Last week, Australian of the Year and well-known scientist Tim Flannery told the Australian Worker Union (AWU) we did not have the right geological conditions to support the clean coal process, which stores carbon emissions underground rather than releasing them into the atmosphere.

Greens leader Bob Brown has bolstered Professor Flannery's claim with an attack on the government, saying the transition to clean coal would cause thousands of job losses and “economic dislocation.”

He said the coal industry was more than 10 years away from clean coal technology and added that Australia may only have a decade to avoid “catastrophic climate change.”

“Solar thermal, geothermal and biomass technologies are the future. They are proven technology to provide base-load power. Solar thermal is available now,” he said.

”It can create hundreds of jobs. All it requires is a price on carbon and emissions trading.”

Brown, who sparked considerable debate last week by calling for the coal industry to be shut down within three years and workers 'looked after', said Australia's 35 power stations could not be converted to adopt clean coal technologies.

"In the NSW Hunter Valley, for example, there are no feasible sites for storing C02 from a clean coal power station," he said.

"Workers at Eraring, Value Point, Bayswater and Lidell power stations in NSW will lose their jobs in a clean coal technology future, as would the workers at coal mines who provide coal to theses power stations."

Professor Flannery said there would be some parts of the world where clean coal works out and therefore Australia will always have an economy boosting by the coal export industry.

But Australian conditions were better suited to tapping geothermal energy, which he estimated will cost around the same as electricity produced by coal-fired power stations. He also said that solar power was becoming increasingly viable.

Meanwhile, University of New South Wales researcher Dr Ben McNeil has pointed out the advantages of gas, the cleanest fossil fuel.

Gas-fired plants can be built more quickly and at less cost than coal generation facilities, they also emit up to 60% less greenhouse gas emissions – in line carbon constrained economy of the future.

Switching from coal to natural gas power helped the United Kingdom slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 15% in just over a decade, according to McNeil.

"Australia has more than 100 years of proven natural gas reserves and will produce nearly 3% of the world's gas by 2030, helping to secure our energy independence."

EnvironmentalManagementNews.net