Energy in Australia
Encyclopedia
Energy in Australia describes energy
and electricity
production, consumption and export in Australia
. Energy policy of Australia
describes the politics of Australia
related to energy.
Australia is net energy exporter. Australia was 4. top coal producer in the world 2009. According to James Hansen
the single most important action needed to tackle the climate crisis is to reduce CO2 emissions from coal.
Australia was the top (1.) hard coal exporter in 2009. Australias share was 31 % of the world hard coal export in 2009 (262/ 836 Mt = 31 %). Australia exported 78 % of its hard coal production in 2009. In this respect Australia is an exception since most hard coal production in the world is used in the country of origin. Hard coal export share in the world was 14 % of all production (836/5,990 Mt).
Newcastle
, in New South Wales
, is the world’s largest coal-exporting port. The Hunter Valley region in New South Wales (NSW) is main coal region. Most coal mining in Australia is opencast.
Australia's natural gas reserves are estimated to be 3,921 billion cubic metre (bcm), of which 20% are considered commercially proven (783 bcm). The gas basins with the largest recoverable reserves are the Carnarvon and Browse basins in WA, the Bonaparte basin in the Northern Territory, the Gippsland and Otway basins in Victoria and the Cooper
-Eromanga
basin in Southern Australia and Queensland. In 2003–2004, Australia produced 33.2 bcm of natural gas, of which 62% was produced in WA. The majority of Western Australian gas is sourced from the North West Shelf. Australia produces also LNG. In 2004, LNG exports were 7.9 Mt (10.7 bcm), which represented 6% of world LNG trade.
GGAP provides $26 million in subsidies for construction of natural gas fired power plants.
In addition, Australia owns a large potential for deposits of coal seam methane (CSM). The majority of these deposits are located in the black coal deposits of Queensland and New South Wales.
On 19 August 2009, Chinese petroleum company PetroChina
signed an A$50 billion deal with ExxonMobil
to purchase liquefied natural gas from the Gorgon field in Western Australia, considered the largest contract ever signed between China and Australia, which ensures China a steady supply of LPG fuel for 20 years, and also forms as China's largest supply of relatively "clean energy". This deal has been formally secured, despite relations between Australia and China being at their lowest point in years, following the Rio Tinto espionage case
and the granting of visas to Rebiya Kadeer
to visit Australia.
resources are estimated to be around 58 billion tonnes or 4,531 million tonnes of shale oil
. The deposits are located in the eastern and southern states with the biggest feasibility in the eastern Queensland deposits. Between 1862 and 1952 Australia mined 4 million tonnes of oil shale. The mining stopped when government support for mining ceased. More recently, from the 1970s on, oil companies have been exploring possible reserves. From 2000 to 2004 a demonstration-scale processing plant at the Stuart Deposit
near Gladstone, Queensland
produced over 1.5 million barrels of oil. The facility is now on care-and-maintenance in an operable condition, and the operator of the plant — Queensland Energy Resources
– is conducting research and design studies for the next phase of its oil shale operations. A campaign by environmentalists
opposed to the exploitation of oil shale reserves may also have been a factor.
business.
Climate change
Australian total emissions, million tonnes of CO2 in 2007 were 396 Mt. Per capita Australians were in 2007 among the top climate change polluter nations of the world. Australian emissions of carbon dioxide
per capita in 2007 were 18.8 tons CO2 compared to EU 27 average 7.9 tons. Emission change 2007/1990 (%) was +52.5 % compared to EU 27 average -3.3 %.
In March 2009 the British economist Nicholas Stern
warned the governments in the international climate meeting of the high cost of climate change
. He said policy-makers needed to think the likely impact of temperature rises of 6C or more. The target of limiting temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels is no longer realistic because the world emissions have grown faster than expected. An increase of more than 5C is "likely to lead to major disruption and large-scale movement of population". It said the effects would be "catastrophic" and "far outside human experience".
World energy resources and consumption
]World energy consumption in 2010: over 5% growthEnergy markets have combined crisis recovery and strong industry dynamism. Energy consumption in the G20 soared by more than 5% in 2010, after the slight decrease of 2009. This strong increase is the result of two converging trends...
and electricity
Electricity generation
Electricity generation is the process of generating electric energy from other forms of energy.The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday...
production, consumption and export in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Energy policy of Australia
Energy policy of Australia
Energy policy of Australia describes the energy policy in the politics of Australia. Energy in Australia describes energy and electricity production, consumption and export/import in Australia...
describes the politics of Australia
Politics of Australia
The Politics of Australia take place within the framework of a parliamentary democracy, with electoral procedures appropriate to a two-party system. Australia is governed as a federation and as a constitutional monarchy, with an adversarial legislature based upon the Westminster system...
related to energy.
Australia is net energy exporter. Australia was 4. top coal producer in the world 2009. According to James Hansen
James Hansen
James E. Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He has held this position since 1981...
the single most important action needed to tackle the climate crisis is to reduce CO2 emissions from coal.
Overview
| Energy in Australia | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capita | Prim. energy | Production | Export | Electricity | CO2-emission | |
| Million | TWh | TWh | TWh | TWh | Mt | |
| 2004 | 20.21 | 1,347 | 3,044 | 1,672 | 224.9 | 354.4 |
| 2007 | 21.14 | 1,443 | 3,364 | 1,818 | 237.1 | 396.3 |
| 2008 | 21.51 | 1,513 | 3,514 | 1,942 | 240.4 | 397.5 |
| 2009 | 22.10 | 1,524 | 3,613 | 2,012 | 244,0 | 394.9 |
| Change 2004-2009 | 9.4 % | 13.2 % | 18.7 % | 20.3 % | 8.5 % | 11.4 % |
| Mtoe = 11.63 TWh, Prim. energy includes energy losses. | ||||||
Coal
According to IEA the coal production of the world increased 2005-10: 23.0% and 2009-2010: 4.7% and respectively in Australia 12.9 % and 5.3 %. Australia was 4. top coal producer in the world 2009. Australia produced hard coal 335 Mt and brown coal 64 Mt in 2009.Australia was the top (1.) hard coal exporter in 2009. Australias share was 31 % of the world hard coal export in 2009 (262/ 836 Mt = 31 %). Australia exported 78 % of its hard coal production in 2009. In this respect Australia is an exception since most hard coal production in the world is used in the country of origin. Hard coal export share in the world was 14 % of all production (836/5,990 Mt).
Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
, in New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, is the world’s largest coal-exporting port. The Hunter Valley region in New South Wales (NSW) is main coal region. Most coal mining in Australia is opencast.
Oil
Australia's oil production peaked in 2000 after gradually increasing from 1980. Net imports of oil has risen from 7% of total consumption in 2000 to 39% in 2006. Decreasing domestic oil production is the result of natural declines in from oil producing basins and little new fields going online.Natural gas
Cooper Basin
The Cooper Basin is a sedimentary geological basin in Australia. The basin is located mainly in the north-east part of South Australia and extends into south-west Queensland. It is named after the Cooper Creek which is an ephemeral river that runs into Lake Eyre. Part of the Cooper Basin is...
-Eromanga
Eromanga Basin
The Eromanga Basin is a large Mesozoic sedimentary basin in central and northern Australia. It covers parts of Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia, and New South Wales, and is a major component of the Great Artesian Basin...
basin in Southern Australia and Queensland. In 2003–2004, Australia produced 33.2 bcm of natural gas, of which 62% was produced in WA. The majority of Western Australian gas is sourced from the North West Shelf. Australia produces also LNG. In 2004, LNG exports were 7.9 Mt (10.7 bcm), which represented 6% of world LNG trade.
GGAP provides $26 million in subsidies for construction of natural gas fired power plants.
In addition, Australia owns a large potential for deposits of coal seam methane (CSM). The majority of these deposits are located in the black coal deposits of Queensland and New South Wales.
On 19 August 2009, Chinese petroleum company PetroChina
PetroChina
PetroChina Company Limited is a Chinese oil company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation , headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing. It is China's biggest oil producer, and was the world's most valuable company by market value as of September 28th 2010...
signed an A$50 billion deal with ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
to purchase liquefied natural gas from the Gorgon field in Western Australia, considered the largest contract ever signed between China and Australia, which ensures China a steady supply of LPG fuel for 20 years, and also forms as China's largest supply of relatively "clean energy". This deal has been formally secured, despite relations between Australia and China being at their lowest point in years, following the Rio Tinto espionage case
Rio Tinto espionage case
The Rio Tinto espionage case began with the arrest on 5 July 2009, of four staff in the Shanghai office of the Rio Tinto Group, in the People's Republic of China, who were subsequently accused of bribery and espionage. Two days later, an import executive of the Shougang Group and Laigang Group was...
and the granting of visas to Rebiya Kadeer
Rebiya Kadeer
Rebiya Kadeer is a prominent Uyghur businesswoman and political activist from the northwest region of Xinjiang Autonomus Region of the People's Republic of China...
to visit Australia.
Oil shale
Australia's oil shaleOil shale
Oil shale, an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock, contains significant amounts of kerogen from which liquid hydrocarbons called shale oil can be produced...
resources are estimated to be around 58 billion tonnes or 4,531 million tonnes of shale oil
Shale oil
Shale oil, known also as kerogen oil or oil-shale oil, is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock into synthetic oil and gas...
. The deposits are located in the eastern and southern states with the biggest feasibility in the eastern Queensland deposits. Between 1862 and 1952 Australia mined 4 million tonnes of oil shale. The mining stopped when government support for mining ceased. More recently, from the 1970s on, oil companies have been exploring possible reserves. From 2000 to 2004 a demonstration-scale processing plant at the Stuart Deposit
Stuart Oil Shale Project
The Stuart Oil Shale Project was an oil shale development project in Australia near Gladstone, Queensland. It was Australia's first major attempt since the 1950s to restart commercial use of oil shale...
near Gladstone, Queensland
Gladstone, Queensland
- Education :Gladstone has several primary schools, three high schools, and one university campus, Central Queensland University. It is also home to CQIT Gladstone Campus.- Recreation :...
produced over 1.5 million barrels of oil. The facility is now on care-and-maintenance in an operable condition, and the operator of the plant — Queensland Energy Resources
Queensland Energy Resources
Queensland Energy Resources Limited is an Australian oil shale mining and shale oil extraction company with the headquarter in Brisbane. It is the developer of the Stuart and McFarlane oil shale projects.-History:...
– is conducting research and design studies for the next phase of its oil shale operations. A campaign by environmentalists
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
opposed to the exploitation of oil shale reserves may also have been a factor.
Electricity shortage in the near future
The electricity producers in Australia are not building gas-fired power stations to meet future demand, while the 4 major banks are not willing to give loans to build dirty coal power stations, therefore power cuts are predicted in Queensland in 2013-14 and NSW, Victoria from 2015-16.Business
According to Forbes list of billionaires (2011) Australian billionaire Chris Wallin ($1.3 B 2011) has made his wealth in coalCoal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
business.
Climate changeClimate changeClimate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
Australian total emissions, million tonnes of CO2 in 2007 were 396 Mt. Per capita Australians were in 2007 among the top climate change polluter nations of the world. Australian emissions of carbon dioxideCarbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
per capita in 2007 were 18.8 tons CO2 compared to EU 27 average 7.9 tons. Emission change 2007/1990 (%) was +52.5 % compared to EU 27 average -3.3 %.
In March 2009 the British economist Nicholas Stern
Nicholas Stern
Nicholas Herbert Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, Kt, FBA is a British economist and academic. He is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics , and 2010 Professor of Collège de...
warned the governments in the international climate meeting of the high cost of climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
. He said policy-makers needed to think the likely impact of temperature rises of 6C or more. The target of limiting temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels is no longer realistic because the world emissions have grown faster than expected. An increase of more than 5C is "likely to lead to major disruption and large-scale movement of population". It said the effects would be "catastrophic" and "far outside human experience".