| MELBOURNE, June 19
Carbon capture and storage is
gradually gaining government attention after being overtaken by
investment in wind and solar energy, with the International
Energy Agency (IEA) saying the technology will be crucial to
limiting global warming.
The IEA estimates carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be
needed to cut 14 percent of the emissions that have to be abated
by 2060 to limit the global rise in temperature to less than 2
degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
“The size of the challenge really requires all technologies
to be deployed,” IEA energy analyst Samantha McCulloch told
Reuters on the sidelines of a Global CCS Institute forum in
Melbourne.
By one estimate, $80 billion has been invested in renewable
energy compared with $20 billion in CCS, Australia’s ambassador
for the environment, Patrick Suckling, told the forum.
Efforts to expand carbon capture and storage include a
Japanese project to bury carbon dioxide below the seabed off
Hokkaido island and construction of China’s first large-scale
carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project at a
coal-to-chemicals plant run by Yanchang Petroleum in
Xian.
In Australia, the government has proposed allowing its A$10
billion ($7.6 billion) Clean Energy Finance Corp to provide
loans to carbon capture projects as part of a
“technology-neutral” approach to cutting carbon emissions.
“We’re seeing renewed interest from governments,” McCulloch
said.
Two projects in Australia are driving hope for the
technology.
Chevron Corp is in the final stages of starting up
the world’s largest CCS operation, estimated at A$2 billion at
its huge Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant on Barrow
Island off Western Australia, where carbon dioxide will be
stripped from natural gas, compressed, piped and injected 2 kms
(1.2 miles) below the island.
The other project, CarbonNet, is a A$150 million government
study in the state of Victoria.
CarbonNet has identified a site 1.5 kms below the seabed off
the state’s coast where it estimates it could store 125 million
tonnes of carbon dioxide, project director Ian Filby told the
forum.
It aims to have the Pelican site approved for storage and
secure an injection license by 2020.
Filby said the lowest cost applications for CCS would be for
industrial operations, like gas processing, fertiliser
manufacturing and hydrogen production, at an estimated A$30 a
ton for compressing, transporting and burying carbon dioxide.
That could suit a project that Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy
Industries (KHI) is pursuing to use Victoria’s brown
coal to produce ultra clean hydrogen fuel, a project it has said
will need CCS.
($1 = 1.3137 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Richard Pullin)
