{"id":490388,"date":"2025-10-11T07:06:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/490388\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T07:06:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:06:14","slug":"queensland-to-run-its-coal-plants-up-to-a-decade-longer-than-previously-planned-queensland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/490388\/","title":{"rendered":"Queensland to run its coal plants up to a decade longer than previously planned | Queensland"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Queensland<\/a> government will keep its state-owned coal plants running for up to a decade longer than previous plans, in a move that will put pressure on national climate targets.<\/p>\n

The Queensland treasurer and energy minister, David Janetzki, revealed an \u201cenergy roadmap\u201d on Friday and said some state-owned coal assets would run until at least 2046, \u201cmeaning coal will be part of the state\u2019s generation mix for decades\u201d.<\/p>\n

Critics \u2013 including energy analysts and conservationists \u2013 said the plans would saddle Queenslanders with expensive and unreliable energy that would damage the climate.<\/p>\n

The minister confirmed the government had no plans to repeal the state\u2019s legislated target to cut emissions by 75% by 2035, but did not explain how running coal for longer would affect those efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut at its most straight-forward, to meet the energy generation challenge of our future, we need more generation,\u201d said Janetzki.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoal for longer, more gas, more wind and solar and more pumped hydro and batteries for firming and storage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The roadmap is an abrupt shift from the previous Palaszczuk Labor government\u2019s 10-year plan, announced three years ago almost to the day<\/a>, which would have seen most of the state\u2019s coal power turned off by 2035.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s renewable energy targets \u2013 including an 80% target for 2035 \u2013 will be repealed, the roadmap confirmed.<\/p>\n

Queensland is Australia\u2019s highest emitting state, accounting for about 28% of the country\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

About one-third of Queensland\u2019s emissions come from electricity generation. About 65% of the state\u2019s electricity in the past year came from coal, followed by solar (20%) and wind (6%).<\/p>\n

The state has eight coal-fired power stations \u2013 two are privately owned, five are owned by the government and one is part-owned in a joint venture.<\/p>\n

Coal units at Stanwell, assumed to close in 2033 by the previous government, would run until at least 2043; Tarong, Tarong North, Callide B and Kogan Creek would run for a minimum of between two and six years longer.<\/p>\n

Those closures were in line with those assumed by the Australian Energy<\/a> Market Operator (Aemo) in its long-term plans for the electricity market.<\/p>\n

This month the owner of Queensland\u2019s biggest coal-fired power plant at Gladstone told Aemo it wanted the option of being able to close the plant in 2029<\/a>, six years earlier than expected.<\/p>\n

The state government also announced a $400m fund would be created to \u201cdrive investment in renewables, like solar and hydro, and batteries to better store the energy we generate,\u201d Janetski said.<\/p>\n

The government had already announced that $1.6bn would be made available to maintain coal plants to try to avoid unplanned and expensive outages. The government also wants to attract private-sector investment in new gas-fired power in central Queensland, the roadmap said.<\/p>\n

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The federal energy and climate change minister, Chris Bowen, said the announcement was \u201cdisappointing but not surprising\u201d and said he would \u201cleave it to the Queensland government to explain why they disagree with the warnings of independent bodies that have consistently said that unreliable, ageing coal is driving up bills for all Australians, including Queenslanders\u201d.<\/p>\n

The plan made \u201cstrong federal action\u201d on climate change \u201cmore important, not less,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Stephanie Bashir, the chief executive of energy consultants Nexa Advisory, said: \u201cThe Queensland Government has delivered a cul de sac, not a roadmap. Queenslanders are being saddled with the most expensive energy option.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtending coal, which is already unreliable and expensive, means more outages, higher bills and less investment in cheap renewable alternatives, like wind and solar backed by batteries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie-Anne Mulder, the chief executive of the Queensland Renewable Energy Council, said the roadmap struck a \u201csensible balance\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the decision to remove renewable energy targets, the roadmap relies upon up to 6.8 gigawatts of new wind and solar and 3.8GW of storage by 2030,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said there was billions of dollars of renewable projects \u201cready to go\u201d in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat matters now is delivering on the promise to accelerate renewables, strengthen the grid and give investors the confidence to deploy capital in Queensland,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nicole Forrester, of WWF-Australia, said the government had released a roadmap \u201cto more fires, floods and heatwaves, and more mass bleaching events for the Great Barrier Reef\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeeping coal and delaying climate action will also mean more hip pocket pain for Queenslanders as extreme weather becomes more frequent and intense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Queensland government will keep its state-owned coal plants running for up to a decade longer than previous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-490388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115354271343386112","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}