Reuters omits the major role COAL still plays in Australia, despite the ongoing closures of coal-fired power plants. in fact, Reuters doesn’t even mention coal.
AFR below omits the fact Eraring is a ***COAL-FIRED POWER PLANT, which is now being asked to stay open longer.
21 May: AFR (Australian Financial Review): Risk of summer blackouts in NSW, Victoria rises
by Ben Potter
The updated outlook comes as the NSW government and Origin discuss keeping the firm’s Eraring (***COAL-FIRED) power station open beyond the planned 2025 closure date to as late as 2029...
AEMO will ask industrial energy users such as aluminium smelters and cement plants to tender for Interim Reliability Reserves for this summer, which are payments for powering down, to minimise the risk of blackouts for consumers in NSW and Victoria...
https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/risk-of-summer-power-shortages-in-nsw-victoria-rises-20240520-p5jf35
Australia continues to export around FOUR HUNDRED MILLION TONNES OF COAL TO CHINA ETC ANNUALLY.
Australia voted for this.
Spoke to a power generation bloke many years ago
Coal is the BEST fuel to generate power
You dump a stack a bunch of coal beside a power generation plant.
You add more, or less, coal to the to match power draw from the Consumers
You keep an inventory of coal beside the power generation plant, because you need to absorb delivery delays from a rail line getting wiped out, the barge dock gets wiped out, an earthquarke destroys a road, anything mother nature and crumbling infrastructure throws at you