9 January 2006theage.com.auBarry FitzGerald
Victoria is set to become a leader in fighting climate change with a landmark research project this year that will store greenhouse gas deep underground.
The carbon dioxide geosequestration project, a first for Australia, is being driven by the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) and will be located in the Otway Basin in western Victoria.
Industry and the federal and state governments are banking on geosequestration — the geological storage of carbon dioxide — to provide a way to make deep cuts into greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels at a time when international concern about climate change is escalating.
The CO2CRC plans to be injecting carbon dioxide by the end of the year or early next year. Yesterday it would not say where the project would be based in western Victoria. Its chief executive, Peter Cook, said that the site was not yet specified because talks were continuing with landowners.
But industry watchers said that the carbon dioxide-rich gasfields found about 10 kilometres inland from Port Campbell and Peterborough would be the likely location.
Dr Cook said that the project would involve 40 Australian and overseas researchers. It will simulate the capture of carbon dioxide from a power station. The gas would then be piped several kilometres for pumping into underground storage in a depleted gas reservoir about two kilometres beneath the surface.
"Western Victoria is a very good area for testing the technology, as large amounts of carbon dioxide are naturally trapped in the Otway Basin," he said. "Our experiments will simulate natural geological processes that trap carbon dioxide for up to millions of years.
"Over a one-to-two-year period we will inject the carbon dioxide (about 100,000 tonnes) and scientists will monitor all aspects of the project to ensure it goes according to plan and to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of the technology.
"Global warming is a serious issue for communities and governments around the world. Our project will make a significant contribution to establishing technologies in Australia and globally, which have the potential of making deep cuts into greenhouse gas emissions."
Geosequestration has its critics. The Australian Conservation Foundation has referred to geosequestration as "greenhouse dumping" and others worry about the technology's safety and cost, and its promotion over strategies to reduce the world's reliance on fossil fuels.
The project in western Victoria will be funded by a mix of industry and government funding. In June 2004 the Federal Government announced its intention to create a $500 million Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund.
And in June last year, the State Government announced $83.5 million in funding for pilot projects related to brown coal under its Energy Technology Innovation Strategy.
Plans for the first geosequestration project to be based in western Victoria came ahead of this week's inaugural ministerial meeting of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate in Sydney, which critics see as a forum to get around the Kyoto Protocol.
Participants at the Asia-Pacific partnership include the US, Japan, China, India, South Korea and industry representatives.
But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has pulled out due to the ill health of Israeli leader Ariel Sharon.
