"Clean Coal" Boosters Plan to Ridicule Renewable Energy

A leaked draft PR plan by the Clean Coal Council, a Queensland state government partnership with the coal industry, stated that a "key outcome" would be to "turn around attitudes that clean coal is an unproven and unsafe technology." While the PR plan noted that "stakeholders" wanted investment directed to "emissions-free renewable energy technologies, not clean coal," the Council has other ideas. It ridiculed renewable energy technologies by claiming that they would only cater for "certain niche markets" and are still in the "development stages." Environmentalists dismissed the plan as government propaganda. "The Queensland Government is spending taxpayer money to fund a campaign to deceive the next generation of voters," said Simon Roz from Greenpeace Australia. Mines and Energy Minister Geoff Wilson conceded the draft plan was misleading. "I don't agree with the description of renewable energy," he said. Queensland and the neighboring state of New South Wales produce 97 percent of Australian coal production.