I don’t get the push to close coal fired power stations in Australia. I heard today on radio that countries are building new stations all over the world. Turkey 90, India 1000, South Korea 26, Japan 45, China 1000. What are we really achieving here. Are we just a laughing stock to these countries. Our footprint is negligible on these nations, what are we really achieving? Especially when we have the resources here. Didn’t Texas have hundreds of thousands of customers left with no power due to wind turbines freezing over becoming inoperable of late. Surely that’s not a solution for countries in the northern hemisphere
On the the coal power stations, its a bit of a mixed bag. We made up about 1-3% of the CO2 production in the world. Not much. But we also provide around 30% of the world's coal. So if we wanted to have a real impact then we'd stop exporting coal. But that would screw our economy, and it would lead to countries using worse coal. But it would also lead to coal prices going up so it would lead to less coal use overall.
The real problem is CO2 emissions per capita. Per person we emit more CO2 than USA, China and India. The problem being the latter two. If we say that we won't reduce our emissions then we're telling poorer countries that they have to reduce their emissions to make up for us keeping our comfy lifestyle. So the suggestion is that we should at least do our part. Especially when countries like China are way ahead of us in renewable development.
In regard to Texas, wind power makes up about 5% of their energy generation. They had a cold snap leading to around -30 degree C temps. And yes, that froze wind turbines. But it also froze the turbines in the coal power stations. So renewables wasn't their problem. They just weren't prepared for a massive drop in temperature.
This is one of the main reasons people started using "climate change" instead of "global warming". Global warming is still a thing. But it's part of climate change. And the important part of climate change is that the whole climate changes. Summers get hotter. Places that never had snow before are now getting blizzards that literally freeze waterfalls and power stations.
Climate change isn't just warmer temperatures. It's everything else that comes with it. Rising sea levels, ocean acidification, chaotic storms, blizzards, drought to previously fertile areas and flooding to previously moderate drought areas. Weather extremes.
