Peter Garrett kills solar but supports coal

Peter Garrett's decision to prematurely end the solar rebate demonstrates that the Rudd government is really not serious about clean energy.

Garrett's rationale for ending it without warning is that it was too effective. This has created great uncertainty and disruption for the solar industry,

On the other hand, the Rudd government's flawed CPRS is gifting billions and providing certainty to the coal and other fossil fuel energy industries with no strings attached, which will only entrench their emissions-intensive polluting practices.

In addition, the Rudd government has torpedoed a national gross feed-in tariff which would generate tens of thousands of jobs in genuine clean energy and would really reduce our carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuels.

It is time that Peter Garrett started listening to the Australian people and truly representing their best interests, rather than just looking after the dirty big end of town.

Links

• Peter Garrett ends solar subsidy program for households, The Age

Brumby goes for "green coal" and subverts real action on climate change

Just when I thought government rhetoric and funding (using taxpayer's money) on pretending that the coal industry can somehow be made "green", "clean" and even "carbon neutral" had reached ridiculous levels, Peter Batchelor comes out with this:

"But Mr Batchelor said coal must be used in a more environmentally friendly way and clean coal technologies, such as burying carbon emissions underground and drying coal, offered the potential for zero emissions from coal-fired power stations."

"The future of coal relies on it becoming greener," he said.

Mr Batchelor said that capturing carbon, by returning and storing it underground in a safe and environmentally friendly way, "mimicked nature".

The question here is whether he actually believes this nonsense.

Zero emissions coal fired power stations? Green coal? That's funny, I thought it was brown or black.

Mimicking nature? Oh, we dig it up (using fossil fuel energy), process it, burn, capture CO2 from the chimneys (using more than 30% more energy and coal in doing so), liquefy it (using more energy), pump it a considerable distance (using more energy), squirt it under the ground - if we can find cavities vast enough to accommodate it - then cross our fingers and hope it stays there.

So how exactly does this mimic nature?

Next week's state budget will contain $110 million for an industrial-scale project investigating the capture and storage of carbon produced by power plants.

The Government will also fund a new body, Clean Coal Victoria, based in the Latrobe Valley, and commit $5 million to search for carbon storage sites, such as used oil and gas reservoirs in Bass Strait. So they don't even know yet whether they will be able to store it.

No public money should be spent on this risky venture, which even if it can be made to work, won't be viable until 2020 or later. We need emission reductions now.

So why are they doing this?

Well, there are marginal Labor state seats in the Latrobe Valley and an upcoming by-election in Gippsland which Labor wants to win. Looks like politics wins and real action on climate change looses. Or maybe they do believe their own nonsense.

Link: State puts greenhouse money on clean coal The Age

Is "clean coal" just a dirty lie?

""Clean coal" is a term coined by industry and government to describe as yet proven methods of burning coal for producing energy with reduced carbon emissions. The term is actually misleading as burning coal for energy will never result in zero emissions.

The term "clean coal" is also used interchangeable with "carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)".

The are numerous concerns about the use of this term, including:

• CCS is not yet proven and there is a high risk that it will not actually be possible or viable
• Carbon dioxide escaping from underground storage could be lethal
• The United States government recently pulled its participation and funding from the clean coal/CCS pilot project called FutureGen.
• Burying (sequestering) huge amounts of liquefied CO2 is unlikely to be possible, and keeping it there will be problematic
• There will be high energy costs (and more emissions) to pump CO2 from sources such as power stations to locations where it may be stored.
• It will be very expensive to develop and deploy - probably more expensive than proven renewable zero emission solutions such as wind, solar and geothermal energy within 5 to 10 years.
• Much more coal will have to be burnt to power CCS (up to 30% more)
• Cannot capture all emissions from a power station so that even if widely used greenhouse emissions would not fall or stabilise but actually continue to increase
• It is highly unlikely CCS technology (if it works) will be able to be retrofitted to existing coal fired power stations - which should be decommissioned.
• CCS, if it can be made viable, is likely to be unable to handle the volume of carbon emissions from coal. While CCS proponents often point out that carbon sequestration projects are already in operation, the largest in existence (Sleipner, in Norway) currently buries just 1 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of carbon dioxide. Victoria has 65 million tonnes of CO2 from stationery electricity alone and this figure is growing exponentially
• CCS, if it can be made to work, won't be available for deployment earlier than 2020 (possibly even 2030) so it would be to late to reduce emissions over the next two decades - which is arguably now the critical period. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology interdisciplinary expert study on The Future of Coal envisages that coal with CCS may begin to make a contribution to emissions reductions around 2025. A similar result was obtained in an earlier assessment by the Australia Institute.

Policy implications

• Government funding and effort expended on "clean coal" will detract from that for proven renewable energy technologies that are available now
• The coal industry should be funding CCS, not the taxpayer
• We need roadmap to exit from coal fired power, not go looking for reasons and excuses to keep burning it.
• Government funding for CCS is actually just another subsidy to the already highly subsidised, private and highly profitable fossil fuel energy sector.

Some groups claiming to be "for the environment" such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Climate Institute have recently endorsed "clean coal" and "CCS" as viable options for addressing climate change and receiving government funding [link].

It is a concern that such groups are participating in industry and government spin which will hijack and confuse real action to address climate change, the end result of which could be catastrophic.

It is inappropriate for governments to fund and promote CCS as a viable solution for climate change that is on par with genuine zero emission renewable energy options such as wind and solar.

Note that CCS technology is viable and in use for separating and burying CO2 from natural gas at the Gorgon and other gas fields on the North-West Shelf. This is much more efficient than attempting to capture and store CO2 from burning coal, and the CO2 is pumped back into the same well the natural gas is extracted from.

Government funding should be immediately withdrawn from CCS research and development and redirected towards zero emission energy solutions, re-training programs for workers to move from polluting industries into sustainable, renewable energy projects and into carbon sink projects such as bio char (terra preta de indio)."

For more information and references see: Clean coal - Greenlivingpedia