Clean coal a furphy: Dr Karl

Canberra Times
Friday 2/11/2007 Page: 4

Science broadcaster and NSW Senate candidate Karl Kruszelnicki has likened talk of clean coal to Nazi propaganda, describing it as a "complete furphy." The celebrity science commentator and Climate Change Coalition candidate said yesterday the major political parties were lying when spruiking the benefits of clean-coal technology. Claims that carbon dioxide could be removed from burning coal and stored underground or underwater were a lie.

Such technology would require one cubic kilometre of compressed carbon dioxide to be stored every day, which was "physically impossible." "That is the volume of compressed carbon dioxide that we have to get rid of - not every 10 years, not every year, but every single day," he said. "It is simply a furphy, it's a porky pie to cover up the fact that there is no such thing as clean coal." It was the kind of lie a Nazi propagandist would conceive, Dr Kruszelnicki said. "Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist, said if you're going to tell a lie, tell a big one, and this is a beauty." He also said political policies such as a $20 million plan for the exploration of underground storage caverns would be a waste of money.

Any storage facility would eventually wear down and would release the stored carbon dioxide back into the environment. "We've got two choices in 15 to 20 years from now - either to make money, we sell dirt overseas - coal - or we sell the (renewable energy) technology without burning dirt." Underground thermal energy accessed in South Australia could provide 100 per cent of Australia's base-load electricity for the next 75 years and then be supplemented by other renewables, he said.

"If we tried really hard we could have all of the electricity in Australia made without carbon by 2020 using a mixture of renewable energies including hot rocks and the wind and the waves and the sun." Dr Kruszelnicki's running mate, Patrice Newell, challenged suggestions the coal industry would suffer significant job losses if Australia made a dramatic switch to renewable energy sources. "It's not that it's a commitment to a coal job, they want a commitment to a job," she said.