Hunter Valley Operations coal mine had no greenhouse gas conditions listed in abatement strategy

New freedom of information documents reveal the NSW Department of Planning and Environment approved the Hunter Valley Operations Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Management Plan.

Correspondence shows that while the NSW Planning secretary pushed back against HVO's original plan to implement more stringent coal dust monitoring, it said nothing about greenhouse gases.

All coal mine approvals require an Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Management Plan (AQGHG) which NSW Planning Minister Paul Scully says guarantees "best practice management" is applied to minimise greenhouse gases.

However, while the most recently approved AQGHG for Hunter Valley Operations describes the various ways in which it will produce emissions, through released carbon dioxide and methane, the combustion of diesel fuel and petrol, and via the power station it uses onsite, but does not include any measures to minimise or abate those emissions.

The department has been forced to admit there are no consent conditions in place, with a response which suggests it is not the only one.

"Previous approvals, including the HVO Complex", do not include reduction targets in their consent conditions, a spokesperson for the department said.

Only recent coal mine approvals, such as at Narrabri and the Hunter Valley's Mount Pleasant Optimisation Project, set specific greenhouse gas emissions targets.

Lock the Gate Alliance NSW coordinator Nic Clyde said the situation was "absurd".

"This really exposes how hopelessly meek the NSW Planning Department is when it comes to enforcing its own carbon reduction rules," Mr Clyde said.

"You'd struggle to find a bureaucratic decision this bizarre in an episode of Utopia. Unfortunately this is no laughing matter - the climate crisis is here, now, and governments should be doing all they can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"We're calling on the Minns government to get stuck in and fix NSW's broken planning system so residents can have faith that it is working in their best interests, not the interests of multinational coal mining companies like Yancoal and Glencore."

Doctors for the Environment Australia national chair and Newcastle-based GP John Van Der Kallen any abatement plan needed to be independently verified and should not be a way of cheating on reducing GHG emissions.

"We have a climate emergency and we need to have a genuine reduction in GHG emissions," Dr Van Der Kallen said.

"Our best chance to stop worsening climate events and to protect our health is to stop emissions from fossil fuels."

HVO general manager Dave Foster said the operation complied with all regulatory approvals and conditions.

"We submitted the plan and provided additional information requested by the NSW Government in 2021," he said.

"The plan was approved in 2022. We report GHG emissions under the National Greenhouse & Energy Reporting legislation.

"HVO is also subject to the Federal Government's Safeguard Mechanism, a policy central to Australia achieving its stated emission reduction targets of 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050."

Statistics show that eight of the 10 most polluting coal mines in NSW have increased their emissions by up to 61 per cent between 2020-21 and 2021-22.

All but one of those are located in the Hunter Valley, the largest increase attributable to Bengalla Operations at 61 per cent, followed by Ashton Coal Mine at 45 per cent.

A department spokesperson said GHG emissions from mines "are not static and can fluctuate annually, based on mine planning, production levels and target coal seams".

"Therefore, the emissions profile will change over the life of an individual mine," the spokesperson said.

In the case of HVO, a 2022 annual review reported its greenhouse gas emissions were below estimates which informed environmental assessments for the project.

Meanwhile a review was being undertaken of an updated version of their Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Management Plan.

"As part of this work, DPE commissioned an independent expert to review the GHG mitigation and abatement measures proposed by the company," a statement from the department said.

In January this year, the EPA released its Climate Change Policy and associated Climate Change Action Plan 2023-26, which state "existing and/or proposed greenhouse gas mitigations controls will be benchmarked against best practice measures for the sector".

"A Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Plan will be required; and progressive development of GHG emission limits or other requirements will be developed for inclusion in Environmental Protection Licenses."

The Commonwealth Safeguard Mechanism reforms also came into effect on July 1, 2023, the statement said, aimed at reducing emissions at Australia's largest industrial facilities, including coal mines, setting legislated targets or baselines on net GHG emissions, which will be reduced gradually over time.

Yancoal and Glencore are seeking to extend the life of their HVO joint venture project to 2050, extracting coal from seams that were previously considered unviable. The coal contained in those deeper seams contain higher levels of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

The resulting increase in methane emissions will force other sectors of the NSW economy to make deeper pollution cuts in order to achieve the state government's emissions reduction targets, according to the Department of Planning's Net Zero Emissions Modelling (NZEM) team.

An estimated 400 million tonnes of new coal would be extracted from the extension project, representing the single largest increase in coal mining capacity in NSW since the Paris Agreement.

The highest level of fugitive emissions would not be released until 2045. At that point, emissions would reach eight times that of the fugitive emissions from the currently operating HVO mine.

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