Coal is facing tough times. Nowhere is this felt more than in Australia, the world’s largest exporter of the dirtiest fossil fuel. Last week, one of the country’s biggest banks, the National Australia Bank, said it would no longer fund coal projects. This week, Adani, an Indian multinational failed to get funding from national and international banks to build a coal mine in the Australian state of Queensland.
Now, Roy Green, chairman of the Port of Newcastle in Australia, the world’s biggest coal port, has said (paywall) that the port is preparing for a world without coal. In 2016, coal accounted for 96% of trade at the port, which is mined in the nearby Hunter Valley region. The port is hoping to diversify into non-energy sectors, such as a container port to import and export high-value products, and maybe even a cruise terminal to attract tourists. [...]
That said, it’s unclear how many years it will take for the port to stop shipping coal. The intergovernmental group, the International Energy Agency (IEA), expects the world to reduce, but not end, its consumption of coal in the next few decades. In its 2017 World Energy Outlook, the IEA estimated that, between 2016 and 2040, the world will burn at least a quarter of the coal it burned between 1990 and 2016. Though some coal energy will be replaced by renewables like solar and wind, most will be replaced by burning natural gas instead.
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