I have heard senior coal industry employees comment that clean coal technology is an oxymoron. It isn't so much the money loss which is such a disasterous outcome from investigating this proposal it is the waste of the valuable time of researchers who could be more gainfully employed elsewhere.
It might be possible to use electric power to produce oxygen and dilute it with carbon dioxide to burn coal in a power station and if air inleakage is limited the carbon dioxide rich exhaust gas could then be used to produce further fuel through an algae process. Provided there was a significant net power output gain per tonne of coal burned the system would be a net gain to the environment.

Firstly a quibble in that I believe China is currently well down the list of export clients for Australian coal but that could change dramatically. The PM will then need to be reminded of his election promises.

I agree that CCS cannot possibly work on the required scale for reasons discussed at length elsewhere. I think there may be two reasons for its uncritical support at State and Federal level. Firstly it is a stalling tactic to protect the coal mining, export and power generation industries. The second reason is not to frighten the horses. The only quickly constructible technology with lower carbon that can supply baseload power is natural gas which is getting expensive. Italy is changing from gas back to coal. No doubt true believers will assure us solar, wind, geothermal etc can supply baseload but just ask why the output numbers are so small. Whether moderate carbon caps can radically change the economics is doubtful.

Then of course there is nuclear power which is helping France do quite nicely. Apparently the trendy set know all the reasons why Australia shouldn't adopt nuclear power despite owning about half the world's uranium. So here's my predictions for Australia in the next decade; we will dig up more coal for export and domestic use, electricity and gas prices will escalate dramatically, absent recession or creative carbon accounting we will fail our Kyoto targets and renewables will just crawl along as usual. A couple of miniscule CCS experiments will potter about with their testing nonetheless we will hold out CCS as the great white hope.

Why are people jumping up and condemning a possible solution to the climate change problem, in this case carbon sequestration, without waiting to see if the solution has technical and/or economic merit? Are they scared that it might work? Is their personal animosity against the coal industry so strong (for whatever reason) that they don't want to give it a chance? Are they emotionally or financially tied to the so-called greener alternatives such as geothermal energy (which is itself not yet proven to be commercially or technically viable as yet)?
The world's economic health is presently dependent upon coal as a cheap source of energy. The consequences of a sudden, poorly planned conversion away from coal are likely to include continuing poverty in many developing countries and severe economic costs to developed countries which lack alternatives. Just as it has taken 20 or more years to get wind energy sorted out, with solar energy needing another 10 years to become genuinely viable, so carbon sequestration which is in its infancy will require another 20 years.

The technological hurdles of clean coal and gas are huge. This is not the 90's where we removed small amounts of polutants that produce acid rain.

If we look at the chemistry of burning methane we find that 1 ton of methane burns with 4 tons of oxygen to produce 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide and 2 tons of water.

ie for every ton of gas we burn we get 3 tons of carbon dioxide. The chemistry for coal is similar.

The challenge to CCS scientists is not to remove a small amount of sulphur pollutants from the smokestack but to turn the smokestack upside down and pump everything back into the ground.

This is not a trivial problem. Seeing that the likely sites for CCS are not near power stations it will require massive pipelines to the CCS sites. Energy to drive the CO2 down the pipes and technology to keep the CO2 in the ground.

I am not at all convinced that this is economically viable. Yes it should be investigated but we should not put all our eggs (nor most of them) in this basket.

Thanks for the article TTS!

There's something I really don't get - You know, we're talking about C-O2. That's Carbon plus Oxygen plus Oxygen (forgive me, I didn't do Chemistry at High School).

Now, who on earth is keeping out of the public domain that "capturing" the CO2 should be done to get the "C" out of CO2, so we can have pellets of carbon that we can store, a LOT safer than a gas we have to bury underground?

I reckon we can sell those pellets to China. They may want to pour it into concrete and do some renovations on the Wall!

Declaration: I support the notion of Tim Flannery that the production and use of coal "has lost its social license". All those mines need to close.

Hi Project_SafeCom. You may be interested in this recent article from New scientist.

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn11390-catalyst-could-help-turn-cosub2sub-into-fuel.html

Whilst it is possible to separate the C from the O2, my guess is that it would require more energy to do this than that obtained from burning the coal in the first place. In a word; uneconomic.

If I was a betting man, I would gamble the planet's future on Solar Thermal and forget coal.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

Foyle - my feelings too.

Taswegian - thanks for pointing out my misunderstanding of China's relative (un)importance in the list of customers for our coal: an interesting example of how easy it is to be mislead by mainstream media hype - I found the actual figures at the Australian Coal Association's website http://www.australiancoal.com.au/exports0607.htm . I disagree with your statement that Natural Gas is the only quickly constructible source of baseload power producing less CO2 - I think if current geothermal energy developers were to receive a fraction of the government largesse that the coal / nuclear industries have seen, we could have totally emission-free electricity in significant quantities within five years. (But yes, I have some shares in Geodynamics - because I believe it's the right way to go and they may produce a return eventually). As for nuclear, I recommend you read the recent article What Nuclear Renaissance, in The Nation, at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/parenti .

Bernie - I'm not jumping up and down, honest, and I'm not condemning CCS, either - just the government directing its scarce resources towards it while using it as a mantra to excuse its continued subsidies ("corporate welfare") to the coal industry, and WWF's support of that approach, because (as others have commented) the indications are that CCS is nothing but an expensive pipe-dream. The volumes of CO2 involved are simply huge, as gusi explained. Coal is better than any carbon sink we could invent - we should leave the stuff in the ground where it belongs, and use the genuinely sustainable sources of energy that we now know we can access, without further harming the world our kids and theirs will inherit from us.

Gusi, Jack and roama - my thanks.

Regards to all
Tony Troughton-Smith

I think I should (belatedly) point out here that there is no such thing as 'clean natural gas'. Burning a ton of gas will release roughly the same amount of CO2 as burning a ton of coal.

The advantages of gas over coal are that it has twice the energy density, ie burn a ton of gas and you get twice the energy as burning a ton of coal and it contains less contaminants (the stuff that causes acid rain).

From a CO2 point of view carbon sequestration is just as hard with gas as with coal.

Absolutely, gusi. Coal, and natural gas, can indeed be 100% totally clean, but only while they remain undisturbed where they are - safely buried underground.

Unfortunately one can't help feeling that the understanding of almost all politicians lags behind that of many ordinary citizens, in this respect and on other similarly crucial contemporary issues. I just heard the deputy leader of the UK Labour party, answering curly questions in the wake of her party's drubbing in the UK's local elections yesterday, say all the government can do is assure people that economic growth will continue: "We're driving you over a cliff, but don't worry - we'll keep our foot on the gas"! It's damned difficult staying positive when despair sometimes seems the only rational response :(

tt-s

It doesn't need to be all that hard.

If we put solar cells on every roof we won't need to build any new power stations for a while. In Perth peak power happens during heat waves when solar cells are most effective. The billion dollar state surplus projected for this year could provide a massive subsidy on roof units.

Why didn't that get suggested at the ideas summit.

In Holland hybrid cars are eligible for a 6k euro subsidy and there is a huge demand. Car dealers can't ship them in fast enough.

The mind boggles;
Going backwards; Hybrid cars are a nonsense.
In Europe those Dutchmen can buy diesel cars that use less fuel than
the hybrids that are available.
That illustrates how stupid politicians can be.

I think that if we had a corner on the solar cell market we would be
pushed to install systems faster than the demand is going up.
Also there are some supply difficulties with the required manufacturing
materials at the rate your suggestion would demand.

The next question is where are all the technically trained installation
and maintenance people coming from ? China perhaps ?
Has anyone else noticed how slow this site gets ?

China's demand on coal is increasing fast as they have arrived at peak
coal and all increased demand must be met by imports.

All makes me think that coal will be mined and burnt for a long time
yet. Solar thermal is the great hope and if better located hot rocks
could be found that would help a lot. Did you see the steam coming
out of the ground at the Innaminka site ?

Hi Bazz
When I came to stay in the UK for a while at the start of this year I bought a 2nd-hand Prius, and have to say I disagree with you on hybrids. I agree that the latest generation of efficient small diesels deliver similar economy, but there seems to be a slight trade-off on emissions. And after all, the Prius is 'old' technology now - a hybrid using the new diesel technology would presumably be a further significant improvement.

No-one is claiming hybrids are the ultimate answer to the transport problem - just a useful stop-gap measure. I get just shy of 50mpg (5.65lt/100km) driving absolutely normally with no attempt at economy. However, if I drive conscientiously *and* keep my top speed down to 50mph/80kph, this improves by over 20%, giving me at least 63mpg (4.48lt/100k) - this is my observed consumption doing a mix of highway and suburban driving (the Prius excels in really heavy rush-hour traffic as it turns itself off when stationary and crawls on electric power, but my figures don't include this kind of driving). I have to say I'm really pleased with the Prius - as you might expect with UK fuel prices now around AUD$2.32/lt, they're significantly more common here than in Aus.

You'll get no argument from me re: politicians, though. Their reluctance to bite the bullet and take the hard decisions will be our undoing.

I don't believe Innaminka's remoteness poses insurmountable problems for transmission to the grid, but it will be interesting to see if, for example, they find usable geothermal resources near Perth.

Regards

Tony

Hello ttstoo; I wish I could keep more detail in what I see and read.
It was a test run by the BBC I think that took a Prius and a BMW diesel
sedan, a mid sized model but I don't remember the number.
They did the trip from London to Geneva and the BMW was very much more
economic on fuel. So it does not even have to be a small hatch back diesel to do better than a Prius.

Toyota is said to be about to bring out a plug in version of the Prius .
I have seen a Prius that has had an extra bank of batteries which
greatly improves the electric only range, although not up to the
80 to 120 km range of battery only hatchbacks with lead acid batteries.
Lithium ion would increase that range significantly.

Hi Bazz
I think I know the TV program you're talking about - I believe it's called The Drive Show or something, and I know it's broadcast in Australia. It's very entertaining, but the guys who do the show are rev-heads and buffoons, and do and say outrageous things for fun and publicity: the program could never be described as scientific or impartial.
As rev-heads, they are (or were - maybe they've changed recently) absolute Peak Oil deniers, and rail and rant against anything that might threaten their love affair with cars that make a throaty rumble when idling and a roar like a Spitfire the rest of the time. The whole idea of a car that only uses its petrol engine when it has to, and then at a constant velocity, is anathema to them! I saw the program they did on the Prius and it made my blood boil I felt it was so irresponsible - but that's the show for you. Entertaining, but not a documentary by any stretch of the imagination.
Tony

For anyone still following this thread, FYI Greenpeace Australia today released a report called
"False Hope: Why carbon capture and storage won't save the climate".
You can download it as a PDF file from their website here
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/resources/reports/climate-change/false-hope-why-carbon-capture

Regards

Tony

Hello ttstoo;
No it was not Top Gear. I am not even certain it was
the BBC. It could have been Channel 4. I really cannot remember, but
if you look at the quoted fuel consumption for the European diesel cars
you will see figures you cannot reach with your Prius.

I will make an effort to find it again but I am not optimistic.

Cheers

More links to further relevant info on this topic.

Two articles in New Matilda - An article by Chris Doran on corporate power...
http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/04/23/coal-companies-are-people-too ;
...and one by Anna Rose - a young person who attended the 2020 summit and found the climate discussion deliberately stymied by the coal industry reps:
http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/04/21/no-such-thing-bad-idea ;

And a letter to the New Scientist by Owen Jordan in which he states (but without citing references) that direct emissions from the ground during the (open cut) mining process exceed those from burning the coal, meaning that CCS would only be capturing a small percentage of the overall emissions from coal exploitation, even if it does work:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826520.100-capturing-carbon.html

Tony

Bazz I fully agree that hybrids are just a stop gap measure. Either till better battery technology or hydrogen or fuel cell driven cars.

Solar cells will come down in price as we build more factories to produce them. Look at plasma and lcd TVs; they have dropped from $50k 10 years ago to below $5k today. Both crystaline and amorphous silicon substrates are made from sand so I doubt we'd run out any time soon. Again it is a matter of building more factories. Similarly installing them on a roof is not rocket science. I am not expecting they'd be installed in one year but if we're going that way we have to start somewhere and then ramp up installation.

Electrical transmission lines can be made more effiecient over long distances when using DC power.

Another way to transport geothermal energy is to use it to create hydrogen. Probably not likely in central Australia but perhaps an option for NZ and Iceland. Admittedly this is quite some time off.