Second opinion? Doctors' coal concerns rebuked by Abbott Govt

Got a concern about coal's effect on human health and climate?

Nick off.

That's pretty much how Prime Minister Tony Abbott's office responded to a letter from a group of doctors pointing out that Abbott's assertion that coal was good for humanity was contrary to public health evidence.

The letter from the group Doctors for the Environment and subsequent correspondence recently provided to Climate Spectator points out:

There is ample evidence, which we have supplied to your office, documenting the adverse health impacts that arise from air pollution (and other environmental impacts) in both coal mining communities and resulting from coal combustion more widely. 

It also takes issue with the idea coal is essential to poverty alleviation, pointing out that the health impacts from coal outweigh health gains in all but the very poorest of nations and even then the benefit is marginal.

The letter they received in return from the Prime Minister Office, signed by newly promoted rising star Josh Frydenberg and reproduced below, almost word for word defiantly restates the Prime Minister's earlier verbal statements that coal is the foundation of economic prosperity.

According to the letter:

You can't have a modern economy without energy and for now and the foreseeable future the foundation of Australia's energy needs will be coal. The foundation of the world's energy needs will be coal.

The International Energy Agency suggests this might be somewhat true if current energy and environmental policies remained static. Their 2014 World Energy Outlook sets out that in 2012 coal represented 29% of global primary energy consumption and this would still be the case in 2040 (note this diagram understates the useful energy contribution of hydro).

Figure 1: Global primary energy consumption by fuel type in 2012 and 2040 under current policies

NOTE: This chart likely understates the useful energy contribution of hydro and non-biomass forms of renewable energy which are measured by the energy embodied in electricity rather than heat. Electricity can be more efficiently employed into useful work, whereas, for example, converting the primary energy within coal into electricity involves the loss of two-thirds of the energy to the atmosphere.

Source: International Energy Agency (2014) World Energy Outlook – 2014

Yet the IEA also accompanied its forecast of continued growth in coal with a health hazard warning.

IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven observed:

Although the contribution that coal makes to energy security and access to energy is undeniable, I must emphasise once again that coal use in its current form is simply unsustainable.

The IEA points out that the consumption of coal and fossil fuels more generally under frozen policies would mean a 6-degree warmer world. Yet the government's environment minister has pledged that the Coalition is in lockstep with Labor in supporting an international agreement to limit warming to 2 degrees. This is fundamentally inconsistent with the government's view that coal will be the foundation of the world's energy needs.

The IEA points out that to have a 50-50 chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees, our future fuel mix would need to look more like the chart below where coal declines to 16% of primary energy consumption. It also notes that such a fuel mix is completely consistent with a modern economy and ongoing economic growth at levels similar to the situation where coal has 29% share of energy supply.

Figure 2: Global primary energy consumption by fuel type in 2040 with CO2 concentration contained to 450ppm

NOTE: This chart understates the useful energy contribution of hydro and non-biomass forms of renewable energy which are measured by the energy embodied in electricity rather than heat. Electricity can be more efficiently employed into useful work, whereas for example converting the primary energy within coal into electricity involves the loss of two-thirds of the energy to the atmosphere.

Source: International Energy Agency (2014) World Energy Outlook – 2014

Coal still plays an important role under this scenario, but one could hardly describe it as the foundation of the globe's energy mix. What's more, this is based on the IEA assuming significant breakthroughs in the cost of technology to capture and securely store coal's CO2 emissions. Australian research and development programs to achieve such breakthroughs were entirely stripped of uncommitted government funding in the government's May budget.

One wonders for how much longer the government can maintain two completely contradictory public positions of:

a) Coal use is the foundation of the world's energy mix and ongoing prosperity and needs to grow; and

b) This government is concerned about global warming.

This is especially so given the government has pretty much abandoned the use of research into clean coal as a fig leaf. Not only has the government withdrawn funding for such efforts, in addition the minister responsible for such programs, Ian Macfarlane, recanted his earlier enthusiasm for the technology back in 2010, suggesting it was a waste of time and money.