After four years, CO2CRC and its Australian and international research partners have safely injected 15,000 tonnes of CO2 at the Otway research facility in Nirranda South West Victoria.
Tania Constable CEO, CO2CRC said “This experiment proves that field operations can be safely carried out and shows with certainty that CO2 storage is low risk.”
CO2 has been injected into a saline formation over the last four months with the aim to accurately predict the movement of CO2, giving confidence to the users of carbon capture and storage technologies and regulators how CO2 will behave when permanently stored, and the technical capabilities of seismic monitoring to validate this plume movement.
Cost effective fibre optic cables and a high resolution buried receiver, have been fitted with automated communications facilities to allow researchers to remotely access and operate this advanced surface and subsurface monitoring system. The equipment tested provides several options to reduce the surface monitoring activities required to verify the CO2 plume movement. CO2CRC’s research partners Curtin University, Western Australia, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, US, and CSIRO continue to work collaboratively on the analysis of this data.
Key to success has been the involvement and support received from local landowners and the Nirranda community who have been consulted and kept informed about this experiment over the last four years. “Without the continuing support of our local community, this world leading innovation would not be possible” said Constable.