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not just one pig but an entire piggery of flying porkies...
The third report from the IPCC working group said the cheapest and least risky route to dealing with global warming would be to abandon all dirty fossil fuels in coming decades. It said gas – including that from the global fracking boom – could be important during the transition, but only if it replaced coal burning, and included nuclear as a low-carbon option.
It also included carbon capture and storage but noted it was an untested technology on a large scale and may be expensive.
But Hunt said he believed carbon capture and usage would be crucial to Australia’s emissions reductions.
“Coal will be used for decades and decades more … but what I do think will change is the emissions from it and that is the critical thing,” he told Sky news, describing “highly prospective” technology being developed by Csiro.
“What I think will happen is this … we will be able to use coal and gas in a dramatically more efficient way, with dramatically lower emissions … that will happen over the coming decade as we make real progress, including cleaning up our brown coal power stations, with drying gasification and capturing, not for storage … but capture and reuse,” Hunt said.
He nominated the three “great sources” for emission reductions for Australia as “the land sector, energy efficiency and cleaning up power stations.”
The government will release a white paper on its Direct Action plan in the next few weeks. The fund, which has been allocated $300m, $500m and $750m in its first three years and an unspecified amount of money in the fourth and subsequent years, will run competitive tenders for companies and organisations seeking to reduce their emissions.
Hunt said the government’s “broad approach is to work with the world to achieving our emissions reductions” but would not be drawn on longer term reduction targets for Australia and indicated the government would not be increasing Australia’s short-term minimum reduction target of 5% by 2020.
- By Gus Leonisky at 14 Apr 2014 - 8:32pm
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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the deception about clean coal...
There has been "clean coal" on the market for years...
But clean coal does not mean it has no effect on global warming...
Clean coal is mostly a moniker that has been used to describe coal with low sulphur (and also low on other "impurities"). The technology of recycling CO2 is more energy intensive than the "burning of coal". That is the price of burning coal: CO2 is a very stable molecule that even the most complex of photosynthesis takes a long time to break up into useful energy/food for plants. The "recycling of carbon dioxide" would have to be HEAVILY subsidised by government and would barely scratch the surface in terms of dealing with the amount we pump into the atmosphere daily...
Let's be real here... It's far simpler to REDUCE coal usage and increase the usage of renewables... Anything else is an excuse to do nothing much.
Greg Hunt's Abbott Direct-Action will produce negligible reduction of CO2 by 2020...If ANY REDUCTION AT ALL. Actually the energy spent to get rid of the carbon pricing and introduce the "direct-action" silly mechanism will be far in excess of leaving the "carbon pricing" as it is and or turning it into an ETS... By and large WE HAVE TO REDUCE FOSSIL FUEL USAGE... FULL STOP.
greg hunt: "coal is a renewable energy source"...
Environment Minister Greg Hunt is furious about the Australian Solar Council launching a marginal seat campaign against the Government over its attacks on the renewables industry, writes Sophie Vorrath (via Renew Economy).
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has launched an extraordinary attack on the head of the Australian Solar Council (ASC), John Grimes, after comments the ASC chief made on ABC radio, criticising the Coalition’s “broken promises” on support for renewable energy.
Hunt described Grimes as a “total failure of an industry leader” on Brisbane ABC 612 Mornings program last Thursday, and said he should be “utterly ashamed” of comments he made suggesting the environment minister had been “sidelined” in a government that was firmly anti-renewables.
The comments by Hunt come just a few weeks after he accused the left of “being against electricity”, and comes as polling shows that Government is under severe pressure over its renewables policy and the outcome of its controversial RET Review panel.
Grimes, speaking ahead of last Thursday's launch of the “Save Solar” campaign – a campaign that will target marginal federal seats across Australia – accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of personally leading a push to curtail renewables growth in Australia.
Grimes said:
After the election, promise after promise (has been) broken. “One million solar roofs gone, the RET he wants abolished – he and Joe Hockey are working hard for that outcome. … (And) moderate voices like [Environment Minister] Greg Hunt have been sidelined in the Cabinet.
This is just not what the people were voting for, and certainly not what they want.
But Hunt took exception to the comments, insisting his party was committed to the future of renewable energy in Australia, with a focus on long-term stability.
read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/greg-hunt-explodes-about-solar-councils-anti-coalition-marginal-seat-campaign,6815
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For Greg Hunt, "coal is a renewable source of energy"... There is plenty more from where it comes from...
See toon and article from top...