Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for your question, Senator Madigan. You have asked the correct minister, but obviously in my representative capacity I am not particularly familiar with day-to-day developments in generation technology. I have sought advice, thanks to your kindly notifying my office of the issues on the question.

The technology you refer to was selected for grant support under the Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund, which was a fund under the Howard government. The technology is referred to as 'integrated drying and gasification combined cycle'. As your question indicates, it is proposed that the technology will process Victorian brown coal, removing the high levels of moisture found in that resource to convert the drier coal into a synthetic gas, which is used to fire gas turbines. Together with a steam turbine stage, the process represents a more efficient utilisation of brown coal fuel with lower greenhouse gas emissions than is currently the case with conventional brown coal power stations.

However, I am advised that, as with all technology development—solar thermal, for example—it can be challenging to make technical progress and apply it in practice. The HRL project to which you refer is dual gas; it also uses a cleaner natural gas fuel as well as the synthetic gas. It has received conditional support from both the Victorian and the Australian government. In fact, the Howard government committed some $100 million to this project. The funds are appropriately tied to the project's meeting its milestones, and progress is being monitored by the department. The government is awaiting the outcomes of the project development and appeals in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.