Energy debate heats up in a tale of two priorities

Brown coal will get a $100 million lifeline as the federal and state governments invest in an ambitious project to convert one of Australia's most polluting energy sources into hydrogen.

AGL's Loy Yang A power plant: new uses being sought for its brown coal mine.

But on the same day, Victoria will also unveil the results of its first big renewable energy auction.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will join several ministers in the Latrobe Valley to unveil the formal launch of a $496 million, four-year pilot project to convert brown coal into hydrogen for export to Japan and elsewhere, companies and officials said.

The federal and Victorian governments have both pledged $50 million each to the project, with the rest of its funding coming from a Japanese consortium comprising the Japanese Government, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, J-Power, Iwatani Corporation and Marubeni, while AGL is providing coal from its Loy Yang brown coal mine.

Read the story by Cole Latimer and Peter Hannam from The Age - “Energy debate heats up in a tale of two priorities.”

(The idea of using Victoria’s coal to create hydrogen is reliant upon carbon capture and storage (CCS), an idea that has seen only limited use, is really only in the experimental stage, and has not really been scaled up to an industrial level, something which would be essential if the Victorian hydrogen project was to be viable - Robert McLean)