What Was The WWF Thinking ?  

I think I'd rather environmental groups asked the Government to stop subsidising coal companies instead of asking them to hand over my tax dollars in search of a magic hole in which to stuff all our carbon emissions - Green group defends clean coal push. Its not like our largest industry doesn't have plenty of cash of its own to spend...

Environment group WWF has called for urgent testing of carbon capture and storage (CCS) to determine whether or not the low-emissions technology for fossil fuels can work. The organisation has come under fire from rivals Greenpeace and the Australian Greens for cooperating with the coal industry in a call for the government to speed up CCS investigation. Greenpeace released research suggesting CCS is wasteful, expensive and environmentally risky, and could not effectively be deployed before 2030. ...

Greens climate change and energy spokeswoman Christine Milne said the technology was unproven. "So now we have an alliance designed to shepherd the Rudd government all the way to the budget," Senator Milne told ABC Radio. "It completely undermines the environment movement trying to move forward and getting to the low carbon future where we all want to be."

Greenpeace says its report, due out next month and based on independent scientific research, backs its stance that CCS is a false hope promoted by the coal industry. A summary of the report says CCS could not be deployed at a utility scale before 2030, when emissions needed to start falling after 2015 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. It says the technology uses between 10 and 40 per cent of the energy produced by a power station, could lead to a doubling of plant costs and could not guarantee the safe and permanent storage of CO2. "The real solutions to stopping dangerous climate change lie in renewable energy and energy efficiency that can start protecting the climate today," the summary says.