Energy debate heats up in a tale of two priorities

Brown coal will get a $100 million lifeline as the federal and state governments invest in an ambitious project to convert one of Australia's most polluting energy sources into hydrogen.

AGL's Loy Yang A power plant: new uses being sought for its brown coal mine.

But on the same day, Victoria will also unveil the results of its first big renewable energy auction.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will join several ministers in the Latrobe Valley to unveil the formal launch of a $496 million, four-year pilot project to convert brown coal into hydrogen for export to Japan and elsewhere, companies and officials said.

The federal and Victorian governments have both pledged $50 million each to the project, with the rest of its funding coming from a Japanese consortium comprising the Japanese Government, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, J-Power, Iwatani Corporation and Marubeni, while AGL is providing coal from its Loy Yang brown coal mine.

Read the story by Cole Latimer and Peter Hannam from The Age - “Energy debate heats up in a tale of two priorities.”

(The idea of using Victoria’s coal to create hydrogen is reliant upon carbon capture and storage (CCS), an idea that has seen only limited use, is really only in the experimental stage, and has not really been scaled up to an industrial level, something which would be essential if the Victorian hydrogen project was to be viable - Robert McLean)

Export credit agencies must not fund Vietnam’s Long Phu 1 coal plant

In today’s New York Times, reporter Mike Ives details the proposed Long Phu 1 Coal Plant in Vietnam and the twisted network of funding from the U.S. Import-Export bank and Russian sources responsible for the construction of this dirty Coal Plant.

Friends of the Earth has a long history of campaigning on this and similar projects. Our two recent reports — Smoke and Mirrors: Debunking the Doctored Numbers on Long Phu-1 Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Failure to Comply: How Long Phu 1 Violates Funders’ Environmental and Social Policies — lay out the environmental case against what could become one of the world’s dirtiest new coal plants.

Trump has made no secret of his desire to increase U.S. dependency on coal. But he’s not just doing this domestically. Through the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), Trump is pushing developing countries toward dependence on coal for decades to come. The bank is set to spend billions of dollars on fossil fuel projects abroad, including $14 billion on pending oil and gas projects.

Read the Friend of the Earth story by Kate DeAngelis - “Export credit agencies must not fund Vietnam’s Long Phu 1 coal plant.”

Seeing our cities in a new light

Our energy poor future will bring futures we haven’t yet comprehended.

Among them is maybe a darkness that will allow us to see our cities in a new way.

The Urbanful story, and pictures: “What city skies would look like in a world without electricity” gives us an insight into what is possible.

Alternative energy enthusiasts argue that even though we may well end our addiction to fossil-fuel power, other renewable sources will allow us to keep the lights on.