German researchers in Spremberg have launched the world's first almost emission-free coal-fired power plant, spearheading the global push to produce clean coal.
Given the results of the recent Garnaut report on climate change, this could be good news for Australia.
Per capita, Australia has the highest rate of greenhouse emissions in the OECD and among the highest in the world - mainly due to this country’s dependence on coal.
Coal-burning plants are the world's biggest producers of electricity but as climate change concerns grow, the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases they emit each year have cast a shadow over the fossil fuel’s future. Built alongside a traditional power plant, the German test plant burns dirty brown coal with pure oxygen rather than air to produce nearly pure carbon dioxide emissions.
Those emissions are condensed, liquefied and pumped into long-term underground storage.
If the technology proves itself in trials over the next three years, it could turn coal into a relatively clean fuel that would give coal-rich nations the ability to produce plenty of electricity without significantly impacting on climate change.
There are 12 carbon capture and storage plants planned for Europe using a range of technologies however the US based project has been shelved due financial issues.
The Spremberg plant, privately funded by European energy company Vattenfall, is the first coal burner to effectively begin capturing more than 95 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.
The $AUD130 million facility will initially store liquefied carbon dioxide on site and then transport it by truck 355 km to a largely depleted gas field.
Eventually a pipeline will be built to carry the waste to below-ground storage.
Vattenfall built the test plant at its own expense largely in an effort to hold onto its market and meet a self-set commitment to reduce its emissions by half by 2030.
Germany has banned construction of new traditional coal-fired power plants in an effort to curb increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
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