The council's "clean coal" claims fall apart under the slightest scrutiny, setting it on a collision course with both BHP and reality. "High efficiency, low emissions" coal power is not new. America's first such plant, at Avon Lake in Ohio, is so old it closed in 2016 after 67 years of service. Russia's Cherepetskaya plant opened 54 years ago and Australia's first, Callide C, is now 17 years old. Nor is it efficient. More than 55 per cent of the heat in these plants is wasted up the cooling towers; it's only 5 to 8 percentage points more efficient than the bog standard sub-critical technology that dominates the coal sector. Nor is it low emission. The world's "cleanest" such plants are twice as emissions-intensive as gas plants, and significantly "dirtier" than Jay Weatherill's much maligned diesel generators. "High efficiency, low emissions" coal is not cheap, either. Data from the World Coal Association shows that ultra-supercritical "high efficiency, low emissions" coal power costs an average of 41 per cent more than sub-critical coal.

A better name for the technology would be "slightly lower intensity, more expensive" – or slime, for short. The Minerals Council's other great lie is that carbon capture and storage is used widely overseas. Yet this phrase covers a suite of technologies, only some of which are applicable to coal. The vast majority of projects counted by the council have nothing to do with coal. More than 30 coal-power plants with carbon capture have been cancelled or put on hold globally. Only two "large-scale" plants were ever completed – Boundary Dam in Canada and Petra Nova in Texas – and both are small demonstrations. Combined, they capture as much carbon dioxide a year as Hazelwood in Victoria used to emit in two months. Adding carbon capture and storage doubles the capital and operating costs of a power station, consuming up to 25 per cent of the plant's energy to capture, compress and store the emissions. Unsurprisingly, there are no coal-power stations being built with this technology anywhere in the world. For a while, Australia was at the vanguard of carbon capture and storage. Between government and levy funding, we invested $1 billion into it. Yet, as the Australian National Audit Office reported in December, we have precious little to show for it. Not a single commercial-scale project was ever built; the largest project, ZeroGen, was axed after almost $200 million was spent, most of that public money. In June last year, a Mississippi plant of similar design was scuttled, burning a $US7.5 billion investment, much of which will be borne by the residents of America's poorest state.

Further research and development may well make carbon capture and storage cheaper, but it needs to halve in cost three times before it can compete with other carbon-abatement technologies. With upwards of $5 billion and a decade required for each risky project, it has no prospect of quickly replicating the steep learning curve that has made renewables cheaper than coal. Contrary to the Minerals Council's messages, the rest of the world is cooling on coal. Despite ambitious plans drawn up in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, there are just 11 coal-power stations under construction in Japan. Most are small and only five are "high efficiency, low emissions". China, with coal infrastructure running at only 47.5 per cent capacity, recently halted construction on 151 coal units. In 2017, the Indian coal sector recorded several large bankruptcies and the number of construction starts has fallen off a cliff. Germany's Datteln plant is the only coal construction project in all of Western Europe. The unit, replacing three others, is expected to enter operation late this year, 11 years after turning sod.

No one in the energy sector believes the council's costings on coal and no investor is willing to risk the capital required to build Australia's most expensive power generator and face an unknown future carbon liability. Australia has closed 13 coal-power stations in the past five years. Economics, not ideology, dictates that this trend won't be reversed. Australia's emissions have increased in each of the four years since the Coalition took office. The council's magic "clean coal" offers no practical solution to any of our energy needs. Industry has declined to back the government's 2017 coal agenda, the Adani Carmichael project is all but dead and there are strong signs the government has accepted that coal power will continue its terminal decline. It's time the Minerals Council dropped its specious campaigning. It's time BHP, the government and the national energy debate moved on.

Simon Holmes à Court is senior adviser to the Energy Transition Hub at Melbourne University. Twitter: @simonahac