Bowen won’t fund BHP’s early coal closure

afr.com:

Energy Minister Chris Bowen has rejected BHP’s request for taxpayers to help fund the early closure of one of Australia’s biggest thermal coal mines, signalling he wants a $1.9 billion fund to reduce pollution rather than the nation’s productive output.

BHP took one of corporate Australia’s boldest steps toward decarbonisation in June 2022 when it announced plans to shut NSW’s Mount Arthur coal mine in 2030, some 15 years earlier than its previous request to run the mine until 2045.

Mount Arthur is one of the nation’s 215 biggest greenhouse gas emitting sites and is therefore covered by the “safeguards mechanism” carbon policy, which requires most sites to cut emissions by 4.9 per cent per year until 2030.

BHP said in June that Mount Arthur could also be converted into recreational space such as an “adventure park” for hiking and biking. Janie Barrett

In a submission to the federal government in March, BHP said the high cost of low carbon technology like electric mining trucks could not be economically justified at Mount Arthur if the mine was to shut as soon as 2030.

Without those investments to gradually reduce the mine’s carbon footprint, BHP said it would rely heavily on buying carbon offsets to meet Mount Arthur’s annual emission reduction requirements during the final seven years of the mine’s life.

BHP urged the government to consider using the $1.9 billion Powering the Regions Fund (PRF) to help pay for the mine’s carbon offsets.

“Even when battery electric haul trucks are available, NSWEC [the Mount Arthur coal mine] will not have sufficient operating years left to justify the sizeable capital investment required to deploy the technology,” BHP said in the March submission.

“The Australian government should