Threat to the King
Coal miners could experience “stranded assets” due to carbon constraints, London-based Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Elad Jelasko warns.
The Australian quotes Jelasko as saying that over the medium term, the ratings agency expected new environmental policies to emerge that could slow coal demand.
Another Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Michael Wilkins added that future coal demand and its price would rely on many factors and timing.
“We believe new initiatives, such as those made recently by the US and China, may flatten the growth in coal demand over coming years,” the paper quotes him as saying.
Drax decision reversed
While it may sound like a villain from a James Bond film, Drax is actually the owner of the UK’s largest power station.
It had applied for UK government funding to help pay for converting two of the six units at that coal-fired station to biomass. Unfortunately, the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change knocked it back.
One of Drax’s units was accepted for the scheme but the other unit was excluded in favour of a wind farm project.
However, as the Financial Times reports, a High Court decision last week upheld Drax’s complaint that the department had acted unfairly in reversing an earlier decision to provisionally accept two of the station’s six generating units as eligible for incentives to encourage a switch from burning coal to imported wood pellets and other renewable energy sources.
Drax argued the wind farm offered less value to the taxpayer in meeting climate change targets.
According to the FT, the DECC has signalled it intends to challenge the court’s judgement.
Coal station shut due to smog
Beijing has closed the first of four large coal-fired plants due to be decommissioned as part of its efforts to cut air pollution, Reuters reports.
The newswire cites reports from Chinese newsagency Xinhua saying authorities had shut the Gaojing Thermal Power Plant’s six 100 megawatt generating units.
The plant is owned by China Datang Corporation, one of China’s big five state power firms.
Beijing’s three remaining coal-fired power stations are due to be closed by the end of 2016.
