WA’s energy future includes carbon capture and storage – Bowen

The federal minister for climate change and energy Chris Bowen has definitively included the controversial technology of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) in its net zero plans for Western Australia.

In Perth for a series of announcements on the state’s energy future, Bowen was challenged by journalists at a media conference about disappointments with major CCUS projects in the state.

Bowen was asked whether he had ‘any reservations’ about CCUS technology, given the Gorgon gas project (pictured) has had $3 billion invested in CCUS technology, but was achieving less than a third of the emissions abatement originally envisaged.

Bowen said: “My approach to carbon capture use and storage is entirely pragmatic and practical.

“It needs to work and it’s a complement to other emissions reduction strategies.”

Bowen said there are sectors of industry where CCUS hadn’t worked and won’t work, like coal, and there were sectors ‘where we need it to work’.

“And there are sectors where it’s absolutely vital, like hard to abate sectors.

“Our job in the Federal Government is to facilitate it, to legislate for it, to regulate it.”

Bowen said Australia needed CCUS as part of the future energy mix.

“And whether it’s capturing it and using it, which is the U, or capturing it and storing it, which is the S, we need it to work.

“It’s also part of the pathway, I don’t want to get too technical and high level, but part of the pathway to direct air capture, which also needs to be part of the mix into the future if we are going to get to real net‑zero going forward.”

Bowen was in WA for announcements that the H2Kwinana Hydrogen Hub is progressing to the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) stage.

Also announced was over $700 million for the start of the upgrade of Western Australia’s southwest grid, and $160 million of industrial lease incentives to attract large-scale clean energy projects in WA’s Strategic Industrial Areas (SIAs).

The programme will deliver a rebate on lease fees and rent waiver for a set period for proponents of projects looking to develop green steel, battery manufacture, hydrogen and ammonia production.

Further reading:
Kwinana hydrogen hub progresses to FEED

Picture: Chevron/Gorgon project