ZeroGen is ZeroGen is a project of both national and international importance and significance. It is playing a leading role in global efforts to integrate the technologies of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to produce low-emissions, baseload coal-fired electricity.
It is widely recognised that CCS is an essential component of a portfolio of technologies and measures required to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions from the use of fossil fuels and help avoid the most serious impacts of climate change.
G8 leaders meeting in Hokkaido in 2008 committed to the broad deployment of CCS in a bid to reduce and stabilise the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Since then, governments around the world, including the Queensland State and Australian governments, have committed more than US$26 billion in funding for large scale, integrated CCS projects and by 2020, they plan to facilitate the launch of between 19 and 43 projects.
ZeroGen is on track to be one of those projects through the construction of a 530MW Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power generation plant with the capture and storage of at least two million tonnes a year of its carbon dioxide emissions.
While each of the technologies are proven, never before have IGCC and CCS technologies been brought together to generate low emissions electricity. ZeroGen is planning to be one of the first in the world to deploy them at commercial scale.
To that end, the Queensland State Government, the Australian Government and Australia's black coal industry through the ACA Low Emissions Technologies Ltd have jointly funded ZeroGen's extensive pre-feasibility study of the project, with funding also to flow from Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries,.
Together, they are demonstrating leadership on a global scale.
Why CCS?
Fossil fuels will continue to play a major role in delivering global energy supply and energy security for decades to come. According to the International Energy Agency's Technology Roadmap: Carbon Capture and Storage, published in 2009, without decisive action on CCS globally, energy related emissions of CO2 will increase by 130 percent above 2005 levels by 2050.
Carbon capture and storage is the only technology currently available that allows deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the use of fossil fuels at the scale needed to meet the international effort to keep global temperature increases below two degrees and keep the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at less than 450 ppm CO2e.
In its report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2010, the IEA says that CCS is an important part of the lowest-cost greenhouse gas mitigation portfolio. Without CCS, it says overall costs to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will rise by 70%. 
The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, of which the governments of both Australia and Japan are members, has recognised the ZeroGen project as one of the most important Carbon Capture and Storage projects in the world, and was one of the 10 new projects added to the existing CSLF portfolio of 20 R&D projects in 2009.
Coal is a major contributor to Australia's economy. This $55 billion industry supports the jobs of around 130,000 people, the majority of them in Queensland. Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal and the industry is the major fuel supplier to Australia's power generation sector.
In recognition of this, the Queensland Government has promoted ZeroGen to play a leading role in the development and deployment of low emission coal-fired power generation. The Australian Government created the $4.5 billion Clean Energy Initiative in May 2009 to support the research, development and demonstration of low emission energy technologies. The Clean Energy Initiative includes the $2 billion CCS Flagship Program in which ZeroGen is one of four national projects shortlisted for funding under that program.
The Project
Following a global search for a technology partner, the ZeroGen Project has been joined by one of the world's leading technology developers and suppliers, Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, in conjunction with other leading technology suppliers such as Fluor, UOP and Haldor Topsoe will provide ZeroGen with both the IGCC and carbon capture technologies. These partnerships significantly reduce the technology risk for ZeroGen. The involvement of MHI and the Mitsubishi Corporation itself, has allowed the project to proceed directly to commercial scale, rather than an earlier planned demonstration phase, thereby accelerating the deployment of this new advance in power generation.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will provide an "EPC wrap" (engineering, procurement and construction) for the IGCC plant and carbon capture, providing a performance guarantee for the plant. This is unique in the power generation sector, particularly for a first of a kind plant, and is a distinguishing feature of the project.
ZeroGen plans to develop, build and operate an IGCC power plant with carbon capture and storage as follows:
- A 530MW (gross) power plant in Central Queensland;
- Designed to capture up to 90 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions;
- initially configured to a capture level of 65 percent of CO2;
- Transportation and storage of at least two million tonnes of CO2 each year, securely and permanently in deep underground sandstone formations;
- This volume is the equivalent of taking 600,000 standard motor vehicles off the road; and
- Commence operation by December 2015.
Drilling Program
ZeroGen has undertaken the world's most significant on-shore carbon storage appraisal ever over the past four years, in the Northern Denison Trough in Central Queensland.
Twelve wells were drilled in the Northern Denison Trough in the only greenhouse gas tenements granted to date in Queensland and more than 400 tonnes of CO2 were injected as part of the storage exploration program. More than seven kilometres of core were recovered and subjected to geological, geophysical, routine and special core analysis and form the basis for the static and dynamic modelling undertaken by the Project team.
These drilling activities and the data and knowledge acquired will support the commercial geosequestration solution and are a distinguishing feature of the ZeroGen Project.
It has not only established world-class technology partnerships with such companies as the Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Royal Dutch Shell, but it has also established an international reputation for its expertise in managing CO2 exploration programs, optimising well design, developing tests and methodologies to achieve storage confidence, optimising the costs of CO2 exploration, applying the theory of sub-surface storage to different geologies and geological modelling.
The ZeroGen project will:
- Prove the effectiveness, safety and permanence of CO2 geosequestration;
- Validate the engineering, economic and environmental viability of advanced, coal-based, low emission technologies so that similar plants at industrial scale will be bankable technically;
- Document the minimum standards, codes of practices and specifications for use in future deployment of the technology; and
- Standardise technologies and protocols for CO2 measuring, monitoring and verification for underground storage.
Fast facts
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ZeroGen commercial-scale power plant
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- Planned deployment date of late 2015
- Will be a 530 megawatt (gross) power plant
- The technology has potential to capture and store up to 90% of CO2 for full sequestration
- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will provide technology for the IGCC power plant and carbon capture
- The power plant location will be determined as part of a pre-feasibility study now completed
- CO2 will be captured at site and transported to a storage location that will be determined as part of a feasibility study.
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Where to from here?
The Queensland Coordinator General declared ZeroGen a "significant project for which an extensive Environmental Impact Study is required" in December 2009. Following public consultation, the Coordinator General issued Terms of Reference for the EIS in March 2010. The EIS is now underway.
ZeroGen lodged its submission to the Australian Government under its $2 billion CCS Flagship Program in June 2010.
ZeroGen's extensive prefeasibility study was completed in July 2010 and will be considered by its funding partners who will determine the preferred site for the project and timing of its next phase, a feasibility study.
ZeroGen has applied for additional greenhouse gas tenements in both the Surat and Galilee Basins, in response to the Queensland Government's invitation to tender for tenements in an area covering some 66,000 square kilometres.
Timing:
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Pre-feasibility study completion
Feasibility study completion
Plant operational
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July 2010
September 2011
late 2015
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