The failure of Queensland’s ZeroGen clean coal project has become another reason for the Opposition to lash out at the Gillard-led government.

Opposition Treasury Spokesman Tim Nicholls said that the government had used up millions of taxpayers’ money to initiate projects that have ended up being complete failures. Among the projects he mentioned the Traveston Dam which cost $600 million, Tugun desalination plant that has still not been put to use and a health payroll that cost $ 220 million.

"And now we have a project with question marks on it from the beginning that has cost Queensland taxpayers about $116 million, it's cost the coal industry $50 million and the feds (federal government) some more money as well”, he was reported saying.

He also lashes out at the government saying that the fate of ZeroGen is another indicator that the Labor Government has lost control of how it spends money.

ZeroGen was at one point in time considered to be a world leader and attempted to prove that carbon capture and storage could create a cleaner power station.

Defending the government, Education Minister Cameron Dick said that the government had decided to cut its losses and that ZeroGen had to go into liquidation. He also said that the project had cost $ 108 million and not $ 116 like the opposition would have people believe.

He said that there was no sense in putting more money into it if the project was not going to work out. Moreover, the private sector did not seem like it was interested to invest in the scheme.

Environment group Australian Conservation Foundation believed that the failure of Zerogen proved that the economy was moving on from fossil fuels. In fact the collapse of the project twice in five years means that there is still no evidence that carbon capture and storage actually works.