Category: Coal

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Australia Coal

January 30, 1989 – “Hawkie” flies off to flog coal

Thirty five years ago, on this day, January 30, 1989, amidst all the very fine words and wringing of hands about the Greenhouse Effect…

On the morning of Monday 30 January 1989, the ABC 7.45am news reported the Prime Minister, Mr Bob Hawke, had begun an overseas trip to Korea, Thailand, India and Pakistan, with the primary aim of promoting Australian exports, particularly coal, iron ore and agricultural products. Juxtaposed with this report was one describing Senator John Button’s encouragement of Japanese investment in Australian forests designed to safeguard our timber resources. The viability of these economic moves may also be subject to the greenhouse effect. Australian exports of fossil fuel, particularly coal, may be restricted by increasing international pressure to try to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide.

(Henderson-Sellers and Blong, 1989:3)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that while Bob Hawke was making lots of nice noises about the greenhouse effect – giving speeches and everyone was holding hands and singing Kumbaya. But there was also the small matter of selling as much bloody coal, both thermal and metallurgical, as you could to as many people as possible, because that’s going to make the oil companies rich, it’s going to generate some income for state and federal governments, and it’s going to help with the then pressing “balance of payments crisis.”

What we learn is that politicians always have competing priorities. The very nature of politics is the allocation of resources without violence. And so it can hardly be a surprise that Hawke is able to say one thing to one audience, and another to another. This is doublethink hypocrisy, whatever name you want to apply to it. It’s just the way things are. And in the absence of social movements capable of demanding sanity, then insanity and suicidal, short term, greed will win. And since we can’t have those broad, tough social movements, well, insanity, greed, short sightedness, and suicidal stupidity will in fact, win. And they almost have by now; won’t be long… 

What happened next

Hawke was forced to agree to an “Ecologically Sustainable Development” policy process to win the March 1990 Federal Election.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

January 30, 1961 – New York Times reports world is cooling

January 30, 1989 – Je ne fais rein pour regretter… #climate jargon

Categories
Coal Fossil fuels United Kingdom

December 11, 1979 – conference on “Environmental Effects of utilising more coal” in London

Forty four years ago, on this day, December 11, 1979, there was a conference at the Royal Geographical Society on what might happen if we kept burning more coal. And gosh, climate change even got a mention. How farsighted of them

  • CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF UTILIZING MORE COAL, HELD AT THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, ON 11-12 DECEMBER 1979

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the First World Climate Conference had happened in February – the UK’s John Mason had helped reduce momentum for increased activity on carbon dioxide build-up. In October 1978 an interdepartmental committee on climate change had been set up (by now its report was done, but its release was not certain – languishing in limbo (it would see daylight on February 11 1980).

There had also been an IEA report…

What I think we can learn from this

We knew, but we went ahead anyway, because, you know, maybe 19th century physics isn’t real…

See also speech to uranium institute.

What happened next

Coal kept getting dug up.

Mason changed his tune in 1988.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

Categories
Australia Coal

 September 12, 2003 – Newcastle Herald thinks the future of coal looks ‘cleaner’…

Twenty years ago, on this day, September 12, 2003, the Newspaper Herald, in the heart of New South Wales coal country, reports on coal industry leaders promising cleaner coal…

ANY “sunset” scenario for the Hunter’s coal industry would be a cleaner one, industry leaders said yesterday.

Using Coal21, a paper put together by the state and federal governments as a starting point, panellists looked at whether the billion dollar industry had a use-by date a “sunset”.

NSW Minerals Council executive director John Tucker said many in the industry believed the move to more diverse energy sources would start to occur in big numbers in 40 to 50 years.

Hennessy, C. 2003. Future Of Coal Looks `cleaner’. The Newcastle Herald,13 September

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australia was in the middle of an enormous minerals boom  and becoming very wealthy indeed. Mind you not everyone – the Gini Coefficient was going up and up the minerals boom included coal exports. The fear that eventually there would be restrictions on coal use meant that there were all kind of wheezes about “clean coal” and forums were being carried out. This was one of them.

What I think we can learn from this is that a lipstick will always be found if the pig is particularly valuable. That is to say people will always try to slap the word clean or green or sustainable on whatever on very unclean ungreen unsustainable crap that they are doing. Partly so they can sleep at night, partly so they can recruit more people into the industry, get investors. And partly to make it harder to regulate them.

And there are entire industries made up of individuals and companies who will assist in this lipsticking. And we want to believe those lies, because then we don’t have to do anything particularly difficult or uncomfortable, we can just go with the flow and still get what we want.

What happened next

Twenty years later they are still selling coal from the Hunter. And we’re all going to die. Why? Because these coal mines are death factories.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Categories
Activism Coal United Kingdom

September 10, 2008 – Greenpeace Kingsnorth protesters acquitted

Fifteen years ago, on this day, September 10, 2008, Greenpeace who had occupied the Kingsnorth power station were acquitted – a jury found them not guilty.

It’s been a pretty unusual ten days but today has been truly extraordinary. At 3.20pm, the jury came back into court and announced a majority verdict of not guilty! All six defendants – Kevin, Emily, Tim, Will, Ben and Huw – were acquitted of criminal damage.

To recap on how important this verdict is: thedefendantscampaigners were accused of causing £30,000 of criminal damage to Kingsnorth smokestack from painting. The defence was that they had ‘lawful excuse’ – because they were acting to protect property around the world “in immediate need of protection” from the impacts of climate change, caused in part by burning coal.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/kingsnorth-trial-breaking-news-verdict-20080910

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Greenpeace activists had been pushing against coal with so-called “CCS ready” status. Climate campers had camped out first at Drax power station in 2006 and then at Kingsnorth in 2008. Just before this acquittal more broadly the Brown government was trying to to get carbon capture and storage technology going partly in order to save the world.

What I think we can learn from this is that for successful social acceptance of new technology you’re probably going to need environmentalists on board. But it’s not clear to me that they will ever be particular fans of CCS.

What happened next

 The first CCS competition kind of fizzled out in 2011 the second one was abruptly plug pulled in 2015 and then there was a massive work of re sanctifying CCS in 2016/17/18.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

Categories
Coal Fossil fuels Science Uncategorized United States of America

 July 15, 1977 – “Heavy Use of Coal May Bring Adverse Shift in Climate”

Forty six years ago, on this day, July 15, 1977, the New York Times ran a front page story that makes you just groan.  Oh, and by the way, coal use is up in the last year..

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the National Academy of Science had been doing a two year investigation into weather and carbon dioxide and was about to release its report. And clearly a journalist at the Times had been given a tip off and was getting a kind of exclusive in first.

From the 50s some scientists had been saying “hey, carbon dioxide is going to be an issue,” and had slowly been able to build an epistemic community as Hart and Victor would have you call it.

What I think we can learn from this

We knew. It was, literally, front page news.

What happened next

In the mid-late 70s it all started to come together. It was then scuppered/slowed successfully between 1981 and 1985. And then with the scientific meeting in September 1985 at Villach, the push begins again.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

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Activism Australia Coal

July 3, 2008 – Greenpeace occupies an Australian coal plant.

Fifteen years ago, on this day, July 3, 2008, Greenpeace occupied Australia’s most polluting coal-fired power plant

“At dawn on July 3, 2008, 27 Greenpeace activists entered the 2,640 megawatts Eraring Power Station site north of Sydney to call for an energy revolution and take direct action to stop coal from being burnt. Twelve protesters shut down and chained themselves to conveyors while others climbed onto the roof to paint ‘Revolution’ and unfurled a banner reading ‘Energy Revolution – Renewables Not Coal’. The action preceded the Australian government’s climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut’s delivery of his Draft Climate Change Review on July 4. Police arrested 27.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the new Rudd Government had appointed economist Ross Garnaut to look at climate economics, and was also appointing other panels, there was going to be a lot of green papers and white papers and speeches. What Greenpeace were, quite rightly, saying is, well, if these speeches and policy papers don’t accelerate the closure of coal-fired monstrosities – death factories in James Hansen’s term – then they’re not worth that much. 

What I think we can learn from this

It’s so difficult for an NGO, or any set of NGOs really, to be both trying to engage in the finer points of policy and simultaneously making broader societal points. Because if you go out and do the radical stuff, you’ll find yourself uninvited and disinvited to the policy roundtables, or not taken seriously when you make serious points. All the more reason why you need a very broad-based, well-funded, set of organizations within a movement and that that movement has ways of discussing what counts as “selling out,” being caught up to being a fig leaf, and what counts as constructive engagement. And there’s never going to be the final solid answer and there will always be people who disagree. 

As of 2022, Eraring is still pumping out its death, but it is scheduled for final closure shortly.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Categories
Australia Coal Cultural responses Denial Economics of mitigation Industry Associations

 May 4, 1990 – coal industry sweats over greenie influence… – 

The greenies need to be put back in their box…. Lobbying, economic modelling, scare campaigns, smears. The usual…

“The recent shift in the environmental debate to promote global rather than regional goals is causing alarm among the world’s leading industrialists because of its potential to distort world trade and regional economies.

“The impact on Australia is assuming major proportions, with an Access Economics study to be released next week revealing that one-third of almost$40 billion in proposed mining and manufacturing projects are under threat of environmental veto”

 Massey, M. 1990. Environmental debate tops agenda at coal conference. Australian Financial Review, 4 May, p. 10.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that industry had only just started to push back against green groups. It had lazily assumed that the whole thing was a fad that would blow itself out very quickly. It was only really in late 1989/early 1990 that they started, in Australia, to properly co-ordinate a firm response…

What I think we can learn from this

When they wreck everyone’s future, that’s within normal parameters. If anyone tries to stop them, even slow them, that counts as “distortion”

What happened next

They won.  The UN process was effectively kneecapped. Domestic processes were kneecapped. They got rich. The atmosphere got enriched too – with insane amounts of carbon dioxide…

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs

Categories
Coal Energy United States of America

April 30, 2001 – Dick Cheney predicts 1000 new power plants

Twenty two years ago, on this day, April 30, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney has a fever dream in Toronto calling for 1300 new power stations

In an April 30 speech, Cheney said that the U.S. needs to build at least 1,300 electric power plants (averaging 300 megawatts) between now and 2020, “more than one new plant per week.” Cheney downplayed the potential for energy efficiency and renewable energy sources – suggesting that conservation is just “a sign of personal virtue” and that relying on renewables would threaten “our way of life.”

http://www.nirs.org/alternatives/1300powerplants.htm

[This gets him in trouble, he bravely sends out his wife Lynne the next day to “clarify.” He can’t do it himself because of ‘laryngitis’]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 374ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the de facto Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, says that he wants 1000 new coal fired power stations. This is an echo of Nixon’s project independence in 1974, which Cheney will have been well aware of, since Cheney had been serving in the Nixon White House at this point. The context was that Cheney’s puppet George Bush had announced that he was not going to continue negotiations around ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, in effect, they thought, killing it. That wasn’t the case, because the Russians eventually signed but I’m getting ahead of myself.

What I think we can learn from this

Old white men don’t learn. And they have visions of power, in both the literal and metaphorical sense, to be grand numbers, “look at my works, ye mighty and despair.” And the way that these visions are promulgated loudly and long, is partly designed to demonstrate to them and their supporters, their power, but also to demoralise those awful environmentalists who believe that – and this is the heresy –  there are limits to what humans both should and indeed can do to the planet without serious consequences.

What happened next

Cheney’s vision of 1000 power stations did as well as his vision of Iraq as a peaceful American dependency full of grateful Iraqis (*)

(* or maybe we should not take his public pronouncements as evidence of naivete, but rather a willingness to lie…)

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Categories
Activism Agnotology Business Responses Coal Industry Associations United States of America

April 27, 2007 – Coal-bashing campaign by gas company ends

Sixteen years ago, on this day, April 27, 2007, a US gas company had to stop smearing coal…

Washington – The founder of a group that ran a series of newspaper ads attacking the coal industry for selling a product that they called “filthy” says the campaign is ending.

The effort, promoted as pro-environment, was sponsored by a rival energy company, a natural-gas-production company, and sparked a round of protests from members of Congress and trade associations.

Fialka, J. 2007. Ad Campaign Bashing Coal Is Ended After Uproar. Wall Street Journal, 27 April.

This had started in early February 2007–

“the ads were placed anonymously by a two-week-old group called the Texas Clean Sky Coalition. Only one of the nation’s largest gas producers, Chesapeake Energy Corp., acknowledged helping finance the advertising campaign — which easily cost several hundred thousand dollars.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that a natural gas company had been trying to use climate concerns to boost its own product. And this is something that the gas industry has been looking at with more or less interest in –  throwing coal under the bus, framing coal as the dirtiest fuel. Therefore gas automatically becomes sort of some kind of “transition fuel”.

What I think we can learn from this

 It’s a seductive myth. That, yes, we need a long term transition. But while we’re getting there, gas can help. What we learn is that this fossil fuel industry is not in any sense united, though, we should note that people who do gas and oil tend to have the same bosses.

What happened next

Didn’t the guy who founded Cheseapeake Energy do suicide by Porsche? Yes, yes he did.

And threw loads of money the Sierra Club’s way to help them fund their anti-coal campaigns…

https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/03/03/108926/how-chesapeake-ceo-aubrey-mcclendon-helped-push-coal-to-the-brink/

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Categories
Australia Carbon Capture and Storage Coal

April 16, 2008 – Aussie trades unions, greenies, companies tried to get CCS ‘moving.’

Fifteen years ago, on this day, April 16, 2008, trades unions and greenies and companies tried to get CCS ‘moving.’

“In April 2008 the Australian Coal Association (ACA) proposed — in conjunction with WWF Australia, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Climate Institute in Australia — that the Rudd Labor government establish a National Carbon Capture and Storage Taskforce. The taskforce, they proposed, “would be charged with developing and implementing a nationally coordinated plan to oversee rapid demonstration and commercialisation of 10,000 GWh of carbon capture and storage (CCS) electricity per year by 2020.”

https://www.gem.wiki/The_Australian_Coal_Association%27s_Proposed_Carbon_Capture_and_Storage_Taskforce

Here’s a picture of the top of the press release

And here’s a link to a pdf – https://www.sourcewatch.org/images/b/b4/ACA_Media_Release_160408.pdf

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

While trying to become Australian Prime Minister, the Labor Party’s Kevin Rudd had used climate change as an issue with which to paint incumbent Prime Minister John Howard as an uncaring dinosaur. Rudd had also used “carbon capture and storage” as a way of calming the nerves of coalminers in vital states (Queensland and New South Wales).  Now a coalition of pro-coal types and “greenies” were trying to get some money.  And money they would get…

What I think we can learn from this

Wanna win elections? Make big promises. Whether they can be kept or not will depend…

Technological salvationism fantasies need institutional and organisational backing.  Lots of it.  Players know this, and get the taxpayer to fund it.

What happened next

Rudd threw 100 million Australian taxpayers’ dollars at the creation of a “Global Carbon Capture and Storage institute”.

Those projects all up and running by 2020, then twelve years in the future? Yeah, nah.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.