Mining union urges target for carbon capture technology

Age
Thursday 6/12/2007 Page: 10

THE powerful mining union will today call for a mandatory target of 5% of electricity to be generated from low-emissions coal technologies by 2020 to help tackle climate change and protect coalminers' jobs. The Labor Government has already set an ambitious renewable energy target of 20% by 2020. But in a report to be launched today, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union will call for an additional target of 5% of electricity to come from Carbon Capture and Storage, to ensure companies invest in the nascent technologies.

Carbon Capture and Storage involves capturing the carbon dioxide emitted when burning fossil fuels and burying it underground, usually in depleted oil fields or deep aquifers. Although there are projects in Australia that demonstrate the technologies, such as the $30 million Otway Basin project in Victoria, the method needs to be developed on a larger scale.

The union's national president, Tony Maher, said coal companies would not invest in the technologies, which are not now commercially viable, unless they had a guaranteed market share. The report says: "We propose this target because it is abundantly clear that the first generation of these new Carbon Capture and Storage power stations will not be commercially competitive with current power sources, and that an emissions trading system over the next decade will not in itself provide certainty to ensure their development.

They need certainty that they will be able to sell their electricity." The CFMEU is also calling on Australian coal companies to increase investment in Carbon Capture and Storage technologies. It proposes that the industry increase its levy for new technologies from 20 cents per tonne of coal to $1 per tonne.

Mr Maher said multinationals such as BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata should be investing more. "They have a moral obligation because they have made s---loads of money out of the resources boom," said Mr Maher, who is representing the CFMEU, the ACTU and the Australian Government at the United Nations climate change conference in Bali.

"Global mining companies, which are largely based in this country, should bear the biggest burden of developing coal capture and storage." The report also calls for the creation of a Carbon Capture and Storage taskforce to focus the efforts of government, industry and researchers. "While some call for extreme responses like banning coal altogether, the real challenge is to accept that developing nations, in particular India and China, will be reliant on coal for some time and we need to reduce the impact of this energy source on the environment," Mr Maher said.