Federal Labor Leader Kevin Rudd said the policy document, “New Directions For Australia’s Coal Industry: Three Practical Steps for Clean Coal”, would help preserve Australia’s long-term coal industry and the jobs of its 30,000 workers through clean coal technologies.

“What we are talking about here is this – when you’ve got so many coal-fired power stations in Australia, once you do carbon capture and storage, how do you then identify where you can store?” Rudd said.

“The geological network of this country needs to be completed right across the country so that we can identify those places where the CO2 can be put safely.”

Rudd also pointed to the challenge of transporting the captured CO2, and the need to address appropriate pipeline technologies and how they will work.

“And finally, if you are doing all of the above, how do you create the best regulatory environment possible for the private sector and for others to know how it is actually going to unfold?” he said.

Rudd outlined the new framework and said $50 million would go towards establishing the plan:

To set up a robust regulatory framework for carbon capture and storage;

To map and test suitable large geological storage sites that are stable and secure; and

To map and assess the infrastructure needed to transport captured carbon to those sites.

$20 million would be allocated to assess sequestration sites in New South Wales:

The investment will identify and test the potential for carbon storage in NSW, to provide storage options for the carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations in the Hunter Valley and across NSW.

$40 million towards a large-scale post-combustion capture plant at an existing coal-fired power station, to be led by the CSIRO.

Federal Labor will consult with CSIRO, state governments and industry to determine a suitable site for the initial project, which could be in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and possibly Western Australia. Additional demonstration projects will also be considered.

Queensland Resources Council (QRC) chief executive Michael Roche has welcomed support for a national carbon management action plan.

“The development and deployment of breakthrough power generation technologies is a national and global challenge. We should not be leaving the task to individual state governments and individual project proponents. We need a nationally coordinated approach to the management of carbon,” Roche said.

Roche said the ALP’s commitment would complement the industry’s voluntary COAL21 Fund, which is expected to raise in the order of $1 billion over the next 10 years, with $600 million earmarked for Queensland clean coal technology projects.