Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has attempted to address the energy ‘trilemma’: electricity that’s cheap, reliable and low-emissions. Has he succeeded? Our expert panel weighs in.
Pittsburgh, between its industrial past and a clean, green tech-driven future.
Dllu
Pittsburgh’s post-industrial economic resurgence is promising, a historian of the region writes, but there’s a reason President Trump highlighted the area in his speech exiting the Paris climate deal.
Cholla power plant near Joseph City, Arizona, photographed on Jan. 16, 2010.
PDTillman/Wikipedia
Coal-fired power plants produce air pollution that kills thousands of Americans every year. President Trump’s embrace of coal energy will delay a shift to cleaner fuels that is saving money and lives.
Is it nearly the end of the road for coal?
Shutterstock.com
The board of Indian mining firm Adani has approved its A$16 billion Carmichael coal mine. But has the Queensland government failed in its duty to be responsible with publicly owned resources such as coal?
The Wollangambe River’s canyons are loved by adventurers.
Ben Green
The environmental regulator has stepped in to stop water pollution from an underground coal mine damaging a World Heritage River. Can the mine deliver improvements and will the river recover?
A proposed coal plant in Kenya would rely on imports for up to 10 years.
Flickr/Matthew Rogers
A new Climate Council report points out that the Paris Agreement’s carbon budget leaves no room for the development of massive new coal reserves such as the proposed Carmichael mine.
The current domestic gas crisis will pass. But if the industry wants to surpass coal and fulfil its role as a ‘transition fuel’, it should lobby for a carbon price to help it on its way.
Has carbon capture and storage been tarnished by its association with the coal industry?
Peabody Energy/Wikimedia Commons
Carbon capture and storage gets a bad rap from its associations with ‘clean coal’. But the technology could prove vital in cutting emissions from other industries like steel, cement and chemicals.
Coal mines, such as this one near Bowen, use water for everything from equipment cooling to dust management.
CSIRO
Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has been granted an unlimited 60-year water licence. But a range of measures could help the industry use less freshwater.
Interactive map of global carbon emissions from 1750 to 2010.
Aurelien Saussay
An interactive map of global carbon-dioxide emissions, from 1750 to 2010, provides a better understanding of the roles of different countries in the ongoing climate crisis.
A boy silhouetted against smog while playing cricket in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2011.
Akhtar Soomro/Reuters
Massive new coal plants planned for Pakistan will further harm the environment in a country already suffering the effects of climate change. Solar energy is a clear alternative.
Hazelwood in happier times.
Centre for Gippsland Studies
Hazelwood power station will this week fall silent after a half-century during which it went from a beacon of progress to an emblem of fossil fuel pollution.
Wave goodbye to US climate leadership.
EPA/Ron Sachs
Donald Trump has signalled the end of US leadership on climate policy, with potentially unpleasant consequences for America’s economy, security and diplomatic standing.
Trump signed the executive order surrounded by coal miners, saying it was ‘about jobs.’
AP Photo/Matthew Brown
Trump’s executive order on climate will cede American leadership internationally and scores a political win. But reversing all Obama’s work will require big wins in court.
President Trump holds up the signed Energy Independence Executive Order, Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at EPA headquarters in Washington, surrounded by coal miners and members of his Cabinet.
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
President Trump’s latest executive order weakens or reverses multiple rules and policies designed to slow climate change. Scholars explain the order’s impact.
Workers at Medupi coal-fired power station during its construction, one of South Africa’s most costly and environmentally unfriendly projects.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
In preparing the 2017 national budget South Africa needs to take heed of warnings that its historical austerity measures are hurting the poor and even costing lives.
Even the cleanest coal plants add millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere each year.
Coal image from www.shutterstock.com
In his speech this week to the National Press Club, Turnbull initiated a genuine “game-changer” in the debate about power generation in this country. It is instructive to focus explicitly on what he said…