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ZeroGen

Brief description:

ZeroGen: Read more; Capture Method:
Pre-combustion
Capture Technology:
Amine
Capital cost:
A$4.3 billion
Financial support:
finsup
--> Volume:
2 million tonnes; -23.378941 150.512323

Facts:

Main developer: ZeroGen Pty Ltd

Country: Australia

Project type: Capture Storage

Scale: Large

Objective:

The large-scale demonstration project combining IGCC with CCS will not now go ahead

Status: Dormant

Capital cost: A$4.3 billion

Financal support:
Queensland ClimateSmart 2050
COAL21 Fund

Year of operation not known

Industry: Coal Power Plant

MW capacity: 530MW

Capture method: Pre-combustion

Capture technology: Amine

New or retrofit: New

Transport of CO2 by: Pipeline

Storage site:

Northern Denison Trough

Type of storage: Aquifers

Volume: 2 million tonnes/CO2

Artist's impression of ZeroGen plant

In December 2010, Queensland Government announced that the anticipated large-scale CCS demonstration project ZeroGen would not go ahead as planned.

The joint venture between state, Commonwealth and industry had intended to build and operate, by 2015, a new 530MW power coal-fired power plant that combined integrated coal gasification open cycle (IGCC) technology with carbon capture and storage, and might have been the world’s first facility of its type.

However, it has since been cancelled as a large-scale integrated project and is now considered a storage-only initiative. The government now intends to work with the coal industry over the next three years to identify suitable storage in Queensland. This focus will be industry-led and the restructured venture will now see ZeroGen become an independent entity, owned and run by industry.

The plant would have initially captured up to 65% of its emissions, with the potential to capture and store up to 90% – or 2 million tonnes of CO2 – in deep underground sandstone formations. Suitable sites for the plant and CO2 sequestration had been identified as part of the pre-feasibility study. However, the state government has said further research has failed to prove the current commercial viability of the proposals.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Corporation would have been providing the technologies for both the IGCC and the CCS units. Queensland Government’s other partners in the project were Australian Coal Association’s COAL21 Fund and Shell.

Prior to the December announcement, the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum had recognised the project as one of the world’s most important CCS projects.

Storage

Shell supported the project’s injection-testing programme. Investigative drilling of geological sites in the Northern Denison Trough, onshore Central Queensland, has been carried out, and more than 400 tonnes of CO2 injected, to test suitability for the secure storage of CO2. ZeroGen had applied for additional storage sites in the Surat and Galilee basins. The drilling programme had recently moved to its second stage, to identify specific reservoirs with enough capacity and monitor test injections of CO2.

Financing

The project was expected to cost A$4.3 billion. Queensland Government has already invested $102 million in research, with $90 million having come from the coal industry and the Commonwealth. In June 2010, ZeroGen applied for funding to Australia’s CCS Flagship Program.impact study will also be completed and all studies are due to be completed by September 2011.