Kevin Rudd’s decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on technology to capture and store carbon has failed to deliver.
They’ve conferenced in empire-style Parisian ballrooms and dined in Kyoto on food cooked by a genuine Iron Chef. But deeply disgruntled former staffers believe Australia’s $300 million Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute has not achieved very much.
In 2008 the then prime minister Kevin Rudd decided a fledgling technology called carbon capture and storage was the key to two of his government’s big aims: joining a successful international fight to reduce global warming and continuing to be the world’s largest exporter of coal.
In his grandiloquent style, he promised $400 million to a new not-for-profit company, the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, which would get CCS up and running at home and also “lead the world”.
Dig a hole, pump in the CO2, hope it doesn’t come out. $400 million for that?
Sounds like, “dig a hole, pump in loads of money. Hide the paper trail from government investigation so nobody goes to jail.” Pretty much a typical “green” project.