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As tipped here a month ago, the Federal Government will spend $2 billion to build “industrial-scale” carbon capture and storage projects in Australia.
You would be better off just burying the money, from an environmental point of view, because many doubt the CCS technology will work. The best proponents can say is, it has to. But if it doesn’t, the money is worse than wasted, because the spending will have exacerbated the climate problem by justifying construction of new coal-fired power stations that burn for another 30 to 40 years.
The public could bear the ultimate liability if the technology fails, too, because the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act – the world’s most comprehensive, according to the Government, when it was passed last November – nicely shifts long-term liability (beyond 15 years) onto the Commonwealth.
There’s loopholes anyway. For example, if a greenhouse gas storage licence holder has “ceased to exist” after a site closure certificate is issued by the resources minister then liability reverts to the Commonwealth.
We’ve seen what lengths James Hardie went to, to avoid its long-tail asbestos liabilities.
Insurance companies would not take on CCS risk at any price, as even the Government recognises. “Obtaining insurance [for CCS] is nigh on impossible because these are pilot schemes,” a spokesman for the Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, told the Herald.
Private investment in CCS to date has been minuscule, which is why there is no commercial-scale facility in operation today.
The Australian Coal Association told the Herald that just $25 million had been spent by the end of last year from its Coal21 Fund – the industry’s main vehicle for funding CCS projects – although its members had made legally binding commitments to spend another $496 million. All up the fund expects to invest more than $1 billion over the next decade. The ACA says coalminers are not the prime polluters – it’s the coal-fired power stations – and they should not have to front the expense of CCS.
Ferguson’s office says coal companies had no incentive to invest in CCS under the Howard government. “The reason the coal industry is now starting to make significant contributions toward CCS
Related posts:
- UK says no to coal power stations without carbon capture and storage
- Fyson on … policy step forward for carbon cut target stumbles on renewables industry progress problems
- The UK’s carbon capture contretemps – April 24, 2009
- Carbon storage could save Latrobe Valley jobs: clean coal chief
- SA wants carbon capture operation in place by 2020