Supporting research into low emission technology

Mick Buffier, Glencore Coal

Glencore’s wholly-owned subsidiary, the Carbon Transport and Storage Corporation Pty Ltd (CTSCo), is continuing to progress its carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Queensland’s Surat Basin.

The project has received grant funding from the Australian black coal industry via the Coal 21 Fund and the Commonwealth Government.

Since the project’s inception in 2010, CTSCo has brought together a range of scientific and technical experts from University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne and University of Texas to provide independent reviews of our detailed modelling, testing and analysis to determine the suitability of storing carbon dioxide (CO2) more than 1.2km underground. The project will be subject to rigorous Government environmental assessments and approvals.

The CTSCo Project is currently in the final stages of completing a feasibility study and will be seeking regulatory approval to test inject up to 180,000 tonnes of CO2 over three years. This is equivalent to storing/removing emissions from 10,000 Queensland households*. According to the Australian Government’s CCS Storage Atlas, the Surat Basin in Queensland is one of the most prospective locations in Australia capable of storing industrial scale volumes of CO2, making it a priority area for conducting detailed CCS studies and demonstration projects at scale.

As such, the CTSCo Project can contribute to the accelerated development of CCS technology globally as well as providing a pathway for Queensland and Australia to significantly reduce emissions from coal and gas baseload power generation for decades to come. The CTSCo test injection is the first step in proving that CCS technology can be safely, effectively and sustainably deployed in the region.

Beyond successful test injection, CTSCo is working to apply the learnings, protocols and data from this project to prove up an industrial scale CCS storage site further south in the Surat Basin to store CO2 captured from a nearby coal power station using high efficiency low emission technology.

CTSCo has also partnered with Huaneng, who have been successfully operating High Efficiency Low Emission (HELE) technology for over 10 years in China, to equip an existing coal power station in Queensland with post-combustion capture (PCC) technology to capture CO2 for storage in the Surat Basin. PCC is part of the group of HELE technologies. A number of technical studies are underway to explore both options.

We believe this will provide a technology pathway for materially reducing Australia’s overall carbon footprint, help Federal and State Governments achieve their stated emissions reductions targets, benefit many other industrial CO2 emitters and extend the life of many of the country’s youngest and most efficient coal-fired power generators, leading to considerable cost benefits for households and businesses.

The CTSCo project team is continuing to engage openly with the local communities and assess the economic, environmental, social and cultural implications of the project. This has included public consultation sessions in Wandoan to provide information, answer questions and encourage feedback from local stakeholders.

Glencore’s participation in a number of low emission technology projects in Australia reflects the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) view that CCS is a vital technology if the world is to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets. For more information about CTSCo, visit www.ctsco.com.au 

* According to the Victorian Government Environmental Protection Authority Australian Greenhouse Calculator, each Australian household generates more than 18 tonnes of greenhouse gases every year: https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ agc/r_emissions.html#/