Yes. Coal is a great asset for Australia both locally and for export. As Pope says, it employs 30,000 Australians. China and other countries are going to need our coal in the foreseeable future. How lucky we are!

CCS technology is an ‘investment in futility’. But so is the crackpot scheme of reducing CO2 in the ludicrous belief that it will have some effect on climate change.

Pope, an economist, is presuming that the ‘science’ is all cut and dried. It is not, and his pontificating is also futile. He also believes that there is not much chance of cleaning coal; but he believes the hysterics, hustlers and political activists who say that reducing CO2 will help with climate change and that they can even predict how much of their fiddling with industry and the economy they need to do to reduce CO2 and temperatures by ‘x’ amount! In effect, he has given up on Father Xmas, but still believes in the Tooth Fairy.

The whole business of going along with climate alarmists is futile. India and China have both said that they will not be reducing emissions; nor will Russia, whose only money these days comes from fossil fuels.

Pope writes that: ‘Commercially and environmentally, no carbon is the more attractive approach, except of course to those with a vested interest in coal and oil.”

Oh, yeah? Coal is cheap and available. There is enough in Australia alone for several hundred years supply. Of course the coal producers have a vested interest; but so do the users of coal. China and India and South Korea certainly do, and coal is the cheapest way to go. Besides, there is no chance of any viable ‘alternative’ in the foreseeable future. Wind and solar are unreliable and non-storable; nobody will put money into hot rock technology because it is too expensive to take risks; and the Government will not countenance nuclear power.

The nonsense talked about CO2 and climate-change will make good material for another edition of ‘How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World’ by Francis Wheen.

An examination of the waste volume issue knocks CCS on the head before costs are even considered. A cubic metre of black coal creates about 3 tonnes of CO2. The densest form of CO2 is at normal temperature and pressure (not solid or liquid) and that 3t needs 1.5 cubic metres. So the waste needs at least 50% more storage space than the original coal. As pointed out a fraction of that coal is needed to overcome the energy penalties. CCS simply cannot work on the required scale and Rudd looks foolish for talking it up around the time of the G8 meeting. Therefore he is in cahoots with stalling tactics by big polluters. Therefore he has broken election promises.

I agree solar PV plus batteries (house-to-grid) could work but only if the cost comes way down. There is a major saving of not having to build new transmission lines. Other technologies like geothermal appear to be going nowhere in Australia. I believe the answer to coal fired baseload is nuclear power.

Mike Pope is correct in identifying carbon capture and storage (CCS) as fanciful technology. However, if he were consistent in his logic, he would also dismiss man-made global warming as fanciful . If he did his homework, he should be aware that the IPCC failed to find any irrefutable scientific evidence that global warming is man-caused. Nevertheless, as virtually all the IPCC contributors believe in man-made global warming, the IPCC continues to assert that CO2 emissions are the main driver of global warming, and has developed climate models to make alarming projections. He should be aware that none of these models has been validated by actual data. Consequently, the IPCC’s models cannot be relied on for prediction purposes. For example, the IPCC was unable to explain the world cooling trend evident from 1940 to 1975. Furthermore, it failed to predict the cooling trend post 1998, the El Nino and La Nina effects, and the 2008-09 northern winter being the coldest in 50 years.
There is no scientific or economic justification for the CPRS. It is driven on false political grounds. Climate change is a natural process. The Government should admit its mistake and abandon the CPRS in the national interest.

raycom says 'Furthermore, it failed to predict the cooling trend post 1998'.

Neither did it predict the increase in warming after 1999.

Stop cherry picking 98 was an unusual year.

Its an old technique, rename the problem and pretend its been sorted out.
I've heard of 2 scenarios being considered, using exhausted underground mines, and using the deep ocean for sequestration.
One obvious problem is- what if the gas escapes? I'm imagining there would be more CO2 released than was at Lake Nias...
Carbon trading is just another Pigauvian tax, which will be simply passed on to the consumer. There will also be a very strong temptation to issue more permits to raise revenue, and look at how that wonderful system has helped the Murray river.
We have hundreds of years worth of coal left and its an important export earner, so I'd say there will be plenty of tinkering around the edges and politicians making motherhood statements, and business as usual.
The best starting point for reducing Australia's emissions, would be to knock LaTrobe valley brown coal on the head. Brown coal is exceptionally dirty and inefficient, but we have heaps of it.