Australian Natural gas industry urges compulsory usage targets  

The ABC reports the gas industry is still trying to use its "half as dirty as coal" aspect to gain a regulated share of the energy market - Natural gas industry urges compulsory usage targets. Of course, we'd be much better off if we just went to no-carbon energy sources instead of a depleting half-way house.

The main companies which distribute natural gas around the country are calling on the Federal Government to set a target for natural gas use, to help Australia burn less coal. Natural gas burns more cleanly than coal, but the Greens say natural gas is no better in the long run.

The Federal Government is heading into the new parliamentary year having finalised two key climate change policies; its emissions trading or carbon pollution reduction scheme and the 20 per cent target for renewable energy by 2020.

But the Australian Pipeline Industry Association (APIA), which represents the gas transmission industry, says the combination of the emissions trading scheme and the renewable energy target could be counterproductive; forcing businesses to use coal-fired energy for longer. ...

The APIA wants the Government to consider setting a gas target, similar to a scheme already set up in Queensland where 13 per cent of energy used by electricity retailers, must come from natural gas. ...

But Greens leader Bob Brown says the natural gas industry has left its run too late. "To advocate now a halfway house in burning fossil fuels that is the gas industries, to lessen the impact of gas is like saying that black coal is better than brown coal, gas is better than black coal," he said. "They are all fossil fuel burning industries which would inject massive amounts more carbon dioxides into the atmosphere."

He says the focus of government initiatives must be on zero emissions technology. "We now recognise the climate change emergency means that we have to be moving straight through to renewable energy and energy efficiency and gas can fight it out with the coal industry as to who's the less polluting, but we need zero pollution in our new energy production," he said.