Colombia proposes a bill to ban new coal exploration and mines: Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy has released a draft bill proposing to ban all new coal exploration licences and mines. The bill aims to contribute towards the country’s “decarbonization goals” and is open for public consultation. Colombia’s President, Gustavo Petro, was elected in August 2022 with a commitment to phase out the country’s reliance on fossil fuels. The bill would also allow for the nationalisation of mines if doing so would “contribute to the country’s reindustrialization, energy transition, agricultural development and public infrastructure”. Colombia is the world’s fifth largest thermal coal exporter, with an estimated 56 million tonnes shipped in 2023. Colombia announced at the COP28 climate negotiations in December 2023 that it supported negotiating a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to manage the transition from coal, oil, and gas. (Mining.com)

Legal action over risk to sacred springs from Adani’s Australian mine: Adrian Burragubba from the Nagana Yarrbayn Wangan & Jagalingou Cultural Custodians has launched legal action against the Queensland government, alleging it has failed to act to protect the sacred Doongmabulla Springs from the impact of Adani’s Carmichael coal mine. The legal action argues that open-cut mining by Barvus Mining, an Adani subsidiary, poses an imminent and irreversible threat to the springs. W & J hired Professor Matthew Currell and Professor Adrian Werner to assess the impacts of the mine on the springs. A report by one of the consultants found that data from Bravus indicated “hundreds of instances” where declines in water quality or groundwater levels exceeded approved thresholds after mining began in 2020. (ABC News, National Indigenous Times)

Canadian MP proposes a bill to ban thermal coal exports: Laurel Collins from the opposition New Democratic Party has announced she will introduce a private member’s bill to ban thermal coal exports from Canada. The ruling Liberal party promised in 2021 to ban thermal coal exports by 2030, but since then the volume shipped through Canadian ports has increased. In 2022, Canada exported 8.2 million tonnes of domestically produced thermal coal, a 60 per cent increase over the volume shipped in 2021. Canada also exports almost 10 million tonnes of thermal coal produced in the US. (Global News, Environmental Defence)

Canadian groups alarmed over the Australian company’s mining plan: Environmental groups have expressed alarm that NWP Coal Canada’s proposed Crown Mountain mine near Elkview in British Columbia would impact wildlife and water quality. At a public consultation forum, Wildsight’s Randal Macnair raised concerns that the mine would disrupt a critical wildlife corridor in the Alexander Valley used by grizzly bears and wolverines. He said the company proposed to dump waste rock into Alexander Creek, a habitat for the endangered westslope cutthroat trout. A Sparwood Fish and Wildlife member, Matt Huryn, raised concern that the valley was one of the few areas elk to use as a wintering range. NWP Coal Canada proposes producing two million tonnes of primarily metallurgical coal annually over a 16-year mine life and wants to begin construction in 2024. NWP Coal Canada is a subsidiary of the small Australian exploration company Jameson Resources, which holds a 77.8 per cent stake in the company, with the small New Zealand coal mining company Bathurst Resources holding the remainder of the company. (Arrow Lake News)

Report warns on growing public health toll of Indonesia’s nickel boom: A report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) estimates the boom in Indonesia’s downstream nickel processing and associated captive coal plants could cause about 5000 pollution-related deaths in 2030. Since the January 2020 ban on exporting unprocessed nickel ore, processing plants and associated captive coal power projects have centred on the islands of Sulawesi and Maluku. The study estimates emissions from the smelters and captive coal plants in three provinces – Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, and North Maluku – will impose an annual economic burden of US$2.6 billion in 2025 from health costs of pollution and impacts on agriculture and fishing. CREA estimates that without proper air pollution controls, up to 1.2 million people will be exposed daily to high nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide emissions and about 7 million people to high PM2.5 fine particle pollution. (Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air [Pdf])

UN agency concerned about imprisoned Vietnamese climate leader: Dang Dinh Bach, a community lawyer and leader of Vietnam’s climate change movement, has launched his third hunger strike to protest against his prison conditions. Bach was sentenced on January 2022 to serve five years on tax charges, a common pretext used to detain civil society advocates. Bach, who was a member of the Vietnam Environmental Network and the Vietnam Sustainable Energy Alliance, has been held with other political prisoners in a prison eight hours away from his family, whom he relies on for supplies. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reports that communication and visits from Bach’s family and lawyer are restricted. In early 2023, a panel of UN experts warned that the Vietnamese government was using “deprivation of liberty and mistreatment in prison” to “silence human rights defenders and civil society members working on sensitive issues”. International Rivers, a global environmental group, recently published a YouTube video highlighting the imprisonment of Bach and fellow climate movement leader Hoang Thi Minh Hong. (United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, International Rivers)

US coalition launches campaign to end ‘zombie mines’: An alliance of 52 community and environmental groups has launched a policy agenda for state and federal to address the growing problem of unreclaimed ‘zombie’ mines that have not been rehabilitated. The coalition argues that ensuring rehabilitation would reduce the environmental risks to nearby communities and provide 23,000-45,000 job-years of work. The coalition argues that the current bonding system is seriously flawed and needs to be replaced with a new system to ensure funding is in place for reclamation works. The platform also proposes setting enforceable deadlines for reclamation for idled or shuttered mines. It also proposes a ban on regulators allowing the indefinite idling of mines and ensuring public input into reclamation plans. (Appalachian Voices, Preventing Zombie Mines [Pdf])

Australia: Freedom of Information documents reveal Peter Dutton, the leader of the conservative opposition Liberal Party, met with the controversial Indian coal baron, Javeen Jindal, in New Delhi in November 2023.

US: The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services has set a March 31 deadline for Granite Shore Power’s Merrimack Station to complete an emissions compliance test. The community are alarmed at ongoing pollution from the plant.

FirstEnergy warns investors of potential costs of Ohio corruption scandal: The charges against former FirstEnergy executives and Sam Randazzo, the former head of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), has increased pressure on current Governor Mike DeWine. The state indictment alleges that Randazzo told DeWine’s chief of staff, Laurel Dawson, that FirstEnergy paid him US$4.3 million under a “consulting agreement” on the day it was finalised by company executives. Later that day, DeWine dined with the two former FirstEnergy executives, Chuck Jones and Michael Dowling, who are now facing charges. FirstEnergy faces an array of challenges. The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel is seeking a freeze on FirstEnergy’s application for approval of new charges for grid modernisation until the charges against Randazzo are resolved. FirstEnergy is seeking US$1.4 billion over eight years in additional charges in a separate case. The Ohio Manufacturers’ Association Energy Group wants evidence of the utility’s role in House Bill 6 (HB6) included in the hearing. Other intervenors argued the application should be rejected. In a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, FirstEnergy stated “it is probable” that the utility will incur a loss in resolving a federal securities class action over the impact of the HB 6 bribery scandal on shareholders. The utility warned that if “substantial monetary damages” were awarded against the company, the “financial condition” of the company could be adversely affected. (Energy News Network, FirstEnergy Corporation)

Coal demand in Japan, Korea and Taiwan starts to slide: Thermal coal imports into Japan, South Korea and Taiwan slumped by 13 per cent to 243.4 million tonnes in 2023 compared to the year before. S&P Global Commodity Insights estimates a further four to six per cent fall in 2024 despite the fall in the price of coal compared to the highs of 2022. The decline in thermal coal demand is partly driven by a 3.7 per cent and 0.8 per cent decline in power demand in 2023 in Japan and South Korea, respectively. In Japan, thermal coal imports fell in 2023 by 17.1 per cent to 106.2 million tonnes, with increased renewables and nuclear generation as significant factors. Renewables increased to a 24 per cent share of generation, a six per cent jump. Two nuclear reactors mothballed after the Fukushima disaster were restarted in 2023, with two more units likely to resume generation this year. (S & P Global)

Indonesian coal lobby tips export decline this year: The head of the Indonesian Coal Mining Association, Hendra Sinadia, agrees that Indonesian thermal coal exports will likely decline as coal prices fall due to oversupply. Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has set a production target of 710 million tonnes, an eight per cent decline on the 775 million tonnes produced in 2023. An estimated 550 million tonnes was exported in 2023, with revenue slumping to US$56 billion, a 15 per cent decline compared to 2022. Data from Statistics Indonesia indicates export coal prices fell by more than 62 per cent to US$141.8 per tonne in 2023 compared to the year before. Major Indonesian coal producers, such as Adaro Energy and state-owned Bukit Asam, have yet to release production targets for 2024. Analysts predict that the growth in coal exports will be far lower than the 13 per cent increase in 2023 due to likely reduced Chinese demand and an end to China’s ban on Australian coal. (Jakarta Post [paywall], Asia News Network)

Faced with coal’s decline, Arch touts offloading its ailing Montana mines: Arch President and CEO Paul Lang told a conference call that the company is considering the “potential divestiture” of its thermal coal mines, including the Coal Creek and Black Thunder projects in Wyoming. Arch also operates the West Elk mine in Colorado. The company produced 60.6 million US short tons (55 million tonnes) from the Black Thunder mine in 2023, a far cry from the 101 million US short tons (92 million tonnes) produced in 2014. Lang said on a conference call for analysts that the company estimated demand for Powder River Basin coal could decline by five to ten per cent annually. Arch expects to produce 50-56 million US short tons (45-51 million tonnes) of thermal coal and about 9 million US short tons (8 million tonnes) of metallurgical coal in 2024. (Cowboy State Daily, Arch Coal)

Mongolian coal boom drives the country’s growth, for now: Mongolia’s National Statistical Office has revealed the country’s economy grew by 7 per cent in 2023, primarily driven by a significant expansion in coal exports to China following the easing of border restrictions and new rail links. Mongolian coal exports surged to 66.7 million tonnes in 2023, up from 31.7 million tonnes the year before. Mongolia’s coal exports earned US$8.8 billion in 2023, more than half of the country’s US$15.2 billion in export revenue. In 2022, the government instituted a crackdown on the sale of coal from the state-owned company Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi and ordered all state coal to be sold through the Mongolian Stock Exchange. Further increases in rail capacity could result in a further surge in coal exports. (BNE Intellinews)

South African coal fleet performance keeps declining: Energy analyst Chris Yelland says the energy availability factor (EAF) of Eskom’s power plants has continued on a five-year downward trend, falling to 50.84 per cent in February. In January 2023, Eskom chair Mpho Makwana said the utility planned to improve plant performance and announced a 65 per cent EAF target for 31 March 2024. The declining performance of Eskom’s power fleet suggests that load shedding, a critical political issue ahead of the May 2024 general election, will not ease in the short term. The Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), a government advisory body, has warned that the draft Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) 2023 suggests load shedding will remain until 2030 after downgrading the role of new renewables and pinning hopes on new gas capacity. The 2019 version of the IRP proposed 15,200 MW of new renewables, which has been cut in the current draft to 8000 MW. A 2023 study by the PCC recommended the construction of between 50,000 MW and 60,000 MW of wind and solar capacity by 2030. (BusinessTech, News24)

Russia stalls on decarbonising steel sector: Russian steel producers have invested heavily over the last decade in extending the life of existing coal-based blast furnace steel production, but exporters face growing pressure to switch to lower carbon production. In 2022, just over 60 per cent of Russia’s 71 million tonnes of steel was produced by coal-based technology. A Global  Energy Monitor (GEM) report estimates that within the next ten years more than half of Russia’s blast furnace capacity will fall due for relining, a process that extends the life of the plant by decades. Russian steel exporters such as Metalloinvest and NLMK face pressure to decarbonise production, with the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism coming into effect in 2026. Russian steel producers that planned to build fossil-based direct reduced iron-electric arc furnaces have been affected by the exit from the Russian market of major iron and steel furnace suppliers. Sanctions on its energy exports have derailed Russia’s aim to produce hydrogen for export. GEM argues that investing in hydrogen-based DRI units would provide domestic demand for some production. (Global Energy Monitor, Global Energy Monitor [Pdf])

GETting Interconnected in PJM, RMI, February 2024. (Pdf) (Executive Summary is here.)
 
This 32-page report explores near-term grid-enhancing technologies that can be deployed to ease the grid connections bottleneck for new generation capacity, such as renewables and battery storage. The report focusses on the PJM Interconnection, a major eastern US electricity market.