat.
Theoretically, this labour, if done by car, could be replaced by auto-cleaning systems, with little need for human labour.
The amount of labour used in solar farms, compared to the amount of energy released, is small.
The main issue is paying back the capital and energy expenditure to build it.
Given the low profit margins of solar during the day when it is competing against other solar, it is probable that labour expenses will be cut to make profit.
The profit would probably come from stored power, but this is also competing against other stored power.
With the potentially low profit margins, it might become hard to persuade corporations to lead the renewable transition. There is no ‘supply’ of materials needed to power the power stations, as there is with fossil fuels, which carry a constant profit. But competition from cheap energy may undermine even that source of revenue.
Wind Farms
Wind farms do require skilled labour. They do have moving parts and machinery, and need servicing.
They are more prone to breakdown and fires than are solar panels
It is possible that this could provide limited skilled labour for locals. But contract and non-union labour is to be expected, with the usual high-stress lower-wages syndromes, unless unions can get involved.
The labour is quite dangerous, but probably not much more than in building. [I need to check the accident rate on windfarms.]
In Priya’s fieldwork, there are stories of people being injured on the wind turbine job and receiving no insurance cover.
General problems of renewable labour
The labour is not intensely social. It may be more so in wind, but the people that workers interact with are limited.
This will probably mean the work is not done well.
Both wind and solar are outdoor jobs and likely to be subject to increasing heat. A recent International Labour Organization report estimated that 70% of the world’s 3.4 billion workforce will be exposed to excessive heat at some point. The US has no federal standards, even though the Biden administration has requested that the Occupational Safety and Health Association draft standards.
When we talked to people working on a solar farm in South Australia, they remarked at the personal loss involved in the transition from a coal fired power station to solar. In the coal station, everything they did was important, and involved detailed collaboration. As supervisors of a solar farm they did very little except stand around, and it felt that nothing really depended on them. Solar work was generally boring, as well as emotionally unsatisfying. In more academic terms the work was meaningless and almost completely alienating.
Side effects
In Australia one of the big side effects of renewable energy is that it may set up new or intensified inequalities in towns.
Those people renting the land to the farm company get new injections of cash. If they are farmers this may mean that they are still well off in bad farming years. It may also mean that they can, again, afford to send their children away to private schools, further breaking connections with the rest of the community.
Companies still tend to conduct their rental negotiations in private, and hold public ‘neoliberal consultations’ in which the result they want is already assumed.
This leads to people being resentful and alienated from the setting up and installation process, and often angry that their environment is being altered, without any obvious benefit to them. To solve ecological problems, we want people to be concerned about their environment and then the process of saving it, modifies it with little consultation.
Likewise the lack of jobs, and local payments (there is dispute about this, as it appears to depend entirely on the company) does not encourage acceptance. There are few local benefits to compensate for the disruption.
The locals may not even get electricity from the local site.
It may also be the case that the town receives lots of applications for renewable farms, and there are too many demands to process properly.
Ecological and Land problems
One type of land problem for solar, is that the panels can be installed very close to the ground, altering or even destroying plant growth, or overtly removing the ground from farm or public use.
These low panels with shade and ease of hiding may encourage nuisance animals
In India, it seems common for land to be ‘stolen’ from people by fake contracts or contracts which people have not had explained to them, to be used for solar or wind farms. Obviously this practice leaves people in a worse place than previously.
People who have sold their land, have cash, but no continuous source of income, making them vulnerable in the long term.
The land taken can become private property and is fenced off. This is a problem because people have previously used the land as commons, to graze animals on.
The Dalit (lowest level caste) frequently have no, to little, land. This removal of common land from the area, affects their ability to survive locally. They may not be able to graze animals, or to supervise grazing for others.
Dalits often work the land of bigger land owners for wages or food. If the land is fenced off for renewable farms, there is less work available for them, and hence life becomes more precarious.
There is little work on the renewable farms especially for women. Many jobs are security guards to police the borders and keep people from damaging the panels or turbines
People may have to walk to nearby villages, in the heat, and compete with other locals for work rather than rely on traditional bonds.
This also produces alienated labour in that people are not working for people they have long standing connections and ties to. This also renders them more vulnerable in times of stress, as mere employers will feel less responsibility.
It is generally considered that women walking long distances by themselves are vulnerable to attack, or scandal. So it affects women more than men.
Panels still need cleaning. This requires water. And may mean extra demands on underground aquifers. This may make water more expensive for ordinary people. There is some evidence to suggest that some companies engage in water theft, or that the water table is declining given the extra demand. Shortages may be increased due to climate change.
Climate Change
Weather and ecologies will change. This is largely unpredictable in a changing complex system.
Because of extra water and shade new plants can develop, with new animal life. Creatures can chew cables etc., or spread into neighboring fields.
Solar farms do not want trees, or other shade plants. So they can be cut down. This might change local temperatures for labour
Theoretically nothing stops farms using high solar panels, or windfarms, from grazing, or perhaps other agriculture.
New flooding might be a problem, requiring labour to fix, but probably this would involve imported labour.
Wind might decline or increase too much.
Community Energy
Most of these problems arise because the farms are being run by distant corporate organisations, which have few local ties beyond cash transaction. In a way they are perhaps more difficult to deal with than fossil fuel companies, who are bound to place in a way these renewable companies are not, as yet. Fossil fuel companies generally provide reasonable amounts of labour, and invest in the town, and local media (through advertisements). So at the moment, fossil fuel activity may even be more popular than renewable.
However, if people opt for, and can deliver community energy, despite all the regulatory obstacles then some of these problems may be solved.
As a local organisation they will be interested in using local labour, possibly to build, and probably to maintain.
They are likely to be aware of, and concerned with, heat problems for labour.
The labour is slightly less likely to be alienated as people know each other from the town, and if the energy supplies the town is likely to be considered valuable.
They are able to choose land that most people are happy with using.
Knowing local climate and flood patterns might help local farms survive.
They are more likely to consider the issues of land use, and allow alternate land use, such as grazing, if it seems possible or necessary.
They are perhaps less likely to destroy common land, if it is still being used by people.
The money locals pay for electricity is likely to stay in the town rather than be exported to the corporations, cities or overseas, and contribute to more local labour and investment.
Energy and Labour
Labour turns food into directable energy, often produces organisation of production and produces waste (at least excretion, and dispersed heat or entropy). The steam engine provided new energy, greater quantities of waste, ways of organising labour, and diminishing the capacity of labour to be self-supporting (in Marx’s terms, labourers no longer owned the means of production, or held the means of production in common, or by tradition).
As a source of energy, labour can be replaced by other energy, with other forms of waste generation and pollution. The intelligent and directional part of labour can be replaced by computer, or design, programs. Sometimes this change can end up providing more and better jobs, but that is tied up with power relations. Capitalists tend to design tech to get rid of costs (labour is a cost) and to get rid of their dependency on human skills. Hence the chances are high the technology design can be about disempowering laboutr Steam engines did not bring quality jobs, working or living conditions. They helped displace people from the land, greater concentration of people in cities to give greater competition for wages, and adding inhuman control over workers.
It is conceivable that with cheap renewables, cheap (possibly almost free) energy, storage, and AI, that human labour could diminish, leading to general poverty, without a new way of distributing income.
Energy tends to end up being involved in social power. Those people with social power have access to energy, whether it is human labour, the potential labour stored in money, machines, control over weaponry, and so on. As said previously in this blog, the energy and riches elite has so far been a polluter elite. Cutting pollution has been strongly resisted, and cutting energy and distributing it more equitably may also be resisted. We might even describe a more universal ‘class war’ as a struggle between the owners and controllers of energy (who want to maintain that control, power and security), and those who labour or use energy.
Living systems take energy from outside their own fuzzy boundaries in the form of sunlight and/or food.
The boundaries are fuzzy, because the living system would not exist without the food and sunlight. They use this energy to build, repair and develop themselves.
In this building, repairing and developing, living systems turn energy sources into waste, in the form of excreta: gasses, liquids and ‘solids’.
In a coherently evolved system this ‘waste’ then acts as food for other beings (plants, insects, worms, etc). The waste does not accumulate, poison or overwhelm the system as a whole, but is ‘recycled’ as part of the Gaia system.
Eventually most living systems either change through processes of evolution, start to run down, or can no longer extract enough energy to keep their processes completely functional. They wear out and die – assuming that they do not die by accident or through feeding some other being. As they wear down the chances of accident increase – they can avoid fewer accidents or recover from them as well as previously.
We can call this process, after it starts, “physical entropy” to distinguish it from normal entropy which is the dispersion of energy, into non-usable forms (usually as heat).
Social generation of Physical Entropy
All social systems, like all other systems, generate entropy or energy dispersion. This what they do. As long as the Sun keeps going this is not a problem for Gaia as a whole, although systems which use non-renewable energy may face considerable challenge.
‘Physical entropy’ likewise happens normally, but can also be generated by economic and social systems, to a degree which overwhelms these social and economic processes.
Sometimes this may arise from the system slowly suiciding, although the system may be able to responsively change and adapt, and not suicide (as argued in the Toynbee cycle [1]).
This blog considers social generation of ‘illth,’ the term John Ruskin developed for the generally ignored (by the elites), but socially generated forms of harm which manifest as increasing physical entropy. Illth is the opposite of wealth. Ruskin appears to argue that true wealth is collective.
The blog recognises Illth as arising from the following processes. There may be more.
Pollution: when materials are released into the ecologies, which are poisonous or non-reprocessable by those ecologies. It is contrasted to recyclable ‘waste.’
Dispersion: when essential materials are dispersed into the ecology, and require too much energy to be able to recompile. Contemporary Marxists talk about this as the ‘metabolic rift’.
Destructive extraction: when the process of gathering essential materials destroys or poisons ecologies, faster than they can regenerate, or makes regeneration impossible in a humanly ‘reasonable time frame’.
Harmful production: when the process and products of economic action hurt beings. This includes harmful labour and work which poisons people, causes them to develop occupational or consumerist illnesses, distracts them from challenges, hurts their modes of being and thinking, and so on.
Expansion – involves a society or a social process growing beyond the ability of the ecology, or the extraction system (etc) to support it. Expansion can also involve military force aiming to get new ‘resources’. Any social feature which demands increasing ‘growth’ is going to lead to crisis in a finite bounded system, possibly fairly quickly. Estimates show that we already ‘overshoot’ or consume more in a year than the planet can produce in a year. This should show that continual growth is no longer an option. In 2023 we consumed Earth’s production by the 2 August. In 1971 we consumed it by nearly the end of December, so the increase of destruction is marked. We are already highly indebted with a lowering income.
[I don’t know if this is correct or not, but these figures result from using the exponential growth calculator. Let us assume that we currently consume 1 earth per year and are just about balanced. Let us also assume that we grow at 2% per year. That’s pretty small by capitalist standards, probably bad for business. In just 100 years (assuming this would be possible without interruption or collapse), we end up consuming 7.2 Earths per year. That is clearly not ‘sustainable’. Continuing expansion is destructive]
Physical entropy can be ‘natural’ and the system slowly evolves to a new equilibrium (attractor point).
Power Relations and Physical Entropy.
As shown, in social systems, physical entropy can be generated by unconsidered social processes, or through elites ignoring both the entropic challenges which are arising and the energy needs for repair. They presumably are worrying about other things, or severely implicated in producing the entropy to maintain their status or power, and worry about other things to keep themselves from worrying about their own self-destructiveness.
Social entropy often involves power relations, or the ability to keep on generating illth processes, against opposition, or evidence of impending collapse.
Power relations allow pollution to be usually dumped on the relatively poor and powerless. Elites think they will be immune.
Power relations and technologies allow elites to consider that dispersion of materials will be overcome by economic need and economic processes.
Power relations allow people and other beings to be dispossessed from their land or water (or even killed), and for that ecology to be destroyed. The inhabitants and users are ignored, while the elites consider themselves immune.
Harmful production: the elites consider themselves immune from harming others, and are able to make people work in harmful labour.
Power relations make expansion continue, because it is thought be elites to be essential, and it gives the less powerful some hope of sharing in social wealth.
The more energy is dispersed and systems start to break down (perhaps because of power relations) the more vulnerable the system becomes to accident overtaking the ability to repair, especially with cumulative accidents, such as wild weather events coming one after the other. Hence the system is also likely to collapse, unless this challenge is dealt with. For example, the Lismore floods reached 11.6m in march 2017. Repairs were not complete before the record floods of 2022 when the flood level reached 14.4m. Lismore today is still full of damaged and unusable buildings (personal observation), and obviously there is some lack of human energy, because we don’t know how long it will be before the town and surrounds seriously floods again.
Capitalism, Developmentalism and power
Capitalism and developmentalism, especially their neoliberal forms, can be considered as a systems of: power relations, exchange, production, and illth generation.
Many other systems are systems of production and exchange which are not remotely capitalist – unless you are willing to define capitalism so generally that even a working communism would count as capitalism.
Many other economic systems can generate illth production. Overthrowing capitalism may not be either necessary or enough to stop illth. We are simply referring to the obvious present.
Neoliberal Capitalism and developmentalism (and state communism if you wish) seem patterned by their illth production and the power relations that allow this to continue.
As cleaning up, not polluting, not dispersing, not destroying etc, cost companies money, and therefore subtract from profit, capitalist organisations will make non-destructive behaviour secondary and consider illth to be an externality which is no concern of theirs, unless they are compelled to prevent it by regulations and legislation. Pro-corporate politicians will often try and remove any restrictions on pollution as part of their service to profitable polluters and destroyers.
Power relations and normal capitalist processes of advertising, PR, hype, marketing, misdirection, etc, also corrupt the production and distribution of information, and disempower movements against illth. Workers do not have the knowledge to act and face the dangers or asking. For example: Exxon knew about climate change and denied it to maintain sales and profit [1]. [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8].
Not Suiciding by Physical Entropy
Not suiciding or system continuance, requires, at a minimum:
1) System repair: Systems that are wearing out, need repair or replacement. Repair or replacement need available energy, money, ‘resources’ and organisation.
2) Maintaining renewable resources: Renewable resources (including oxygen production), should not be used, or destroyed, faster, than they can regenerate.
3) Replacement of non renewable resources: non-renewable resources should be replaced by renewable ones, wherever possible.
4) Fewer physical entropy and illth generating actions: Only production of recyclable waste and less pollution, less dispersion, less destructive extraction, less harmful labour.
5) Careful waste production: no waste should be produced faster than it can be recycled or re-processed. Obviously that includes CO2 and other Greenhouse gases.
6) Recovering awareness: Less unconsciousness of the social and economic destruction of systems that support continuance – ecologies, other people and so on.
7) Better information sources, that are independent of corporations and governments.
These are all relatively obvious, sensible and logical processes, hence they have been avoided for 50 or so years. We cannot assume that sense and logic is persuasive to the elites or the populace.
You might not think there is any good energy news, with the current electricity price crisis which will probably result in not a few deaths over the northern winter.
However, the fossil fuel companies are showing major increases in their profit [1] [2] [3] [4]. While this is a boon if you are an investor, it may also be good for the transition as, for once, increasing profit is getting attention – perhaps because this hurts other companies as well as ordinary people. The fossil fuel companies could well appear to be profiteering in this price crises and rejoicing in the expected deaths or, at best, doing nothing to diminish the number. This is not a good look.
The price of fossil fuel electricity is rising and perhaps encouraging renewables
The International Energy Agency states:
High gas and coal prices account for 90% of the upward pressure on electricity costs around the world. …
A key question for policy makers, and for this Outlook, is whether the crisis will be a setback for clean energy transitions or will catalyse faster action. Climate policies and net zero commitments were blamed in some quarters for contributing to the run-up in energy prices, but there is scant evidence for this. In the most affected regions, higher shares of renewables were correlated with lower electricity prices, and more efficient homes and electrified heat have provided an important buffer for some – but far from enough – consumers. ….
[It is possible that] New policies in major energy markets [will] help propel annual clean energy investment to more than USD 2 trillion by 2030 in the STEPS, a rise of more than 50% from today.
While it is still possible to blame Putin and ignore the profiteering, or indeed blame renewables, EU Executive Vice-President Timmermans and Commissioner Simson essentially supported the IEA, announcing that
Putin’s war has stoked an energy crisis in Europe that continues to have huge repercussions. In response, we have moved swiftly to secure alternative supplies, accelerate the rollout of renewables, and start reducing gas demand to ensure European citizens are safe for winter.
We need to understand that the pre-war situation with abundant, cheap fossil fuels is not coming back
First, [our action] brings a European reduction in electricity consumption of 10%. During peak-hours, electricity consumption must go down at least 5% so we avoid using the most expensive gas-fired power plants and bring down the price of energy. This will be mandatory, so that the targets are met by everyone
Second, our package proposes a European mechanism for collecting and redistributing the exceptional surplus profits and revenues that the war in Ukraine has brought several energy companies. This can generate up to € 117 billion for Member States to support European households and businesses who face unsurmountable energy bills.
Our dependence on Russian gas is down from 40% to 9%. Storage in every Member State is quickly nearing the required 80%, and the EU-average, as the President said this morning, is close to 84%. We are all saving more and more energy. And the pace of renewables being rolled out is steadily rising.
In the end, our green energy transition is the only way to rid ourselves of Putin’s energy yoke and it will create energy sovereignty in Europe. The era of cheap fossil fuels is over and the faster we move to cheap, clean, and home-grown renewables, the sooner we will be immune to Russia’s energy blackmail and anybody else who may think they can blackmail us with energy.
There is other evidence for the increasing build of renewables in the EU, despite increased costs. Bloomberg New Energy Finance announced that:
Surging energy costs are expected to help drive yet another record year for new solar installations in Europe. As households look to lower their energy bills, residential solar build in the region is forecast to hit 10.4 gigawatts in 2022, a 42% increase from a year earlier… This is projected to propel annual solar additions in Europe to an all-time high of 41 gigawatts this year, on the way to 93 gigawatts by the end of the decade. The momentum comes despite elevated prices for modules due to the raised cost of key raw material polysilicon.
It also seems we have the money to get through transition, only its currently being invested in fossil fuels. The IISD has announced new meta-research (ie researching the research on pathways through climate change) which says we can probably stay under 1.5 degrees increase if:
1) Global oil and gas production decreases by at least 65% by 2050
2) No new oil and gas fields are started
3) The planned investments in new oil and gas to 2030 were used to fully finance the scale-up of wind and solar energy needed.
In Australia, Beyond Zero Emissions in their Deploy report argue that:
81% emissions reduction is achievable by 2030 with an ambitious rollout of cleantech over the next five years, supported by targeted carbon drawdown. This can create up to 195,000 jobs and repower Australia’s manufacturing regions.
Six technologies – all available today – will do the heavy lifting: solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric vehicles, heat pumps and electrolysers.
The drawdown seems to be primarily agricultural, putting carbon in the soil – which does have some problems of easy measurement and validation. It would account for 10% of the decline total, so 71% decline can be achieved without it.
The Australian e-news site RenewEconomy open a recent article with:
Brookfield Asset Management is a global giant with assets of around $A1 trillion. Andrew Forrest, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar are Australia’s three richest men. All are committed to accelerating Australia’s green energy transition. A shortage of capital is not the problem here.
My guess is that this quick transition would be even more possible, if we stopped subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuel companies. This stoppage could be justified by their current high profits…. Not that any Australian government would probably survive that attempt.
But we do need wiring for the transition. In a tweet Jenny Chase from Bloomberg remarked:
We don’t need a technology breakthrough. Today, solar developers just need a grid connection and permission to sell electricity and they’ll be off building solar plants whether it’s a good idea or not.
And the Australian government has just promised to make sure grid connections exist, through the Rewiring the Nation project:
The proposal would provide $20 billion of equity equally over 3 years, from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2025 to create a new public non-financial corporation, which would be: • responsible for building, managing and operating the Australian Energy Market Operator Integrated System Plan transmission network • mandated to earn a rate of return that is sufficient to cover its financial and operational costs
Labor has promised $20bn to “rewire the nation” by accelerating the construction of new electricity transmission links between states and regions as the east coast power grid moves from running predominantly on coal power to renewable energy. Modelling for Labor by the consultants RepuTex suggested it would help lift renewable energy generation from about 35% to 82% by 2030.
In the UK something similar was announced, but the political confusion make it harder to be optimistic.
National Grid announced this summer it was making a £54bn upgrade to the electricity network, the biggest since the 1960s, to help connect offshore windfarms more easily and enable battery storage facilities to connect up to store renewable power, a crucial issue in the industry
Likewise in the US, a much smaller amount of US$13bn has also been announced to modernize the U.S. power grid using allocations from the infrastructure law. This is claimed to be the “biggest federal investment in transmission and distribution in U.S. history”.
the administration has also issued approvals for several interstate transmission lines that will span Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and California and unlock capacity of about six gigawatts
This is a bit more recent, but the Australian Electricity Market Operator has announced a roadmap to prepare the grid to run on 100% renewables. AEMO expects 100% renewables going without fossil fuel backup going for intervals of time by 2025.
The Engineering Roadmap to 100% Renewables provides an overview of the engineering challenges and associated actions that will need to be undertaken to operate the NEM for the first period of 100% instantaneous penetration of renewables, and the actions required to satisfy more regular operation at 100% renewable penetration. Responsibility for undertaking these actions and meeting the technical requirements identified in this report will ultimately be shared across many parties, including AEMO, NSPs, market bodies, market participants, and governments
Coal plants take many hours, or even days, to restart operation, so once taken offline, they can’t be relied on to meet immediate intraday energy demands, or provide system restart services. Operating regularly with 100% renewable power also means reducing the need for regular reliance on gas-fired generators to firm the electricity supply. Operating a gigawatt-scale power system at 100% instantaneous renewable generation is a feat unparalleled worldwide.
The main obstacles are storage and renewable source “inverters, which don’t inherently deliver all of the same stabilising attributes that traditional synchronous generators provide to the power system.”
They also realise that “The human dimensions of this transition are as important as the technical requirements”.
Polling
Polling continues to show most Australians want action on climate change. This is possibly not a big deal as Australians wanted such action all through the last government’s reign, and where ignored or did not vote for it. However, the figures indicate there is support for action. Analysis of the latest Australia Institute Climate of the Nation Poll says:
Three-quarters (75%) of Australians are concerned about climate change, the same level of concern seen in 2021 and the highest since Climate of the Nation began. The intensity of concern has increased as well, with record high levels of those who are ‘very concerned’ about climate change (42%).
The top three climate impacts of concern are more droughts and flooding affecting crop production and food supply (83%), more bushfires (83%), and the extinction of animal and plant species (80%).
This indicate that Australians are actually aware of the levels of weather damage we are suffering from, and their likely effects on food and wildlife, despite the Murdoch Empire’s constant agitation against recognition of damage, or engaging in climate action.
Weather seems to be connected to coal based power by the resopondents.
79% of Australians believe that Australia’s coal-fired power stations should be phased out… 31%… think they should be phased out as soon as possible… 65% of Australians want coal-fired power generation completely ended within the next 20 years, including 38% who want it ended within the next decade…
64% of Australians support stopping new coal mines…. 73% think Australian governments should plan to phase out coal mining and transition into other industries…
ibid
Australians also seem to be losing faith in the ability of markets to solve all problems as
64% agree that failure by the market to prepare for a transition away from fossil fuels has led to electricity price increases, including 31% that strongly agree
ibid.
Conclusion
So while I still think we need more local action, and more overt political support, there are signs that things might be changing and people are thinking it might be entirely disastrous if we start showing our support for action…
Problem 1: Climate change is one part of a general mode of ecological destruction. It is not the total, and possibly not even the most important ecological problem we have. It may even distract us from the rest of the destruction. For instance we may do nothing about potential ocean death, or the decline in availability of phosphorus.
Problem 2: it appears that achieving contemporary ‘developed’ life, and military defense, requires massive energy consumption.
Problem 3: It is not yet demonstrated that capitalism can run with no ecological destruction, and no freeloading, or without growing ecological destruction, and without growing energy consumption.
Problems with the energy transition
Renewables make a tiny percentage of the total energy supply, although a reasonable percentage of electricity supply. They constitute about 5-8% of total energy supply if you don’t count biofuels or hydro, which are probably pretty much fixed.
While renewables are increasing, so are fossil fuels, and so are emissions and the amount of GHG (greenhouse gas in the atmosphere)
One big question is “How do we generate enough energy to manufacture the renewables we need rapidly?” as there is not enough spare Renewable energy to do this.
The answer is probably via fossil fuels – again new energy production may be needed, because we don’t have much spare. So the phase out may increase emissions for a while, and increase the problems.
Renewables are supposedly now cheaper to build and install, so this problem should diminish.
However, if we do “electrify everything” such as automobiles, then we need even more renewables, or else there is not that much point.
Emissions will not diminish if renewables (or other energy sources) do not replace fossil fuels, and emissions do not peak soon….. We cannot risk more emissions.
Reducing emissions, not only requires renewables, but probably requires some kind of degrowth.
Developing countries don’t want degrowth as it gives them less military power and prosperity, and developed countries won’t degrow because they think it will lose votes and corporate profits, and they keep promoting fossil fuels as the cheapest and easiest thing for developing countries, probably because they have been bought by fossil fuel companies.
However, life as was lived in the west in the 1960s say was ok, and released a lot less GHG emissions than we do nowadays. It was also incredibly energy inefficient, so we may well be able to attain that kind of life level for most everyone, if we wanted.
Renewables require minerals, and mining is ecologically destructive. The only compensation for the new mining being done is that coal, gas and oil mining are also ecologically destructive, and getting more so, as supplies get more difficult to find (you don’t go for tar sands, deep sea oil and coal-seam gas if you have better fields).
If open slather mining destruction is stopped, the price of minerals increases, and the transition slows.
At the moment we have masses of lithium, but like everything else it is exhaustible, and prices will increase, the greater the demand.
However, people are searching for other kinds of battery, such as weight driven batteries. I’ve certainly heard people say that lithium storage is not the way to go. (People are always talking about the endless creativity of capitalism, but for some reasons those people do not talk about it when it comes to renewables)
Many places have the prices of electricity tied to the most expensive source, which means that people rarely get rewarded for paying for renewables unless they have them personally. They still have to pay the price of fossil fuels, and deal with company profiteering. Fossil fuel profits are wildly up at the moment as there is no competition between fossil fuel companies. Fossil fuel companies have the dilemma of do we sell the stuff now while we can, or do we wait and slowly keep lifting the price. They need increased revenue to deal with the more difficult fields which they are likely to be left with. Gas fields are still relatively big, and easy, but we have seen the price of gas increase massively, which also suggests something like keeping production low and price high is happening.
The fossil fuel companies are incredibly rich and powerful, and will do everything to inhibit the transition, as it would mean the end of their riches and power. They are not making a transition at all – they are depending upon everyone failing to make the transition.
We can hope for improved nuclear or fusion tech, but this does not seem to be happening. Fusion is having successes, but they are small. I have seen reports that China is rolling out small reactors, but they typically have no data, and the CSIRO had no access to any real data about costs and electricity generated. Large scale nuclear appears to be slow, usually taking far more time and money than estimated to build, as well as its other problems.
AS climate damage increases, money and energy will be diverted away from the energy transition, into repair or preparation for the next set of damage. We cannot deal with cumulative catastrophe even now, never mind another 20 years.
As the problem seems insolvable people will invent fantasy solutions to help them cope with the reality. These will be theoretically feasible, but in practice which serve to keep fossil fuels going with the hope we can easily solve the problem soon. Things like carbon credits, carbon capture and storage. This can be called saved by imaginary technology.
Another way forward, is to give up on national action and encourage villages to be self supporting on solar or wind, and just accepting that sometimes the energy will be low.
It is very possible that the amount of low emissions energy will not increase at the rate we need, and that the amount of fossil fuels being burnt will also not decrease at the rate we need. We may need to degrow, and to value other things. But that does involve changing society.
“The main conclusion of the vast majority of 100% renewable energy systems studies, is that such systems can power all energy in all regions of the world at low cost”
Pessimism
However we can also read that is appears that tax payers all over the world, are still subsidising their own destruction.
An analysis of 51 countries responsible for 86% of electricity coonsumption, showed that global public subsidies for fossil fuels almost doubled to $700bn in 2021 largely through government subsidies of electricity prices.
Fatih Birol Director of the International Energy Agency remarked “Fossil fuel subsidies are a roadblock to a more sustainable future, but the difficulty that governments face in removing them is underscored at times of high and volatile fuel prices,”
And Mathias Cormann, the OECD secretary general (!!!well known for collaborating with climate/ecological damage denial governments in Australia) said “Significant increases in fossil fuel subsidies encourage wasteful consumption, while not necessarily reaching low-income households… We need to adopt measures which protect consumers [and] help keep us on track to carbon neutrality, as well as energy security and affordability”
Estimates including implicit subsidies, ie the cost of the climate and air pollution damage caused by fossil fuels, are far higher. These amounted to $5.9tn in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund, or $11m a minute
There is a long standing argument, going back at least to the early 19th Century, that complicated technologies intrinsically distance, or alienate, people from the natural world. Rather than interacting with the world face to face, as it were, complicated tech separates us from reality. It does most of the thinking and interaction and transformative work. It is like the difference between swords and missiles. They are both designed to kill. One gives you responsibility and the presence of death and what it means, while the other distances you from the mass death you are causing.
To some extent I think this argument might be correct. For example, the idea of overlaying reality with virtual images, could be the absolute instance of separation from the real world and its dynamics. We could, in theory, choose only to see days without pollution, destruction, misery or poverty, and thus cease to recognise that these problems exist. We could choose to make the world more interesting in fantastic ways, to also distract us from the accumulation of real problems which might require political action, rather than heroic questing for virtual items.
However, there is another argument that the problem is not so much technologies themselves, or the development of new technologies, but that technologies can be used and designed for oppressive or alienating purposes. For instance, industrial technology, throughout the 20th Century and now was generally not used to boost the craft, creativity or involvement of the workers in production and work, but to deskill them, control them second by second, and render them as replaceable as possible so as to increase the profit and power of another class of people who owned the tech.
Similarly with the media. We have the capacity for a ‘democratic’ and mass participatory media, but we do not have this – we have billionaire owned and controlled huge media corporations which are primarily devoted towards gaining an audience for advertising and to promote the media owner’s power and influence. We have online ghettoization into conflicting ‘information groups’ which reinforce bias and unreality (of other people of course!), which is encouraged by the algorithms set up by facebook and twitter etc. Youtube shows just tend to reuse the mainstream politicised material and exaggerate the views of the audience they want to attract – also for subscriptions and advertising purposes.
This is quite natural. Systems of social power and organisation generally aim at perpetuating those systems of power and organisaton, or increasing the rigour and effectiveness of that power, so as to benefit the dominant groups, and technology can be designed to be one of the tools in that process.
However sometimes technology can have unintended effects which may undermine dominance, produce destruction or which can be exploited by those who have to use it. This may undermine power and organisation. Thus fossil fuel use while responsible for many societies success, is likely to produce the conditions for their failure. Computers and internet, allowed the boom of new companies and new business models which have disrupted the corporate sector, and allowed new groups to participate, but the technologies have become reintegrated into that sector, transforming it in some ways and extending its power in others.
In all of these senses, technology is often a site of political struggle between dominant and exploited or oppressed groups, to use the tech as either a mode of control or a mode of ‘humanisation’.
It is for example, possible to see a struggle in energy transition. To simplify. There are those who struggle to retain: the established modes of energy production; the value of the capital invested in that technology; and the social dominance, and market influence, control over that technology gives them. There are those who seek to replace the established powers with massive wind or solar farms which retain the centralised energy and power structures of the old system, and those who seek to use renewable energy to boost the social power, independence, resilience and control of local communities who share and distribute the energy generated.
At the moment, it is not clear who will win the energy technology struggle, but governments tend to side with the first two positions. This should change. People into community energy usually now realise that they don’t just face technical problems, but the political and organisational problems of possibly deliberate resistance.
Hence the importance of the recognition that the problem may not always be the technology but the way it is used, and the power relations embedded in it.
This blog note is an unfinished attempt to say something about the basis of ethics, legitimation, delegitimation and the struggles around them in the NSW country town of Narrabri, and the surrounding Narrabri Shire. While this is all highly provisional, it can be stated that the main struggle appears to occur within the context of ‘resources curse’.
Public Domain map of NSW from Ian.Macky.net [Unintended distortion by the blog software?]
Introducing Narrabri
The Narrabri region, as referred to here, is an area in the Northwest of NSW, often (but not always) called ‘the Northwest’, not just Narrabri town, or shire. It is cursed with plenty and lack of resources, both of which are issues because of climate change. Most of the time I will call the area the Northwest.
The Northwest has plentiful supplies of coal and gas, and a marked lack of water, through prolonged drought and possibly declining water tables. The Northwest used to be primarily a farming area, but farms are now hard pressed, and threated by recent mining, with coal dust and threatened damage to the water table through gas mining. There are also large cotton farms which may provoke more water shortages for smaller farms.
As shall be covered in more detail later on both the Federal and State governments seem keen to have more fossil fuel mines and have supported the mining companies in this area. These kind of events may foreshadow the outcome of the 2021 COP – we can also think of a massive expansion of Chinese coal mining [1], [2], and a UN report which apparently claims the world is going to increase fossil fuel emissions until at least 2040, almost three times higher than what’s needed to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius.
We may be seeing the Green Paradox ramp up [3], [4] – the idea that as it becomes likely coal, and even gas, will be phased out, there is an commercial and ethical imperative to sell or use as much as possible. This is a position encouraged by a massive price increase for coal, going from $US60.00 per ton October last year to $US230.00 per ton this month.
If we are going to try and specify groups, we can specify: farmers, business people in town, mining workers, residents close to mines (usually farmers), residents distant from mines (townsfolk) and Gomoroi people.
Legitimacy struggles
The situation in the Northwest involves an ethical struggle over the legitimacy of fossil fuel mining. Because there is no agreed on basis for ethics, it is hard to resolve this situation totally through the application of ethics alone; it seems probable there are large irresolvable differences between the positions of various social groups/categories. As suggested earlier, ethics is a matter of relative social power between different social group or categories, group identities, relative ‘structural’ positions between groups, changing or maintaining cosmologies, changing or maintaining customs and habits and changing contexts or framings, and arguments over those contexts and framings. It can in the final case depend on threat, violence and exclusion.
It seems to me that the legitimacy argument in the Northwest has several interactive strands, based on the factors just discussed. As also previously suggested legitimacy is not distributed equally between all sections of the population and involves struggle just like ethics. Legitimacy may also be risked any time it is asserted.
Maintaining and changing customs and habits
Fossil fuels are established and familiar, they involve established customs and habits, and modes of organisation. The way forward is relatively clear. This lends legitimacy and ethical potency. Renewable Energy may require new customs, new habits and new modes of organisation, as well as generate new forms of instability while becoming established, and so looks precarious and illegitimate.
There is a sense that the company itself claims to support local customs and improve them for example:
The Santos Festival of Rugby was a momentous success for Narrabri Shire and Santos, bringing the community together after prolonged drought and the COVID-19 pandemic for three days of rugby action in February…. The exciting pre-season game saw the Waratahs claim victory over the Reds, taking home a $25,000 reward and the prestigious Santos Cup.
In preparation for the festival, Santos upgraded Dangar Park with broadcast quality stadium lighting and installed wi-fi connectivity into the clubrooms, which will potentially attract more large-scale events in the future. The economic benefits to the community have been warmly welcomed. The event injected approximately $700,000 into the community through Santos’ direct spend with local suppliers, as well as indirect spend on hospitality and accommodation from visitors.
Other stories in the ‘Community News’, point out the company is going to be net-zero emissions by 2040, which seems improbable, that it is “supporting local business,” “part of the community” and so on. Trying to establish it is one of ‘us’, and generous.
Other people are also mining fossil fuels and selling them, why shouldn’t we?
Cosmology: Prosperity and development
This might be called a society wide pragmatic frame, but it also involves cosmology – in the sense that accepted wisdom implies this is the way the world works, and is the way the world works for the best – the assumption is that abandoning this frame is the first step to chaos.
Fossil fuels have brought what is defined as prosperity and development, where development is defined as the process of increasing material prosperity, increasing technical sophistication and boosting military security. Prosperity and development are defined as good, and as a purpose of life which should be spread throughout the planet – the undeveloped world tends to be seen by the developed world as ‘backward’: poverty ridden and intellectually inadequate whether this is true or not. Fossil fuels are the basis of modernity and benefit many people who use electricity and automobiles, as well as those who profit from them. Prosperity and Modernity are cosmologies which provide contexts and frames for fossil fuel production and use. Maintaining those fossil fuels is therefore the basis of that good, and a potential way of spreading that good. Without fossil fuels life will decline. It is certainly true that fossil fuels have provided plentiful energy (although it is getting harder to obtain), and it is doubtful that renewables can supply similar amounts of energy in the short term.
Many folk in the town (it seems especially influential business people) also support mining because they see the mines as a potential source of prosperity and jobs in the town, which will save the town. There is also a reasonably sized body of activists who see the mining as purely destructive – some of whom are trying to encourage renewable development. Mostly the mining’s obvious deleterious affects occur in the country, and affect farmers, but the ties between farmers and town seems weaker than it once was. There are larger corporate farms rather than family owned farms. Not having the same money farmers are said to not spend as much in town, and they don’t hire as much labour from the town – possibly because of technical ‘advancement’ and the increase in scale.
[Once it was] plausible to support a large family on 250 acres with crops, … [however] today a farmer would need 2000 acres and capital to invest in machinery and equipment.
Brooks et al. 2001. Narrabri: A Century Remembered 1901-2001: p.15
Given the apparent lessened ability to depend on farming, the Mayor of Narrabri at the time, Cathy Redding, argued that the mines should go ahead because:
Population retention would be one advantage for Narrabri, in that jobs would be created, new manufacturing businesses would develop and the multiplier effects of these developments would ensure regional growt
In reality, local prosperity is a matter of how the mining is organised, where the profits go, where the ongoing operational payments go and so on. It is a legitimising frame, which may have little local truth. Indeed the argument that gas mine workers come from outside, that profits are largely transferred elsewhere, while costs remain (such has increased rental housing prices, damage to ecology and water) seems to be one of the most common arguments against the mining. In general the response is largely to assert that prosperity will result, and that Narrabri Shire will avoid the costs. A number of local businesses do stand to benefit from the mines, from increased economic traffic in town and from contracting work with the mines, which legitimates the mine through prosperity contexts. However, results from the 2016 census imply that mining has a relatively low effect; it currently provides 5.4% of jobs, comparing with 11.6% in health and social assistance, 10.5% in retail, 7.7% in Education and 7% in Agriculture forestry and fishing.
Sustainability of the local area, becomes sustainability by new jobs in one field. This acts to promote the gas and distract from environmental damage. There are people who are enthusiastic about this form of sustainability, people who reject it, and people who accept it will happen. It is not really clear from the figures that the Narrabri region is in radical population decline, but we need to wait for the current census results.
I’d suggest that the people who accept it will happen and those who are enthusiastic are that way, because there is almost nothing else officially on offer to generate prosperity, although a brief survey our students did of people in the street, suggested that the idea of Narrabri as a tourist food town was very popular. Many people were clearly fed up of being questioned, which suggests they accept it will happen, rather than working towards rejection.
Renewables are personally popular, but seem to have little social consequence. There was at least some acceptance of the delegitimating arguments against renewables by lack of consistency, and lack of intensity – which is primarily about habit and custom – see below (#). There is little struggle against renewables, probably because renewables are not a threat. They can be almost ignored – which offers a degree of freedom.
Prosperity framings are reinforced by corporate and State practice, and by the widespread neoliberal ideology which acts to put business first, suggests local prosperity flows from encouraging or subsidising corporate prosperity, and attacks any kind of inhibition on business liberty – an ideology which is so persuasive that it is adopted by all the major parties. The supposed farmers party (the Nationals) always seems to put corporate interests ahead of farming interests, as when they protect mines instead of farms, or continue to agitate for lack of climate action, when farmers are pressured by climate change and water problems. Matt Canavan of the National Party has remarked:
About five per cent of our voters are farmers, it’s about two per cent of the overall population. So 95 per cent of our voters don’t farm, aren’t farmers or don’t own farmland.
Furthermore, with the gradual erosion of the welfare state and attacks on unemployed people, like robodebt, there is little other way for ‘ordinary people’ to survive unless it be hanging on to corporate ‘prosperity’.
Changes in Cosmology?
However, the context of this cosmology may be shifting, as argued in a previous blog, the Business Council of Australia, after a long period of complete climate-action denial, has moved into issuing plans for emissions targets and reductions in emissions. The plan is a little ambiguous about coal and gas exports, and it seems significantly motivated by fear of others acting on climate and lessening trade with Australia as a result, but it could change the context significantly and suggest that fossil fuels are not the only, or necessary, way to go.
Protestors can also use the ‘economic reality’ argument:
“Financial institutions around the world are increasingly unwilling to back polluting fossil fuel projects like what Santos proposes at Narrabri.”
Coal seam gas drilling has bought a harsh boom bust cycle to other towns, especially in Queensland, leaving the towns with little but damage and rusting well sites. This surprisingly, has little effect on the prosperity framing for many. It appears local business knows the risks, thinks it is smart enough not to be caught out by the damage that has happened in other towns, and that this intelligence helps support the legitimacy of the operation. They want it to succeed, or need it to succeed, without cost, so it must. To some extent this is doing what other people have done with the hope it has different consequences. However, the realisation of damage elsewhere is a challenge to cosmologies of prosperity.
Another challenge to prosperity through fossil fuels is the idea of prosperity through renewables. An ISF report suggested as one option the rather unlikely figures of “2,840 [local] ongoing maintenance and operation jobs by 2030” if Narrabri started going (corporate) renewable, whereas Santos only promises “up to 200 ongoing positions” [5], [6]. The problem seems to be that the ISF figures seem exceptionally high for solar, and so unpersuasive. People have another experience with solar farms in NSW – they require very little maintenance – mainly cleaning (with the expectation of water use).
Finally while the Gas mining has been justified by NSW need for local gas, a report conducted for the Climate Council suggests that NSW is likely to:
reduce its annual gas demand by the same amount that the Narrabri Gas Project is forecast to produce, as soon as 2030.
This report effectively renders the Narrabri Gas Project redundant. We already know that this project will drive up greenhouse gas emissions, worsen climate change and do nothing to reduce power prices. Now we also know the project is completely unnecessary when it comes to meeting the state’s energy needs,
Power relations – Fossil fuel companies and the State
In corporate capitalism, in general, corporations have more bases for power than community groups. The have wealth, contacts, prestige, ability to put out information, buy politicians and think tanks, even gain violence from police or from outsiders (there is no suggestion that companies in the region have done this, but it is certainly possible in general) etc. The power relations are not equal, and many people may think siding with the corporations could grant them benefits, while opposing them could make their situation worse.
Fossil fuels and fossil fuel companies, have State support which can override any local objection that does not command the allegiance of a vast majority of local people, and this potential for power when allied with at least some at the local level, not only gives fossil fuels support or indifference, but makes them easier and cheaper to mine. For example it has been alleged that the State government neglected to implement most of its Chief Scientists recommendations to make gas drilling safe [7], [8] [9].
One person in Narrabri insisted that
the government had not implemented 14 of 16 recommendations to limit the risk of coal seam gas made nearly six years ago by the then NSW chief scientist, now Independent Planning Commission chair, Mary O’Kane. “Our government has betrayed us,” Murray said.
The Federal minister apparently approved the gas wells before the company explained which parts of the Pilliga forest would be cleared, it finished investigating effects on local groundwater, or developed a biodiversity plan, important given local koala habitats and declines in koala populations not to mention other endangered animals. Later on the project was boosted by the Federal Government’s ‘gas-led recovery‘ (“Cheaper, more abundant gas is the second pillar of our energy plan for COVID recovery. We’ve got to get the gas.” “this [Narrabri project] is 1,300 jobs, $12 billion worth of investment and it is absolutely critical“) and that government’s agreement with the NSW state Government to fund gas [10], [11], [12], [13]. One comment was:
The state government has committed to injecting an additional 70 petajoules (PJ) of gas per annum into the east coast market in return for $3 billion from the Commonwealth government.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian flagged two possibilities to supply the gas; import it or source it from the yet-to-be-approved Santos Narrabri Gas Project, which will create 70 PJ a year….
[The local MP said:] “They have absolutely corroded the independent process,…
“Regardless of the good intentions and the upstanding integrity of the Independent Planning Commission, if the project is approved, the perception will always be they dangled $3 billion in front of them to get the approval.”
It seems that in July 2020 the NSW Government was worried that Federal support for the Narrabri project was too overt and that:
any impression that the outcome of the IPC [the NSW Independent Planning Commission] process is pre-determined could undermine public trust in the process.
They apparently realised that enforcing the case could undermine legitimacy. However, the project was listed as one of 15 major projects to gain a reduction in their “assessment and decision timeframes.” This received remarkably little publicity at the time. There are frequent references to a PM’s announcement, but the announcements I’ve found did not include all the projects, or mention the Narrabri project.
Fighting against large fossil fuel companies is also a difficult process in Australia, as if you win, it seems possible the State will change (or appeal) the law so you lose, or the Company will try again in a marginally different manner, or that they will successfully claim a new mine is an expansion of an old mine. For example, after the Rocky Hill coal mine was refused on the grounds of the emissions production overseas when the coal was burnt, the NSW government legislated to to prevent “the regulation of overseas, or scope-three, greenhouse gas emissions” in mining approvals to give certainty to miners [14] [15].
Fighting against fossil fuels is fighting against both the State and Fossil Fuel companies and unlikely to succeed in terms of power relations and money.
The State is not supporting development of any LOCAL processes in the Narrabri region (that have been mentioned to me) which could provide prosperity or increase survival opportunities, which do not depend on fossil fuels. This makes it harder to challenge fossil fuel legitimacy. However, the NSW state government, has recently managed to gain emissions targets for 2030, and it does support corporate renewables elsewhere, through Renewable Energy Zones, which seem to be geared to supplying the big city and industrial areas on the Coast. But it is not clear that the state or federal governments do much to support local energy supplies via renewables or community renewables, or will oppose fossil fuels directly. Both Parties in Australia have made it clear they are in favour of mining fossil fuels, establishing new fossil fuel mines, and selling the products overseas.
Opposition resources spokeswoman Madeleine King has said Labor will not stand in the way of new mines and believes Australia will export coal beyond 2050…
For so long as international markets want to buy Australian coal, which is high quality, then they will be able to.” Ms King said Labor was “absolutely not supportive one bit” of a push by Malcolm Turnbull for a moratorium on new coalmines
One framing which allows them to claim this is compatible with climate action is the convention that emissions only occur in record of the country burning the fuel, and likewise should not apply to the company profiting from the emissions (as they are outside its control). If the measures were changed this claim of legitimacy might fall.
In a somewhat contradictory policy regime the NSW Government made declared the only active petroleum/gas exploration licences to remain in action were to be those supporting Santos’s Narrabri coal seam gas project, due to concerns from other regional communities [20].
So again we have the power differential and the assumption that fossil fuel profits are good, but changing the law like this also draws attention to the way the law is a political tool used to benefit particular groups.
Context/Framing: Regulation
Current regulation which is based on previous habits, limits connecting energy sources, and energy sources with users, without using the grid, especially if they cross property boundaries. These regulations are largely a matter of custom, and do not reflect the new situation, but there is inertia, because the new situation is easy to ignore, if we keep established power relations going.
Connecting these household sources might provide some kind of new paradigm or framing once it is established, or perhaps during the establishing.
Recent proposals for a feed in tariff suggests that household players could end up paying for export, further discouraging action.
These regulations shape the economy to favour existing players, deliberately or not.
Enforcement?
Apparently, in 2016 the State government increased penalty terms for protesting on land and disrupting mining equipment [21], [22], [23]
There is little sign that the Australian State will change its pro-fossil fuel status, so while it may be useful to try and take back the State, it is also useful to move outside the State, perhaps through local level activity, to try and overwhelm the legitimacy of fossil fuels in general – but the question is whether working outside the State removes legitimacy.
Local Power relations and desires
Local action rarely has state backing when in opposition to mining.
Surveys and polls
There is repeated self selecting survey and other evidence to suggest that most to a large percentage of people in the region do not support the gas fields. For example 64 per cent of the local submissions to the Environmental Impact Statement Inquiry in 2018, were opposed – non local submissions were even greater in their opposition. A Lock the Gate survey of 840 people found 97% of people were in favour of renewables to provide long-term jobs, 52%, of people surveyed were opposed to the gasfield, 28% of people said they were in favour of the gas, and and 20% were unsure. “55% of the people surveyed said they were very or somewhat concerned about the gasfield and only 24% said they were not concerned”. Never the less, the implication is that a reasonable number of people could accept both gas and renewables. A Gas Industry Social and Environmental Research Alliance (a collaborative research institute with members such as Australia Pacific LNG, QGC, Santos, Origin Energy and CSIRO) survey found that that 30.5% of residents ‘reject’ the gas, 41.7% of residents would ‘tolerate’ (27%) or be ‘ok with it’ (15%) (which suggests at least some of these would be accepting or indifferent), while 27.8% of residents would ‘approve’ (13%) or ‘embrace’ (15%) CSG development (pp.5, 22). It again seems clear that lack of enthusiasm, overwhelms support – but suggests that perhaps it would be difficult to organise opposition against corporation, state and law.
As implied earlier was the case, it appears to the GISERA survey that “Residents who lived out of town held significantly more negative views towards CSG development than those who lived in town”, and that:
Potential impacts on water quality and quantity were the top two concerns (M = 3.75 and M = 3.74 respectively), followed by community division over CSG development (M = 3.63) and the disposal of salts and brine (M = 3.63)
(ibid: 24)
An Informal survey conducted by UTS students in the streets of Narrabri town, presents some further clues as to what might be happening. Out of “four priorities” for the town 59% selected ‘more employment’ again showing possible survival anxiety dominates, 29 per cent selected ‘improved government services’, 9 per cent ‘stronger community life’, and only 7 per cent selected ‘more sustainable environment’ as their highest priority. Asked to identify the biggest threat to the Region out of five choices, 31% chose drought and climate change, 29% chose loss of local businesses, 20% chose drift of population to larger towns or cities. Asked to choose multiple options for the future, 69% chose local farming and food culture, 43% chose community-owned renewable energy, 31% chose large scale renewable energy, and 29% chose large scale coal and gas. Again the suggestion from this multiple factored informal survey is that mining has fairly low committed support, on par with community renewables, and possibly flows from anxiety about survival.
A click through survey on the Land website, when checked on 23/10/21, gave the results to the question ‘Do you want CSG production at Narrabri?’ as 76% No and 24% yes, but I see no mechanism to stop people voting more than once.
Lack of State support for alternative development in the area, reinforces the apparent ‘need’ for gas and the prosperity/survival it promises but may not deliver locally. This can be seen as part of the connection between State and Fossil fuels. However, local contracting and other businesses which can possibly benefit from mining, take these power relations into the local area, not only through individual businesses, but sometimes through the Local Council (which has to look after local business as it is a major source of local income for people) and through the Chamber of Commerce.
Local Power relations and fragmentation
In the debate about the gas, hostility has been marked, and become pretty polarised. Anecdotes of painful events were common, such as stories of break up of long standing friendships and groups over the gas issue, stories about public rudeness, public ridicule, unfair division of time or access to Council, and so on. People seemed extremely wary of anything that might start an argument.
Both sides, to some extent, blame external forces for the fraction. Many of those we spoke to who were in favour of gas, claimed that people from Lock the Gate were not locals, but city folk – trying to imply the protestors were not from the area, and thus delegitimate them through social categorisation.
These lot just rock into town and tell us what we should be doing with our land. I mean we’ve been here our whole lives.
Interestingly no mention that the mining companies are also from out of town, which indicates the effectiveness of the “we are one of you” categorisation game played by the mining company. However, the objection to protestors goes through conservative politics and there are still ongoing attempts by pro-fossil fuel groups to strip LTG of its charitable status, and reduce its funding.
This indicates a legitimacy struggle over fossil fuels, but it also shows the local cost in a relatively small community.
Framings and power
These framings interact and appear to magnify each other in terms of granting legitimacy (support and acceptance) for fossil fuel mining. Social order, customs and habits is largely built on fossil fuels, and survival is reduced to what is good for business, which is reinforced by alliances between miners and the State, and regulations which are based on the needs of established industry and which inhibit competition. Laws reinforce the survival threats against protestors, which have the probable intention of making delegitimation reluctance or rejection visible. Even the divisions in town seem to be based on external forces, and the hopes or despair begin cultivated, and it implies that there is some way in which people are being treated as extreme or the differences cannot be ignored. It could easily be alleged that local resistance is overwhelmed by outside input, and local fears about survival.
These are largely external contexts which are provided to the region and which shape possible action in the region. The main sign of what is happening locally is the social fragmentation, which seems to be encouraged by these external factors as much as by internal factors.
However, there are some signs that these contexts could be changing (the NSW targets, the BCA, the visibility of ‘cheating’ in the courts), and there is the possibility that changes in complex systems can accelerate quickly. Further signs shall be discussed below.
Delegitimating Fossil Fuels
Reframing 1: fossil fuel damage
The proposal for the gas suggests there will be around 850 gas wells over 425 well-pad sites, so the project will have significant impacts on local appearance. People are assured that no serious ecological damage, or damage to the town economy, will arise from fossil fuel mining, which is perhaps contradicted by this number of wells. This reassurance is impossible to guarantee, but neoliberalism seems happy to ignore damage that helps profits of large companies. However, this complacency is a possible breaker of legitimacy, as admitting that a process could damage the ecology, town and farming seriously, could reframe that process. Not admitting the possibility of damage (when it is reasonably well documented elsewhere) also adds to the perception that those who won’t admit the possibility are lying – the new frame is in play. So we have prosperity and damage framings being brought in.
The possibility of water damage has to be defended against, or else they cannot proceed. The company denies possible serious damage to the water table (the famous Great Artesian basin), which is above the gas tables. The gas comes through the water. Even if they seal the drill holes well enough to not have produce damage immediately, they probably cannot guarantee these seals will not fail in hundreds of years, and when you are dealing with ecology you are dealing in thousands of years at least… There is also water in the gas tables, and that is toxic, and there are signs that leakage has already occurred.
Bringing in the question of environmental damage, and possible poisoning of basic necessities such as air and water, challenges the prosperity frame’s coherence.
There have been protests against gas mining in the region, since it was first proposed, with national community activist organisations such as Lock the Gateand People for the Plains, having a large presence in the area. For example on its current website Lock the Gate attempt to reframe gas in terms of damage, ecological and economic.
When every fracked gas well needs 30 million litres of fresh water and 18 tonnes of chemicals, and when gas already contributes 19% to our greenhouse emissions, it’s actually a recipe for disaster…
For every 10 jobs created in coal seam gas (CSG), 18 jobs are lost in agriculture Over 120 farm water bores in Queensland have already run dry because of coal seam gas Direct loss of farmland for CSG results in farmers losing up to 10% in economic returns More than $2 billion in public funds have been allocated to the gas industry in the last financial year
The threat of environmental damage is now so ‘obvious,’ that it can be used to draw the ire of neighbouring farmers, as when Lock the Gate suggested it was likely that the Gas Company would extend its mining operations into neighbouring areas of the Northwest such as Namoi Valley and Liverpool Plains, as such creeping expansion has happened elsewhere and the State Government’s moratorium on further gas exploration did not cover that area. The local MP stated:
I think it is highly hypocritical to suggest that one electorate in regional NSW should have these things and another shouldn’t…
I would like to see all of these PELs [Petrol Exploration Licences – which include gas] totally extinguished because most coal seam gas (CSG) and gas reserves that are based in the coal bed interact with water aquifers and to get to the seams you have to punch holes through the aquifers.
We have just been through the worst drought in living memory which showed us just how important groundwater is and our regional communities know how important groundwater is.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re in the Tamworth, Barwon or Northern Tablelands electorates, it’s important in each and every one of them.”
Emily Simpson, NSW Farmers Association Policy Advisor had previously also pointed out that while farmers did not oppose gas in principle,
the location of the Narrabri Gas Project creates an unacceptable risk to the precious water resources of northern NSW.
The many conditions attached to the project are designed to minimise this risk, however do not recognise a simple reality: water sources that are damaged cannot be replenished or replaced. The possible harm to water resources has been confirmed by the NSW Government’s own Independent Water Expert Panel.
Bringing climate change in as a frame, suggests that while fossil fuels can bring prosperity and order they are gradually bringing in chaos and disorder which may be so great as to undermine the existence of the shire itself. It is not clear how effective this framing is in Narrabri itself yet, although it is clear from reading the Federal court judgement in the duty of care case, referred to above, that evidence about climate change was extremely significant to the judge – and people did talk about drought and climate change.
The International Energy Agency has argued that there can be no new gas, coal or oil projects if people wish to avoid catastrophic climate change. The IPCC agrees in its latest report. Thus support of new coal could be seen as completely destructive, a position perhaps harder to take as climate change becomes more obvious…
The gas company makes a few half hearted suggestions that it is green. After taking over another gas company, the managing director said:
the combined group would be better-equipped to seize opportunities to expand into clean-energy technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and zero-emissions hydrogen. “Size and scale have never been more important as we look to fund the energy transition to net-zero emissions,”
This implies that rather than cease emissions they hope to remove them, which is not a successful technology at the scale required.
As a number of my colleagues have suggested, there is some evidence to suggest that knowledge of climate change, has made external organisations more interested in offering support to local people opposed to the mines, perhaps providing support, or perhaps increasing the local friction.
Climate change itself is also starting to increase destabilisers of legitimacy, through increased droughts, fires and storms. Through observing the consequences, farmers are starting to ally with environmentalists, and possibly indigenous people, to protect their land from ill effects of ‘development.’ Recently in Australia the National Farmers Federation has cautiously announced support for an emissions target in discussions with the National Party who reject the idea:
Far from creating uncertainty, a target actually creates certainty in an industry where much is uncertain…. the one thing that is certain is that if we set targets we can work towards those targets
This again is a small change but it fits in with other changes, in moving the legitimacy of emissions.
Reframing 3: Cheap energy with local benefits
Renewable energy, especially solar is cheap and modular. It can be built up, part at a time, in small clusters. It does not require the large amounts of capital that fossil fuel energy requires to generate community level low polluting power. It may not be as profitable as fossil fuels but while that is important for corporations, that may not always matter that much for community groups. But it sets up possibilities.
Over 60% of dwellings in the 2390 postcode which includes Narrabri have rooftop solar, so solar is popular, but rooftop is not communal – its about individual virtue, concern or money saving. It is possible to have solar panels and still support fossil fuels.
There is a relatively new organisation called Geni Energy which is exploring the possibility of community renewables being used to generate cheap energy for activities which could lead to prosperity in the region (‘the Northwest’) beyond coal and gas. The idea is to bring plentiful energy into the region, which keeps money in the region, as opposed to the profit centres being outside the region (as with the coal and gas). As previously explained regulations make this project difficult, but not impossible. However, the issue is how quickly the community projects can get up, and how much support they can gain in terms of the framings contexts of customs and becoming habitual, prosperity, external power relations, regulation, and enforcement. That requires several breakthroughs, their ability to build community and extra-community networks – which they are trying to do – and their ability to shift people into enthusiastic support and acceptance.
Reframing 4: Corporate Solar
The company currently establishing a commercial solar farm [24], [25] does not seem well connected to the community, does not seem to provide many continuing jobs, and the connections to take power out of the region are not particularly good, and there is no sign the State government, or anyone else, will improve this. Commercial renewables will be unlikely to supplant fossil fuels, or bring similar prosperity to the Region, (few jobs after construction and money leaves the town) and if they do, that does not remove the link between fossil fuels and prosperity in made in Narrabri.
There are some other corporate solar farms in the air, but some people have said these are ambit claims primarily to lock others out. In any case they have no significant involvement in the region, or apparent connection with people. They are all pretty vague.
Corporate solar is not necessarily helpful in raising support for renewables or delegitimating fossil fuels.
Other Tools
Court cases and appeals against Environmental approvals have been the most effective. While they have not stopped the mining, they have delayed its onset, which (if the State could be persuaded to take export and other emissions seriously) would possibly eventually stop the permissions give to mine.
Conclusion
The contexts and framings for legitimating renewables and the delegitimating fossil fuels do not appear (at this moment) to provide the level of mutual reinforcement that the pro-fossil fuel contexts provide.
The prosperity / devlopment /growth format more or less engenders the State fossil fuel company alliance, and the commonsense that life requires fossil fuels. Habits and customs mean that people in the developed world use (actively or passively) for transport, food transport, computing, delivery, exports, imports, plastics and other components all the time. Without fossil fuels these habits would have to change, and that produces a degree of fear. New habits, and other cosmologies have not yet developed, although they are developing.
Professing support for fossil fuels does not have to involve an active campaign against renewables, they can rely on habit, regulation, power that is external to site, and hardening social categories to get the support to get them through. While the State government is changing, it does not seem to be wanting to stop fossil fuels, or lower them that much. The gas company is in the position where it is likely it has a time limit and would like to get the gas out as soon as possible.
There is no reason to assume that maps of legitimacy for fossil fuels and renewables would overlap in terms of the positions of various groups on the grid – while I can make good guesses as to where groups might appear, there is as yet no hard data which would allow the plotting.
However groups in Narrabri seem to be fractured and histories of past pain possibly leads to low levels of discussion and difficulties in developing cross group policies or actions. The history benefits those who would stay with gas and coal mining. There is also no way to enforce renewables, but the law enforces fossil fuels and restricts protests.
However, it seems possible that the legitimacy of fossil fuels is largely supported by indifference, acceptance, or the sense of there being no alternative. This could change, if there was an alternative, or there was more reach out by activists (which may be hard given an audience avoiding pain).
The main hope is that the context framing of the legitimacy systems for fossil fuels are starting to show cracks, becoming precarious and coming to their end, and that like the electoral legitimacy of the US government, they will collapse rapidly, and in this case in time for action to have some mitigating effect.
There is the possibility of trying to avoid the state and function outside it, circumventing regulation rather than following regulation. This requires the formation of a local movement, perhaps in community energy, through social enterprises like Geni. In Western Australia there seems to be a formal movement to do something like this with proposals to help towns get off the grid, and be put in charge of their own energy through disconnected microgrids.
That solar energy, is cheap and modular, means that community groups can build their own energy supplies over time, buying (or gifting) panels as they can afford to, and if the regulations change, connecting them up.. They don’t have to have huge building projects, projects can be manageable and use local labour.
Courts seem incapable of enforcing strictures against Fossil Fuels, but they make the artificial and political nature of the current set-up clearer. If the laws are changed or ignored, then the laws supporting the fossil fuel system seem more arbitrary and less legitimate – it also engenders delay which, if the context, changed, might make a significant difference.
Complexity suggests that small regular changes can make large differences to the whole system; the question becomes what are those changes?
So there is hope, amidst the difficulties, but it will not be easy.
All I can do is suggest that legitimacy is complicated and that the data indicate that is so. Part of what research can sometimes indicate is the inadequacy of data, and stimulate new questions.
Climate, technology and chaos Blog 