Uh-oh, we picked the wrong cure for coal

Australian Financial Review
Saturday 15/12/2007 Page: 25

There are three ways the coal industry will survive in an era calling for clean technologies. First, the CO2 could be converted into something valuable. Secondly, the burning of coal could be made much more efficient, resulting in less burning of coal. The third way involves somehow separating the CO2 from other exhaust gases, capturing it and transferring it to faraway locations to be pumped underground and left there indefinitely. It is thought to prove technically feasible, but whether it will be economically viable is another question.

The latest estimates suggest Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) would reduce the efficiency of coal-fired plants by as much as 25 per cent, meaning more coal would have to be burned. The CSIRO says CCS would double the cost of producing electricity. This is on top of the doubling in capital costs for building coal-fired plants that Rio Tinto says has occurred in just the last four years. Against the alternatives of wind, hot rock technology, and wave and solar power, it begins to look like the end of the road for coal is approaching.

There are coal alternatives such as carbon fuel-cell technology which dramatically increase efficiency, but these have received little attention and no funding. The other alternative, turning the CO2 into something valuable, has been looked at by Japanese researchers who have turned it into propane and butane and are aiming to make petrol. There is also a process using solar energy to create methanol. In Victoria Smorgon is ducting flue gases into bioreactors to feed algae, which can be either turned into biodiesel or used as biomass to generate electricity.