we'll clean up our act in six years:coal group

We'll clean up our act in six years: coal group
DANIEL HURST
October 30, 2009 - 5:23AM

The Queensland Resources Council predicts the nation will have its first "clean coal" power plant up and running within six years, despite claims the technology will not be viable for two decades.

The Rudd Government argues moves to trap carbon emissions underground will be a crucial weapon in the fight to prevent climate change.

However, a report by the Government's $100 million-a-year Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute indicates the technology may not stack up financially until power generators have to pay $80 per tonne to emit carbon under an emissions trading scheme.

The Federal Government does not expect the carbon price to reach this point until about 2030.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche said yesterday he believed government and industry support would ensure the technology was put in place much sooner.

"I'm confident we will have our first commercial-scale carbon capture and storage electricity generator by about 2014 or 2015," he told brisbanetimes.com.au.

"That will happen because the coal industry, the Queensland, NSW and Federal governments have the financial wherewithal to make it happen."

His comments came on the same day the University of Queensland released a new report stressing the importance of cleaning up the coal industry.

The report, commissioned by coal giant Peabody Energy, states 12 clean coal projects worth more than $1 billion are currently under way in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

These include ZeroGen - a Central Queensland carbon capture and storage demonstration project with a "planned deployment date" of late 2015 - and the Callide Oxyfuel Coal Power Plant project.

The push to develop clean coal technology has divided environmental groups, with Greenpeace, the Greens Party and the Australian Conservation Foundation branding carbon capture and storage as unproven technology.

However, UQ Associate Professor Joe da Costa, writing in the 186-page report released by the university yesterday, argued such technology would be the key to reining in emissions from the heavy-emitting nations China and India.