The federal government has provided $60 million for a commercial scale CO₂ injection demonstration facility as part of the Gorgon joint venture geosequestration project, the largest capture and storage project in the world, planned for Barrow Island.

Federal Environment and Heritage Minister, Senator Ian Campbell, said the project will involve liquefying CO₂ so it can be piped to the injection site and injected 2.5 km underground into a geological structure. He said there will be long-term monitoring of the stored carbon dioxide to ensure its safety.

“Australia’s reserves of coal and gas are critical to our economic prosperity”, Campbell said. “Technological advances are needed to allow us to better use these resources more cleanly and to capture and store their greenhouse gas emissions to prevent them from entering the atmosphere.”

He said large scale commercial use of carbon capture and storage technologies offer Australia’s energy sector its single largest opportunity to reduce greenhouse gases. “Scientific estimates suggest that up to 25% of Australia’s CO₂ emissions could be stored in underground reservoirs each year.”

“Lessons we learn from these demonstration projects will be used throughout Australia and internationally. Through the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), Australia has an opportunity to share its knowledge and shape a low emissions future throughout some of the fastest growing economies in the world.”

The funding has been provided from the federal government’s $500 million Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund. Campbell said the project must still clear all relevant state and commonwealth environmental approvals.

APPEA Chief Executive Officer, Belinda Robinson, said the funding was recognition from the government of the critical importance of gas to Australia’s prosperity.

“This extremely exciting and innovative project will place the Gorgon project and Australia firmly at the forefront in developing the technologies that have the very real potential for making the substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that we are looking for”, Robinson said.

“It is a massive and ambitious project that will result in removing up to 3 MMt of greenhouse gas emissions from the earth’s atmosphere – equivalent to taking around 650,000 cars off the road for a year”, she said.

Robinson said APPEA congratulated the Gorgon joint venture participants on the progress being made with the Gorgon CO₂ Injection Project which would maintain the oil and gas industry’s global leadership in the application of geosequestration.

Click on image to enlarge

The Gorgon Project has the potential to be the first project in Australia to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the injection of CO₂ underground. Once the CO₂ is injected into the subsurface, it will continue to move through the host reservoir, driven by the injection pressure and the forces of buoyancy until it becomes trapped.