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Sparty
11-10-2009, 10:03 PM
Clean coal unviable, says Macfarlane

By Alexandra Kirk for AM

Posted Tue Nov 10, 2009 8:49am AEDT
Updated Tue Nov 10, 2009 9:25am AEDT
(http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200903/r346068_1580030.jpg)Mr McFarlane says there is mounting evidence to back his pessimism. (ABC TV News - file image)

The Federal Government has defended carbon capture and storage technology as a viable option for Australia to cut its emissions.

The Opposition's emissions trading spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, says clean coal technology has passed Australia by and will probably never work.

The Government is putting hundreds of millions of dollars towards championing the commercial use of carbon capture, regarded by many as a key to cutting greenhouse emissions from coal by storing the polluting gases deep below the surface.

The technology was kicked off by the previous government but Mr Macfarlane has gone cold on the idea and says there is mounting evidence to back his pessimism.

The leadership of the Government and the Opposition are pulling out all stops to find enough common ground for the Senate to pass Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's emissions trading scheme later this month.

Both want a deal and to remove the threat of a double dissolution election, but Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce is doing his best to scuttle the bill. "Last night I launched an online petition," he said.

"In the first couple of hours I got 1,054 signatures on it. That is incredible. This fight will go down to the wire."

Mr Macfarlane is no longer sceptical about humans causing global warming but he is now sceptical about carbon capture and storage, something he championed as resources minister in the Howard government.
"The Government's incentive is just that," he said as minister.
"It is an aim to bring forward the introduction of this technology into commercial plants as soon as possible."

Just three years on, he doubts it will ever take off.

"What happened was nothing happened and that is really the problem for Australia," he said.

"The clean coal option has passed us by. Twenty years to wait before the technology is available. Thirty years before it is commercial. We will need to move on to other options by then."
'Technology will solve problem'

The Government is counting on locking up a lot of carbon to help cut Australia's emissions growth from 2035.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has been travelling the world, promoting Mr Rudd's brainchild - the $100 million a year Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.

The Minister still thinks the technology will work if there is a carbon price to drive investment.
"I actually think we are going to see a breakthrough on carbon capture and storage," he said.
"I think technology created the problem and technology will solve the problem in terms of reducing CO2 emissions. All the renewable options, including an initial growth in gas, we are gas rich.
"So we don't have all the eggs in one basket."

The two men see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Mr Ferguson is a nuclear energy enthusiast but the Government has ruled it out. The Minister now argues Australia does not need to go down that path.
"Our Government is focused on examination of all clean-energy options," he said.
"It does not include nuclear. Perhaps Ian Macfarlane has actually now come clean about the Coalition policy for the next election. Perhaps he needs to say yes or no to that question today."
"In the short-to-medium term, obviously we will use gas," Mr Macfarlane said.
"We could burn gas at the same emissions as clean coal but half the price, because gas is so clean. But in the longer term Australia will, like all our other economic partners, need to consider nuclear."

Alite
11-24-2009, 12:59 PM
Sparty has posted the thoughts of our politicians.

For what it is worth these are my thoughts:
• Clean Coal is a marketing phrase. Burning coal can never be clean, it can only be cleaner than the current method of burning coal.
• I am not against using coal as a resource and countries that have no other alternatives should use it, but not those that do have alternatives. Note: I own shares in companies that mine coal.
• Replacing a gas, like CO2, in the ground and expecting it to not seep out with time is just silly and, for the people or flora and fauna above the seep, deadly. It can only work if the CO2 reacts with something in the area it is put in.
• Replacing CO2 in the ground takes a huge amount of energy. Burning coal to make the energy to replace the CO2 in the ground is silly. A lot of wasted energy.
• The waste from nuclear power is not mobile like CO2. It is the better of evils. Note: I have no shares in uranium companies other than RIO.
• We may even find a way to utilize the nuclear power waste: like creating an artificial hot rock site. CO2, if it is unreacted, will remain deadly.
• Australia has many other power options: wave, tide, uranium, solar, solar tower. Australian’s, as a group, have to override the powerful interest groups (coal) to make them happen.
• The Labor party is not getting it right but the Coalition is arguing for increased benefits for the coal industry so they are worse. Yes we should support the coal industry but not for internal Australian use, instead we should be legislating for export to countries that do not have our options.

Apparently in the renewable energy bill legislation there is government money for “Renewable Coal Seam Gas”. That is to say, gas is burned and is somehow is renewable!! Blatantly ridiculous yet it is in the legislation because the Coalition asked for it.

Coal seam gas should be utilized! There should be not benefits from the government but rather taxes or fines for not using it. Using coal seam gas is profitable, as can be seen with many Australian based coal seam gas companies, but the big boys see it as not profitable enough. Hence a stick is needed.

Doing the right thing for our elected officials is difficult. They rely on moneys and political support from any number of powerful people. Our politicians have to bend to the stronger wind.

But a butterfly on one side of the world theoretically creates a cyclone on the other side of the world.

Have I got this right or wrong?

Your thoughts?

Sparty
11-24-2009, 11:57 PM
Alite
I agree with you almost entirely.

Two quick points:

There is a somewhat interesting technology evolving around underground coal gasification (UCG) and the enrichment of the feed in oxygen with Co2 to get a richer type of Syngas. And when that Syngas is burned in a power station the resultant Co2 might be able to be fed back to the UCG chamber... a virtuous cycle.

Several years ago (actually about 20) I talked with some Russians who were experimenting with the use of bacteria to breakdown coal into methane. I understand that our CSIRO has been working on this more recently... in effect this would make a biological UCG process.

But it seems that the only likely way we are going to come anywhere near "clean coal" is via UCG. Coal Seam Methane extraction is very popular but only uses around 5% of the coal's energy. To me it makes sense to extract the CSM and then follow up with UCG -UCG extracts around 90%+ of the coals energy. If we then combine the UCG process with a GTL (http://www.ucg-gtl.com) Gas to Liquids process we get ultra-clean, very low particulate energy rich substances that range from Diesel through to Ammonia... Of course when we burn the diesel we get Co2 production. Syngas fired power generators seem to be a good choice as they have much lower emmissions via a much cleaner burn and it is a developed technology.

I totally agree with you about the dangers of burying Co2 underground.

But in your list of coming energy options you neglected Hot Rock Energy (http://www.hotrockenergy.com) which for Australia owing to our almost unique geography is going to be why Australia has unlimited electrical power for thousands of years. This will allow us to establish a cradle to grave nuclear industry so that countries less well endowed can keep their lights on.

Australia the lucky energy country.