In a blow-back to a 1970s style of intervention in capital markets, the Australian Government proposes to form a Clean Energy Finance Corporation to foster investment in renewable energy.However, there is no comprehensive outline of the proposed corporation in the numerous documents released yesterday by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency explaining a series of policy measures intended to curb carbon emissions originating in Australia.Instead, aspects of the rationale, as well as a preliminary programme for the CEFC, are scattered throughout the documents.One document notes that the Government "will invest $10 billion", though the timeframe for this investment is not clear, nor whether the whole $10 billion will be in the form of equity in the corporation.The business parameters, such as a target return on funds, risk tolerance and governance measures, are also not addressed in any detail, though the CEFC will be "commercially oriented," says the document.A second document states that "there will be two funding streams". The Government will allocate $5 billion to one stream, which will be "exclusively dedicated to investments in renewable energy projects".A further $5 billion will support a second stream that "will fund investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency and clean technology." This second stream "may include assistance for businesses manufacturing components for clean energy projects."While the governance and management of the proposed corporation is yet to be spelled out, "the Government's approach will be informed by its experience with bodies such as the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation."EFIC is the last remaining financial corporation operated by the Australian Government. (The Federal Government also operates commercially in health insurance, and quasi-commercially in terrorism insurance.) The CEFC is an echo of efforts in the era prior to financial deregulation and the relaxation of capital controls to steer private finance into projects that might lack commercial merit, or where the payback period is too long for conventional financiers to support.One parallel is the Australian Industry Development Corporation, which was formed in the 1970s, lost bureaucratic support in the 1980s and was the first privatisation (or, strictly, part-privatisation) of note in 1989.The AIDC, which struggled for a commercial rationale, was eventually sold to UBS in 1998, although its remnants are still being wound up by the Department of Finance.The mandate for the AIDC's latter-day successor, the CEFC, include, according to the Department of Climate Change:-- "the commercialisation of renewable energy technologies"-- "the transformation of existing manufacturing businesses to re-focus on making the inputs for these sectors"-- "unlocking significant new private investment into clean energy projects and the supply chain that feeds into these projects"