<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/21/emissions-wa-gas-project-chevron-carbon-capture-system-pilbara-coast>
"Emissions from Chevron’s Gorgon gas development off Western Australia have
increased by more than 50% despite it being home to the world’s largest
industrial carbon capture and storage system.
There has been a sharp drop in the amount of CO2 stored underground at the
liquefied natural gas plant over the last three years, data released by Chevron
showed.
The development off the Pilbara coast was approved on the condition the company
store about 4m tonnes of CO2 a year that would have otherwise escaped from
reservoirs during extraction and been released into the atmosphere.
The company was to pump that CO2 into a natural reservoir 2km beneath Barrow
Island. But the CCS development was delayed for more than three years and has
failed to reach its promised storage level since it began operating in August
2019.
The Gorgon facility injected 1.6m tonnes into the reservoir last financial
year, down from 2.2m tonnes in 2020-21 and 2.7m in 2019-20.
Last year’s drop in CO2 storage coincided with a big jump in onsite emissions
from the Gorgon LNG operation, from 5.5m tonnes to 8.3m tonnes.
It made the facility Australia’s biggest single major industrial emitter,
according to government data. Chevron Australia exported a record 16.7m tonnes
of LNG for the year from Gorgon as international gas prices surged after
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A company spokesperson acknowledged the decline in emissions storage, and said
it was working on a project to improve a pressure management system that was
preventing more CO2 being injected under the island. This would “enable carbon
dioxide storage rates to increase over time”.
Climate campaigners say the failure of the Gorgon CCS project to deliver what
was promised illustrates how little progress the technology has made despite
decades of promises."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
