[LINK] low-emissions from coal .. zero research

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Tom writes,

> The Garnaut Climate Change Review Draft Report, was released today ..
> <http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/pages/draft-report>

“The Draft Report states that it would be in Australia’s interest to find 
out as soon as possible whether there can be a low-emissions future for 
coal & to support rapid deployment of commercially promising technologies. 

This follows from Australia’s role as the world’s largest exporter of coal 
and the central place of coal in growth in emissions from Asian developing 
countries.

“Australia has the opportunity to play a leadership role in funding and co-
ordinating a major global effort to develop and deploy carbon capture and 
storage technologies, and to transfer those technologies to developing 
countries,” said Professor Garnaut.

Quoted from: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/07/garnaut-climate-change-
review-draft.html#contents
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Fine & good Prof but it seems BHP are certainly trying, with ZERO results. 

The facts: burning coal for power is the worst way to do it and Australia
is the world's largest exporter of coal. The world's only attempt (below)
at capturing the carbon from just ONE coal fired power station in the US
is too expensive, and the experiment now scrapped before it even started.

We are polluting the world with dirty coal and little technology research.


The Age writes,

TWO weeks ago the US Department of Energy formally withdrew its funding 
for the FutureGen Project, America's only commercial-scale experiment in 
carbon capture and storage.

The public-private partnership had been announced with much fanfare in 
2003 by President George Bush, and involved building a 275-megawatt coal 
gasification plant in Illinois. 

It would produce fewer emissions, and those it did were to be captured and 
buried in the rock stratum below the plant.

The site had been chosen, technical reports done, and the first stage of 
construction was to start in early 2009.

But in January the department announced it was "restructuring" its 
investment, after costs blew out from an initial $US900 million to $US1.8 
billion. Instead, the department has put its share of the money up for 
grabs for new carbon sequestration projects. The argument goes, it will 
get better value for money if it funds several smaller projects, rather 
than one big one.

For the consortium of energy companies, which included BHP Billiton, the 
withdrawal was a serious setback. 

FutureGen was the first commercial-scale attempt at carbon sequestration, 
a technology that has been used in oil drilling for some time, but which 
is yet to be demonstrated as a safe, secure and commercially feasible way 
of dealing with the millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide produced by the 
world's coal-fired power plants each day.

FutureGen is being kept on life support in the hope that the next 
president will breathe new life into the project.

But in the meantime, environmental scientists, green groups and even the 
power industry are beginning to wonder whether carbon capture and storage 
(CCS) will be sufficiently proven — and sufficiently cost-efficient — to 
be used on a mass scale in time to reverse the increases in carbon dioxide 
emissions.

A month ago, Greenpeace produced a review of the scientific literature, 
entitled False Hope, which concluded that "the earliest possibility for 
deployment of CCS at utility scale is 2030".

http://business.theage.com.au/technology-for-carbon-capture-remains-a-lot-
of-hot-dirty-air-20080704-31x1.html

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