Environmental

Regardless of the ultimate outcomes of the vigorous debate on the reasons for climate change, the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas levels should be reduced wherever possible.  We believe that the global energy demands will provide adequate opportunity for the development of a mix of electricity generation technologies.  This will include wind and solar and geothermal.

Nonetheless, greenhouse gas emissions are expected to continue to increase in the short to medium term, as fossil fuels will continue to supply a significant component of the world's demand for additional energy.  This is particularly due to the accessibility of coal in the developing regions, and the fact that economically feasible CO₂ capture and sequestration technologies remain some years away.

Although brown coal is perceived as a low value and very high CO₂ emission energy source, it actually has the ability to be a source of lower greenhouse emissions than black coal if its components are processed selectively.

We believe that the abundant reserves of brown coal can allow it to surpass natural gas as an electricity source because of an equivalent emissions footprint, but significantly lower cost.

Combustion of only the hydrocarbon element of the brown coal allows it to surpass black coal on both cost and emissions criteria.