National Clean Coal Initiative

In the lead up to the 2007 federal election the then opposition Australian Labor Party, led by Kevin Rudd, announced what it termed its National Clean Coal Initiative, that it would include the establishment of  a $500 million Clean Coal Fund.

Details of the Initiative
The initial announcement in February 2007 stated that the initiative would include :

effectiveness against this goal;
 * Setting up a national objective for clean coal technologies that significantly reduce emissions to enter the national electricity grid by 2020, for near-zero emission CCS technologies to enter the grid by 2030, and monitoring policy
 * Establishing a National Clean Coal Fund (NCCF) worth $500m (over the period to 2015) to provide Commonwealth support for the development and demonstration of clean coal technologies and generate at least $1.5 billion in new investment while working in partnership with the private sector; and
 * Increasing Commonwealth funding for the CSIRO by $25m over four years so that it can drive the National Clean Coal Initiative.

It also stated that the fund would be in addition to the Low Emission Technology Demonstration Fund which had been established under the Howard government in 2004 and had spent 175 million on clean coal projects."Achieving our target for electricity generated from clean coal to enter the grid by 2020 will be difficult and require substantial effort and funding from all of the coal industry’s stakeholders. However, to do anything less would be to sell Australian coal jobs, Australia’s export competitiveness, and hence Australia’s future, short," the joint announcement stated.

It also outlined that the "clean coal technologies" being referred to included :
 * "Coal gasification, whereby power plants gasify the coal with the resultant synthesis gas used to run a turbine that produces electricity;
 * Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), whereby the CO2 from the synthesis gas is separated, and then redirected and stored;
 * Oxy firing, whereby pulverised coal is combusted in a mixture of oxygen and recirculated flue gas in order to reduce the net volume of flue gases from the process; and
 * Post Combustion Capture (PCC), whereby CO2 is removed from the flue gas from conventional coal fired power stations and then stored."

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