Polly Hemming, the climate and energy program director at the Australia Institute, said most new CCS projects are used to justify gas expansion. Reeve said there is no place for CCS technology in coal-fired power stations, but projects like Glencore’s may have the potential to provide some “learning” of how to best store CO2 underground – although that would depend on how much information Glencore is inclined to share. The energy and climate deputy program director at the Grattan Institute, Alison Reeve, said there was a need to make CCS technology viable to limit global heating while rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “We are getting drier and drier here – to inject into the Great Artesian basin with the potential for it to migrate, that’s the big problem,” she says. She is concerned that if the pilot program is successful, C02 injection could expand rapidly in the region. The water from the aquifer is not safe to drink but can be consumed by livestock such as pigs, Hamer said.įarmer Cindy Coggan owns a property roughly 5km from the injection site. Hamer said the Precipice Sandstone has become the “last resort” for producers in the area as water allocations from aquifers closer to the surface are exhausted. He is concerned contamination from the injection site could spread to the area surrounding his bore and “compromise our whole operation”.Ī Glencore spokesperson said the CTSCo project will have no impact on Cameron’s piggery. That bore underpins his plans to double the size of his piggery. “Typically there is a lot more work done that hasn’t been done to make the modelling more accurate,” he said.ĭevastated Queensland bushfire survivors recount the moment fire 'roared through' Tara – videoįarmer Ken Cameron, who has contracted Hamer since 2017 for groundwater advice, has a licence to drill a bore 10km from the injection site into the Precipice Sandstone – the groundwater formation that the GTSCo is aiming to store CO2 inside. Hydrogeologist Ned Hamer said Glencore’s modelling was “highly confusing”. Water from the plume area would be unsuitable for livestock to drink. It said the proposal had undergone “robust” analysis and has been reviewed by third party institutions, including the CSIRO.ĬTSCo’s modelling predicts the “plume area” created by the C02 injection, 2.3km underground, would reach roughly 1.6km in diameter over a century. In a statement, a Glencore spokesperson said some claims made by agricultural bodies have been “irresponsible, misleading and alarmist”. NFF president, David Jochinke, said “injecting coalmine waste into this vital water source, it puts food production at serious risk”. Sheppard said a group of the project’s opponents, including the National Farmers’ Federation, Agforce and Queensland Conservation Council, are “prepared to take it to the high court if necessary”. ![]() ![]() ![]() The cumulative effects could be devastating,” she said. ![]() She worries the project “may open the gate for many other proponents to be looking at the Great Artesian basin for CCS. The chief executive of Queensland Farmers’ Federation, Jo Sheppard, said water from the Great Artesian basin, which stretches 1.7m sq km across Australia’s eastern interior, is one of the “greatest environmental assets” that farmers can access.
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