Carbon capture and storage in Australia
Encyclopedia
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an approach to mitigate
global warming by capturing carbon dioxide
from large point sources such as fossil fuel power plant
s and storing it instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. CCS
is also used for EOR
to increase yield from declining oil fields, and for storage of from natural gas fields.
No coal fired power station in Australia presently has CCS of . CCS is not presently a viable technology for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from coal
fired power stations and is not expected, even by its proponents, to be commercially viable until at least 2020. The IPCC
estimates that the economic potential of CCS could be between 10% and 55% of the total carbon mitigation effort until year 2100.
and Hunter Valleys. The Latrobe Valley has some potential storage within a few hundred kilometres in Bass Strait oil fields but this requires expensive off shore development. There are no particularly promising large storage prospects near the Hunter Valley. Geologically most prospective areas are the North West Shelf (thousands of kilometres from emissions sources) and Bass Strait. The costs in Australia are therefore likely to be substantially more than for some other countries.
Further government projects in this area has led to many geo-technical studies that review gas and liquid migration, trapping and leakage. While the Gippsland area has been described as a basin margin, this is somewhat vague. The area defines a major fold belt onshore and offshore. The key risk to injection of in the area is the ability to keep gas in the ground. Multiple regional and local studies over the area have been completed by government and private companies.
, the product of the brown coal gasifier, using solvent, membrane and adsorbent technologies. The capture technologies are equally applicable to syngas from brown and black coal, gas or biomass fuels. During the project, researchers will evaluate each technology for efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Advanced gasifier technologies are highly suitable for carbon dioxide capture for CCS as they produce a concentrated stream of carbon dioxide.
will be designed to capture 3.5 Mt of carbon dioxide per annum from Greater Gorgon gas fields
and store it in the Dupuy formation beneath the Barrow Island
. The project will be the largest carbon dioxide sequestration operation in the world.
WWF claims that the Gorgon geosequestration project is potentially unsafe as the area has over 700 wells drilled in the area, 50 of which reach the area proposed for geosequestration of . Fault lines compound the problems. Barrow Island is also an A class nature reserve of global importance.
is reputedly "the developed world’s most greenhouse-polluting power plant" largely because of its reliance on brown coal. It is planned that from 2008 it will capture about 18,000 tonnes per year from one of its 200 MW units, which is about 0.06%.
will not proceed at present. They have described it as a "long term" opportunity.
The planned project was planned to have some CCS, storing the gas captured in depleted off-shore oil fields in the Gippsland Basin in east Bass Strait
.
announced it would not fund the Zerogen project because it was not economically viable and that it would be sold off.
Mitigation of global warming
Climate change mitigation is action to decrease the intensity of radiative forcing in order to reduce the potential effects of global warming. Mitigation is distinguished from adaptation to global warming, which involves acting to tolerate the effects of global warming...
global warming by capturing carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
from large point sources such as fossil fuel power plant
Fossil fuel power plant
A fossil-fuel power station is a power station that burns fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas or petroleum to produce electricity. Central station fossil-fuel power plants are designed on a large scale for continuous operation...
s and storing it instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. CCS
Carbon capture and storage
Carbon capture and storage , alternatively referred to as carbon capture and sequestration, is a technology to prevent large quantities of from being released into the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuel in power generation and other industries. It is often regarded as a means of mitigating...
is also used for EOR
Enhanced oil recovery
Enhanced Oil Recovery is a generic term for techniques for increasing the amount of crude oil that can be extracted from an oil field...
to increase yield from declining oil fields, and for storage of from natural gas fields.
No coal fired power station in Australia presently has CCS of . CCS is not presently a viable technology for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
fired power stations and is not expected, even by its proponents, to be commercially viable until at least 2020. The IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
estimates that the economic potential of CCS could be between 10% and 55% of the total carbon mitigation effort until year 2100.
Benefits
- Fossil fuels are capable of generating electricity 24 hours per day unlike renewables such as wind and solar.
- Australia has significant deposits of coal allowing economic benefits for years to come without significant environmental impacts.
Challenges
- Cost of CCS will make coal fired electricity more expensive than wind power
- Leakage from underground or undersea reservoirs
- Scarcity of potential sites and capacity compared to volumes of greenhouse gasGreenhouse gasA greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
needed to be sequestered on an ongoing basis - Existing power stations unlikely to be able to have carbon capture technology retrofitted
- CCS is forecast to require up to 30% more coal than conventional plants to cover the energy needs of CCS, and that extra coal must first be mined (which has environmental effects) and transported to the plant (which takes energy)
- Infrastructure required would take years to build
- emissions of acid rainAcid rainAcid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions . It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen...
-causing gases like nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides of a plant that captures will up to 40 percent greater than the total cradle-to-grave emissions of a modern plant that doesn't capture its because of the extra coal burnt
Transport of
In Australia, the major emissions sites are in the LatrobeLatrobe Valley
The Latrobe Valley is an inland geographical region and urban area of Gippsland in the state of Victoria, Australia. It is east of the City Of Melbourne and nestled between the Strzelecki Ranges to the south and the Great Dividing Range to the north – with the highest peak to the north of the...
and Hunter Valleys. The Latrobe Valley has some potential storage within a few hundred kilometres in Bass Strait oil fields but this requires expensive off shore development. There are no particularly promising large storage prospects near the Hunter Valley. Geologically most prospective areas are the North West Shelf (thousands of kilometres from emissions sources) and Bass Strait. The costs in Australia are therefore likely to be substantially more than for some other countries.
Liability for leakage
The world's first laws to allow companies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from power stations and bury them under the seabed are under consideration in Canberra. A federal parliamentary committee has given the green light to burying carbon pollution under the ground - and suggested taxpayers pay any clean-up bills. If legislated this would be a huge taxpayer subsidy to polluters.Commercial projects in operation
At present, there are no large scale commercial CCS projects within Australia. Some demonstration and proposed projects and projects under construction are listed below with brief descriptions.CO2CRC Otway Project
The CO2CRC Otway Project in Western Victoria is a demonstration project which has injected and stored over 65,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in a depleted natural gas reservoir 2km below the Earth’s surface. There has been no sign of leakage according to a comprehensive monitoring and verification program. Carbon dioxide and natural gas are extracted from a gas well, then compressed and piped to a new injection well two kilometres away. The gases are then injected into the depleted gas field. A nearby well is used to monitor the injected carbon dioxide. A second stage of the project, involving evaluation of carbon dioxide storage in deep saline formations, is under development and due to commence in 2010/11. The project is Australia's first demonstration of geosequestration and the world's largest geosequestration research project. This area has active exploration for geothermal and petroleum resources and has been supported by geotechnical work completed by the public sector and the private sector.Latrobe Valley Post Combustion Capture Project
This is a joint collaboration between Loy Yang Power, International Power Hazelwood, government and researchers from CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship and CO2CRC (including Monash and Melbourne Universities). The 10.5-metre-high pilot plant is designed to capture up to 1000 tonnes of per annum from the power station's exhaust-gas flues. Future trials will involve the use of a range of different -capture liquids. On 9 July 2008, CSIRO Energy Technology Chief Dr David Brockway announced that carbon dioxide had been captured from power station flue gases in a post-combustion-capture (PCC) pilot plant at Loy Yang Power Station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. The pilot plant would have to be scaled up 12,500 times to capture the emissions from the power station.Further government projects in this area has led to many geo-technical studies that review gas and liquid migration, trapping and leakage. While the Gippsland area has been described as a basin margin, this is somewhat vague. The area defines a major fold belt onshore and offshore. The key risk to injection of in the area is the ability to keep gas in the ground. Multiple regional and local studies over the area have been completed by government and private companies.
The CO2CRC/HRL Mulgrave Capture Project
CO2CRC has commissioned three carbon dioxide capture research rigs at HRL’s gasifier research facility at Mulgrave in Melbourne, Victoria. The CO2CRC rigs are capturing carbon dioxide from syngasSyngas
Syngas is the name given to a gas mixture that contains varying amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Examples of production methods include steam reforming of natural gas or liquid hydrocarbons to produce hydrogen, the gasification of coal, biomass, and in some types of waste-to-energy...
, the product of the brown coal gasifier, using solvent, membrane and adsorbent technologies. The capture technologies are equally applicable to syngas from brown and black coal, gas or biomass fuels. During the project, researchers will evaluate each technology for efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Advanced gasifier technologies are highly suitable for carbon dioxide capture for CCS as they produce a concentrated stream of carbon dioxide.
Gorgon gas field, Barrow Island
This project led by ChevronChevron Corporation
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation headquartered in San Ramon, California, United States and active in more than 180 countries. It is engaged in every aspect of the oil, gas, and geothermal energy industries, including exploration and production; refining,...
will be designed to capture 3.5 Mt of carbon dioxide per annum from Greater Gorgon gas fields
Gorgon gas project
The Gorgon gas project is a natural gas project in Western Australia, involving the development of the Greater Gorgon gas fields, subsea gas-gathering infrastructure, and a liquefied natural gas plant on Barrow Island. The project also includes a domestic gas component...
and store it in the Dupuy formation beneath the Barrow Island
Barrow Island
Barrow Island is the name of at least three islands:*Barrow Island *Barrow Island, Cumbria, England*Barrow Island...
. The project will be the largest carbon dioxide sequestration operation in the world.
WWF claims that the Gorgon geosequestration project is potentially unsafe as the area has over 700 wells drilled in the area, 50 of which reach the area proposed for geosequestration of . Fault lines compound the problems. Barrow Island is also an A class nature reserve of global importance.
Fairview project
The Fairview Project, near Roma in south-west Queensland, is intended to capture 1/3 of the emissions from a 100 MW coal seam methane gas fired power station.Hazelwood power station
HazelwoodHazelwood Power Station, Victoria
Hazelwood Power Station, in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia is a brown coal fueled base-load power station built between 1964 and 1971. The power station is of 1,600 megawatt capacity, and supplies up to 25% of Victoria's base load electricity and more than 5% of Australia's total energy...
is reputedly "the developed world’s most greenhouse-polluting power plant" largely because of its reliance on brown coal. It is planned that from 2008 it will capture about 18,000 tonnes per year from one of its 200 MW units, which is about 0.06%.
Callide Oxyfuel Project, Queensland
The Callide Oxyfuel Project is intended to demonstrate carbon capture using oxyfuel combustion, combined with carbon storage. The Oxyfuel boiler is presently scheduled to be operational in the Callide A power plant by 2011. The project team is assessing potential carbon storage sites to the west of the power plant. It plans to select the final location in 2009. The carbon dioxide will be transported in road tankers. The project is headed by CS Energy Ltd in conjunction with an international team of partners, including IHI Corporation (Japan), J-Power (Japan), Mitsui & Company (Japan) Schlumberger Oilfields Australia and Xstrata Coal. The Australian Coal Association, and the Commonwealth, Queensland and Japanese governments are providing financial support for the project. It is a project for the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.Monash coal-to-liquids
On 2 December 2008 Shell and Anglo American announced that this possible brown coal project in the Latrobe ValleyLatrobe Valley
The Latrobe Valley is an inland geographical region and urban area of Gippsland in the state of Victoria, Australia. It is east of the City Of Melbourne and nestled between the Strzelecki Ranges to the south and the Great Dividing Range to the north – with the highest peak to the north of the...
will not proceed at present. They have described it as a "long term" opportunity.
The planned project was planned to have some CCS, storing the gas captured in depleted off-shore oil fields in the Gippsland Basin in east Bass Strait
Bass Strait
Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.-Extent:The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bass Strait as follows:...
.
BP Kwinana (WA) coal to gas plant
A proposed $2 billion "hydrogen energy" coal-to-gas plant will not proceed because the geological formations off Perth, which were intended to sequester the , contain gas "chimneys" that "mean it is next to impossible to establish a seal in the strata that could contain the CO2".Zerogen power station
The Zerogen powerstation project near Stanwell power station in Queensland is proposed to be a 100 MW "Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle" power station with CCS. In late 2010, the Government of QueenslandGovernment of Queensland
The Government of Queensland is commonly known as the "Queensland Government".The form of the Government of Queensland is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1859, although it has been amended many times since then...
announced it would not fund the Zerogen project because it was not economically viable and that it would be sold off.
See also
- Coal mining in AustraliaCoal mining in AustraliaCoal in Australia is mined primarily in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. It is used to generate electricity and 75% of the coal mined in Australia is exported, mostly to eastern Asia. In 2000/01, 258.5 million tonnes of coal was mined, and 193.6 million tonnes exported. Coal also provides...
- Emissions tradingEmissions tradingEmissions trading is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants....
- Energy policy of AustraliaEnergy policy of AustraliaEnergy policy of Australia describes the energy policy in the politics of Australia. Energy in Australia describes energy and electricity production, consumption and export/import in Australia...
- Garnaut Climate Change ReviewGarnaut Climate Change ReviewThe Garnaut Climate Change Review was a study by Professor Ross Garnaut, commissioned by then Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd and by the Australian State and Territory Governments on 30 April 2007...
- Mandatory renewable energy targetsMandatory renewable energy targetsA mandatory renewable energy target is a government legislated requirement on electricity retailers to source specific proportions of total electricity sales from renewable energy sources according to a fixed timeframe. The additional cost is distributed across most customers by increases in other...
- Mitigation of global warming in AustraliaMitigation of global warming in AustraliaMitigation of global warming involves taking actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to enhance sinks aimed at reducing the extent of global warming. This is in distinction to adaptation to global warming, which involves taking action to minimise the effects of global warming...
- Renewable energy commercialization in Australia