One of the most stunning comments to come from the coal industry in the ABC TV’s 7.30 investigation into carbon capture and storage this week was not the admission that the technology would not be commercially viable for at least another two decades. That much is known. It was the contention from the coal industry that it believes it has no obligation to increase its contribution to funding the development of the only technology that it says would appear capable of guaranteeing its future. “If you want to wait for the carbon price to rise to levels where these will be commercially viable we’re probably into the 2030s,” Dick Wells, the chairman of the National Low Emissions Coal Council, told the program. “The question is how you fix that financial gap. How do you get the biggest bang for the buck for taxpayers’ dollars in filling that gap? Because in the absence of it, comp anies with shareholders – I mean, people have their superannuation with these companies – aren’t going to do things which aren’t sensible commercially.”