US trip unearths similar carbon sequestration concerns

Longreach mayor Tony Rayner, part of a Remote Area Planning and Development Board delegation, was shown a Washington Post news item on a plan to construct a Snowy River carbon dioxide sequestration project in Carter County, Montana.

According to the article, Denbury Carbon Solutions has submitted an application to use 41,278ha of porous rock space to sequester CO2 underground.

The author, Evan Halper describes it as "one of the world's most audacious climate experiments, a plan to take emissions spewing from power plants and factories and trap them underground where they cannot contribute to global warming".

"The scheme is inching forward despite criticism it will permit polluters to keep polluting while slowing the transition to solar and wind energy," he writes. "And now sponsors face the additional hurdle of intense local opposition."

Cr Rayner, also the chair of the Remote Area Planning and Development Board, said the message in both countries was the same - don't mess with our water.

"We are not the only communities across the globe who are raising the alarm at projects like these," he said. "While travelling in the USA recently speaking with landholders and energy professionals it was clear the very real risk is contamination of aquifers."

Referring to the Washington Post article, Cr Rayner said one could change the names, and the issues and comments would be identical to those in Queensland.

The article says the Biden administration and major energy companies are promoting a network of carbon capture infrastructure projects across the US, which they plus the United Nations and the International Energy Agency saw as crucial to preserving any hope of meeting the world's climate goals.

ExxonMobil wants to inject 450 million cubic feet of carbon dioxide per day into the ground. It says Snowy River's storage capacity is equal to a year's worth of polluting greenhouse gas from 1.6 million cars.

While the White House is relying on CCS technology to reduce emissions from the power grid by 2035, and has made billions of dollars of incentives available to motivate companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron to rapidly develop it, hostile community reception is said to be undermining plans "from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana to the prairies of South Dakota".

Questions abound on safety, environmental impact and technological viability, and, as Australian primary producers wonder, Carter County Board of Commissioners chairman Rod Tauck asks why they are being made the dumping ground for the rest of the country.

Cr Rayner said western Queenslanders similarly knew of the "incredible value of the Great Artesian Basin and are unanimous in their opposition to unleashing the unknown on our communities and economies".

His comments coincide with a call from a coalition of councils, farmers and conservationists to Premier Steven Miles, ahead of a decision due this month, to ensure he rules in favour of the basin and bans carbon capture and storage.

Queensland councils, the Queensland Farmers' Federation and the Queensland Conservation Council remain united in their opposition to the project.

At Gladstone, mayor Matt Burnett said risking the Great Artesian Basin was not the way to reduce emissions.

"From a Gladstone point of view, we are leading the way when it comes to renewable energy and energy transition but what we don't want to see is the basin ruined on the way through to chasing net zero by 2050," Cr Burnett said.

"It's a target that we know we all need to achieve but what we don't want to see is one of Australia's greatest assets destroyed in the meantime."

Rural leaders emphasise the point that survival of their communities is dependent on the basin's viability.

Maranoa Regional Council deputy mayor Cameron O'Neil said south east Queensland might not realise how vital the basin was to regional Queensland.

"Our community is 100 per cent reliant on the GAB for potable water. Our agricultural producers rely on this beautiful resource and very important resource and it needs to be protected at all costs," he said. "Without it, our communities would not survive."

Murweh Shire mayor Shaun 'Zoro' Radnedge said nothing short of a total moratorium on carbon capture and storage would be satisfactory, while Isaac Regional Council mayor Kelly Vea Vea said legislation was needed to protect the GAB.

"We know this approval would set a dangerous precedent for the basin and that's why as local government we're standing against it," Cr Vea Vea said. "Not only should this application be rejected, but we know that legislation should be put in place to prevent this ever occurring, for the benefit of all the communities that thrive off the Great Artesian Basin."

In Etheridge Shire mayor Barry Hughes' view, the Great Artesian Basin is non-negotiable when it comes to utilising it as a dumping point for carbon-impacted water.

"An iconic part of the Australian landscape is not to be tampered with in any shape or form," he said.