Is Roger Cook right? Can WA save the planet by getting a bit dirty?

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WA’s big hitters gathered at Premier Roger Cook’s energy transition summit on Friday to play their part in a carefully orchestrated sales pitch: the state will not be reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, and we demand you feel good about it.

Of course, that is not exactly what Cook said, but it is precisely what he meant.

WA is the only Australian state with rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The first and strongest leg of his argument is that the world is hungry for WA’s minerals to build the batteries, wind turbines and transmission lines needed to move away from fossil fuels, and at least in the short-term ramping up production will increase the sector’s carbon pollution.

The western third of Australia knows how to develop mines but – like the rest of the world – is still getting to grips with the rollout of renewable energy generation, complete with storage and transmission, on a vast scale.

So the plan is to use gas to dig out the minerals and process them until clean energy catches up.

In particular, some aspects of mineral processing needing high temperatures are difficult to electrify with current technology.

It is the same pitch that climate protectors deploy to defend getting to a rally in a petrol-powered car: we need to use the tools of today to build a better tomorrow.

However, this approach needs to avoid the lock-in of gas for the long term.

Processing plants are built to operate for decades, and once up and running the financial incentive to keep them going with minimum downtime and expense is immense, as will be the corporate pressure on governments to allow them to do so.

Cooking with gas

The second leg of Cook’s vision, the continued export of liquefied natural gas to East Asia, is decidedly wobbly.

Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill, head of Australia’s largest oil and gas producer, sold her product’s benefits with a simple claim often repeated by both gas producers and the pliant politicians who repeat their lines.

“Gas, when used to generate electricity in displacing coal has about half the lifecycle emissions intensity,” she said.

However, that is not how technically and economically complex energy systems work and the emissions benefits of gas were shown to be far less than clear-cut by a 2019 report commissioned by O’Neill’s company.

Kept from public view until flushed out by this masthead last year, the CSIRO report “Modelling the emissions impact of additional LNG in Asia” looks at how a real energy market works, instead of assuming with no basis that there is a simple swap between coal and gas.

“If you’re going to refer to that study, you need to look at the full study which has a number of different scenarios,” O’Neill said when questioned about the report at the summit.

Fair point.

The CSIRO churned through sixteen scenarios, let’s see what it concluded:

“Gas remains a transitional fuel, but perhaps not precisely in the way it has been previously thought,” the report said.

The CSIRO concluded that more LNG into Asia does reduce emissions if there is a carbon price strong enough to force countries into a high renewable power generation.

However, in the real world, where governments have shied away from high carbon prices, “increased gas supply’s impact on GHG emissions reduction is either negative or neutral.” Power generators tend to switch from coal to gas rather than coal to renewables.

All at sea

“Put simply, the benefits of WA helping other high-emission countries to decarbonise far outstrip the benefits of decarbonising our own economy as part of that equation,” Cook said.

But it ain’t that simple.

Will our gas shipped to Asia speed the move to clean energy or just prolong the use of fossil fuels?

“But this isn’t about letting gas off the hook,” Cook said.

“We know we’ve got important work to do to make sure we lower the emissions from our gas extraction and production facilities.”

Leaving aside that emissions from producing fossil fuels are a fraction of what is emitted when they are used, what is Cook’s hook?

A study that “looks at the geological formations” that make WA ideal for carbon storage funded by the state government and seven gas producers coincidentally released on the day of the summit.

It is a 16-slide sales pitch for a long list of pre-determined “findings” that are just an industry wish list for support.

But extolling the virtues of geology perfect for carbon storage does ring a bell.

Where have I heard that before?

Of course, 20 years ago, working for Chevron on its Gorgon project that was sited on Barrow Island so CO2 could be buried underneath.

The giant plant has been exporting gas for seven years now, but the combined expertise of Chevorn, Shell and ExxonMobil has only managed to get its CO2 injection to work at one-third of its design capacity.

The failure has resulted in millions of tonnes of additional carbon pollution.

The only repercussion for the oil and gas super majors is having to buy carbon offsets, cheaply available overseas with more and more offset projects being found to be of limited benefit to the climate.

Until a project touting carbon storage among its climate credentials commits to ceasing production if the storage does not work, best to treat the claims as expensive greenwashing with cheap offsets as a plan B.

Storms ahead

While federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was all smiles at the summit, his friend Cook’s plan is a huge problem for him.

Federal Labor has a legislated target to cut national emissions by 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

But one state has just put its hand up and said, nope, not us Chris.

It is simple maths that if WA has its way, the rest of the country has to cut emissions harder.

“We’ll keep our GST, but you can have our emissions cuts” may not go down well elsewhere in the country.

Closer to home Woodside will be promoting its long-life, carbon-intensive Browse project off the Kimberley coast as an essential part of Cook’s newfound mission for WA to stave off a global climate disaster.

However, whatever view you have on how much gas the world needs, it is hard to argue anything other than: what is produced should involve a minimal amount of emissions.

And here, Browse is an absolute dog.

Even if the high CO2 levels in the reservoirs are buried, there are enormous emissions from pumping the gas 1000 kilometres to Woodside’s ageing and inefficient North West Shelf gas plant.

If that is not enough, the plant is right next to over one million examples of ancient Aboriginal rock art that will disappear if industrial emissions damage the thin-coloured layer covering the rocks.

But remember WA, we are on a mission, so if you question the merits of Browse, you may have to walk the plank.

Simple, innit?

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