Jobs and growth: Albanese recasts Labor’s planned clean energy revolution

Albanese Labor presser at Henson Park
Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese in Sydney. Credit: AAP/Bianca De Marchi

Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese has reframed the Labor party’s policy on climate and energy, focusing the core of the party’s clean energy revolution on manufacturing jobs and ‘the future of work’, and insisting that there is a long term role for coal, at least the metallurgical variety used to produce steel products such as wind turbine towers.

In his first major policy speech as opposition leader at a CEDA event in Perth, Albanese was due emphasise Labor’s renewed focus on jobs and manufacturing, and sending the message that Labor continues to see metallurgical coal as having a central role in the Australian economy into the future.

Albanese is using a series of speeches to reshape and re-imagine the Labor party’s climate and energy policies, after a largely unexpected defeat at the federal election held in May. At the centre of this is a re-jigged climate and energy policy, after the Labor party was rebuffed by voters after presenting an “ambitious” package of policies under Bill Shorten.

The jobs and growth style rhetoric is ironic, because it is reminiscent of the mantra from former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose government was not so keen on a clean energy revolution.

Albanese acknowledged that the falling costs of wind and solar meant that the of future of the manufacturing sector lay with sourcing energy from renewables.

“In the century that’s before us, the nations that will transform into manufacturing powerhouses are those that can harness the cheapest renewable energy resources,” Albanese said.

“We have the highest average solar radiation per square metre of any continent. We don’t need to create nuclear power when every day we can harness the power of the greatest nuclear reactor in the solar system: the Sun.”

Albanese used his speech to highlight Labor’s commitment to blue-collar job creation, fighting back against persistent Liberal party messaging, and reassured voters that the party’s more ambitious targets for renewables and emissions reductions are not inconsistent with job creation.

But Albanese made the point that Labor believes there’s a role for coal for some time to come, particularly during the transition to clean energy. Albanese said metallurgical will be needed in the manufacturing of materials, such as steel necessary for the ongoing construction of components for wind and solar energy projects.

“Just as coal and iron ore fuelled the industrial economies of the 20th century, it is these minerals that will fuel the clean energy economies of the 21st,” Albanese told the CEDA meeting.

“Labor’s vision for Australia will always be one of a country that continues to make things. Simply put, the road to a low-carbon future can be paved with hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs, as well as supporting traditional jobs, including coal mining,” Albanese said.

“Our traditional industries are also poised to benefit from a low-carbon future. Australia could be exporting 15.5 million tonnes of coking coal to build these turbines. This is the equivalent of three years output from the Moranbah North coking (metallurgical) coal mine in Queensland.”

During the election campaign, Labor faced pressure from both sides of the political spectrum; from the Coalition claiming Labor would sacrifice jobs in the resources sector and from the Greens who accused Labor of hedging its bets on the Adani Carmichael coal mine.

The Queensland State Labor party has since backed the enormous coal mine to be constructed in Queensland’s Galilee basin, waving through water management plans for the project quickly after the federal election.

Albanese sought to re-orientate Labor’s messaging, combating Coalition claims it was anti-coal, by backing a revival of Australia’s manufacturing sector fuelled by Australian coal. The Labor leader cited the statistic that more than 200 tonnes of coal are required to produce the steel used in a single wind turbine tower, a figure that mirrors those produced in lobbying material by the Minerals Council of Australia.

However, progressive think tank Beyond Zero Emissions has challenged the premise of this point, saying that Australia is ideally placed to become a world leader in both renewable energy generation as well as the production of zero-emissions metals.

“We already have technology that lets us make steel using hydrogen instead of metallurgical coal, and countries like Austria and Sweden are developing pilot plants to make fossil-free steel at scale.” Beyond Zero Emissions CEO Vanessa Petrie said.

“But Australia has more iron ore than anywhere else in the world, and more than enough wind and sunshine to power our steelmaking and other industries. With the right investments, we could become a top exporter of zero-carbon steel and renewable hydrogen, while re-employing coal workers in these sunrise industries.”

Albanese sees an opportunity for Australia to seize an advantage in the global market for energy storage technologies, particularly in the production of lithium-ion batteries. The Labor leader proposed Australia invests in both the extraction of battery component materials like lithium and copper, as well as value-adding these resources by processing them in Australia.

“The emerging lithium industry is a living example of how real world economic progress happens – business, unions, researchers and government coming together to deliver on an aspiration bigger than just digging stuff out of the ground and letting the value-adding happen offshore,” Albanese said.

“Not only is Australia in a position to build the batteries, Brisbane-based company, Tritium, has developed and is already exporting the technology to recharge them. Their charging stations are the fastest in the world, and are fuelling the shift to electric vehicles in Europe.”

“Experts tell us achieving 50% renewable energy at home while building a hydrogen export industry would create 87,000 good, well-paid jobs. Chief Scientist Alan Finkel sees a hydrogen export industry that in ten years could be worth $1.7 billion,” Albanese added.

Labor is relying on the fact that the earliest it will be able to form government will be after a federal election scheduled for late 2021 or early 2022 as a reason for reshaping its climate and energy policies.

With an ever narrowing window to achieve emissions reduction and renewable energy policies with a 2030 deadline, the Labor party has been actively considering whether to place a greater emphasis on its longer term, 2050, energy and climate targets.

“The policy we took to the last election had a starting point based upon the Climate Change Authority findings of 2015. We need to know what the starting point is. And I don’t want to let this Government off the hook for having no policy on renewables or on climate change or on energy between now and 2022, because the consequences of that would be devastating for the national economy,” Albanese told a doorstop in Perth ahead of his speech.

Former South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill is leading an internal review of Labor’s 2019 federal election campaign that has already seen the party’s climate policy become a internal battleground between party factions.

Michael Mazengarb is a Sydney-based reporter with RenewEconomy, writing on climate change, clean energy, electric vehicles and politics. Before joining RenewEconomy, Michael worked in climate and energy policy for more than a decade.

Comments

7 responses to “Jobs and growth: Albanese recasts Labor’s planned clean energy revolution”

  1. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    Jobson Grothe making a comeback after going into early retirement with the sinking of Big Mal. Renew Economy being ‘left off’ the speech distribution list is not a good look. Labor rails against The COALition with their ‘selective’ distribution of media releases to Rupert’s stable of newsrags. I would have thought that Labor would be champing at the bit to get their new messages out to as many people as possible, so omitting Renew Economy is an own goal by Labor. Having said all that Albo seems to be opening up a distinction between Coking Coal being a good thing and Thermal Coal which he hasn’t talked much about because he doesn’t want to talk about it – Labor still all in with Adani and the wider Thermal Coal Exporting Industry.

    1. Pedro Avatar
      Pedro

      Seems like the speech must have had some pro coal parts to it. Looks like the Labor party are placing a bet both ways.

    2. Ken Dyer Avatar
      Ken Dyer

      Labor is on the right track. Australia needs to rapidly reduce carbon emissions so that the World has warmed by only 2 degrees by 2050, in order to prevent and energy crisis and mitigate the chaos of climate change.

      He targets metalurgical coal as ongoing, but says nothing about thermal coal which is in terminal decline.

      Part of Labor’s new direction means that, the finance system needs to be stabilised, and high levels of well-being delivered to the majority of people, so that ageing populations, climate change, the debt overhang, ill health, welfare dependency, sexual exploitation and poor education are all part of the solution.

      To implement that, technology must be exploited towards reduction of necessary work so that automation can take over. At the same time, those people displaced are supported, basic commodities and public services are free, and economic management becomes primarily an issue of energy and resources, not, as it is now, under the mismanagement of the LNP government, capital and labor.

      1. Joe Avatar
        Joe

        Hello again Ken. I just got through reading today’s (30/10) edition of The AFR and a couple of notables therein. First the cartoon from David Rowe . Picture this, Albo with an extension ladder on his shoulder together with Joel Coal in the foreground. In the background we have 7 chimneys / smokestacks ( coalers I’m guessing ) with wind turbine blades attached atop and we have a small silhouette image of a Knight on Horseback. So Albo says to Joel Coal, “HAPPY JOEL?” and Joel Coal replies “ITS A START”. The takeout is clear that Albo / Labor are in the process of dressing up their ongoing support for Thermal Coal. The other item in the AFR was Labor MP’s going on tour of QLD coalmines courtesy of The MCA. Is The Adani Coalmine site on the Labor MP’s visitation list I wonder?

  2. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    Labor has nicely cut and pasted some ideas that RE has been toying with for a while, at least they are paying attention.

    He is spot on with the use of abundant renewables for manufacturing especially the lithium battery industry, also the use of cheap renewables in mining and adding value up the minerals processing chain.

    How to handle existing coal mining and other fossil fuels is truely problematic for any political party. And metallurgical coal on the face of it seems a good catch for the piggy in the middle,

    They might take a look at Norway’s playbook on how those people manage the green facade when they are undergird by oil;).

    Just because this country can rapidly decarbonise its local economy and do so without much dent to it, doesn’t mean that we have to rapidly shut down coal, gas and oil exports. Local energy needs do not in the slightest have any bearing on energy exports. We don’t have to be burners of coal if we are exporters of coal, and the reverse, we don’t necessarily need to shut down a large chunk of our export industry , if we want to go 100% renewables for our own energy use. These two issues need to be handled separately, and one solution does not fit both problems.

    We do need to plan for a rapid transition of our potential for export earnings, simply because the feast of fossil fuel exports will most likely not last.

    This would be a better pitch for a policy then argue metallurgical coal is good for making wind turbines. ie 1. We need to clean up our own energy use and go full voltage on that 2. The good times with fossil fuels cannot last and we need to plan for the loss of that export market. 3. We have a manufacturing and processing opportunity that can get us out of the future fossil fuel export drought and we need to rapidly explore those possibilities. 4. The window of opportunity and the worldwide community’s acceptance of burning fossil fuels is very rapidly closing. We really need to plan for an export industry to take over when fossil fuels are either no longer needed overseas or we are no longer permitted or able to export these.

  3. Ray Miller Avatar
    Ray Miller

    Investing in coal is the quickest way to go bankrupt.

    “Murray Energy Holdings Co, the largest private coal company in the
    United States, has filed for bankruptcy in the midst of a rapidly diminishing demand for coal.” https://electrek.co/2019/10/29/largest-private-us-coal-company-bankruptcy-trump-subsidies-fail/

  4. Alastair Leith Avatar
    Alastair Leith

    Jay Weatherill conducting the Labor Party election review is the best part of this story. i’d forgotten he was put in charge. good news. he gets it, you can defuse the renewables issue if you make sure jobs and community transition is at the forefront of industries shifting, and also that the change is already underway. SA will be close to 100% in no time. there’s no stopping this, only delaying tactics which will ultimate hurt labor if they continue to try and have a bob each way and confuse voters as to where their loyalties lie. The rising youth movement will be voting in big numbers at the next election. and they’re recruiting their parent to the cause.

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