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The Forum > Article Comments > Coal plans expose Labor's climate change flaw > Comments

Coal plans expose Labor's climate change flaw : Comments

By Lee Rhiannon, published 20/9/2007

The Labor Government, with the support of the Coalition opposition, have encouraged and supported this coal boom at every turn.

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Lee confirms to me at least the greens are unable to grasp the truth.
Yes coal has its problems for the present time however we can not live without it.
Without coal, right now this country slips into a depression that makes last century's one look like a pup.
It may well be time for those who support the greens, about 10% of Australians.
To understand the radical nature of this party, and to understand conservation deserves to be in better hands.
Posted by Belly, Friday, 21 September 2007 6:12:37 AM
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Belly,

to be fair, the Greens have not advocated a sudden cessation of coal or of coal exports, only a "winding back" of the industry. They want to cut back on domestic coal consumption in favour of clean power sources, but they don't propose to reduce exports before developing replacement high-value export markets. They do want a moratorium on new mines and on further *expansion* of exports, but would permit existing operations to continue for several decades.

The Greens' error is in underestimating the value of both coal and technology exports in a credible low-emissions scenario.

My position on the matter is that "clean coal" technology, though hopelessly underdeveloped today, is a credible prospect in principle. If we were to promote it with real dollars (instead of token subsidies and continued operation of the dirtiest legacy power stations), it would have excellent high-value export prospects, and would boost the value of our bulk coal exports as well.

I'm halfway between Labor and the Greens on this issue. Domestically, we rely far too heavily on legacy dirty coal-burning generators and have failed to exploit our enormous renewable energy resources. Australia's electricity supply ought to be a diverse portfolio of renewable and low-carbon generators, including clean coal, but we must commit to retiring or "sequestering" all the decades-old coal-burning behemoths we rely on today.

A strict multilateral limit on atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions is urgently required for environmental reasons. But selling fuel is not a crime, and the coal saved by burning less at home could legitimately be exported to fuel clean-coal generators elsewhere at a profit to all concerned. Emissions limits will be met through diversity, and coal has a legitimate, if reduced, role to play in 21st century energy supplies.
Posted by xoddam, Friday, 21 September 2007 12:42:32 PM
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Sir Vivor,

Thanks for pointing me at Oceanlinx! I've followed electricity technology and renewable energy news on-and-off for a years now, but here's a successful Australian developer that slipped right under my nose.

I don't share your concerns for the loss of coal as a future chemical feedstock. It's no more useful for chemical-engineering purposes than firewood, and somewhat more problematic than petroleum or vegetable oils. The fuel supplies we are now beginning to develop to replace petroleum will stand in very well for mineral chemical feedstocks. Some elements we now obtain as petroleum byproducts may have to be mined especially, but others, particularly sulfur, are of limited utility: more of a liability of fossil fuels than an advantage.

jup,

Compressing carbon dioxide and injecting it deep into the earth (geosequestration) is only one potential way of preventing it from reaching the atmosphere. If it's true that there are no suitable strata or deep aquifers beneath the Hunter Valley, NSW "clean coal" developers might do better to investigate other methods of sequestration, than to invest in CO2 pipelines to old oil and gas fields. One possibility is chemical geosequestration: the manufacture of carbonate salts by combining CO2 with mine tailings (accelerated artificial rock-weathering).

But the biggest opportunity here is to turn the "waste" CO2 into a profitable resource by photosynthesis. Blue-green algae are a bit of a pest for farmers, but they could soon become the cheapest way to produce biodiesel, using less land than any fuel crop. They *thrive* in water fertilised with CO2 and nitrous oxides from coal-fired power station flue gases, and a judicious addition of phosphates. The water doesn't even need to be fresh.

The ideas people at Diversified Energy in Arizona have fingers in all of the clean coal, hydrogen-from-coal, CO2-to-algae and algae-to-biodiesel pies:

http://diversified-energy.com/index.cfm?s_webAction=hydromax
http://diversified-energy.com/index.cfm?s_webAction=simgae
http://diversified-energy.com/index.cfm?s_webAction=centia

The only people I've heard of in Australia betting on algaculture are called PetroSun BioFuels, but they don't have much of a presence yet and may be merely a sales branch for the American parent company.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48057
Posted by xoddam, Friday, 21 September 2007 5:43:20 PM
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