Clean Coal ?

We came perilously close to rolling power blackouts earlier this month when ever increasing summer temperatures saw air conditioning use rise to a peak.   What is absolutely certain is that between now and next summer a lot more Australian homes are going to install air conditioning and next summer's usage peak is going to be even higher.

It seems that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation ( CEFC ) is struggling with a dilemma.   It has received an application from an unnamed source to finance a $ 1.2 billion coal fired power station - at an undisclosed location.   What is so contentious is that this seems to be a new approach to the " clean coal " question.   The proposal proposes that the carbon release be mitigated by use of  capture and storage technology.

By law, the CEFC is required to reject this capture and storage component and for the proposal to proceed it would require a law change.  Labor and the Greens oppose such a move and it is therefore unlikely.  Unfortunately, burning coal seems to be the only available short term method of creating a reliable base energy source that can be created in time to prevent an energy disaster next summer.

Financing such a new power station with money from private sector sources would be out of the question unless the government  was prepared to indemnify the owner for the life of the plant.  Without that, neither the banks of other forms of finance would accept the risk because capture and store technology has yet to be proven viable.

There seems to be a degree of confusion about our electricity needs colouring this debate.   We certainly need a secure base load capacity to meet demand when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing to power existing renewable energy sources, but the danger of blackouts seems restricted to a mere handful of peak demand days scattered across the months of summer.

That would seem better handled by the use of small natural gas powered electricity generators which provide quick response capacity and are much cleaner in their carbon output than burning coal.  They are expensive to run, but that expense is negligible when compared to the safety factor of ensuring power maintenance over that short period of peak demand.

The question of how we secure our base load needs on a permanent basis then becomes a question to be debated and the long term answer is undoubtedly nuclear.   Chernobyl and that Japanese tsunami caused a world panic, but there are many nuclear power reactors operating safely in many world countries - and have been for many decades.  The advance of technology is making nuclear power generation a safer and cheaper option.

Right now, our needs are to even out the load on those days when the summer sun sends the temperature into the forties and Australians flick on the air conditioning switch. Small, gas fired generators are quick to install and their higher running costs provide an incentive for the politicians to stop bickering and seriously tackle the long term generating problem.

Investing in capture and store is not a viable option when the technology has not been reliably proven !