Rising Tide Australia

Here in Australia we have the privelage of wealth which allows us to make such lifestyle choices as choosing which inputs we use to produce energy. We built this wealth by taking advantage of the cheapest inputs (both labour and resources)and funding our current state of development via this method.

We can and will change the way our energy mix relies on fossil fuel and we will see more influence in this mix by the renewables.

What we cannot do though, is expect developing countries like India to not use the cheapest input for energy production. And in that country that cheapest input is low rank coals. They will use this resource AND they will contribute carbon emissions far greater than we see today. To ask them to do otherwise would be hypocritical and naive. In essence, it would be tantamount to asking them to stay poor. One of the key building blocks of a developing nation is the ability to adequately and reliably electrify the country. India desperately needs to electrify their country as cheaply as possible to give them the same start that Australia and other developed countries had. They will build coal fired power stations and they will keep using the dirtiest of the coals to fuel these power stations.

So what's the solution?

We need to stop focusing on CCS as a solution or even as a focus of opposition. Its not a near term solution and wont help us to solve anything in the next 10 years. Efforts to promote and efforst to oppose CCS is simply adding to hot air emissions and wasting effort and valuable creative problem solving.

We need to start focusing on the technologies that clean up low-rank coals. These are the interim solutions that have a positive impact on global emissions outputs and are implementable within 2-3 years. This effort will then incrementally reduce the emissions of low-rank coal usage and fund further technological development to further reduce emissions, until maybe one day, we may just see the silver bullet of CCS eliminate carbon emissions totally. (But I wouldn't hold my breath).

These clean-er coal technologies can then be exported to places like India and China and we, as developed nations, can help developing nations keep the pace of their GDP growth alive as well as reduce their impact on carbon emissions.