As of September 30, 2016, the Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies program at MIT has closed. The website is being kept online as a reference but will not be updated.

Callide-A Oxyfuel Fact Sheet: Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Project

Company/Alliance: Joint venture of participants from Australia and Japan: CS Energy Ltd (CSE), Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries CO., Ltd (IHI), Japan Coal Energy Centre (JCOAL), Electric Power Development CO., Ltd (J Power), Xstrata Coal, and Schlumberger Oil Fields Australia with supporting collaboration from the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development (CCSD), and the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC)

Location:  Biloela, Queensland, Australia

Feedstock: Coal

Size: 30 MW; 0.3 Mt/yr

Capture Technology: Oxyfuel combustion (retrofitting an existing coal fired boiler)

CO2 Fate: Sequestration in onshore saline aquifer: CO2CRC Otway Basin test site in Victoria

Timing: Project Start: December 15, 2012; Completed March 2015

Scale Up: Pending the outcome of the 30 MW demonstration, the second phase of the project will include building a larger demonstration plant that produces 150,000 tons of CO2 per year for a test period of 3-4 years. There has been no announcement that this second phase is going to occur.

Motivation/Economics:

Estimated total cost is approximately AUD $208 million (US$153 million) excluding any revenue offset.

Callide Oxyfuel Project received $63 million funding through the Australian Government’s Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund in October 2006.

The project received (October 2010) GCCSI funding of AUD $1.83 million to support Stage 2 of the project to facilitate an injection test of CO2 into a potential storage site in the Northern Denison Trough and other locations in south east Queensland.

Comments:

The project started capture on December 15, 2012. This was the world's first demonstration of oxyfuel carbon capture and was designed to capture 70T/day for 2 years. The project ran for two years and nine months, successfully proving 10,000 hours of oxyfuel combustion and 5,500 hours of carbon capture plant operation. The project obtained a 90% capture rate.

Carbon dioxide captured during the Callide Oxyfuel Project was also used in a test CO2 injection of at CO2CRC’s Otway Project site in South Western Victoria. These tests are being used to evaluate the geochemical and physical behaviour of CO2 within the storage rock.

In April 2012, the 30MW CCS capture unit on the side of the 700MW plant started capturing CO2. Air Liquide built the capture unit. In addition to the CO2 capture unit, there is an oxygen plant which captures 660 T/day of oxygen.

As a result of the economy, Australia's new government in the summer of 2010 proposed massive spending cuts and funding withdrawal from CCS projects including the GCSSI. In August 2010, it was announced that $206 million Callide-A Oxyfuel Project was safe from the coalition's proposed cuts.

Project Link: Callide-A Oxyfuel Project website

Other Sources and Press Releases:
Completion of World's First Integrated Oxyfuel Combustion and CO2 Capture Demonstration in a Utility Power Station (March 2015)
Media Backgrounder - Callide Oxyfuel Project (February 2015)
Callide Oxyfuel Project enters the world-first demonstration phase for the process of oxyfuel technology & CO2 liquefaction at Callide A Power Station (December 2012)
Queensland's Callide Power Plant Now Firing With Retrofitted CCS Technology, an Industrial Info News Alert (April 2012)
Oxyfuel project 'fires up' in test (April 2011)
Callide-A CCS project safe from Government spending cuts (August 2010)
NewGenCoal Report on Callide-A Oxyfuel Project
Press release Queensland Government project underway [PDF] (November 2008)
MoU with Japanese aims for clean coal technology (March 2006)