Carbon Capture & Storage: untried, unsafe and unaffordable
The companies behind the push for more coal fired power stations in WA have said ‘don’t worry, we will introduce ‘Carbon Capture and Storage technology’ (CCS) – our coal will be clean!
In reality, they have not committed to a timetable for this phantom technology to be implemented, and they expect taxpayers to pay the bill if anything goes wrong! Even the WA Environmental Protection Authority thinks it is ‘unlikely CCS will become technically and commercially viable in WA in the near future’.
Recently, Tim Flannery, the former Australian of the Year who previously championed CCS, said he had changed his view on the idea of capturing carbon and storing it underground saying he now believes it would be economically unachievable.
Speaking to the Age, Flannery said:
"I have been a great proponent of carbon capture and storage because I believed it was just essential particularly in places like China. But … having met the world’s experts in this area, I have a less hopeful view of carbon capture and storage."
Even if CCS technology were proven, some fundamental barriers remain to its commercial adoption. It is a risky technology relying on the successful storage of liquefied carbon dioxide underground for millions of years and governments and taxpayers have to pick up the bill if something goes wrong.
The risks are not insignificant either. A report into CCS commissioned by the NSW Government in 2008 found that leakage of CO2 could degrade the quality of groundwater and have lethal effects on plants and animals. Release of CO2 back into the atmosphere could also create local health and safety concerns as CO2 in large volumes is a powerful asphyxiant.
The WA Government are proposing the construction of new coal fired power stations that rely on a technology that does not exist yet, has few supporters outside the coal industry and could have catastrophic health and environmental impacts. Worst of all, if CCS fails then WA taxpayers will yet again be forced to pick up the bill.
It is clearly time for Western Australians to send a clear message that it is unacceptable for our governments to hold our future generation’s hostage to the dirty and increasingly unaffordable dinosaurs of the last century. Instead, we should be aggressively accelerating a just transition to a clean energy economy of the future.
