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What's going on in Queensland, Australia? "793g Carbon intensity" seems insanely high, especially as compared with Norway/France/Sweden (at 24-41g carbon intens

What's going on in Queensland, Australia? "793g Carbon intensity" seems insanely high, especially as compared with Norway/France/Sweden (at 24-41g carbon intensity). Does anyone have insight into this? I've never pictured Australia as a big contributor to pollution.

_Microft 6y ago
Australia is one of the worst offenders (per capita), let me get the numbers. Edit: Here are the per-capita emissions of a few countries for comparison. It's interactive, you can add and remove (click "+ Add country" for this as well) countries from the graph as you like: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-emissions?tab=chart&time=earliest..latest&country=AUS~FRA~NOR~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-emissions?... Article on this: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/australia?country=USA~AUS~NOR~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/australia?country=USA...
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Consider also posting Aus renewables pipeline data. They’re on track to replace a large component of their fossil generation in the next 3-5 years (South Australia already has no coal) due to the amount of wind and solar ready to be (and currently being) built. Edit: https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/resources/project-tracker https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/resources/project-trac...
  - _Microft 6y ago
    I do not follow australian development closely, feel free to give details yourself. Edit: thanks
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  The thing never mentioned in these data points is the sheer amount of fossil fuel exports either. The numbers are staggering when you include them.
jka 6y ago
Good observation. I was curious, and it looks like the parser code to retrieve the data is open source; so here's the relevant module for Australia: https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib/blob/24ea22232a43cb54d3733e7c97c281855225efb2/parsers/AU.py https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib/blob/24ea2... The production mix (energy generation by source) source URL is listed on L326. Opening the dataset in LibreOffice Calc, filtering by Region = QLD1, filtering for Current Output > 0, and sorting by Current Output descending does seem to show that the vast bulk of production reported has fuel source descriptor 'Black Coal'. If that's a bug in the reported data or source, hopefully the ElectricityMap team can jump in to take a look. The data initially seems legit, from searching for some of the power stations listed. Edit / addendum: worth searching for Australia in the project's GitHub issues too; there's some existing (although not directly related) investigation & validation work ongoing for that module
- ezzaf 6y ago
  The problem is in fact with the source file, it lists just two solar power stations but there are at least 30 in Queensland.
  - jaimex2 6y ago
    The site is has no idea when it comes to Australia. Queensland generates a ton of solar Victoria uses brown coal which is basically damp coal, its incredibly inefficient compared to black coal used by NSW/Qld Tasmania is basically 100% renewable...
- Paddywack 6y ago
  Also - home solar penetration in QLD is the highest in Australia. Is that not factored in to the equation? It doesn't look that way given 0% renewables shown.
  - X-Cubed 6y ago
    This website is pulling information from public sources, so it can only show public generation & consumption information. If someone is running a grid-tied solar system, outbound energy might be accounted for in these statistics, but it won't show any immediate consumption of that solar generation by the property, nor will it show any battery storage, it's only capable of showing what goes through the energy meter.
ezzaf 6y ago
The map appears to be counting some renewable generation in Queensland as CO2 emitting. There's actually quite high solar penetration. That said, Australian is a large contributor to pollution. The majority of electricity is still produced from coal. It is improving, but with a federal target of only 20% renewables, a lot of financial incentive to build new generation could be about to dry up.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  > The map appears to be counting some renewable generation in Queensland as CO2 emitting The map is based on figures which (correctly) assume everything creates at least some CO2 emissions over its lifetime. For example Britain's offshore wind farms are scored as 11g/kWh. Sweden's nuclear reactors, 12g/kWh. In some sense a wind turbine or a nuclear fission plant do not actually "emit" CO2 in operation, they aren't burning carbon - but you need a bunch of concrete construction and mining to have these generators, and it's at a scale where we mustn't forget it. Another reason for showing a number is that if you don't, some pro-fossil fuel person is going to say "Ah, but what about..." and so it's all baked in, same way you can find numbers for "carbon emissions" from ground source electric heat pumps. Unlike a gas boiler to heat things obviously the electric heat pump does not in fact "emit" carbon directly, but nevertheless for comparison we can estimate what the overall emissions are for one versus the other (mostly to show that yup, heat pumps are a good idea).
  - ezzaf 6y ago
    Sorry I wasn't very specific. It appears to be counting solar generation as coal generation, so the amount of co2 emissions is vastly inflated.
tialaramex 6y ago
It's famously burning a lot of coal. Coal is getting on for 1 gram per watt-hour. (Usually this will be stated as 1000g/kWh). So 793g is indeed very bad, but it's not unusual for a country that's burning so much coal. Poland likewise, big coal mines, coal power electricity dominates. But notice that this is proportional. Queensland is a pretty big place, but it's only making about 4-5GW of electricity. Whereas a power district in the US might have 20+GW of coal power stations, so even if it's also got 10GW of wind or nuclear or whatever, that's many times more actual pollution. Warming doesn't care how efficient we are, the totals matter. So in that sense getting from 5GW of coal in Queensland to 1GW of coal in Queensland (an 80% reduction) would make less difference than MISO in America going from 25GW to 20GW (just 20% reduction).
owengee 6y ago
Something is very amiss with the QLD data. A better site for exploring composition of generation is https://opennem.org.au/energy/qld1/ https://opennem.org.au/energy/qld1/. That said, the result is about right for CO2 intensity, if a bit high. Also the market operator has their own data for CO2 intensity https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/market-operations/settlements-and-payments/settlements/carbon-dioxide-equivalent-intensity-index https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/national-e... . General comment - Victoria tends to have the worst electricity supply in Australia in terms of CO2 per kWh (brown coal vs black coal elsewhere)
jlundberg 6y ago
Specifically about Sweden, the electricity here comes exclusivly from hydro, nuclear and wind/solar.
steeve 6y ago
Look at the energy sources to understand why. France: Nuclear Norway: Hydro Sweden: Hydro + Nuclear That’s why nuclear in making a comeback in the mind of those who care about climate change.
- nl 6y ago
  South Australia: https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/ https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/ Wind/Solar/Gas, with low emissions intensity and (as of September 2020) the lowest power prices in Australia.
  - steeve 6y ago
    And yet the net result super bad: 256g/kWh to 500g/kWh. Gas is absolutely not “low emissions”. It’s actually the second worst offender after coal (400gCO2eq/kWh vs 1000 for coal).
    - nl 6y ago
      > 256g/kWh to 500g/kWh Where are you getting this? It's true the emissions mix is bad at night, but the absolute amount is what counts. Having a bad emission mix when no energy is being used isn't particularly concerning. > 400gCO2eq/kWh vs 1000 for coal That's pre-2014 numbers. Modern gas is better, around 300 gCO2eq/kWh[1]. It's not as good as solar/wind, but the fast startup time means its usage can be minimized and the low cost ($20M for a generator!) means money can be invested in truly environmently friendly sources like wind and solar instead of the money pit of nuclear power. [1] https://www.winnipeg.ca/finance/findata/matmgt/documents/2012/682-2012/682-2012_Appendix_H-WSTP_South_End_Plant_Process_Selection_Report/Appendix%207.pdf https://www.winnipeg.ca/finance/findata/matmgt/documents/201...
      - steeve 6y ago
        Those numbers are from electricityMap for South Australia: 201g right now, and 502g 15 hours ago. During the demand peak, it was 301g. Speaks for itself. About the money pit, Germany spent 500 billion euros on wind and solar. And what does it have to show for it? Right now it’s 10x the CO2/kWh of France at twice the price.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

_Microft 6y ago

Australia is one of the worst offenders (per capita), let me get the numbers. Edit: Here are the per-capita emissions of a few countries for comparison. It's interactive, you can add and remove (click "+ Add country" for this as well) countries from the graph as you like: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-emissions?tab=chart&time=earliest..latest&country=AUS~FRA~NOR~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-emissions?... Article on this: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/australia?country=USA~AUS~NOR~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/australia?country=USA...

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Consider also posting Aus renewables pipeline data. They’re on track to replace a large component of their fossil generation in the next 3-5 years (South Australia already has no coal) due to the amount of wind and solar ready to be (and currently being) built. Edit: https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/resources/project-tracker https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/resources/project-trac...
- _Microft 6y ago
  I do not follow australian development closely, feel free to give details yourself. Edit: thanks
DarthGhandi 6y ago
The thing never mentioned in these data points is the sheer amount of fossil fuel exports either. The numbers are staggering when you include them.

jka 6y ago

Good observation. I was curious, and it looks like the parser code to retrieve the data is open source; so here's the relevant module for Australia: https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib/blob/24ea22232a43cb54d3733e7c97c281855225efb2/parsers/AU.py https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib/blob/24ea2... The production mix (energy generation by source) source URL is listed on L326. Opening the dataset in LibreOffice Calc, filtering by Region = QLD1, filtering for Current Output > 0, and sorting by Current Output descending does seem to show that the vast bulk of production reported has fuel source descriptor 'Black Coal'. If that's a bug in the reported data or source, hopefully the ElectricityMap team can jump in to take a look. The data initially seems legit, from searching for some of the power stations listed. Edit / addendum: worth searching for Australia in the project's GitHub issues too; there's some existing (although not directly related) investigation & validation work ongoing for that module

ezzaf 6y ago
The problem is in fact with the source file, it lists just two solar power stations but there are at least 30 in Queensland.
- jaimex2 6y ago
  The site is has no idea when it comes to Australia. Queensland generates a ton of solar Victoria uses brown coal which is basically damp coal, its incredibly inefficient compared to black coal used by NSW/Qld Tasmania is basically 100% renewable...
Paddywack 6y ago
Also - home solar penetration in QLD is the highest in Australia. Is that not factored in to the equation? It doesn't look that way given 0% renewables shown.
- X-Cubed 6y ago
  This website is pulling information from public sources, so it can only show public generation & consumption information. If someone is running a grid-tied solar system, outbound energy might be accounted for in these statistics, but it won't show any immediate consumption of that solar generation by the property, nor will it show any battery storage, it's only capable of showing what goes through the energy meter.

ezzaf 6y ago

The map appears to be counting some renewable generation in Queensland as CO2 emitting. There's actually quite high solar penetration. That said, Australian is a large contributor to pollution. The majority of electricity is still produced from coal. It is improving, but with a federal target of only 20% renewables, a lot of financial incentive to build new generation could be about to dry up.

tialaramex 6y ago
> The map appears to be counting some renewable generation in Queensland as CO2 emitting The map is based on figures which (correctly) assume everything creates at least some CO2 emissions over its lifetime. For example Britain's offshore wind farms are scored as 11g/kWh. Sweden's nuclear reactors, 12g/kWh. In some sense a wind turbine or a nuclear fission plant do not actually "emit" CO2 in operation, they aren't burning carbon - but you need a bunch of concrete construction and mining to have these generators, and it's at a scale where we mustn't forget it. Another reason for showing a number is that if you don't, some pro-fossil fuel person is going to say "Ah, but what about..." and so it's all baked in, same way you can find numbers for "carbon emissions" from ground source electric heat pumps. Unlike a gas boiler to heat things obviously the electric heat pump does not in fact "emit" carbon directly, but nevertheless for comparison we can estimate what the overall emissions are for one versus the other (mostly to show that yup, heat pumps are a good idea).
- ezzaf 6y ago
  Sorry I wasn't very specific. It appears to be counting solar generation as coal generation, so the amount of co2 emissions is vastly inflated.

tialaramex 6y ago

It's famously burning a lot of coal. Coal is getting on for 1 gram per watt-hour. (Usually this will be stated as 1000g/kWh). So 793g is indeed very bad, but it's not unusual for a country that's burning so much coal. Poland likewise, big coal mines, coal power electricity dominates. But notice that this is proportional. Queensland is a pretty big place, but it's only making about 4-5GW of electricity. Whereas a power district in the US might have 20+GW of coal power stations, so even if it's also got 10GW of wind or nuclear or whatever, that's many times more actual pollution. Warming doesn't care how efficient we are, the totals matter. So in that sense getting from 5GW of coal in Queensland to 1GW of coal in Queensland (an 80% reduction) would make less difference than MISO in America going from 25GW to 20GW (just 20% reduction).

owengee 6y ago

Something is very amiss with the QLD data. A better site for exploring composition of generation is https://opennem.org.au/energy/qld1/ https://opennem.org.au/energy/qld1/. That said, the result is about right for CO2 intensity, if a bit high. Also the market operator has their own data for CO2 intensity https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/market-operations/settlements-and-payments/settlements/carbon-dioxide-equivalent-intensity-index https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/national-e... . General comment - Victoria tends to have the worst electricity supply in Australia in terms of CO2 per kWh (brown coal vs black coal elsewhere)

jlundberg 6y ago

Specifically about Sweden, the electricity here comes exclusivly from hydro, nuclear and wind/solar.

steeve 6y ago

Look at the energy sources to understand why. France: Nuclear Norway: Hydro Sweden: Hydro + Nuclear That’s why nuclear in making a comeback in the mind of those who care about climate change.

nl 6y ago
South Australia: https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/ https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/ Wind/Solar/Gas, with low emissions intensity and (as of September 2020) the lowest power prices in Australia.
- steeve 6y ago
  And yet the net result super bad: 256g/kWh to 500g/kWh. Gas is absolutely not “low emissions”. It’s actually the second worst offender after coal (400gCO2eq/kWh vs 1000 for coal).
  - nl 6y ago
    > 256g/kWh to 500g/kWh Where are you getting this? It's true the emissions mix is bad at night, but the absolute amount is what counts. Having a bad emission mix when no energy is being used isn't particularly concerning. > 400gCO2eq/kWh vs 1000 for coal That's pre-2014 numbers. Modern gas is better, around 300 gCO2eq/kWh[1]. It's not as good as solar/wind, but the fast startup time means its usage can be minimized and the low cost ($20M for a generator!) means money can be invested in truly environmently friendly sources like wind and solar instead of the money pit of nuclear power. [1] https://www.winnipeg.ca/finance/findata/matmgt/documents/2012/682-2012/682-2012_Appendix_H-WSTP_South_End_Plant_Process_Selection_Report/Appendix%207.pdf https://www.winnipeg.ca/finance/findata/matmgt/documents/201...
    - steeve 6y ago
      Those numbers are from electricityMap for South Australia: 201g right now, and 502g 15 hours ago. During the demand peak, it was 301g. Speaks for itself. About the money pit, Germany spent 500 billion euros on wind and solar. And what does it have to show for it? Right now it’s 10x the CO2/kWh of France at twice the price.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]