NSW explores clean coal technologies

New South Wales is leading the way in developing clean coal technologies with the NSW Government forming a new partnership with the CO2 Cooperative Research Centre (CO2CRC).

At the opening of their annual greenhouse emissions research symposium in the Hunter Valley leading experts from Australia and overseas took part to look at ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions with a focus on geosequestration – the storage of emissions permanently in underground geological structures.

The NSW Government is an active partner in the Coal21 National Action Plan that will identify a number of emerging technologies that hold the key to reducing or even eliminating emissions from coal.

These include technologies that will capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from power stations and permanently store them in underground geological structures, a strategy the Action Plan identifies as the pathway to achieving near zero emissions from coal.

This plan links directly with the NSW Government’s Exploration NSW and New Frontiers exploration initiative that is working to identify potential geological formations for the disposal of CO₂.

The NSW Government has also established the NSW Clean Coal Technologies Working Group to identify priorities and projects in NSW that would bring about reduced carbon emissions from coal.

The Department of Primary Industries is also working closely with the NSW Greenhouse Office and the NSW Minerals Council to identify fugitive emissions of greenhouse gases from coal mines and develop strategies to reduce these into the future.

Solving this problem will require cooperation between Government, industry and research organisations in implementing viable targets and technological solutions.