Fed: Scientists work on plan to bury C02

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Fed: Scientists work on plan to bury C02

CANBERRA, Feb 18 AAP - Up to one million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) could be buriedin a deep underground reservoir as a solution to greenhouse gas pollution, scientistssaid today.

Carbon dioxide is widely blamed for global warming, with Australia trying to cut itsgreenhouse gas emission levels as part of a worldwide attempt to ease climate problems.

Scientists from Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) believe carbon dioxide could beburied in a saline reservoir deep underground, as part of a national experiment to showhow emissions can be eliminated.

Group executive director Peter Cook said the new CRC for Greenhouse Gas Technologies(CO2CRC) project was planning a major demonstration of the large-scale disposal of carbondioxide, to see if it was possible to lock up greenhouse gases underground.

"Australia has sufficient underground capacity to potentially store our total emissionsfor the next 2,000 years," Dr Cook said in a statement.

"We want to be sure it is safe, secure, practical and economic to do so."

The project will involve work with partners in the United States, Europe and Japan,to study technologies and power systems to allow C02 to be extracted from power plantsand factory flues so it can be stored geologically.

The C02 could be stored in saline reservoir rocks, coal seams and depleted oil and gas fields.

Research is underway in Australia, with the possibility a reservoir could be operatingwithin five years.

Barrow Island, an island near Karratha, about 2,000 km north of Perth, has been identifiedby oil company Chevron Texaco as a possible site.

CRC chief executive David Brockway said the CRC was also working on a plan to generatepower from brown coal, or lignite, in a bid to cut emissions.

"Contrary to what many people imagine, brown coal is a very clean fuel," Dr Brockway said.

"The problem is that it contains 60-70 per cent water - and dealing with that requiresa lot of extra energy."

The CRC plan is to develop technology to heat and squeeze coal to cut the need forextra energy to evaporate the water content by up to 90 per cent.

This would in turn lower greenhouse emissions, he said.

AAP lm/sb/drp/ts

KEYWORD: GREENHOUSE