Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Carr. Can the minister update the Senate on how Australia can get the most from its vast coal reserves in a low-carbon economy?

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bilyk for the question. It is essential that we find ways to use coal cleanly. That is why the government has created the $500 million National Low Emissions Coal Fund. It is supporting research, carbon mapping, demonstration projects, infrastructure, coal gasification, carbon dioxide storage and much more.

Our aim is to accelerate the deployment of technologies that will slash greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations which generate—and I remind of the Greens of this—80 per cent of Australia’s electricity. This is an absolutely critical program for coal rich countries like Australia. Coal is vital to regional economies and communities around this country. Last year, it earned some $21 billion in export revenue. We cannot turn our backs on this resource, and we do not have to. Committing to a low-carbon future will stimulate the innovation and technological development needed to reduce the greenhouse gas impact of coal.

That process has already begun. CSIRO and the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies within my portfolio are working closely with industry to find solutions. In July of this year, they launched Australia’s largest carbon storage demonstration project in Victoria’s Otway region. By the beginning of this month, 20,000 tonnes of CO2 had been successfully injected into a depleted natural gas reservoir some two kilometres underground. CSIRO and the CO2CRC are working with industry and the university partners in the Latrobe Valley on carbon capture demonstration projects. The first at Loy Yang went live in July and since then CSIRO has launched two more pilot carbon capture plants in Munmorah in New South Wales and Tarong in Queensland. It has teamed up with China’s Huaneng Group to establish a 300,000-tonne a year pilot plant in Beijing. The CO2CRC and the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal In Sustainable Development are also participants in the big Australian-Japanese carbon capture and storage project in the Callide A power station in central Queensland.

These international collaborations are critically important. Climate change is a global problem and Australia has everything to gain from finding global solutions. We will gain from selling clean coal technologies to the world and we will gain from ensuring that coal remains a viable fuel. Given the scale of our reserves, this could mean that Australia’s coal continues to figure significantly in the global energy mix for several hundred years. The government’s clean coal initiatives are part of a balanced and comprehensive energy strategy which also embraces alternative fuels and renewables. They reflect our determination to find real climate change solutions that do not leave anyone behind—not the coal producers, not coal workers and not coal regions. This is a universal problem requiring solutions that embrace all Australians.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. How will the global carbon capture and storage institute announced last week further these objectives?

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Bilyk. The recent G8 meeting in Hokkaido agreed to establish 20 industrial-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects around the world by 2010. Last week the government announced that it will invest $100 million a year to establish a host global carbon capture and storage institute. The institute will have a specific mandate to do whatever it can to ensure that there are 20 industrial-scale projects up and running. The Prime Minister is taking this plan for a global carbon capture storage institute to the United Nations this week and is seeking the first meeting for potential participants later this year. Australia can lead the world in climate change, and this government is determined to ensure that it does.