Age
Tuesday 27/5/2008 Page: 6
SCIENTIST and climate commentator Tim Flannery has waded into the debate about "clean coal" technology, calling on the Rudd Government to boost research funding from $500 million to $5 billion in a bid to halt global warming.
Professor Flannery yesterday said the Government should ramp up spending on the experimental research - capturing greenhouse gas emitted from power plants and burying it kilometres underground tenfold to make it viable much sooner. Researchers estimate it is at least a decade away from being commercially available.
Speaking at a Gold Coast conference, Professor Flannery called for more funding and "real timelines for the industry to start developing this in the next two or three years." The 2007 Australian of the Year was scathing of the coal industry, saying it relied on public money to develop new technology despite reaping huge windfalls from skyrocketing global coal prices. He said power producers faced heavy penalties under an Emissions Trading Scheme, to be introduced in 2010.
They have never been in a better position to invest in these technologies and at the moment they are just ignoring the issue," he told The Age. They need to get off their bloody backsides and start investing and start lobbying for really substantial funding because otherwise we are not going to deal with the climate problem and their industry is going to fall in a heap."
A rift opened in the environment sector last month after lobby groups WWF Australia and the Climate Institute Australia joined the Australian Coal Association and the miner's union, the CFMEU, in calling for further backing for "clean coal." Critics argue public money should be devoted to renewable energy research. Professor Flannery said he doubted storing carbon underground would prove safe, but there was no choice but to back it. China builds a new coal-fired power station a week.
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