Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share 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.