Carbon capture and storage in Australia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an approach to mitigate global warming by capturing carbon dioxide CO2 from large point sources such as fossil fuel power plants and storing it instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. CCS is also used for increasing yield from declining oil fields, and for storage of CO2 from natural gas fields.
No coal fired power station in Australia presently has CCS of CO2. 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. Even if viable for some power stations after that date there are serious issues which mean it is unlikely to be a major contributor to the reduced emissions said by the International Panel on Climate Change to be necessary by 2020 to reduce global warming and consequent sea level rise caused by anthropomorphic climate change.
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[edit] Challenges
- Cost of CCS will make coal fired electricity more expensive than wind power [1]
- Leakage from underground or undersea reservoirs
- Leakage during transport could lead to death from asphyxiation
- Distance of power stations from potential reservoirs will increase costs
- Scarcity of potential sites compared to volumes of greenhouse gas needed to be sequestered
- Existing power stations unlikely to be able to have carbon capture technology retrofitted [2]
- CCS is forecast to require up to 40% more energy input to coal fired power stations for the same output.
- Infrastructure required would take decades to build
[edit] Infrastructure
According to Vaclav Smil, of the University of Manitoba, in Canada, we would need an infrastructure whose annual volume handled would be twice as big as the world's crude oil industry just to sequester one quarter of carbon dioxide emitted in 2005 by large stationary sources. This would take decades to accomplish.
[edit] Tranport of CO2
In Australia, the major emissions sites are in the La Trobe Valley and Hunter Valley. The La Trobe Valley has some potential storage within a few hundred kilometres in Bass Strait oil fields but his 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. The time to develop infrastructure also means CCS is not a viable solution to the immediate problem of Global warming and its effects on Australia [3]
[edit] Commercial projects in operation
Nil in Australia. There is doubt about whether there will ever be commercial CCS for coal fired power stations because of the challenges faced and the collapse of the Futuregen project in the USA.
[edit] Failed projects
[edit] 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 CO2, contain gas "chimneys" that mean leaks were virtually inevitable. Leaks would be expected to lead to acidification of the ocean in the immediate vicinity. [4]
[edit] Demonstration projects
[edit] Otway Basin
The Otway Basin project in the west of Bass Strait is a small demonstration project which aims to capture 100,000 tonnes of CO2 will then be transported and be injected and stored in a depleted natural gas reservoir two km below the Earth’s surface. The total to be sequestered is 0.08% of Victoria's annual greenhouse gas emissions. It is described as the world's largest research and geosequestration demonstration project. [5]
[edit] Proposed projects
[edit] Gorgon gas field, Barrow Island
Chevron Texaco's proposal to sequester CO2 from the Gorgon gas field is potentially unsafe as the area has over 700 wells drilled in the area, 50 of which reach the area proposed for geosequestration of CO2. Fault lines compound the problems. Barrow Island is also an A class nature reserve of global importance. [6]
[edit] Fairview project
The Fairview Project, near Roma in south-west Queensland, is intended to capture 1/3 of the CO2 emissions from a 100 MW coal seam methane gas fired power station.
[edit] 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. The projected costs appear uneconomic compared to the Bald Hills Wind Farm.
[edit] Hazelwood power station
Hazelwood 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.
[edit] Monash coal-to-liquids
This possible brown coal project in the Latrobe Valley, is planned to have some CCS, storing the gas captured in depleted off-shore oil fields in the Gippsland Basin in east Bass Strait.[7]
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/content/userDocs/RefutingWindpowerFallacies.pdf by Dr Mark Diesendorf accessed 27 May 2008
- ^ Layout 1
- ^ https://www.citigroupgeo.com/pdf/SAU04258.pdf accessed 27 May Dr John Bradshaw, CEO, Greenhouse Gas Storage Solutions
- ^ Chimneys sweep BP clean coal plan away | The Australian
- ^ CO2CRC - Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies
- ^ http://www.wwf.org.au/news/plan-to-bury-gorgons-greenhouse-gas-too-risky-wwf/ accessed 27 May 2008
- ^ Green Car Congress: Monash Energy Moving Forward on 60Kbpd Coal-to-Liquids with Carbon Capture and Sequestration Project
