Huh. Despite Gas CEO's Claims Of 1.5C Compatbility, Huge Oz LNG Project Would Add 9.2 MT CO2/Year

[hatrack]

Energy giant Woodside and Australian governments are betting against the success of the Paris climate agreement by backing a gas development that would substantially increase greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report. Woodside last month announced it had made a final investment decision to develop the $16bn Scarborough to Pluto liquefied natural gas (LNG) project off Western Australia’s north-west coast.

The decision was welcomed by the federal government, with Scott Morrison saying he “did a bit of a jig” and “could not be more thrilled” when it was announced, and Western Australia’s Labor premier, Mark McGowan, suggesting he could change the law if a court bid to stop it was successful. oodside’s chief executive, Meg O’Neill, said the project was consistent with the Paris agreement goal of attempting to limit global heating to 1.5C due to the Scarborough gasfield, about 375km off the coast, having a comparatively low level of carbon dioxide.

A new report by the global research firm Climate Analytics, titled Warming Western Australia, disputes this. The report found the total emissions related to the pluto project were expected to be 1.37bn tonnes of CO2 – nearly three times Australia’s annual carbon pollution – and its development would slow the global push to reach net zero. An earlier assessment by the WA Conservation Council and the Australia Institute had put the likely emissions resulting from the life of the plant at 1.6bn tonnes.

Ed. - Link To Climate Analytics Study

Both said the company had significantly understated the total emissions output by not counting all elements of the project, which includes the Scarborough offshore gasfield, an expansion of an existing onshore LNG production facility and creation of a second processing “train”, construction of a major gas pipe and an expected tenfold increase in WA’s local gas capacity. Based on the numbers in the latest report, the local gas extraction, production and use would add about 2% to Australia’s current annual emissions. The state’s annual emissions would increase by more than 10%.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/03/woodsides-new-western-australian-gas-project-a-bet-against-global-15c-goal-report-finds

[NNadir]

1. The CA report indicates 1.37 billion tons CO2 over 31 years or 40.3 MT/year.

From the text:

The total cumulative Scope 1 and 3 emissions from the project are estimated at 1.37 billion tonnes of GHG emissions from 2021-2055 of which close to 20% is projected to be emitted in Western Australia. These emissions are equivalent to 18 (sic?) and 3.6 years respectively of WA’s 2005 emissions.

Of course, having dangerous natural gas available does allow for one to install wind turbines as a fig leaf for the operation, which could certainly slow these emissions, albeit not prevent them.

The calculation includes the cost of constructing infrastructure to engineer the systems, something usually missing from discussions of so called "renewable energy."

Most of the embodied energy for wind turbines comes from coal, and is related to the steel therein. Australia has lots of coal, so in theory they could certainly use their coal to keep manufacturing new wind turbines every twenty years to put lipstick on their gas pig.

The gas will also be useful for manufacturing the fiberglass for wind turbine blades, which involves the reduction of silicon dioxide with carbon usually using natural gas fired furnaces.

Vaclav Smil has a nice accounting of how this project could help us go "renewable by 'such and such a year.'"

To make the steel required for wind turbines that might operate by 2030, you’d need fossil fuels equivalent to more than 600 million metric tons of coal.

A 5-MW turbine has three roughly 60-meter-long airfoils, each weighing about 15 metric tons. They have light balsa or foam cores and outer laminations made mostly from glass-fiber-reinforced epoxy or polyester resins. The glass is made by melting silicon dioxide and other mineral oxides in furnaces fired by natural gas. The resins begin with ethylene derived from light hydrocarbons, most commonly the products of naphtha cracking, liquefied petroleum gas, or the ethane in natural gas. The final fiber-reinforced composite embodies on the order of 170 GJ/t. Therefore, to get 2.5 TW of installed wind power by 2030, we would need an aggregate rotor mass of about 23 million metric tons, incorporating the equivalent of about 90 million metric tons of crude oil. And when all is in place, the entire structure must be waterproofed with resins whose synthesis starts with ethylene. Another required oil product is lubricant, for the turbine gearboxes, which has to be changed periodically during the machine’s two-decade lifetime...

What I see when I see a wind turbine.

The Scarborough announcement is simply bad marketing bad marketing. They should simply announce that they need all that gas and coal to make wind turbines, and then everybody will cheer. This is the usual marketing that other fossil fuel dependent countries use. It's very successful. Ask the Germans.

Australia has huge reserves of uranium, and their lanthanide mines plan to dump the thorium residuals in Malaysia. Of course, most people are perfectly satisfied that nuclear energy is far more dangerous than climate change, just as they are sure that fossil fuels are "green" whenever they support wind turbines, solar cells and electric cars.

I think "most people," so defined, are idiots, but that's just my opinion. I'm a dissident.