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http://www.latrobevalleyexpress.com.au/news/local/news/general/cleaner-coal-to-sustain-the-regions-future/1763776.aspxCleaner coal to sustain the region's future

BY EBONNIE LORD
01 Mar, 2010 10:05 AM

``WHEN I was a kid there used to be a brown tinge in the Valley's sky all the time,'' Clean Coal Victoria director Charlie Speirs said.
Mr Speirs, who has spent 30 years working in the power industry, was speaking at an Advance Morwell public meeting and said since then the region had cleaned up its act _ coal dust and soot had reduced and generators were working on reducing carbon emissions.

``There is a lot of exciting cleaner uses for coal that are being investigated,'' Mr Speirs said.

``The drying, liquifying, gasifying and burning with capture technologies can mean a long and sustainable future with coal.

``Our brown coal is one of the cleanest in the world; it is just moisture content that causes a lot of CO2 when burnt.''

Mr Speirs said gasifying brown coal before burning it was almost comparable to using natural gas, at 0.8 tonnes of CO2 emissions per megawatt and could actually be cleaner with added capture technologies.

``We have an estimated 33 billion tonnes of potential economic brown coal in the Latrobe Valley and despite generations of use, we have only consumed five per cent of that resource,'' he said.

``There is four times the energy in coal here than what is stored in the north west shelf, and a lot of it is still accessible.

``Over time the emerging renewable industries will make a major contribution to energy generation. But the reality is, with the projected demand for power continuing to grow, clean coal will be a reliable source of baseload power.''

He said the power market always came down to what was financially possible.

``This economy has worked on low cost electricity for a long time, the clean coal technologies will allow us to work towards a full renewable energy system,'' he said.

Mr Speirs said all the Valley's original power stations would cease to operate by 2050.

``We will need something to make up for that energy loss, which will mean a mix of wind, solar and wave and clean coal,'' Mr Speirs said.

He said another advantage of moving away from directly burning coal was less water ``gobbled up'' by the power stations.

Ultimately, he said for a cleaner future human efficiency had to be worked on.

``We need a total attitude change toward power usage, we cannot be serious about conserving energy when we partake in things like night footy,'' he said.