Solar stopped

Northern Star
Thursday 19/6/2008 Page: 2

IN A report for the Co-operative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development, CSIRO energy technology researchers in 2005 predicted that the cost of electricity from concentrated solar thermal plants would be competitive with coal-fired generation in five to seven years. The report was suppressed by the Howard Government, while hundreds of millions of dollars were allocated to so-called 'clean coal' research. As a result, Australian solar thermal initiatives were driven overseas.