Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
9/5/2014
In-depth research into carbon capture and sequestration will take place at the University of Melbourne in Australia over the next five years under an $18 million contract between the university and the Cooperative Research Centre on Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) the centre announced this week. The contract will cover new laboratories for CCS geochemistry and carbon capture chemical engineering, basin attribute modelling, 3D visualization, seismic networks and dynamic simulation. These new facilities will be built and run by the University. “CCS is the only technology that can achieve substantial cuts in emissions from industrial-scale use of fossil fuels. So as the need for action on climate change becomes more pressing, Australia must be ready to deploy CCS technology,” CO2CRC CEO Richard Aldous said in a release.
According to the release, the contract is funded by an $86 million CCS Network project established between CO2CRC and the Commonwealth Department of Education under the Education Investment Fund (EIF) for large-scale CCS Flagship projects. “With support from the CCSNET project, the University of Melbourne is able to make a significant contribution to advancing CCS technology,” Professor James McCluskey, University of Melbourne’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, said in the release. “The University aims to become a world leader in developing innovative and more cost efficient CCS methods and, more broadly, establish Australia as a world leader in the technology. This investment will allow us to make great strides toward this goal.”
