The Global CCS Institute today welcomes the announcement of funding to Victoria’s CarbonNet project under the Australian Government’s Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Flagships program.
Commonwealth Minister for Resources and Energy Martin Ferguson, along with Victorian Minister for Energy and Resources Michael O’Brien announced the joint Commonwealth/State funding of AU$100 million to be put towards feasibility studies and surveys.
“It is encouraging to see government, both at Federal and State level, reaffirm their commitment to CCS as a key tool in an emissions reduction portfolio,” said Global CCS Institute CEO Brad Page.
“Australia’s Flagships program and related initiatives make it a global leader in government support for CCS.”
Page added that the Institute was also pleased to see that feasibility studies would include modelling and testing of suitable CO2 storage sites. “This region shows strong potential for CO2 storage. Our work and international experience indicates that early attention to storage is required if CCS projects are to proceed in a timely fashion,” Page said.
An additional AU$2.3 million was provided in 2010-11 to CarbonNet through the Global CCS Institute’s strategic partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative. This portion of funding is being used to define the roles of participants involved in a CCS network and to develop a business model and commercial structure for CarbonNet.
“The Clinton Climate Initiative is very pleased to see today’s announcement,” said Tony Wood, Program Director of the Clinton Climate Initiative. “We view the deployment of CCS as essential to meeting the global challenge of climate change, and have been working with the Victorian and Australian Governments on CarbonNet since 2008.”
“This project is one of the most promising CCS projects in the world, and providing support through our strategic partnership with the Global CCS Institute reflects that importance" said Wood.
In January this year, the Global CCS Institute also announced AU$240,000 support to CarbonNet for a measurement, monitoring and verification study that will build capability around the storage of greenhouse gas emissions. This work will be another valuable knowledge product distributed by the Institute to other project proponents for free.
Global knowledge sharing funded by the Institute is secured across different technologies and geographic regions, and across different stages of the project life cycle. This knowledge is then shared with Institute Members and the broader industry via online networks, and face-to-face events to inform future action by project proponents and international policy discussions.
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Media Enquiries: 02 6175 5300 or media@globalccsinstitute.com
Related Media Release: $100M Carbon Capture Investment for the Latrobe Valley
About the Global CCS Institute
The Global CCS Institute works with organisations and governments to accelerate the broad deployment of commercial CCS and ensure that the technology plays a role in responding to the world’s need for a low carbon energy future.
The Institute plays a key role in knowledge sharing across demonstration projects and is working on enabling the regulatory and policy as well as commercial and financial conditions for CCS to be deployed commercially around the world. It has more than 325 Members.
For more information, visit www.globalccsinstitute.com
