Isra-Mart srl:Australia delays crucial Queensland CCS project

www.isra-mart.com

Isra-Mart srl news:

The Queensland government has indefinitely delayed plans for Australia's first full-scale coal-fired carbon capture and storage (CCS) power station, it announced yesterday.

The state government has spent A$102m (£65m) researching CCS technology with a view to building a $4.3bn power station, known as ZeroGen, in central Queensland by 2015.

But premier Anna Bligh said the original plan was not viable and that further research was needed into suitable storage sites where carbon can be sequestered safely.

"A fully functional power station by 2015, using this technology, is technically possible but it is not economically viable," she said.

Bligh said the Queensland government would not abandon the project, arguing that the state possessed 300 years worth of coal supplies that would see its value eroded unless CCS technology is deployed.

She added that the state will now spend at least three to four years researching storage sites. But experts said the delay meant a CCS power station is unlikely to be operational before 2025 at the earliest.

ZeroGen was the most advanced of four flagship projects funded jointly by the federal government, the state governments and the coal industry to produce clean electricity from a station with CCS technology.

The previous federal Labor administration bet heavily on clean coal as the only major low-carbon technology it backed with significant state support, setting up a $1bn Carbon Capture and Storage Institute last year.

The federal government yesterday criticised the state government's decision. Resources minister Martin Ferguson said he was disappointed because the federal government was lobbied hard by the state to financially support the project.

But Coal Industry Association spokesman Ralph Hillman said the continued faith of the government and the industry was needed if the technology was to succeed.

"Developing and demonstrating low-emission technologies such as CCS, solar thermal and geothermal involve very large expenditures and substantial risks," he said. "It is essential however the governments continue to make the investment in this development and demonstration work as all of these technologies will be essential to maintaining energy security while reducing carbon emissions."

Hillman added that Queensland remained at the forefront of CCS development worldwide, with the completion of an oxy-fuel demonstration project scheduled for next year and a small-scale pilot post-combustion capture plant already operating at Tarong.