NSW Minister - New Coal Plant OK For Short-Term Targets, Since Carbon Capture Tech Ready By 2025

:wtf:

NSW can build a coal-fired power station without busting its short-term greenhouse gas emission targets, says the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, Phil Koperberg. Mr Koperberg was optimistic that technology that captured carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and buried it would be available before 2025. He was also confident that renewable energy would represent a larger percentage of the state's energy consumption.

"On current trends we are going to meet those targets," said Mr Koperberg. This would still be the case even with a new coal-fired power station, he added. "We, as I said, have a number of projects to produce cleaner coal technology and with the advent of the investment in renewables, there is no reason which is evident to us at the moment that those targets will not be met."

A Government inquiry into the state's electricity needs will report at the end of August. State electricity generators Macquarie Generation and Delta Electricity have proposed building a coal-fired power station. Both operators yesterday denied industry rumours they were lobbying the Government to be exempt from any future emissions trading scheme.

Recent modelling by the Climate Institute showed the construction of a coal-fired power plant would probably blow any chances of stabilising the state's short-term greenhouse gas emissions at 2000 levels by 2025. The Government has also set a longer-term target of cutting year 2000 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050.

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/new-coal-plant-wont-harm-targets-minister/2007/07/24/1185043117233.html

:banghead:

unless someone makes a huge breakthrough in new technology