Low Emission Technology Australia (LETA) was set up by Australia’s black coal miners to invest in new technologies that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from mining operations and from critical industries like steel, cement and power generation.
By investing together, the Australian coal industry is helping the industry, and the customers who rely on it, reduce emissions while staying competitive, and prove that with technology, Australia’s coal mining industry has a strong future and important part to play in a lower-emissions world.
The industries that support LETA know they, as well as their customers, are under growing pressure and facing increasing financial penalties to lower emissions, and that many of these mines and industries are not operations that can simply electrify and carry on. So they invest together in finding practical ways to bring emissions down.
Since 2007, LETA has invested more than $400 million in low-emission technologies and unlocked a further $800 million in co-investment from governments, research institutions and industry partners.
That is over $1.2 billion directed at technologies that can reduce emissions and support Australia’s industrial competitiveness, through backing early ideas, building world-leading demonstrations, and drawing together partners across industry, academia and government.
This is not new.
One of LETA’s earliest projects was among the first in the world to capture carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power station, and the lessons from it were taken up in the United States, Canada and China. The industry has been backing this kind of work for the better part of two decades.
Much of it starts close to home, in methane abatement. Fugitive methane is one of the largest sources of emissions at many coal mines, and one of the hardest to address.
LETA-backed projects are testing equipment that can capture or destroy it at suitable mines, including ventilation air methane abatement, catalytic oxidation and methane pre-drainage. This is practical, on-site work that can help a mine lower its emissions without cutting production, and it is where a large share of LETA’s effort goes.
The same approach is being applied in heavy industry.
In Gladstone, LETA is backing the PACER project alongside KC8 Capture Technologies and Cement Australia, trialling a novel new Australian carbon capture process at a working cement plant.
It is designed to capture up to 95 per cent of the emissions from clinker, the most emissions-intensive part of cement-making, using a method that aims to be cheaper and less energy-intensive than older approaches. Testing it at an operating plant, rather than in a laboratory, is how the industry learns whether a technology can hold up under real conditions.
LETA also works further along the supply chain, with the customers who buy what the industry produces.
When a major buyer like POSCO, one of Australia’s largest export customers, looks to reduce the emissions from its steelmaking, helping it find a way to do that supports the trade those operations depend on. That is why LETA is working with POSCO on carbon capture in steelmaking. That work is being carried out at POSCO’s Pohang steelworks in South Korea, testing capture technology ahead of a larger demonstration the company is planning.
LETA is supporting similar work in the United States, where a lower-cost capture system is being trialled at a steel mill of the kind that relies on Australian coal. If Australia’s customers can reduce their emissions while staying competitive, the relationships that underpin local jobs are on firmer ground.
There is also work underway to put captured carbon dioxide to use. In Gunsan, South Korea, LETA is co-funding a project with SGC Energy that captures carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power station and converts it into materials used in electric vehicle batteries. It is an early example of treating emissions as something that can be turned into a product rather than only stored.
There is also a practical point that is well understood across the resources sector.
More than 90 per cent of the coal mined here is exported, and global demand for it does not disappear if Australian supply is reduced. Other nations will quickly move to fill that demand, often with weaker emissions controls than Australia’s. Reducing emissions from Australian production, while keeping that production here, supports both lower global emissions and the communities that rely on the work.
The investment LETA makes is not only about protecting what exists today. The skills that run a mine or a power station are many of the same skills a carbon capture and storage industry would draw on. Electricians, fitters, diesel mechanics, engineers and geologists would all have a place in it.
Independent modelling by EY-Parthenon found that, if a carbon capture and storage industry is established along Australia’s east coast, it could support more than 15,000 jobs and add around $66 billion in economic activity by 2050. That work would be concentrated in regions that already host this industry, including Gladstone, the Hunter and the Illawarra.
Australia also has some of the best geological storage resources in the world, which is part of why countries like Japan and Korea are looking to Australia as a potential long-term partner for storing carbon. Over time, that interest could support ongoing investment and activity in Australian regions.
None of this happens on its own. It takes sustained investment and stable, consistent policy, which is why LETA continues to make the case to governments for the technologies the industry needs.
At the end of the day, the aim of LETA is straightforward. By industry working together and investing in the technologies that can lower its emissions, the industry is working to remain competitive and to keep supporting the communities built around it as expectations on emissions continue to rise.
LETA’s role is to help make that possible.
Mark McCallum
Low Emission Technology Australia
