Even Gore Thinks Rudd Goes Too Far

By Andrew Bolt

TonyfromOz prefaces …..

Al Gore is currently in Australia, and a fawning media have been falling all over each other trying to get interviews with him. One of the local Current Affairs programs broadcast a ten minute piece with him last night. The questions were all nice and easy, with no attempt to ask him any tough questions. He was ‘diplomatic’ in his response to this Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) question, neatly labeled as ‘Clean Coal’ for the adoring public, and his diplomacy I would best describe almost as skepticism that it could even be made to work effectively. As long as the media keeps perpetrating this madness without actually checking if it is at all feasible, then the public will remain totally uninformed. It’s easy to believe if you just keep calling it ‘clean coal’. Only when the reality is actually explained will people realise that it is a complete impossibility to implement. It is great for thought bubbles though, like……Say, wouldn’t it be great if we could just bury the stuff.

(Australian Prime Minister) Kevin Rudd on the clean coal technology into which he’s pouring $2.4 billion of your money and for which he’s winning applause at international meetings:

Its mission is clear: it’s to get large-scale carbon capture and storage projects done around the world, not just discussed… (It’s) to make one practical contribution to the great challenge we all face of dealing effectively with climate change.

But even the great green guru himself fears it’s just more snake oil:

AL GORE, CLIMATE CAMPAIGNER: I have some scepticism about how big a role that particular technology is going to play, but I hope I’m wrong.

And other climate alarmists agree Rudd’s plan is a con:

CLIVE HAMILTON, CLIMATE ACTIVIST: Well, sooner or later we have to get over this grand delusion that clean coal will save the day… I think the Rudd Government refuses to recognise the reality, and they power on with this myth that clean coal will save us.

But spending billions is these days is proof that a leader is decisive and bold, Doing Something rather than just doing nothing. It barely matters that the something the leader is doing is no solution to a problem that may actually not exist.

UPDATE

Professor Ivan Kennedy analyses the dodgy components of this snake oil:

First, Boyle’s law and the associated formula for calculating pressure-volume work tell us that capturing, cooling and compressing carbon dioxide to the liquid form will need a significant proportion of the energy yielded by burning the coal in the first place.

Second, transporting the liquefied carbon dioxide at least three times heavier than the original coal used to generate it will add significantly to the energy cost—requiring even more fossil fuel…

Third, the ongoing cost of adequate monitoring and managing the containment of the geo-sequestered carbon dioxide, even for the next thousand years, could soon exceed the net value of the energy gained in the first place.

Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.

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