CSIRO research centre in Harvey has potential to influence carbon capture technology across Asia

The ground-breaking research facility on a farm in Harvey has the potential to influence one of the world’s biggest energy markets.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has been investigating the viability of carbon capture storage technology across Australia.

It is hoped to be one of the tools in paving the road to net zero, taking CO2 from industries where emissions are hard to abate and preventing it from entering the atmosphere.

The research station in Harvey — called Harvey 2 — has a number of qualities offering frontline research into CCS which has the potential to inform how energy producers across the Asia Pacific region approach energy production in the future.

Despite the surface showing little more than the picturesque green pasture iconic to Harvey, the subsurface is a jumble of sediment and strata.

Sitting just west of the Darling Scarp, underground mapping shows tremendous fault lines running across the Harvey region.

With little research into the interaction of injected CO2 and subterranean fault lines, and the growing need to expand CCS technology globally, Harvey 2 is the perfect place for the CSIRO to test the unique subterranean landscape.

CSIRO project leader Ludovic Ricard said the Harvey area was particularly unique as there were only five sites across the world conducting practical research of CCS on fault lines.

He said while Australia was relatively tectonically-stable, understanding interactions could prove invaluable for areas which were more tectonically-active, such as Japan.

Mr Ricard said when CO2 was stored underground, at a depth of 1.5km, it functioned more like a fluid than a gas, which he said was one of the most efficient ways to store it.

He said though it may not seem like it, the existing underground rock was porous with fluids already filling gaps between.

“In between those cracks is full of fluid we can replace with CO2,” he said.

For areas where these fluids have already been extracted, the existing wells were ideal spots for CCS to act as the opposite of oil and gas, CSIRO communications and community engagement officer Bianca Moiler said.

“Oil and gas empty the rock — we are basically putting it back,” he said.

“But the caveat is really making sure when you inject CO2, it stays there.

“And that’s why we are studying faults, because it could be a potential pathway for it to escape.”

Mrs Moiler said for countries in the South East Asia region, a lack of space and unpredictable weather meant the transition into renewables may not be viable.

“Having another decarbonisation technology that is suitable, like CCS, is playing into the radar,” she said.

Mrs Moiler said even if the technology proved successful, it was not the silver bullet to tackling the climate crisis.

She said it was only a small part of a much bigger decarbonisation effort that needed to occur globally to reach net zero by 2050.