SYDNEY -- Australia plans to allow greenhouse gas emissions to be stored in the ocean floor around the island continent, with exploration for suitable sites possibly starting this year.
Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said the government would amend the Offshore Petroleum Act this year to allow for seabed storage of carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations.
"Australia has significant geological storage potential, particularly in our offshore sedimentary basins," Mr. Ferguson told an energy conference in Sydney late Tuesday.
"I am hoping that amendments to the Offshore Petroleum Act 2006 will be passed in time for the government to release acreage for exploration in 2008, making Australia one of the first countries in the world to establish a regulated carbon capture and storage regime," he said.
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Green groups are critical of the plan to store carbon emissions in the ocean floor, saying they are concerned about the chance emissions will leak into the ocean environment.
"The coal and energy corporations are doubtless lobbying hard for the government to carry all liability for any leakages while they continue to profit from their polluting practices," Greens Senator Christine Milne said yesterday.
Australia's Labour government, elected in November, 2007, ratified the Kyoto Protocol the following month, reversing an 11-year policy by the previous Conservative government. The government of Kevin Rudd has made climate change a priority and has released a "National Clean Coal Initiative" which will see a regulatory regime for access and tenure to the territory offshore Australia for geological storage.
Australia is the world's largest coal exporter and is reliant on fossil fuel for transport and energy. About 80 per cent of electricity is produced by coal-fired power stations.
The country is responsible for about 1.2 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and is one of the highest polluters per capita.
Its carbon emissions are forecast to continue to grow owing to its heavy reliance on coal for electricity, although the government says the country will meet its Kyoto emissions targets by 2012. Emissions will grow by 108 per cent of 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012.
"Coal will continue to make a major contribution to Australia's energy needs well into the future and therefore we need to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired electricity generation," Mr. Ferguson said.
Going underground
A sample of planned or operating global carbon-capture projects:
Canada
The largest project is at Weyburn, Sask., with carbon dioxide piped about 325 kilometres from a facility in North Dakota.
Abu Dhabi
As part of a $15-billion investment in green energy, the emirate plans to develop a network of carbon-capture and storage projects to pump greenhouse gases into oil fields.
Sweden/Germany
Power company Vattenfall AB is building, in eastern Germany, one of the first coal-fired power plants that will attempt to bury CO{-2} in natural caverns beneath the Earth.
Britain
The government announced last week that Britain is preparing to make carbon capture readiness mandatory for all new fossil fuel power plants.
Norway
StatoilHydro ASA currently has four industrial-scale storage projects in operation.
United States
Washington has approved the construction of what is touted as the world's first carbon capture power plant, FutureGen.
Sources: Staff, wires, company reports
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