If you order a beer from a bar next year, there is a chance its bubbles could have been manufactured using carbon dioxide extracted from the Bass Strait seabed.
The largest gas producer in southern Australia on Friday announced it would build a plant to recycle and purify carbon dioxide (CO2) extracted from industrial gas to use in the food and beverage industry.
Treating and purifying carbon dioxide extracted from the gas means it can be used in carbonated drinks such as beer.
Esso Australia, which extracts gas from Bass Strait for households along the east coast, has partnered with Air Liquide Australia to build the manufacturing facility at its Longford site near Sale, about three hours east of Melbourne.
Its 23 offshore oil and gas platforms off the coast of Gippsland are a joint venture between Esso, which is owned by multinational Exxon Mobil, and mining giant BHP, and currently supplies about 20 per cent of the eastern Australia gas market.
Repurposing part of decarbonising plan
Esso Australia said the move to repurpose carbon dioxide would lower its carbon footprint as it attempted to meet the targets set by the Paris international climate change agreement, and would drop its "flaring intensity" by 35 per cent by 2025.
Esso has a gas conditioning plant at Longford, which extracts carbon dioxide from the gas, but it is currently released into the atmosphere via the flaring process.
"We extract CO2 out of our gas stream, and that CO2 is vented," Exxon Mobil Australia chairman Dylan Pugh said.
"So what we're going to be doing is taking some of that potentially vented CO2, bring it into a pipeline and bring it over to the Air Liquide purification plant for processing."
From waste product to beer bubbles
Air Liquide Australia managing director Tim Kehoe said the purification and liquidation process would allow the carbon dioxide to be used for the carbonisation of drinks, food processing, water treatment and in the medical industry.
"So it's repurposed — effectively what would otherwise be a waste product turns into a beneficial product," he said.
"We've got CO2 plants in every state of Australia, but this will be our newest.
"This will be our most technologically advanced and our most efficient plant."
Construction of the new processing facility will start soon, and it is expected to be fully operational at the start of next year, creating about 60 construction jobs.
But it is unclear how many long-term roles will be created at the site.
"A lot if it [will be] automated, but there will be at least two operators at the plant," Mr Kehoe said.
