Clean coal ie with carbon capture and storage, cannot work on the required scale because of the extra energy demands and lack of safe but gargantuan storage spaces. Add to that the coal price doubling every 18 months or so. Therefore Kev has been seduced by the Dark Side. In a way it was good that nobody important turned up to his UN speech so it was saved closer scrutiny.

What is now clear is that it will be extra-ordinarily difficult to phase out coal. Not only for domestic electricity but as a trade deficit equaliser. Let's hope we're not heading for another Ice Age since cheap coal is running out and China (currently a minor customer) will soon take more than we can supply. Have a cheaply funded Clean Coal Institute by all means but go ahead with Garnaut's stronger recommendations. Also cap or tax coal exports so others cut back as well.

sorry but...coal for electricity...is a 'human development error' made long ago...when knowledge limited, infrastructure lacking while need for energy escalating...so we went for it as thought it a workable solution...

and now look...electricity has become an essential tool for life and activity...take out electricity at work and home and youll see what I mean...and the desperation for electricity is driving so many unsound and enviromentally destructive activities...coal used for 70% of our electricity...

its like being on the titanic soon after the iceberg...everybody still had food and bed, did not know full extent of situation, but feel not right...if you know what I mean...before all the screaming and running starts...

so when one steps back and looks at it...one realizes we need something else to replace 'electricity'...electricity has no natural source...so only obtained secondarily...and with it 'thermodynamic in-efficiency'...some 30% of coal becomes electricity...the obvious solution is light...yeah...sunlight...our natural world runs on the stuff...but "when-knowledge-limited, infrastructure-lacking-while-need for-energy-escalating" now applies to light...

imagine for a moment...everything at work/home looks the same but running on light...eg light conducting nanotubes exist(electrical wires), light sensitive lightdiodes exist(binary computer)...early_light storage devices http://www.iqis.org/quantech/storage.html

so c'mon coal association... http://www.australiancoal.com.au/methods.htm ...take the initiative...get coal producers to set aside substantial profit to exploring light technology...eventually moving away from coal...think about it...whats needed...ie light is also whats used...ie equipment...no need for conversion so should be almost 100% efficient...just make sure you have rock solid protection of the patents and never sell them...food from the coal industry workers will move to the 'parasitic-powerful among us' pockets...

Sam

I've seen several articles now use the line of Australia "becoming a world leader in clean renewable technologies" really, so what are these technologies? I'm sure all the Universities and other research areas are all beavering away at that problem, since you can obviously attract a lot of money, with or without results.

Are we going to end up with an industry of researching technologies endlessly, and that in itself becomes the end result, not actually producing any solutions? What do we do if someone else invents a killer technology, buy in to it? What! Stop our own research .. not likely, not with careers at stake, whole funding programs and an industry developing.

Everyone is trying to pick a winner, and I'm sure every other country which has activists in the AGW area is being sold the same pitch - you too can become a world leader in clean renewable technologies. So who are we going to export these technologies to, especially if they all behave like we do - it's becoming lame to be honest to keep this pitch going.

It's more and more obvious that nothing is going to change. We might fiddle around the edges, but unless China, Russia, USA, all of South America, Africa and India (who had their own "Garnault report" - said there was no problem) get on board, there is no way to implement all these grand reduction plans. We need to adapt to the climate, and not invest in trying to stop the climate from changing.

What we could be doing:

"Companies that specialize in harvesting renewable energy tend to focus in one area, whether it's solar, waves or wind power. Moncada Energy Group, s.r.l., an Italian maker of wind farm technology, is breaking with that model and plans to by the end of next year erect solar panels in the same fields as the company's wind turbines. The company is hoping the move will allow it to draw energy day and night—both when the sun shines and the night wind howls."

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=wind-and-solar-in-sicily&sc=CAT_TECH_20081001

Why the focus on the oxymoronic clean coal when Australia has an abundance for the basics of renewable energy when there is so much we could do without waiting for anyone? And we could even cash in on it - if we got started now.

Nice article James!

The contrast between Gore and Rudd says it all.

In 1988 clean coal would have been some visionary, in 1998 it would have been chutzpah, in 2008 its pathetic.

As a friend emailed me today : "I heard the MD of Rio Tinto saying today it is going to be too difficult to address global emissions, and that it’s not worth addressing unless there is global agreement. F___ing ____hole.

Fractelle highlights both the problem and the solution in outline, in just two sentences. I hate her for it. She says:

"Why the focus on the oxymoronic clean coal when Australia has an abundance for the basics of renewable energy when there is so much we could do without waiting for anyone? And we could even cash in on it - if we got started now."

The very abundance of the possibilities with regard to renewable energy is a major part of the problem. Any one line of attack upon the utilization of renewable energy is perceived to be in short order capable of being out-competed by some other approach. Existing monopolies, or quasi-monopolies, in fossil energy supply do not wish to relinquish their position of advantage, and are almost certainly engaged already in spoiling tactics having nothing to do with providing a substitute energy supply, and everything to do with preserving or extending their monopoly.

That situation is not one that provides a good climate for investment, as investment is conventionally undertaken. There is seen to be a lot of risk involved unless there is a market able to be locked in. Even the absolutely capital wind farm of my dreams in the 'NSW Power without pride' discussion (a quarter back) is only viable because of the lock-in of Sydney Water as the purchaser of the electricity it supplies. The key is not that I own even a single wind turbine, but that I possess the contract for supply.

I take Fractelle's "we" to mean the Australian public. The Constitution from the very outset has effectively identified the service of grid provision of electricity as being within the public domain with respect to the Commonwealth having the power to make laws in regard thereto. With one government having recently imploded after having run into massive public disapproval of the sell-off of a market they already own, it appears the time may well be ripe for wholesale political change in Australia.

A democratic coup. Restoration of the role of Parliament, as opposed to that of Party.

A reality check.

Australia is not going to become "a world leader in clean renewable technologies."

We do not have the scale or the funds. We're simply too small.

What we are going to do is adopt renewable technologies developed elsewhere. We're also going to build nuclear power stations.

Ironically, much of the innovation in renewables seems to be developing in the US.

See:

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11565685

"Clean" coal does not exist. All coal is dirty. It should be called "cleaner" (note the -er) coal, because the processes are an improvement on what we currently have.

Such technology can only be a half-way house, and to buy time to let true renewables develop.

Clean coal is like "clean" rubbish. If we simply took household and industrial rubbish and buried it into landfill or "deep geological repositories" for millions of years, that would be unacceptable.

We need to aim for a closed cycle, where waste = food for another process...

Dear People.
Is Kev an alchemist - is he a chemist?
He certainly ain't the Scarlet Pimpernel.
A glib, very controlled speaker who happened to win a raffle is, for the time being, leader of the majority in Reps - that's our Kev.

Fuel.
Stuff we find. Available. Exploitable.
Mostly with carbon in it.
Fuel, from Mammoth dung to JP7(explanation at request) has served us well for millenia.

When combined with oxygen, heat is released, work is accomplished, and a fair amount of effluent is produced; all depending upon the involved efficiencies.
A similar process happens in my body - and (can I face it) Geck; in Kev's.
Here we avoid actually touching the matter - rather speaking about it.

Humans, even Kev, exhaust voluminous waste products too.
There is a fair deal of pollutants and 'greenhouse gases' produced by the average mammal.

Meanwhile human animals, including Kev, to labour the point, happen to be omnivores.
That means if they are not chewing through a fair amount of processed body parts of what I consider to be sentient beings - they make up the deficiency from other, less salutary, salubrious, sources and by doing so all involved increase their 'footprint' and consequently the combined deficit.

I could be horrid and suggest that Kev is explaining to the unimpressed realists in the Big Apple that not only does Australia have a secret for 'clean coal' - but over 20 millions of us subsume to his theory and cunningly, collectively, have suppressed all our personal emissions in accord with his gambit.

The poor chap. The bubble has burst at Wall Street as these bubbles always do. So will our's sooner rather than later.

If we might get away from Wall Street, middlemen, brokers and oxygen thieves - then provide a bunch of dedicated engineers and their families some decent accomodation and workspace - then we might move forward.

Let Kev get back here and direct his people to administer that.

Kevin Rudd might have made a big mistake in not having a spring clean of his advisory staff - instead he took on John Howard's boys and all their relationships and connections.

I am talking about buildable, bankable projects (BBP). The kind of hardware that companies like Worley Parsons are building in California and now planning here.

Large Scale Solar Thermal.
Thats a BBP. Has been for decades. The storage issue is being solved, and meantime, it can be hooked up to either coal or gas firing as a transition step to give the "baseload". Its scalable and can suite small communities to big miners (who want better security than diesel for their electricity requirements)

Wind.
In situ and price competitive. Not "baseload"? Try this. Studies done years ago showed that if you have sufficient wind capacity feeding into the same grid from DIFFERENT wind regime, you get the balance.

Waves
The Carnegie Corporation are very close to going full scale with an under sea technology that generates electricity AND has desalination capacity in the one plant. Sites around the coast from Geraldton to the QLD NSW border are said to be the best on the planet.

Geothermal
Close to commercial with a very high temperature project at Innaminka. But geothermal plants do NOT have to be drilled 5Kms into the earth. Smaller (shallower) plants are the better choice. Where you have heat, you have a resource to create building heating, air-conditioning etc. The bolt on gear is off the shelf. Its BBP.

Biomass
BBP right now. Plants that use say salt tolerant mallees that can be coppiced in rotation can generate electricity, oils, charcoal.

The bigger answer is a MIX – not one technology. And then there’s the most unsexy activity of the lot – being more efficient with energy. The experts say we could reduce about demand by over 30% across the nation. Next time you pass a sliding door that activates as you pass when you did not need to enter, thing of the waste of electricity. Might as well burn money for the value it has.