THE State Government’s recent display of a preference for gas power has reopened an old debate – which is the cleaner fuel?
THE State Government’s recent display of a preference for gas power has reopened an old debate – which is the cleaner fuel?
The accepted answer has for some time been, gas. Gas has fewer carbon atoms and thus emits less carbon dioxide at the point of combustion, it is said.
Moreover, gas production is a far cleaner – both aesthetically and environmentally – process than mining dusty old coal.
But the coal industry itself is attempting to change perceptions, about both it and the commodity it produces, and has challenged whether we should be so accepting of information that has, after all, probably come from the gas industry itself.
According to one industry source, the coal industry is mobilising itself for a fight.
“They’ve got the flag out and they’re in for business. They’re just running riot at the moment,” the source said.
“They make a very convincing case that coal has a legitimate role. There’s a need to not write off the South West community with it, and I think they’ve gone away and taken on the criticisms and complaints and they’ve done their homework. They’ve obviously thought about what they’re doing, and I suppose from that point of view they’ve worked out this is the way forward – to revisit it and go about it a different way.”
According to Premier Coal general manager marketing and business development, Barry Kelly, WA’s coal industry has made a concerted effort in recent years to improve its image.
He said the gas industry misrepresented its cleanliness and unfairly maligned the coal industry, while the broader community either was not aware or had failed to acknowledge the coal industry’s work to improve its standards.
“We’ve actually improved our greenhouse gas emissions at the mines by over 50 per cent in the past five years,” Mr Kelly said.
“But on top of that a new coal-fired power station is now well into the 40 per cent efficiency level, whereas Muja A and B were about 27 per cent, so it’s improved by in excess of 50 per cent.”
The Muja A and B coal-fired power stations, which have operated since the 1960s, will be replaced in the next few years by new facilities, for which both coal and gas companies will be able to tender to supply the fuel.
What is clear about coal is that it releases a lot of carbon dioxide into the air – in fact, about 90 kilotons of carbon dioxide are released when coal is burned to generate one petajoule of energy from coal, whereas natural gas combustion releases 51 Kt of carbon dioxide per petajoule.
Put another way, 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide are released from the burning of one tonne of coal.
Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (excluding the burning of biomass) shows that, in 1998, Australia emitted 456 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, of which carbon dioxide accounted for 68.5 per cent and methane 25.2 per cent.
The natural gas used to fire power stations is about 90 per cent methane, but the Australian Gas Association says methane losses by Australia’s natural gas industry account for just two per cent of total methane emissions.
Most emissions come from bushfires, waste and agriculture, especially farm livestock.
AGA chief executive officer Bill Nagle said the coal industry should stop claiming that comparative emission figures do not take into account the full gas chain.
“The coal industry continues to ignore an independent study commissioned by the Australian Gas Association in 2000, which com-pared the full life-cycle emissions of coal and gas,” he said.
“These full life-cycle figures include emissions from each of the gas production, transmission, distribution and combustion stages – not just combustion.
“The study showed that in the production of electricity, emission savings of around 35 per cent could be achieved by using gas instead of black coal, and emission savings of 50 per cent could be achieved by using gas instead of brown coal.”
Despite gas’s apparent virtues, people within the industry speak openly about its status as a transitional fuel, standing between coal and oil on one hand, and renewable sources like solar, wind and hydroelectric power on the other.
Rachel Siewert, co-ordinator of the Conservation Council of WA, said that on that basis, environ-mentalists did not necessarily favour gas for power generation, but it was far preferable to burning coal.
“Putting a new coal-fired power station in now as a base load station will lock WA into a coal-based future,” she said.
“There’s a last-ditch push from the coal industry up because they know in the next year or two nobody will be building coal-fired power stations.
“It was a mistake to build the last coal-fired power station. It will certainly be a large mistake to build another one, and what we should do is look at gas in the interim and put in place the conditions that will allow WA to go ahead with renewable energy in the future.”
The accepted answer has for some time been, gas. Gas has fewer carbon atoms and thus emits less carbon dioxide at the point of combustion, it is said.
Moreover, gas production is a far cleaner – both aesthetically and environmentally – process than mining dusty old coal.
But the coal industry itself is attempting to change perceptions, about both it and the commodity it produces, and has challenged whether we should be so accepting of information that has, after all, probably come from the gas industry itself.
According to one industry source, the coal industry is mobilising itself for a fight.
“They’ve got the flag out and they’re in for business. They’re just running riot at the moment,” the source said.
“They make a very convincing case that coal has a legitimate role. There’s a need to not write off the South West community with it, and I think they’ve gone away and taken on the criticisms and complaints and they’ve done their homework. They’ve obviously thought about what they’re doing, and I suppose from that point of view they’ve worked out this is the way forward – to revisit it and go about it a different way.”
According to Premier Coal general manager marketing and business development, Barry Kelly, WA’s coal industry has made a concerted effort in recent years to improve its image.
He said the gas industry misrepresented its cleanliness and unfairly maligned the coal industry, while the broader community either was not aware or had failed to acknowledge the coal industry’s work to improve its standards.
“We’ve actually improved our greenhouse gas emissions at the mines by over 50 per cent in the past five years,” Mr Kelly said.
“But on top of that a new coal-fired power station is now well into the 40 per cent efficiency level, whereas Muja A and B were about 27 per cent, so it’s improved by in excess of 50 per cent.”
The Muja A and B coal-fired power stations, which have operated since the 1960s, will be replaced in the next few years by new facilities, for which both coal and gas companies will be able to tender to supply the fuel.
What is clear about coal is that it releases a lot of carbon dioxide into the air – in fact, about 90 kilotons of carbon dioxide are released when coal is burned to generate one petajoule of energy from coal, whereas natural gas combustion releases 51 Kt of carbon dioxide per petajoule.
Put another way, 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide are released from the burning of one tonne of coal.
Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (excluding the burning of biomass) shows that, in 1998, Australia emitted 456 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, of which carbon dioxide accounted for 68.5 per cent and methane 25.2 per cent.
The natural gas used to fire power stations is about 90 per cent methane, but the Australian Gas Association says methane losses by Australia’s natural gas industry account for just two per cent of total methane emissions.
Most emissions come from bushfires, waste and agriculture, especially farm livestock.
AGA chief executive officer Bill Nagle said the coal industry should stop claiming that comparative emission figures do not take into account the full gas chain.
“The coal industry continues to ignore an independent study commissioned by the Australian Gas Association in 2000, which com-pared the full life-cycle emissions of coal and gas,” he said.
“These full life-cycle figures include emissions from each of the gas production, transmission, distribution and combustion stages – not just combustion.
“The study showed that in the production of electricity, emission savings of around 35 per cent could be achieved by using gas instead of black coal, and emission savings of 50 per cent could be achieved by using gas instead of brown coal.”
Despite gas’s apparent virtues, people within the industry speak openly about its status as a transitional fuel, standing between coal and oil on one hand, and renewable sources like solar, wind and hydroelectric power on the other.
Rachel Siewert, co-ordinator of the Conservation Council of WA, said that on that basis, environ-mentalists did not necessarily favour gas for power generation, but it was far preferable to burning coal.
“Putting a new coal-fired power station in now as a base load station will lock WA into a coal-based future,” she said.
“There’s a last-ditch push from the coal industry up because they know in the next year or two nobody will be building coal-fired power stations.
“It was a mistake to build the last coal-fired power station. It will certainly be a large mistake to build another one, and what we should do is look at gas in the interim and put in place the conditions that will allow WA to go ahead with renewable energy in the future.”
