Only five years ago former Coalition resources minister and now lobbyist Ian Macfarlane argued Australia needed to build more coal-fired power stations, now he concedes there could be none left in 10 years.
The chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council told ABC podcast Australia, If You're Listening that he was realistic about the future of coal-fired power.
"In Queensland, in terms of domestic issues, I'd be realistic and say that domestic coal-fired generation is rapidly approaching the time when it will close and that might be within the decade," Mr Macfarlane said.
The interview was conducted for the podcast before tech entrepreneur Mike Cannon-Brookes announced an attempt to take over AGL.
Mr Cannon-Brookes was open about his ambition to speed up the closure of coal-fired power stations with the bid, hoping to close AGL's remaining coal-fired plants by 2030.
Mr Macfarlane was asked whether he really meant coal-fired power stations on Australian shores could be closed 10 years from now.
"Well, yeah, It's hard to put a date on it, but if you look at closures being brought forward, again, Queensland will be one of the last to close down coal-fired power stations, the majority of which are owned by the state government, but are also the newest in Australia," he said.
Mr Macfarlane has previously been optimistic about the future of coal.
In 2017 he advocated for three new coal-fired power stations to be built on the east coast during a speech he gave in his role with the Queensland Resources Council.
"The development of a coal-fired power station or three in eastern Australia is virtually inevitable," he said at the time.
"Any form of government support would be welcome."
He used the speech to declare that so-called low-emission coal should be part of Australia's Clean Energy Target, which was proposed by the Finkel review into Australia's energy sector.
Will coal-fired power last another 10 years?
The debate about how long coal-fired power will last in Australia once again became national news after Origin Energy announced last week that it would close New South Wales's largest coal-fired power station in 2025, seven years ahead of schedule.
One organisation that could have a lot to do with the future of the Australian energy sector is the Energy Security Board, which was established by energy ministers around Australia to implement the recommendations of the 2017 Finkel review.
Kerry Schott, independent chair of the Energy Security Board, said she believed several coal-fired plants were likely to close ahead of schedule and that few would still exist by 2030.
"I personally think that there's going to be very few coal-fired power stations in the market after 2030," she said.
"The fact of the matter is that in electricity, the actions being driven by state and the federal governments' almost made itself irrelevant.
She said out of all the states, Queensland's coal-fired plants would probably last the longest.
"Queensland has the youngest coal plants and the more efficient, so their coal plants will probably last longer than anybody else's," Ms Schott said.
The reason older coal-fired power plants are closing earlier than expected is because of the amount of renewable energy coming down the pipeline, according to Alison Reeve, a former Commonwealth energy advisor and currently the deputy program director of energy and climate change at the Grattan Institute.
"The thing that is bringing closure dates forward is also owners of those power plants looking at the likely amount of renewable energy that they're going to have to compete with, and making a decision," Ms Reeve said.
She said that coal-fired stations, like any piece of industrial equipment, had a life cycle and it was to be expected that they would only be efficient for a certain amount of time.
"Each of these coal-fired power plants has a sweet spot for how you want to operate it," she said.
"And when the amount of competing supply changes, that could often push you off that sweet spot."
'The market doesn't care about workers'
Australia's energy supply is becoming more renewable in spite of the federal government, not because of it, agreed Scott Hamilton, a policy researcher and adviser from the University of Melbourne.
"I'm not worried about the replacement of that energy into our system," he said.
"That's happening in spite of the government."
He said he was concerned there was no plan for the communities where coal-fired power was a big local employer.
"What's going to happen in this next 10 years is we're going to see the towns and communities like the Latrobe Valley, like the Hunter Valley, like Lithgow, like Gladstone, Whyalla and I can go on, be decimated as these power stations and industries close, because they won't be suitable in a decarbonised future.
"That's my biggest indictment or comment on the failure of government because that's where government's got a real role in terms of that structural adjustment."
