Carbon capture doubt - Government silent on energy scheme `Plan B'

Courier Mail
Wednesday 29/7/2009 Page: 69

THE Federal Government is not saying what contingency plan it has if its first idea for cleaning up the coal and gas dominated energy sector fails. Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson last week told a mining conference in Queensland the Government was planning for coal and gas to continue to provide the bulk of Australia's power and it expected worldwide use of coal for electricity to surge.

But Australia this month adopted the goal of helping to ensure global warming doesn't exceed 2C, a goal scientists say has just a 50% chance if global emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning coal, oil and gas, peak by 2015, then fall fast. The Government is investing heavily to help Australia's coal export sales to surge by building new transport infrastructure. Its single biggest investment in clean energy is in carbon capture and storage technology, though these plants aren't going to be widely deployed until long after scientists say emissions must peak.

Chris Raine, the Australia- New Zealand managing director of Alstom, one of the world's biggest power infrastructure suppliers, told The Courier-Mail coal and gas-tired plants could need CCS technology because tight global regulation of greenhouse gases was unavoidable.

But there are doubts that private investors, who own power plants, will take up CCS technology because there are concerns about the costs of CCS-equipped coal and gas plants compared with the future costs of energy from clean sources such as the sun, sea, wind and underground heat. There are also concerns about whether enough CCS storage is available and whether emissions will remain stored forever, with no major leakage.

This week US-based GE Energy announced plans to develop a 400MW power station at Wandoan, 400km west of Brisbane, with partners Xstrata Coal and the state government owned Stanwell Corp. The project - if it gets the go ahead - would not be ready until late 2015 at the earliest. It would use CCS technology to capture and store 90% of its carbon, they said.

Last week Rio Tinto, one of the world's biggest coal and uranium suppliers, said the Government's $2 billion contribution to kick-start large-scale CCS trials in Australia won't be enough to convince private investors to put their cash on the line. It said the Government needed to bring nuclear energy into the energy mix.

Mr Ferguson's spokesman Michael Bradley told The Courier-Mail it was unreasonable to ask if the Government had a plan in the event of inadequate market support for CCS technology. Asked what would happen if CCS wasn't technically or commercially viable, Mr Bradley said: "I don't think it's a reasonable question. You're asking about something that could happen in 10 or 20 years time." He said the Government was also helping develop sun, wind, sea and geothermal power.

Laws were planned that would lift the contribution of these resources to 20% of Australia's energy by 2020. Power station manufacturer Alstom, the Paris-based firm with $48 billion in annual orders, says it will be ready by 2015 to sell plants that can capture greenhouse gas emissions. Others will have to supply equipment to transport and store gases underground. "The middle of the next decade, would be the beginning of the roll-out, with serious numbers from 2020 in terms of deployment," Mr Raine said. Alstom is also investing in its capacity to supply solar, wind, hydro and geothermal plants.

Some see affordable renewable energy as closer to being a reality than affordable CCS power. A US energy department report has said that while existing solar thermal power technology is capable now of providing utility scale power, it is too expensive. But it says by 2020, possibly earlier, improved solar technology will compete with old coal and gas-fired power stations. By then solar plants will be able to store 12 to 17 hours of energy, enabling reliable supply even when the sun doesn't shine.