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Gold is booming and rare earths are on the minds of every politician in Washington DC and Canberra, but what’s making Goldfields miners beam with the most pride right now isn’t what they’re pulling out of the ground; it’s what they’re extracting from the sky.
While the Coalition has been tearing itself apart over the push to net zero, Goldfields miners have been toiling away in the desert, building massive renewables projects that could power small towns.
Lynas’ Mt Weld mine.Credit: Trevor Collens.
And they’re not just doing it out of the goodness of their own hearts – it is just cold, hard economics.
“It’s a good investment. It’s good cheap power, it serves our purpose and the huge bonus that comes with it is that carbon footprint reduction, so, win, win, win,” Northern Star’s KCGM growth general manager Nick Strong said.
Northern Star’s plans to construct one of the largest behind-the-grid renewable power stations in the country are now open for comment by the environmental regulator.
The plan includes the construction of up to 32 massive wind turbines pumping out 256 megawatts of power and a 120 megawatt solar farm to provide power for the Kalgoorlie Super Pit and its current $1.5 billion expansion of its operating plant.
The Bluewaters coal-fired power station in Collie produces 416 megawatts.
The project will be firmed up by a new 120 megawatt gas power station and a 300 megawatt hour battery system, which could power up to 240,000 homes for about two hours.
The project will produce so much power in the right conditions Northern Star plans to sell some of it back into the WA power grid.
While the cost for the project is still publicly unknown, Strong said it would provide the company cheaper power than the grid was offering.
“Yes, we’re doing it for the carbon reduction, but the economics of it make sense to us, the cost of the power, the price per kilowatt hour is a lot lower than what we’re buying it off the grid,” he said.
Northern Star general manager of KCGM growth Nick Strong.Credit: Trevor Collens
South African miner Gold Fields is also investing heavily in renewables at its St Ives mine near Kambalda, with a $296 million wind and solar project planned to power about 70 per cent of the operation.
About 225 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie Gold Fields recently switched on a hybrid power grid made up of a 19 megawatt solar farm, 11 megawatt battery, 40 megawatt gas plant backed up with a 5 megawatt diesel generator.
Granny Smith general manager Mark Glazebrook said the project could power about 40 per cent of the operation on a sunny day.
“It does decouple us somewhat from the rising fuel prices and gas prices,” he said.
A few kilometres from Granny Smith, rare earths miner Lynas is starting to commission four massive wind turbines which, coupled with the existing 7 megawatt solar farm and 12 megawatt battery, could power 100 per cent of its operations in the right conditions.
Lynas said once completed, 70 per cent of the electrons generated would come from renewables per annum.
Despite the Coalition’s decision to dump net zero in favour of gradual emissions reduction, prioritising electricity cost, no listed miner in WA has publicly abandoned its net zero by 2050 commitments.
Mining and farming magnate Gina Rinehart is one of net zero’s biggest opponents due to the impact wind and solar farms could have on agricultural areas.
She railed against it again this week during a speech on the National Mining and Related Industries Day she founded in 2013, saying shareholder dividends at major companies like Rio Tinto and BHP were being sacrificed at the “green altar”.
The WA Nationals have abandoned their net zero commitment, while WA Opposition and Liberal Leader Basil Zempilas have said he supports where his federal colleagues landed.
Back in Kalgoorlie, Strong said he believed the debate in the political sphere was confused.
Granny Smith gold mine general manager Mark Glazebrook.Credit: Trevor Collens
“I guess the politicians, and especially I guess the ones that are abandoning the net zero need to be a lot clearer in their communications, I think, as to whether they are abandoning net zero or they’re just protesting the fact of the infrastructure and the impact it’s having on regional communities,” he said.
“I think they’re two very different things, and I think the politics at the moment is sounding very confusing.
“Are you denying climate change, or are you just objecting to the on the ground impact to your constituents in terms of wind farms and power lines and stuff?
“Be clearer about what you’re concerned about would be my first message to them.”
Northern Star’s plans expand across an area about the size of Kalgoorlie town itself, but Strong said residents would not be able to see anything.
“Our wind farms and our renewables can’t be seen from any residential property, you have to drive out of town a couple kilometres in order to actually see them. So it’s out of sight, out of mind,” he said.
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Power costs and reliability are what’s driving miners to spend big bucks on behind-the-grid renewables.
Rising costs of gas and coal are the biggest drivers of cost increases in WA electricity prices, as well as the huge expansion of the power grid to deal with all the new renewables projects planned.
In their pre-state budget submission, Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA said the doubling of power costs for industrial customers connected to the South West power grid since 2020 as a major roadblock in further investment in the sector.
“We’re seeing lots of member activity in what we would call behind-the-meter renewable energy rollout, just because the pace of the grid-connected transition has been slow in Western Australia,” CMEWA policy and advocacy director Anita Logiudice said.
The reporter travelled to the Goldfields as a guest of the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA
