The Queensland government has rejected a controversial carbon capture and storage (CCS) proposal to inject CO2 from a coal-fired power station into the Great Artesian Basin.
Swiss mining company Glencore was awaiting the Queensland government’s approval of a pilot scheme to inject 330,000 tonnes of liquified CO2 into an aquifer about 2.3km underground in southern Queensland.
But in its assessment of the proposal’s environmental impact statement, the state department of environment found the project could not proceed due to potential “irreversible or long-term change to groundwater quality”.
The Great Artesian Basin is one of the biggest underground water sources in the world.
A spokesperson from the Queensland department of environment said the aquifer where Glencore proposed to store the Co2 was “not confined”, meaning that once injected, it could migrate to other aquifers and cause an increase in concentrations of contaminants including lead and arsenic.
“The departments final decision … makes it clear that other carbon capture and storage projects will not be viable in the Great Artesian Basin,” the spokesperson said.
Opposition to the Glencore proposal brought together an unusual alliance of environmental and farming groups – including Gina Rinehart’s agriculture business, One Nation and the Greens.
The Queensland Farmers’ Federation chief executive, Jo Sheppard, said legislation must now be put in place to permanently protect the basin from future proposals.
“We know that there are currently two companies with exploration permits for CCS in the [Great Artesian Basin] and we know that other companies globally are looking at the GAB as a cheap way to conduct CCS at an industrial scale to manage their emissions,” Sheppard said.
“The Queensland government can and must now take a leadership role and put regulations in place to protect the Queensland component of the GAB from further CCS bids,” she said.
In March, Queensland’s other peak farming body, AgForce, launched a legal challenge against the proposal, seeking a judicial review of a 2022 decision that found the project did not need to be assessed under federal environmental laws.
The AgForce chief executive, Michael Guerin said the project was “clearly a trial for future upscaling in this aquifer in the GAB, which Glencore believed had a storage capacity of up to 730 billion litres of industrial waste”.
“While we celebrate this state government decision, our thoughts now immediately go to how to best protect the GAB into the future from such environmental threats,” he said.
The project would have seen liquefied C02 captured from the Millmerran coal power station trucked to an injection site outside Moonie, 260km west of Brisbane and within the electorate of Nationals leader David Littleproud.
Littleproud said the Nationals support CCS as a method to offset the emissions from coal and gas but “only in the appropriate place and once there is confidence in the science”.
“The Great Artesian Basin is an important water source for farmers and communities in Queensland,” he said. “It’s imperative we protect it and that proper, thorough assessments are undertaken for any sequestration project.”
A Glencore spokesperson said the decision is a “missed opportunity” and “comes after a damaging misinformation campaign and political opportunism by multiple players”.
“If CCS is not available as an abatement option for industry it will have far-reaching ramifications,” they said.
There is currently one other CCS project under construction in Australia and a further 16 projects proposed.
The only operating CCS project in the country – and the largest industrial CCS system in the world – is at Chevron’s Gorgon gas development, offshore in Western Australia. Despite this, figures released by Chevron last year showed emissions from the project had increased by more than 50%.
