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'We can do this': Rio Tinto’s rapid switch to renewables shows path for quick exit from coal
You might be able to imagine the scene: An Australia sporting minister stands up in front of a vast audience to announce that something is simply not possible – it might be running 100 metres in 10 seconds, kicking a drop goal from 50 metres, or a swimming relay team beating a world record.
Behind the minister, on a big screen, there is a video of some sporting people doing exactly what the minister just said was not possible.
It was a similar vibe at the Brisbane convention centre last Friday (10 October), when the state’s energy minister slammed the brakes on the state’s energy transition, because he said it was going too fast, just as the biggest energy consumer in the state announced it was switching from coal to renewables in record quick time.
As we have written already, the Queensland LNP government’s new energy roadmap effectively shuts the door on new wind and solar projects in the coming five years. It says closing down coal generators under the previous government’s time frame would lead to blackouts, rising prices and economic ruin.
Its own documents highlight that the opposite is true. Nearly half of the 6.5 GW of new wind and solar capacity already locked in for construction in Queensland is destined to help power Rio Tinto’s giant smelters and refineries in Gladstone, allowing it to shut down the biggest coal generator in the state in just four years’ time.
How is this possible?
Paul Simshauser, the departing head of Powerlink and the former director-general of the state’s department of energy, says it is entirely feasible, and much work has already gone into preparing the infrastructure — new transmission and other grid needs — to enable the switch from coal to wind, solar and storage.
“I don’t think we need to be panicking,” Simshauser says in last week’s episode of Renew Economy’s weekly Energy Insiders podcast. “We can do this.”
Simshauser points to the fact that the 1680 megawatt Gladstone coal generator — the state’s biggest — is nearly 50 years old and operates at a........
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