Infrastructure contract for new CCS activities
The Cooperative Research Centre on Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) and The University of Melbourne have announced an $18 million infrastructure contract to purchase new laboratories, plant and equipment to be used in a range of carbon capture and storage (CCS) activities over the next five years.
The new facilities, including laboratories for CCS geochemistry and carbon capture chemical engineering, basin attribute modelling, 3D visualisation, seismic networks and dynamic simulation, will be built, maintained and operated by The University of Melbourne. The university’s Peter Cook Centre for CCS Research will offer two new professorial positions to work in the labs.
University of Melbourne Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor James McCluskey said the laboratories will support national and international work to enhance CCS as a technology for tackling climate change. He said the university “aims to become a world leader in developing innovative and more cost-efficient CCS methods” and the investment will “allow us to make great strides toward this goal”.
The infrastructure contract is part of the $86 million CCSNET project, announced last year and administered by the Education Investment Fund (EIF). CO2CRC CEO Dr Richard Aldous said, “The Commonwealth funding is important for building new capability in CCS”, which he claims is “the only technology that can achieve substantial cuts in emissions from industrial-scale use of fossil fuels”.
CCSNET primarily supports Victoria’s CarbonNet Project, which is funded under the CCS Flagships program, although the facilities are available for other Australian CCS projects and, potentially, international collaborators. According to Dr Aldous, “The University of Melbourne’s new infrastructure will benefit all CCS projects and, through improved processes and lower costs, increase the momentum for its global implementation.”
Announcement of the infrastructure contract coincided with National CCS Week, which runs from 31 August-3 September.
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