CO2CRC welcomes the federal government's embrace of science and technology as the pathway to accelerating low emissions technologies and its identification of CCUS as a priority low emissions technology.
CO2CRC Chief Executive, Mr David Byers said that the Technology Investment Roadmap provides a powerful endorsement of the potential for CCUS to play a vital role in meeting the dual challenge of supplying more energy but with fewer emissions.
Mr Byers said: "As International Energy Agency Executive Director, Dr Fatih Birol declared earlier this year: 'When we consider the scale of the energy and climate challenge, the critical importance of carbon capture is inescapable.'
"In that context, Australia is well-placed to be a world leader in CCUS. Recent project activity demonstrates to the nation that CCUS is not a dream for the future but a reality today," said Mr Byers.
"The world's largest commercial-scale carbon dioxide injection project commenced in August 2019 at Gorgon LNG on Barrow Island, off the northwest coast of WA. Gorgon is now progressively ramping up to full capacity of up to 4Mtpa of safe and permanent storage of CO2.
"Santos is at an advanced stage of examining a large-scale commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) project to be located in the Cooper Basin with a scalable potential to store up to 20 Mtpa of CO2 per year.
"The launch of the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain pilot project in Victoria has been another leap forward for CCUS in Australia. The CarbonNet Project is investigating the feasibility for a commercial-scale, multi-user CCUS network in Gippsland that will inject CO2 (including that ultimately produced from commercial-scale hydrogen production) into deep underground, offshore storage sites in Bass Strait. In January, CarbonNet reached an exciting phase with the conclusion of a successful offshore drilling appraisal well at the Pelican site.
"Finally, COAL21 is examining the development of a commercial scale CCUS project in Queensland's Surat Basin with a final investment decision to begin construction of a $150m carbon capture plant at the Millmerran Power Station scheduled for later this year.
"Together, this project activity demonstrates once again that CCUS is not experimental – it is a proven technology, currently being deployed, storing millions of tons of CO2. On a global scale, more than 200 million tonnes of CO2 have been captured and injected deep underground since the 1970's. One project - the Sleipner CCS operation in Norway has separated and injected about one million tonnes of CO2per year since 1996.
"Today, 19 large scale CCS facilities are operating globally and another four are in construction.
The challenge is to continue to improve the cost-effectiveness of CCUS and develop the right policy settings
