As soon as I read that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant or even worse Carbon pollution that's it for me. We need cheap energy and at the moment coal gives it to it. Carbon Dioxide is a harmless, odourless gas that assists in plant growth. It was in a time of far greater proportion of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere that huge plant growth existed and laid down the basis of the coal we are now mining. It was good then and is still good today.

All this global warming rubbish has spooked many people. I have asked a lot of school aged youngsters (and older adults) about what they think is the proportion of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. Answers have been up to 50%. They gasp in disbelief when I point out that it is less than 0.04%. This whole statement about 360 or 380 or 400 parts per million is designed to mislead people. Why not be honest and use the actual percentage?

Sure, Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas and is one factor warming the atmosphere. However, its effect is logarithmic, not linear, and its greatest impact is at the lowest levels. Current increases have only slight increases in temperature and actual temperature data does not support the computer models that forcast gloom and doom.

The other thing that is a great turn-off is that Labor and the Greens here are totally opposed to nuclear energy which has no Carbon Dioxide emissions. If they were really serious they would be crying out for the establishment of nuclear plants.

While I agree that CO2 emissions are the major contributer to climate change, and coal is the single worst offender, I am still irritated when I see such a pile of pseudo scientific / emotive twaddle.

Coal has been the single most common source of electrical power since it began to be transmitted. It has grown in lock step with electrical consumption for generations.

Coal is the cheapest source of energy (electricity generated from coal is about half the price of gas, and a quarter of that from "renewables"), and by orders of magnitude the most abundant, and is in places being used to produce gas, and petrochemical products.

When coal is pulverized and mixed with air it becomes explosive, and can be burnt in a very similar manner to gas. If this can be harnessed then coal could be as efficient as gas. The major sticking point is that the high velocity combustion stream is full of particulates that would strip turbine blades in days.

To say that coal is in an innovation dead end is pure ignorance.

I would like to have seen Geoff take this article to what I thought might have been a logical conclusion, the issue of “why are we still burning coal?”. The “Big Coal” angle simply demonstrates the need for laying blame, which according to Geoff is directed firmly at coal pollution.

If we were to look at the question of “why”, we may come to the view that there is another culprit. For some 20 years now, western governments have been chastised for not addressing the problem of carbon pollution; this has been created and backed by the conservation movement in general and by the commentariat in particular.

The result has been to drive weak politicians into populist decisions and to adopt “green solutions” to secure the populist vote. In the process there has been a drive to limit investment in coal generation, to legislate and fund renewables and to inhibit new nuclear build programs. That has left us with what precisely?

This has left most developed nations with a lack of energy security, an energy gap. Based upon the words and policy actions of many politicians, they are between a rock and a hard place, they cannot abandon the populist vote created by the AGW phenomena as the public is largely still sold on “doing something”. The politicians on the other hand seem to be looking at fixing the energy gap caused by their reluctance to maintain or build generation capacity.

When Germany recently announced the cancellation of decommissioning their nuclear power stations and that a coal fired generation program based upon Lignite was to be restarted, one has to wonder at the dramatic change of circumstance behind it.

The AGW movement and all its attendant component parts, has left us with no options. Renewables have maxed out at 10% contribution, are eye wateringly expensive and inefficient. Nuclear is a not acceptable and coal is a carbon poison.

What it is we seek to avoid, we create. That is what the AGW movement has created. We now have to build conventional generation capacity. Geoff’s article is just reflective angst.

"In the long run, of course, the coal industry is doomed".

Unlikely. We'd rather kill each other first then have to change.

Dear kuke, what a stunning analytical contribution? Your coverage of the key issues in both the article and the comments was truly breathtaking.

With the excessive export of coal, you won't have such a long time to be concerned with the illaffects of the CO2, as I think it will probably be just a memory before too many years have gone by, the Qld state government is claiming 500 million tons a day being shifted, that is getting close to depleting the whole Qld reserves in a couple of years, and all we will have is a memory of factories and providing our own essentials, with the gas production on top of everything else, even the farms are being hard hit, with polluted water. Sure Don't I look forward to coal - being used only for our own strong financial progress, not as a destructive element to destroy as it has been used. Damn our corrupt politicans.