South West Hub hosts international CCS students and experts

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) experts and students from around the world took a field trip to Harvey on 9 December as part of the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas R&D program’s (IEAGHG) International CCS Summer School being held in Perth.

Representing 14 countries, the Masters and PhD students and their mentors familiarised themselves with the Department of Mines and Petroleum South West Hub project, and the continuing CCS feasibility investigation work in the Harvey-Waroona area.

After a day of touring and talks, they were able to taste some local brews and try out mostly unfamiliar footballs used for Aussie Rules.

The CCS Summer School study group of 50 were welcomed by Harvey Shire President Tania Jackson, who praised the strong record of community engagement throughout each of the South West Hub project stages conducted during the past four years.

The delegation also learned about the gathering of seismic and electromagnetic data for the hub’s research partners - CSIRO, the University of WA and Curtin University.

DMP Carbon Strategy Co-ordinator Dominque Van Gent said CCS was a safe and proven technology used around the world to reduce the quantity of atmospheric CO² emissions, by injecting man-made CO² into deep saline aquifers for permanent storage.

“CCS projects have been operating in various countries for decades,” Mr Van Gent said.

“Aquistore at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam in Canada opened recently and the Tomakomai CCS demonstration project in Japan, which was completed in October, will begin CO² injection in April 2016.”

Before returning to Perth, the study group called in at the Old Coast Road Brewery which makes a selection of local brews, including low carbon beers that are not as frothy because they don’t contains as much CO² as traditional beers.

The visitors were then given a demonstration of Australian Rules football skills.