The federal government has approved two new offshore greenhouse gas storage areas, off the coast of Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Key points:
- Permits apply to Browse Basin off WA and Bonaparte Basin off NT
- The move has been criticized by the WA Conservation Council.
- But Resources Minister insists carbon capture technology works
The first permit was issued to Woodside Energy in the Browse Basin off the Kimberley coast of northern WA.
A second was issued to a joint venture between INPEX, Woodside Energy and TotalEnergies in the Bonaparte Basin, off the coast of the Northern Territory.
Three more permits will be issued at a later date for locations that have not yet been finalized.
Resources Minister Madeleine King said the permits were a first step for the companies involved.
“They are very positive about it, and they think it will work, and this allows them to investigate further,” he told ABC Radio Perth.
Ms King said these companies were well placed to explore the potential of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Australia because they were at the forefront of handling gas transportation.
But he said the government was by no means pinning all of its emissions reduction hopes on CCS.
“We won’t rely on it completely, it’s one of many means to get to net zero, it’s part of the toolkit,” he said.
Ms King said renewable energy projects continued to be an important part of efforts to achieve the goal of a 43 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 and said resource companies were on the same page.
“Woodside and other companies have other abatement programs as well, because they know that CCS is not the whole answer, whether it’s forestry projects or otherwise, there are other means of carbon sequestration and offsetting,” he said.
“And that is acceptable, this is what we have accepted as a community as part of the fight against global warming: the notion of offsets.”
Conservation Council labels scheme a ‘smokescreen’
The Conservation Council of WA (CCWA) raised serious questions about the issuance of the permits.
“Carbon capture and storage doesn’t work, as has been proven time and time again by several high-profile failures of CCS technology, most recently at Chevron’s Gorgon CCS plant in WA,” said CCWA Executive Director, Maggie Wood.
“Fossil fuel companies know that CCS doesn’t work, but they use it as a smokescreen behind which they can continue to expand their highly polluting business operations.
“More troubling, however, is that the federal government is apparently ignoring CCS’s failings and is willing to throw billions of dollars at it through subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
“Ring-ringing thousands of acres of our marine environment as a repository for carbon pollution is as wrong and dangerous as it sounds, and this plan will now become a huge liability for Australian taxpayers.
“It is hard to believe that this announcement comes from the same Labor government that came to power on a wave of popular support for more action on climate change.”
But Mrs King he said it was important that CCS be given a chance and that the permits were crucial to allowing companies to progress in the field.
“They have to go and do more exploration and make sure it actually works, and make sure they make it work,” he said.
“And the thing is, we do pre-competitive exploration in this country, by Geoscience Australia, that identifies prospective areas around carbon capture and storage.
“Like we do with all the other interests in the country, like mineral properties and gas exploration, it’s just another function of Geoscience Australia to identify this in the market.”
Carbon capture ‘proven technology’: minister
One of the largest emitting resource projects in WA is Chevron’s Gorgon gas project, which has included a problem-plagued CCS project.
“I accept that there is some criticism around carbon capture and storage, but it is a proven technology. It is not proven at the stage and volume of capture that we would like, or certainly Chevron would have expected, and they accept it, and I accept it,” King said.
Ms. King called Chevron’s Barrow Island project “ambitious,” but that was not a bad thing.
“It’s a challenge because of the underwater formations, and they’re working on that, and they’ve reached agreements with the state government on how to progress,” he said.
“But the thing about carbon capture, use and storage is that it’s a proven technology. We need to make it work better.” [and] I call on the gas industry to turn their words into action.
“Because if we want to get to a net-zero economy, a global net-zero economy, we’re going to need carbon capture and storage as part of the overall solution.”
Ms. King said that was also the position of the International Energy Agency and its executive director, Fatih Birol.
“I met with the chief executive of the International Energy Agency a few weeks ago in Sydney, Dr. Birol,” he said.
“And he re-emphasized that CCS must be part, only part, of our solution to reach a global net-zero position.”
The new Minister of Resources denied that the CCS technology was a pipe dream.
“There are a number of projects in the United States where it has been successful, and I would add that the Gorgon Project has been successful, it has stored 6.6 million tons of CO2,” he said.
“That’s not what they had targeted, they had targeted higher, but that’s 6.6 million tons that have been successfully stored, and that’s 6.6 million tons of CO2 that is not in the air.
“That’s a substantial accomplishment. Okay, Chevron wanted to do better and still wants to do better, and I support them in those efforts, so it’s proven and it’s happening.”
New oil permits announced
Ms King’s announcement of the offshore CCS permits came on the same day as the release of 46,758 square kilometers of new oil acreage for exploration.
“As we strive to reduce emissions, it must be emphasized that continued exploration for oil and gas in Commonwealth waters is critical to alleviating future domestic gas deficits,” it said in a statement.
“Gas will play a key role as a transition fuel as Australia works to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
“Australia’s energy sector also continues to support international energy security, particularly during global turmoil caused in large part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
The CCWA said it was “hard to believe” that this was the same Labor government that was “brought to power by the wave of promises to take action on climate change”.
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