MEDIA RELEASE
Monday, 16 August, 2010
Renewable Energy Better than Coalition Coal
The Liberal/Coalition has again showed that they would rather place profits ahead of research and development into sustainable, and renewable, energy sources by promising $420 million for mining exploration and development of so called ‘clean coal’ technologies (Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/14/2982935.htm).
Clean coal will not help reduce carbon emissions within the next forty years, which is the critical period for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced dramatically by 2050, there is a groundswell of opinion that runaway global warming may occur. Clean coal uses more energy to capture emissions, thus uses more coal, and other pollutants (such as sulphur and particulate matter) will not be captured in the process (Source: http://www.risingtide.org.au/cleancoal).
The Democrats firmly believe that renewable energy is our only long-term solution. Nuclear energy is just too dangerous, too costly, too problematic, not to mention too controversial, and may be a short-term plan only. Others forms, such as Biomass and Geothermal energy, have their own cost restrictive issues and environmental problems.
The Democrats’ Tasmanian senate candidates have called for a ‘new’ thinking for energy alternatives to conventional coal fired power. Paulene Hutton has suggested that, “It is time for the Federal Government to start investing in research for clean, renewable energy technologies.” Ms. Hutton added that, “Rather than the major parties pouring money into coal mining which is already enjoying a boom time, they would be better served by investing those millions into ‘R&D’ for renewable sources such as solar, wind, and wave technologies.”
Tasmania’s second Democrats senate candidate, Tim Neal is exasperated by the Coalition’s overly generous, tax-payer funded handout to the coal industry, “It is unfathomable to believe that tax-payers will be footing the bill to provide these promoters of pollution with more funding. This is akin to providing tobacco companies with tax-payer money so they can do R&D on ‘low tar’ cigarettes. It’s an absolute outrage.”
One renewable energy source that has been avoided to a large degree by the major parties, and surprisingly by The Greens, is wave power. Wave power has made significant technological gains on limited research funding. Wave power could supply base-load power to the electricity grid, and would be viable now. With increased funding for research and infrastructure development, wave power could eventually solve Australia’s, and many parts of the World’s, energy problems. Ms. Hutton believes that wave power may eventually allow us to one day replace coal power altogether, “Wave power has such untapped potential. Wave power, combined with natural gas, wind and solar, could provide this country with all of it’s power needs, if more funding was provided for it’s development.”
The Democrats would use funds from it’s proposed Carbon Tax to invest in research and development of renewable energy technologies. Funds from the Carbon Tax would also be used to build renewable energy power stations. With The Democrats’ policy on Carbon Tax in mind Mr. Neal provided a positive outlook to solving the problem of getting renewable power stations built, “Instead of punishing energy companies for using coal to provide us with our energy needs, we should be encouraging them to build renewable energy power stations now. This could easily be done by issuing government grants for construction of a renewable power station, or offering tax breaks to these companies once a [renewable power] station is built.” Ms. Hutton gave another suggestion for energy companies to start converting to renewable power, “Perhaps a percentage ‘cash back’ to the company for the cost of the [renewable power] station might be another alternative to get our electricity providers to enter the ‘renewable age’.”
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