Snowy Hydro’s awkward gymnastics to claim Kurri Kurri gas plant will have “minus” emissions

Executives from Snowy Hydro have told senate estimates that they believe the 660MW Kurri Kurri gas plant that has been earmarked for the Hunter region, will have negative emissions – despite its reliance on fossil fuels.

The claim was made by Snowy Hydro’s chief commercial officer, Gordon Wymer, who had been asked by Greens Senator Larissa Waters what the emissions intensity of the Kurri Kurri plant would be.

But rather than suggesting the plant may be paired with a carbon reduction measure like carbon capture and storage, or being switched to run on renewable hydrogen, Wymer suggested the Kurri Kurri project could take credit for additional investments in wind and solar projects.

“The emissions intensity on gas [generation] is 52 kilograms of CO2 per kilowatt hour. But that completely misses the big picture, which if you’ll bear with me, that the plant will put out minus 3.9 megatonnes of CO2 per annum,” Wymer said.

“So what what a gas plant does, is it enables 1,650 megawatts of wind and solar. 1,650 megawatts of wind and solar displace roughly 5,600 gigawatt hours per annum of coal.”

“There’s been no focus on this, which is a real shame because what [open cycle gas turbine] plants do is they allow decarbonisation, just like Snowy 2.0.”

“At the 0.85 CO2 [emissions intensity] of coal, that works out at about 4.1 Megatonnes per annum that he’s not being burned by coal,” Wymer added.

The claim stands in contrast with information included by Snowy Hydro in the project’s Environmental Impact Statement, provided to the NSW department of planning, which says the Kurri Kurri plant would produce 500,299 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions each year, once operational.