Two moves by the Trump administration signal a dramatic shift in energy policy to favor coal and nuclear, but markets forces and legal challenges mean changes could take years.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is an unabashed ally of the fossil fuels – industry his agency is supposed to regulate.
AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar
The Trump administration is committed to deregulating industry, as it’s done with the EPA Clean Power Plan. But a historian shows how regulations have actually benefited both industry and consumers.
TVA Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee, site of a 1.1 billion gallon spill of coal ash slurry in 2008, photographed on March 28, 2012.
Appalachian Voices
Rural development experts say the best way to help coal communities by is investing in people, infrastructure and a clean environment. Instead, President Trump’s budget cuts programs in these areas.
Demolishing the coal-fired R.E. Burger Power Station in Shadyside, Ohio, July 29, 2016.
PROFirstEnergy Corp.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry has proposed to reward coal plants for stockpiling fuel onsite – allegedly making the power system more reliable. Two economists give this idea a failing grade.
Questions have been raised over why Adani is in line for public money.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
The proposed loan of Commonwealth money to Adani is on shaky constitutional ground, potentially paving the way for High Court challenge which could change the dynamics of federal-state funding.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Gautam Adani are still resolved to press ahead with the Carmichael mine, with taxpayers’ help.
AAP Image/Cameron Laird
Following the ABC’s Four Corners program ‘Digging into Adani’, the question that remains is: why is the project still being pursued at all?
The price of new-build renewable energy is expected to fall significantly relative to new-build coal energy in coming years.
AAP Image/Lucy Hughes Jones
The price of renewable energy will fall significantly relative to new-build coal in coming decades, making an all-renewable electricity system more desirable, both economically and environmentally.
An old coal-burning power plant in China.
REUTERS/David Gray
Amu Coal a Kenyan and Chinese consortium is set to build a coal plant in an area untouched by industrial development. The emissions alone will double the country’s energy sector’s CO2 emissions.
Coal stockpile at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin power plant, 2011.
Michael Pereckas
A recent study shows that large piles of coal produce measurable quantities of fine particulate air pollution within a 25-mile radius. Covering coal trains and storage piles could reduce the problem.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull still can’t seem to distance himself from coal.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
The Turnbull government is still tying itself in knots over the future of coal, as literally decades of policy turmoil on climate and energy continue to roll on.
One big mess: the market has failed to deliver on cheap, reliable energy.
Shutterstock
The energy market operator has released a report on the state of Australia’s electricity system. It couldn’t be blunter if it tried: the market has failed.
Yallourn Power Station in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria.
AAP Image/David Crosling
On Q&A, an audience member said renewable energy is ‘now cheaper than coal’. Senator Matt Canavan disagreed, saying renewables are not ‘at the moment, cheaper than coal’. Let’s look at the numbers.
Proposals for the government to commission more “baseload” electricity generation will raise private sector concerns over Canberra’s growing willingness to intervene in a previously free market.
Turnbull takes heart from the widespread acceptance that things can’t stay as they are.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
To implement an alternative that still effectively puts a price on emissions might – apart from its policy advantages – be seen by Malcolm Turnbull as righting the old wrong done to him by his party.
The degree of pushback against a clean energy target was stronger than had been anticipated, given the intense lobbying of the backbench Josh Frydenberg had done ahead of the meeting.
The government faces a hard internal sell on the Finkel plan, not least to Tony Abbott.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Bedding down an energy security policy based broadly on the Finkel model is now crucial for Malcolm Turnbull. But the issue will also test Tony Abbott’s judgement and influence, in what has long been a…