Glencore’s carbon capture and storage and the threat to the Great Artesian Basin

No carbon capture and storage project has ever achieved the required rates of sequestration, and worse is that they see the Great Artesian Basin as a dumping ground for waste, and not as the critically valuable water source that enables industries spanning across much of inland Australia.

Fossil fuel giants around the globe are grappling with the issue of climate change, their role in its perpetration, and the financial realities of a world that is increasingly convinced that their products cause irreparable harm to the environment. But what if we could continue digging up and burning fossil fuels without releasing any nasty greenhouse gases? Well, those in the fossil fuel industry might tell you we’re closer than you think.

First emerging in the early 1970s carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology aims to separate greenhouse gases produced from the processing and burning of fossil fuels and inject those emissions deep underground for permanent storage, thereby reducing emissions associated with fossil fuel energy production.

Historically CCS has another name, enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a technique that is still used to re-pressurise gas wells forcing more product to the surface with the sequestration of emissions representing a happy biproduct more so than a primary objective.

In recent efforts, fossil fuel giants are looking to pump their waste emissions into all sorts of creative places, most worryingly the Great Artesian Basin (GAB). The GAB is a massive aquifer that provides crucial water supply for rural communities and ecosystems across much of inland Australia. More than 120 towns, hundreds of pastoral stations, rural industries, and visitors to the drought stricken outback rely entirely on GAB water. As of 2022 there are more than 34,000 water bores in the GAB supporting more than $13 billion in annual production.

Swiss owned mining giant Glencore’s subsidiary CTSCo is in the late stages of securing a licence to pump up to 330,000 tonnes of carbon emissions generated by the Millmerran Power Station into the Surat Basin Sandstone Precipice Aquifer over three years via a proposed injection site in Moonie, QLD.

This trial operation is to be partially funded by the QLD government to the tune of $35 million. In 2023 Glencore’s EBITDA was $34.1 billion, smashing a previous record of $21.3 billion a year earlier, making one wonder why Queensland’s taxpayers are funding their projects at all.

Ironically, the CCS operation as described in Glencore’s own environmental impact statement (EIS) runs largely on LPG, and while it claims to sequester 330,000 tonnes over three years, operational emissions from running the CCS plant are estimated to be 266,368 tCO2-e, 91 per cent of which are emissions relating to “steam and electricity use within the PCC (post combustion capture) plant, followed by third party construction, professional engineering and monitoring services, and full fuel cycles of diesel, LPG and electricity“.

Net stored emissions claimed by Glencore are 19,000 tonnes a year, a vastly different number to the purported 330,000 tonnes.

Glencore’s EIS modelling results page concludes with the forecast that, “The net estimate of stored GHG emissions for the project is 57,032 tCO2-e over its lifetime”, a vastly different number to the purported 330,000 tonnes and a piddly 19,000 tonnes a year.

A successful trial of this CCS methodology, despite the relatively low net effect on emissions, would surely result in a wave of optimism regarding the future of Australia’s fossil fuel industry and would set a new precedent for Glencore, other miners, and the state and federal governments who are keen to extract as much value as possible from the abundant natural deposits of coal and gas before affordable renewable energy leaves them with a significant amount of stranded fossil fuel assets. 

It’s less about lowering emissions for the existing Millmerran power plant, and more about proving that the technology can successfully dump megatons of emissions into underground water basins.

The Saline Aquifer carbon capture project cost $3.2 billion and has not once met its target

Australia’s largest existing Saline Aquifer CCS project, the Gorgon Gas Facility in Western Australia which is owned and operated by Chevron and Exxon Mobile, cost $3.2 billion to implement with $60 million kicked in by the federal government, and has been online since 2019 after the initial 2016 launch was delayed by a series of debilitating technical and geological difficulties.

The facility has not once in its five years of operation met the carbon sequestration targets spruiked by the project proponents. A condition of approval for this project was that the Gorgon plant would inject 4 million tonnes of CO2-e a year into a natural reservoir 2 kilometres beneath Barrow Island off the shore of northern WA.

In the financial year 2021-22 the plant achieved, according to their own reports, total carbon injections of an embarrassing 1.6 million tonnes, down from 2.2m tonnes in 2020-21 and 2.7m in 2019-20. This is the world’s most expensive, most technologically advanced, and most ideally positioned Saline CCS facility with five years of operating time achieving not even 50 per cent of the proposed carbon abatement.

Barrow Island, which is listed as a Class-A nature reserve, had its environmental protections scrapped and 300 hectares cleared in order to construct the Gorgon Facility as Chevron’s geologists insisted its location made it ideal for a cutting-edge CCS play.

To make up for the shortfall in abated emissions, Chevron has been compelled to purchase 5.23 million carbon offset certificates. Information is scarce regarding the exact details of these units which Chevron describes as “credible greenhouse gas offsets”, however data retrieved from the Clean Energy Regulator shows that during CY22 and CY23 Chevron Australia retired only 974,168 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).

There is speculation that due to ACCU supply limitations the remaining 4.2 million credits were sourced internationally where units can be purchased for as little as $2.50 per tonne. In an indication that things are unlikely to get better, Chevron is “investing” a further $40 million in carbon credit projects in what one can only assume is an attempt to sure up supply for more consecutive years where targets are missed by a country mile.

Five years later and over five and half million tonnes of carbon short of lofty expectations, Australia’s largest CCS plant continues to trundle along at one third capacity. Yet, this technology remains extremely popular within the fossil fuel industry and their supporters as it, in theory, will allow the continued use and indeed the expansion of fossil fuels as a primary energy source around the world without releasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

Glencore has faced significant resistance to its planned CCS project in the Surat Basin from both environmentalists and pastoralists who are concerned that injecting hundreds of thousands of tons of liquified emissions into a crucial water source will jeopardise the region’s water security.

CO2 is an acidifier, meaning that it will alter the pH of the groundwater surrounding the injection site to what Glencore describes as no more acidic than black coffee or tomato juice. Glencore asserts that the CO2 plume will be limited to a 50 km radius around the injection site, a prediction that has been hotly disputed.

A 2017 hydrochemistry study by the CSIRO found that “One of the major regional faults in the Surat Basin, the Burunga Leichhardt fault, may form a pathway that connects the Precipice Sandstone to the more shallow overlying aquifers”. Another concern is that sequestered CO2 will simply re-emerge via the numerous bores pulling water from the aquifer as the liquified emissions move laterally through the porous sandstone layer.

Glencore has insisted that there is no risk of compromising the GAB due to the depth of the proposed aquifer at 2.3 to 2.7 kms, low levels of existing usage, and the apparently poor quality of the water into which their emissions will be injected.

The original message from Glencore was that the salinity levels identified at the proposed site exceeded thresholds suitable for water to be used for agriculture or livestock. This has now been walked back with mentions of salinity largely removed from the project brochures and Fact Sheets as Glencore’s own water testing found salinity levels of only 1,850mg/L, well below the livestock water threshold of 4000mg/L described by the Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality.

Now it is the high levels of fluoride in the aquifer that supposedly disqualify it from use by farmers, never mind that a 2020 paper, Underground Water Impact Report for the Surat Cumulative Management Area, shows that there are already up to 186 bores pulling 2225 ML a year from the Precipice Sandstone aquifer identified by Glencore for carbon storage.  One such bore supplies water to the Cameron Pastoral Company, a pig farming operation near Goodniwindi, located only 10km from the proposed injection site.

With a history of bitter legal disputes against Australian landowners casting a shadow over Glencore’s operations, the ABC received leaked papers in 2023 that describe Glencore lobbying for legislation changes to prohibit legal challenges to its proposed CCS project and a law that would prevent landholders from refusing to host infrastructure, such as ammonia pipelines, on their properties.

The community is not happy but Glencore has a lot at stake.

Many in the community do not want this project to proceed and are fearful of the environmental consequences of emission injections, the legal consequences of opposition to the project, and the subsequent effects on livelihoods throughout the region.

Glencore desperately needs this trial project approved and it’s not just about storing a fraction of the emissions generated by Queensland’s $1.5 billion power station at Millmerran. Glencore has been active in Australia for decades and has secured mining leases for a number of resource areas throughout the country.

One such area is the Wandoan Coal Project – a massive mining initiative scrapped by Glencore after the combination of legal battles and a falling coal price made this 7 billion dollar project untenable, for the time being anyway. Instead of a conventional coal operation, Glencore is now planning to use this region’s coal as feedstock for a nearby blue hydrogen facility that would synthesise hydrogen from black coal.

This energy intense process involves super-heating coal to 1800°C to create SynGas, a gas composed of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and CO2. Hydrogen is then separated from the other gases and used as a combustible fuel. Typically, burning black coal to generate electricity results in around 100kg CO2-e per GJ of energy generated. Hydrogen from black coal produces closer to 160kg CO2-e per GJ generated, so on face value it is a considerably more pollutive way to generate energy at scale. It would seem that so-called blue hydrogen power is simply good old black coal power with extra steps.

Glencore’s proposed blue hydrogen project would, in theory, capture and store 90 per cent of emissions resulting in an emission intensity of 40kg co2-e per GJ, which is just a hair above the threshold for what is considered a low-carbon energy source.

For this project to proceed, Glencore needs positive results from the Surat Basin CCS project otherwise the massive deposits of coal under Wandoan and the associated investment made by Glencore will amount to nought.

The 90 per cent emission capture rate set by Glencore seems optimistic at best and deceptive at worst. If Glencore is able to achieve similar rates of carbon capture as Chevron’s Gorgon Plant, the emission intensity of blue hydrogen with one third of emissions captured would be 105.5 kg CO2-e per GJ, which is more polluting than burning the black coal conventionally.

There is a worrying chance that Glencore and indeed other fossil fuel giants know that the likelihood of achieving 90 per cent emission capture is extremely low, however as is the case for the Gorgon Plant, the government has demonstrated a willingness to allow the use of offset certificates to make up for any shortcoming in direct emission abatement.

With cheap offset certificates readily available, a failed CCS project enabling continued profitable fossil fuel extraction seems like it could be an acceptable means to an end for fossil fuel giants with a long track record of ethically dubious business strategy.

The broader implications for Australia’s fossil fuel industry are apparent. Glencore’s Jan 2022 Fact Sheet regarding the Surat Basin project states that it has identified “three billion tonnes of theoretical CO2 storage potential… available in the (GAB) area. The Precipice Sandstone (aquifer) in the Surat Basin accounts for 1.3 billion tonnes of theoretical storage potential“.

That’s a lot of carbon, and a lot of potential! In fact, if the Gorgon Gas Facility was running at 100 per cent capacity it would have sufficient carbon storage for 325 years in the Surat Basin alone. It is little wonder that those with vested interests in the long-term continuation of fossil fuel expansion are highly motivated to see CCS succeed.

And then there’s Santos and Exxon

Glencore and Chevron are not alone in this presumption. Santos is currently on-track to start carbon injections this year via their Moomba facility in South Australia. Santos, amid a push to align itself with sustainable values, claims the facility will store up to 1.7 million tonnes of carbon a year in the Cooper Basin, one of Australia’s predominant petroleum and natural gas fields.

Santos claims the Moomba project’s sole purpose is emission sequestration but will not rule out the possibility of profitable enhanced oil recovery style projects in the near future.  Exxon too is getting on the bandwagon seeking redemption with their SEA Carbon Capture Hub, claiming potentially 2 million tons a year injected into the now depleted Bream Reservoir in the Bass Strait.

The entire fossil fuel industry is fighting uphill to redeem CCS after the expensive and underwhelming nothingburger that continues to be Chevron’s Gorgon Gas facility.

The so-called sustainable use of fossil fuels hinges on extractor’s and power generator’s ability to sequester a mythical 90 per cent of emissions from fossil fuel projects that otherwise would be disqualified for environmental reasons, with any shortcomings covered by cheap and abundant offset certificates.

Never mind that no CCS project has ever achieved the required rates of sequestration, more concerning is that powerful fossil fuel multinationals and lobbyists view the GAB as a prime dumping ground for waste, and not as the critically valuable water source that enables industries spanning across much of inland Australia.

It is only the latest instance of privatising profits and socialising costs, in this case the cost is access to fresh water in the arid Australian outback.