And the winner is … clean coal
By Guest Writer, Lindsay Holt
When it comes to government spending, coal continues to eclipse solar and other renewables
Federal Environment and Climate Change Ministers jointly announced that there was less than 8 hours to submit solar rebate applications before they were stopped 3 weeks before schedule. Environment Minister, Peter Garrett is now clearly in the running as the most disappointing and underachieving environment minister in recent years.
The rationale for suddenly stopping the $8000 rebate was that it was so popular that the budget blew out to $700 million, which according to Garrett was four times its original commitment.
Contrast this with the government allocation of $2.4 billion of your taxes for so called “clean coal”. So what do you get for this outlay? By 2018 not even one commercial scale “clean coal” plant! The reality is that “clean coal” is a big lie and an expensive excuse for keeping us stuck in the old dirty economy.
If $2.4 billion had gone into renewables instead, it would kick start a true green revolution creating new jobs and diversifying our economy.
Guest writer for Eco watch, Lindsay Holt
The Climate Change mafia that former Liberal Party advisor Guy Pearse exposed under Howard is obviously alive and well and prospering under the Rudd Government.
The Queensland Government is also keen on keeping the love affair with coal going. In Professor Weller’s independent review of Queensland Statutory Bodies it recommended that the Queensland Government clean coal project, Zero Gen Pty Ltd “be wound up or handed over to the private sector.” Weller described the project as “highly technical if not speculative”. The Queensland Government has refused to implement the recommendation. So what do Queensland taxpayers get for their $100 million investment – a goal to have a small scale clean coal demonstration plant operating by 2012.
Contrast this with the Western Australian State Liberal Government’s implementation of a 60 cents a kilowatt hour gross feed in tariff for renewable energy sent into the grid. Under the scheme all the solar electricity your panels generate gets paid at the higher rate of 60 cents and you purchase the balance you need at 16 cents a kilowatt hour. The pay back is over 10 per cent and will drive WA’s green renewable industry.
It is about time we collectively told the Queensland and Federal Labor Governments to stop subsidising fossil fuels and invest in our future not our past.
From the makers of "Fargo", "O Brother Where Art Thou" and "The Big Lebowski". Academy Award-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have directed a short video for The Reality Campaign dispelling the myth of clean coal with their advertisement "clean coal air freshener". The Coen Brothers get the point across as only they can.
Related articles:
- Queensland’s coal expansion
- Remove solar hot water from renewable energy target
- Seven reasons to take the sun seriously
- The Clean Industrial Revolution
- Green jobs are the key
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Thanks for this article Lindsay.
The investment in so-called 'clean coal' is nothing more than a cynical tactic, and a costly diversion of public funds and precious time designed to buttress the coal industry, not to address climate change. I have no problem with the industry being required to fund its own research and development into "clean coal" - but the reality is that they won't. Because, as Weller is clear, it is a wasted investment that is too speculative to return on expenditure and will likely prove technically impossible at commercial scale.
I wanted to point out, though, that the $100 million investment is only part of the Queensland subsidisation of the coal industry. In addition to this, there's the $300 million investment in a "Clean Coal Fund" and also the establishment and funding for a "Clean Coal Council".
In the most recent Queensland budget, we saw an 2009-10 allocation of $19 million to so-called 'clean coal' (not including money set aside for investigating geosequestration sites), but only $10.3 million for renewable energy.
More info here - http://www.sixdegrees.org.au/content/queensland-budget-coal-versus-climate-change