Environment is secondary to private profits

May 22, 2008
From The AGE

Investing in renewable energy is being ignored to keep fossil fuels burning.

THE idea that coal-fired electricity generation can continue to be the major contributor to global electricity generation and the world can still restrict carbon dioxide emissions to a level constant with holding climate warming below 2 degrees is a fairytale, according to letter in the premier science journal Nature (published online, May 7, 2008).

Vaclav Smil, of the University of Manitoba, in Canada, makes a new point that is critical to the debate as it is being run by state and federal governments in Australia: "Carbon geosequestration is irresponsibly portrayed as an imminently useful large-scale option for solving the challenge. But to sequester just 25% of carbon dioxide emitted in 2005 by large stationary sources of the gas we would have to create a system whose annual throughput by volume would be slightly more than twice that of the world's crude-oil industry, an undertaking that would take many decades to accomplish."

And yet the Brumby and Rudd Governments persist in pouring money into geosequestration research at the expense of developing solar energy, among other renewable alternatives. Last month Premier John Brumby announced a $127 million package to develop "clean coal" including a $110 million fund to establish new large scale, pre-commercial carbon capture storage demonstration projects. These latest commitments will take Victoria's total clean coal investment to more than $244 million since 2002.

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