Greens dismiss Outback carbon tank

THE Greens say a carbon storage hub in SA, proposed by oil and gas producer Santos Ltd, is at least a decade away.
South Australian Greens MP Mark Parnell said the project would rely on the successful and cost-efficient development of clean coal technology, .
As revealed exclusively in The Advertiser today, Santos confirmed it had submitted a proposal to the federal government related to a proposed Moomba Carbon Storage (MCS) project.
It said the long-term objective of MCS was to establish a large-scale carbon storage hub at Moomba capable of storing more than 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide would be injected into depleted or depleting oil and gas reservoirs of the Cooper Basin, providing a secure storage solution for major carbon emitters in Queensland, NSW and South Australia.
But Mr Parnell said storing the emissions was the easy part.
"Demonstrating that you can pump carbon dioxide underground is the easy bit," he said.
"The challenge is reducing the cost of separating the carbon dioxide in the first place.
"That is not going to be demonstrated in SA, it has to happen at the coal power stations and factories in other states that produce the carbon dioxide and that is at least a decade away."
Mr Parnell said clean coal technologies were unproven, energy-hungry and expensive and were not likely to play a role in the most immediate efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"While it remains to be seen whether burying coal's pollution can be demonstrated to be safe, sustainable and economically viable, the Greens believe taxpayers' research funding should be directed to the young and underfunded renewable energy, energy efficiency and biofuels sectors," he said.
Under the radical plan, carbon dioxide from three states would be piped back to the Cooper Basin gas fields and re-injected into sub-surface rocks.
The $714 million project promises to dramatically reduce national emissions by pumping about 20 million tonnes a year underground, while also cashing in on the emerging carbon economy.
It also promises to transform the gradually depleting gas fields from their current role as a key energy producer and greenhouse gas emitter to a critical part of the nation's carbon infrastructure.
It is believed it would be the biggest carbon storage facility in the world, putting South Australia at the forefront of the nation's fight against global warming.
The joint venture would use pipelines from the gas fields to carry carbon dioxide back to the Moomba plant. There it would be pumped deep underground and stored indefinitely rather than escaping into the atmosphere as a greenhouse-causing gas. The project eventually could play a key role in reducing national emissions and reaching a greenhouse emissions target to be set next year. Advocates believe the Federal Government's commitment to an emissions trading scheme and the establishment of a carbon price would help make it economic in the medium to longer term. That carbon market even might make the construction of new dedicated carbon dioxide pipelines economically viable. The storage process, known as geo-sequestration, would have the dual benefit of repressurising the Cooper Basin's dwindling gas fields, making extraction of the remaining natural gas resource easier and more economic. More than 700 are employed at the Moomba plant but sources said the plan would extend the life of the field, transferring it from a piece of energy infrastructure to a central piece of carbon infrastructure. Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer confirmed the Government was considering a request for $275 million in funding as part of the consortium's estimated $714 million first-phase investment. "Well, it's got to compete with other proposals that have been put forward to the Federal Government but I think this is an exciting opportunity for South Australia to make a contribution to C02 mitigation," he said. "It's an exciting idea. I'm extremely interested in it." In a submission to the Government this week, the joint venture partners said the initial "demonstration" phase would be used to show the technology worked and to prove to potential users, investors and the green lobby it worked efficiently and economically. It was hoped rapid approval from the Government could see emissions from Moomba sequestered underground as early as 2010.