Twenty years ago, on this day, March 24th, 2004, all that nonsense about “clean coal” got a boost.
LAST Wednesday Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane launched COAL21, a plan of action aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions arising from the use of coal in electricity generation.
O’Neill, M. (2004) Coal industry’s plans to clean up its act should not be lightly dismissed .Canberra Times, March 30.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 377ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Liberal Prime Minister John Howard had pulled Australia out of the Kyoto negotiations in 2002. And therefore, technology-centric so-called solutions, such as CCS were flavour of the month. There was an Energy White Paper on the way. And it was a battle between fossil fuels and renewables. Things like Coal21 provide nice talking points, and sources of sound bites and images for supporters of the status quo to pretend matters are in hand.
What we learn is that much of what seems to be the official government policy aimed at making everyone’s lives better, especially Vorsprung durch Technik, is in fact, short-term PR stunts, where it really doesn’t matter if it comes off or not. It only has to last until slightly beyond the next election. And as long as it’s all plausibly deniable, then the politicians and funders are largely happy.
What happened next
Coal21 had some conferences. And then various projects were announced and didn’t eventuate or were failures even under their own terms – looking at you Gorgon. But that’s okay because their success or failure in the real world was kind of irrelevant. They were there primarily to support the continued existence of the fossil fuel industry.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
March 24, 1989 – Exxon Valdez vs Alaska. (EV wins)
March 24, 2010 – Scientists explain another bad thing on the horizon, this time on soil.