Seeking clean coal science 'only option'
AAP, The Age
Australia has no alternative to seeking "clean coal" technology, says Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson.
"Australia's coal resources alone - assuming the advent of successful clean coal technologies - are so large that they could be significant in the global energy mix for several hundred years," said Mr Ferguson.
Coal and other fossil fuels will continue to provide much of the world's energy for the foreseeable future, Mr Ferguson told about 100 spectators in a windswept paddock near Nirranda South, 240km west of Melbourne.
The minister opened the world's largest demonstration of the deep geological storage of carbon dioxide, the Otway Basin pilot project - partly funded by the New Zealand government and state-owned miner Solid Energy - which will inject 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide 2km deep over the next two years.
... Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas contributing to global warming, and companies selling and burning coal want to be able to literally bury the unwanted carbon from the process.
Solid Energy chief executive Don Elder told NZPA that it is likely that only tiny, almost negligible, amount of the carbon dioxide pumped underground will escape.