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Aussie Clean Coal Council misleads on renewables

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Posted in Global Warming | Tagged Global Warming

Queensland, Australia - A confidential document showing the Queensland state government’s plans to target school children and energy consumers with inaccurate information about clean coal technology has been criticised by Greenpeace. Climate and energy campaigner Simon Roz said: “The Queensland Clean Coal Council’s communications strategy, which was reported in today’s Sunday Mail as ‘propaganda’, says clean coal is in competition with renewables and is not credible in the public eye.

“It plans to counter this by telling 13-17 year olds that renewable energy is a ‘niche’ market still in development. Yet according to the United Nations, renewable energy is responsible for a multi-billion dollar industry akin to a ‘global gold rush’.

“Clean coal technology such as CCS (carbon capture and storage or burying carbon emissions from burning coal) is not operating commercially anywhere in the world and major projects like ZeroGen in the US have flopped because they are uneconomic.

“The Queensland government is planning on spending taxpayers’ money to fund a campaign to deceive the next generation of voters. CCS is unproven, uneconomical and will not cut emissions as quickly as is needed. Fossil fuels already get around 28 times more funding than renewable energy.

“If the state Premier Anna Bligh and mines and energy minister Geoff Wilson were serious about giving renewable energy a fair go they would also tell school kids and energy consumers about the real clean renewable energy from wind and solar already being used on a mass scale in Denmark, Germany, Spain and California. And state and federal governments would start pumping the public’s cash into renewable energy solutions.”