Coal mine methane mitigation is finally getting real again – but only after huge government handouts

Australia was once the world’s leader in reducing methane. Back before the CSG boom kicked off, methane mitigation was all the rage across the mining sector, and Australia was the global hub of innovation

During the early 2000’s, the CSIRO were developing some of the world’s most advanced methane capture technologies for coal mines, and commercial projects were rolling out across New South Wales and Queensland.

In 2007, the same year the Wallabies last won the Rugby World Cup, BHP opened the world’s first coal mine methane power plant. 

By the end of the decade, Australia had eight different methane reducing projects operating across coal mines in NSW and Queensland. Seven of them were linked to the electricity grid, transforming their otherwise wasted methane gas into electricity. 

We were even exporting our methane reducing technology to China. 

These projects were preventing over 260 thousand tonnes of methane from being released each year, and transforming it into over 220 MW of electricity at the same time. The annual climate benefit was equivalent to reducing over 7 Million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

At the time, we were bullish on this approach to decarbonisation. 

In 2010, the Department of Resources and Energy was predicting that we could rapidly expand the number of methane reducing projects across the coal sector, and “at least double generating capacity over the next decade”.

Fifteen years later, we’ve upheld expectations on methane mitigation about as well as the Wallabies have on the World Cup.

However, in a similar fashion to the recent green and gold resurgence, the last month has revived hopes that Australia might actually get back on track with decarbonising our coal sector. 

Not only is South32 finally planning to roll out their methane mitigation trial, but one of  Australia’s gassiest mines has also just won a matching grant to implement what could be a nationally significant methane reduction project.

Kestrel Coal mine is one of the country’s biggest and deepest underground mines, situated in the heart of one of the gassiest coal regions in the country, Queensland’s Bowen Basin. 

The mine has been operating since 1992, and for the last six years, has been owned by a joint venture between EMR Capital, Mitsui and Indonesian coal mining giant, Adaro. Since then, production has remained relatively consistent, but methane emissions have skyrocketed.

In the last financial year, greenhouse gas emissions were 289% higher than they were when it was acquired in 2018, growing 18% in the last year alone. As a result, it was the third highest emitting coal mine in the country.

According to our analysis, the mine now releases the equivalent of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide for every 5 tonnes of coal it produces. Considering it produces over 7 million tonnes of coal each year, that’s relatively equivalent to producing 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide every minute.

To put it simply, in the time it likely takes you to read this article, Kestrel Coal mine could have released the equivalent of 14 tonnes of carbon dioxide. 

This is the equivalent of driving a Toyota Hilux for 5 years straight – and that’s before any of that coal is shipped around the world, or burnt.

As an underground coal mine, three quarters of its greenhouse gas emissions come directly out of the mine’s ventilation shaft, and the vast majority of this climate warming gas is methane.

With this new grant, those emissions could be captured and significantly reduced at the mine’s shaft, using technologies that were in play back in the mid 2000’s. This has the potential to directly reduce over 20 thousand tonnes of methane each year, and continue doing so for the next decade. 

If implemented at this scale, it could halve the emissions intensity of mining at Kestral, and become the biggest coal mine methane reduction project in Australia.

Just like the Wallabies though, important questions still need to be asked.

In this case, if both these mines are highly profitable, high emitting mines under the reformed Safeguard Mechanism, why are multi-million dollar hand-outs still needed to spur on emissions reductions?

Regardless, these represent some of the first investments in commercial methane mitigation at scale that we’ve seen in a long time. 

If successful, they could represent the proof of concept needed to reinvigorate what once was a thriving growth sector in the resources space, with the potential to replicate and decarbonise at least a dozen other mines domestically, and a swathe of high emitting mines internationally. 

It’s certainly not enough to reclaim our world leading title, but just like the Wallabies over the last few months, it’s a small step in the right direction.

Chris Wright is climate strategy advisor at Ember.