Coal has been put forward as one of the solutions to decarbonising the world economy, with Queensland continuing to play a key role in the supply chain.

That’s the scenario put forward by Bowen Coking Coal executive chairman Nick Jorss while officially re-opening the Burton Mining Complex south-west of Mackay in the company of a couple of hundred guests including officials, suppliers and staff.

The Liberal National Party was well represented at the re-opening of the Burton Mine complex with Senators Susan McDonald and Matt Canavan and state MLAs Fiona Simpson, Trevor Watts, Dale Last and Lachlan Miller.

One Nation was represented by leader Senator Pauline Hanson and Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts.

Member for Kennedy Bob Katter from Katter’s Australian Party was also among the official guests.

The ALP was not represented.

Mr Jorss took to opportunity to say there was a disconnect between society’s expectations on a carbon-zero future and the role coal would play in that journey.

The demand for quality coal including that mined in Queensland would continue to increase, he said.

“The steel sector is responsible for 7 per cent of human carbon dioxide emissions, but we cannot decarbonise the other 93 percent without it,” Mr Jorss said.

“Since 1950, global steel demand has grown tenfold to 1.9 billion tonnes per annum.  It’s forecast to grow again by up to 60 per cent by 2050. As world steel production increases, so demand for our high-quality product increases.

“Adding very large storage and transmission costs to intermittent wind and solar power will make our energy system very expensive. 

‘We are only at the very start of our planned transition to renewables.  

“Goldman Sachs notes that despite spending $US3.8 trillion globally on wind and solar over the last 10 years, fossil fuel consumption has only dropped from 82 per cent to 81 per cent of global primary energy.”

Mr Jorss pointed out that alternatives including making green steel from hydrogen and using charcoal in furnaces were not well thought out.

Consumers in countries which had spearheaded the transition to renewable energy, Denmark and Germany, were paying the highest electricity prices in the world, Mr Jorss said

The path towards decarbonisation was mostly frustrated by the rise of technology, he said.

“In his new book, The Cloud Revolution, Mark Mills points out that computing worldwide already uses twice as much energy as Japan, he said. “This is set to skyrocket with new, highly energy-intensive technologies such as machine learning and AI. 

“ChatGPT uses at least 10 times the energy of a Google search and a single machine-learning process can use as much energy as 10,000 cars do in a day. 

“All of this adds up to massive growth in energy consumption. So, if we are wondering why we are using so much coal, oil and gas, the answer increasingly lies with the device in our own hands.”

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He added that demand for the suite of Queensland minerals production was set to expand rapidly in the race to achieve the world’s decarbonisation goals. 

“The Geological Survey of Finland estimates we’ll need nearly 200 years of current annual copper production, 400 years of nickel, and 1700 years of cobalt for just the first round of decarbonisation,” he said.  

“Given that wind and solar systems only last around 25 years, the scale of the challenge, and the opportunity for mining, is clear.”