Comments on: Coming clean on ‘nice’ coal

By: Dr Harvey M Tarvydas

Dr Harvey M Tarvydas — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

EcologyAction, now calm down. Keep the super in place. Hey, it going to be alright ‘cause the really super smart stuff (not spoken about at all yet) is just around the corner and this whole problem will actually go away.
Meantime we are paying serious and overdue attention to the really dirty environmentally issues indirectly which is a bonus.
Hey, Carbon Dioxide is rocket fuel for some things.

By: tony lovell

tony lovell — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Nature has the only proven Carbon Capture and Storage process - photosynthesis. In fact it is the very process that millions of years ago captured all the carbon in coal and oil that we are so busy releasing into the atmosphere.
The answer to actually CONSUMING some of the excess carbon dioxide now in atmospheric circulation is NOT technology - it is BIOLOGY.
Visit http://www.soilcarbon.com.au and look at the case studies to see just how critical building soil carbon is to helping reverse climate change.

By: Mirek

Mirek — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Nice work, David. I just watched the 7.30 Report on the subject, with Martin Ferguson in the hot seat. He kept repeating the same incomprehensible gobbledegook about `creating competitive environment`, inputs, `clean coal`and carbon trading, rather than answering simple questions of what is the Government doing about letting Australian renewable technology going overseas for want of support, whilst the taxpayer money is being spent on the chimera of CCS. As eminent experts point out, it will be 30-40 years when this system will begin to work, if it will in fact, work. In the meantime, solar technology is now available, including the storage of electricity, a big problem in the past. Of course, one can understand the government and Ferguson, the coal industry is a big player in the economy, (as well as the biggest polluter),so we don`t want to hurt their profits, do we? Anyway, the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, was pure political theatre, such as the Apology to the Stoien Generation

By: bill

bill — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Most experts agree: we could knock 35% off our electricity demand by being smarter about how we use it. The BCA and the Green Building Council are making big strides and Melbourne can be proud of some icon building with impressive green star ratings.
Something else that is not THAT hard is to have a NATIONAL feed-in-tariff that actually works and gets renewable technologies built rather than the limp attempts in SA (and now QLD). Its not just about solar panels, its the other technologies that are on-line and would come on line in the right market for investors and the public alike. No time for motherhood stuff. Sun, wind waves, hotrocks. Just get on with it!

By: EcologyAction

EcologyAction — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

You left the best to last didn’t you. Ouch. What a shame. By the by Rudd gilded the lily about’ Australia being the biggest exporter/China the biggest user’ to justify CCS investments, given our exports to there are smallish compared to other markets apparently (Colvin interview on PM about 3 weeks back). As for the Climate Institute seed funding from … Bob Carr who works for Macquarie Bank now … well whatever the suits at the CI are - great ginger group, strong communicator, incredibly well connected, more spiv than an ALP conference, Peter Garrett’s figleaf, federal election wedge on the Libs v Nats - whatever it is, it ain’t G/green. Bourne got one thing right though for WWF. We are all joined at the hip now on dangerous climate. No one’s emissions are going down, and secular saint James Hansen reckons 350 ppb CO2 equivalence has been well exceeded already. Get your floaties out, spend the super! We are fucked.

By: murray

murray — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

“Clean coal” is an oxymoron. Coal is dirty. Burning coal (=carbon) produces CO2. “Clean coal” technology is unproven/non-existent and if it can be done is decades away and will consume large amounts of energy. Hanging our hopes on its arrival allows the highly subsidised polluting coal industry to expand and poison the planet, while diverting attention and funds from other proven, existing technologies (wind, photovoltaic, solar thermal, geothermal), Simple solutions that can be implemented today need all our attention and resources. We should spend big on public transport, building insulation and passive solar architectural design, solar domestic hot water, water conservation and recycling (not ridiculous energy-intensive and hideously expensive desalination plants). Nuclear is too dangerous. Ethanol needs more land, water and subsidy than we can afford. We must fund renewable energy research, subsidise green energy, tax wanton consumption, relocalise, and mandate conservation NOW.

By: Dr Harvey M Tarvydas

Dr Harvey M Tarvydas — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Carbon Dioxide is not the dirt in coal.
It probably is not causing global warming. The declared consensus that it is represents a substitute for scientific proof which is scientifically fine except that it is not a consensus. The science about the subject is fascinating and all the quality scientific opinion deserves respect inside and outside the consensus.
Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen are two life giving and supporting chemical components of Earths atmosphere. There’s is a lunatic out there calling one of them a pollutant.
When science, human intelligence and language get so simply muddled the brain becomes dysfunctional and may try squeezing square pegs into round holes so to speak while we await the brilliant new human ideas.