Coal industry to spend $300m on clean-up - Breaking News - Business - Breaking News

The Australian black coal industry will commit $300 million over the next five years to advance technologies to cut greenhouse emissions.

The package will involve the electricity generation industry demonstrating the effectiveness of a range of cutting edge technologies.

The technologies include the permanent underground storage of carbon, and oxy-fuel combustion, a means of reducing the cost of capturing carbon dioxide at conventional power stations.

Without the successful demonstration of these technologies, they will struggle to gain supporters and achieve commercial acceptance.

The initiative fits in with the aims of the federal government's energy white paper in 2004 which set up a $500 million fund to leverage more than $1 billion in private investment to develop and demonstrate low-emission technologies.

Industry sources say projects under the plan will be carefully targeted in areas where Australia could make a difference and complement international efforts.

Most coal companies have signed onto the plan.

The new fund is expected to be raised by a voluntary levy on coal producers based on their production levels.

Australia is heavily reliant on coal for electricity generation and export, and has vast reserves which are predicted to be sufficient for the country's energy needs for hundreds of years.

But burning coal is a huge source of greenhouse gas which is blamed for producing the prospect of catastrophic climate change.

About 35 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions come from burning black and brown coal.

Black coal accounts for around 56 per cent of Australia's power generation and 60 million tonnes of black coal are consumed annually by Australian power stations.

The expected announcement comes as visiting Oxford professor and famed conservation biologist Norman Myers has told Australia he is sceptical of the coal sector's promise of cleaner technologies.

Professor Myers told the National Press Club that many years now had passed since the industry promised clean-coal technologies were imminent, without anything substantial having been developed.

He said he had told federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell as much during a meeting in Canberra.

© 2006 AAP