Clean coal as tricky as nuclear waste, says BHP board member

Mining Chronicle
April, 2007 Page: 38

A key BHP Billiton board member's doubts on the future of clean coal technology was a significant warning to the major parties about the coal industry's future, say the Greens. Both the government and Labor have either committed or promised to commit hundreds of millions of dollars on technologies to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, one of the chief culprits in causing global warming.

But Paul Anderson, a board member with Australia's biggest company BHP Billiton, and a former head of BHP, told the Sydney Morning Herald that long-term storage of carbon waste - one of the key clean coal technologies - may be as difficult as dealing with nuclear waste. Mr Anderson, mindful of widespread community dislike of nuclear energy due to the problem of storing its waste, asked how people could warm to the idea of storing V02 underground, as has been proposed. "I think it's as big as the issue of nuclear waste. What are you going to do with millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide that is not nearly as compact as nuclear waste?" he told the paper.

Greens senator Christine Milne said Mr Anderson was the first person from the resource sector prepared to admit that clean coal was decades away, if ever attainable. "He also highlights the problems associated with trying to bury carbon dioxide for thousands of years into the future," she said. "What he's saying is that nuclear waste is a problem but so too is carbon dioxide.

"What it demonstrates is that we would be far better to put the money that is going into clean coal research right now into rolling out renewables, which can address greenhouse gases now that the government's enthusiasm for clean is a make work program for the coal industry." Senator Milne said clean coal technology was at least 15-20 years away and if the coal industry wanted to do research on clean coal it was the coal industry's prerogative, but public funding should go to the research on renewable energies. "It's the first shot across the bows of the prime minister and the opposition leader Kevin Rudd on clean coal," Senator Milne said.