WEBVTT - Dumping carbon at the bottom of the ocean

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<v Speaker 1>My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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<v Speaker 1>Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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<v Speaker 1>that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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<v Speaker 1>Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest

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<v Speaker 1>Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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<v Speaker 1>first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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<v Speaker 2>Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Tuesday,

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<v Speaker 2>the eighth of August.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm Zara Seidler, I'm Sam Kozlowski.

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<v Speaker 2>A controversial plan to store carbon at the bottom of

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<v Speaker 2>the ocean is dividing Australian politicians. On the one hand,

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<v Speaker 2>the government saying the process saves carbon from escaping into

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<v Speaker 2>the atmosphere.

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<v Speaker 4>Returning human produced carbon dioxide back to where it effectively

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<v Speaker 4>came from, if done safely, seems to be a fairly

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<v Speaker 4>sensible thing to do.

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<v Speaker 2>While critics of the scheme say it's just an excuse

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<v Speaker 2>for the government to approve more gas projects.

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<v Speaker 4>A right to register my distress and disgust at this bill.

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<v Speaker 5>And my disappointment in the government which seeks to pass it.

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<v Speaker 2>So when it comes to carbon capture what's working, what's

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<v Speaker 2>gone wrong, and what's going to happen moving forward. TDA

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<v Speaker 2>journalist Tom Crowley is going to come unpack it all

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<v Speaker 2>in the Deep Dive at Fair Sam The headlines.

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<v Speaker 3>The Matilda's Dream is Still Alive. The Matilda's beat Denmark

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<v Speaker 3>Tunil last night in front of over seventy five thousand

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<v Speaker 3>fans at Sydney's Stadium, Australia. That means they're off to

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<v Speaker 3>face either France or Morocco on Saturday night in Brisbane,

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<v Speaker 3>and it could mean that they're destined for their first

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<v Speaker 3>World Cup victory.

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<v Speaker 2>We're expecting to hear about some job losses at David

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<v Speaker 2>Jones that are reportedly set to occur, and it comes

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<v Speaker 2>as the retailer confirmed to TDA that it will quote

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<v Speaker 2>streamline processes and eliminate tasks that are not focused on

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<v Speaker 2>people or service. David Jones says it's actively working to

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<v Speaker 2>redeploy team members where possible.

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<v Speaker 3>The man found guilty of killing a seventeen year old

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<v Speaker 3>schoolgirl in the New South Wales town almost twenty five

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<v Speaker 3>years ago will be jailed for a maximum of thirty

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<v Speaker 3>two years. Craig Henry Rumsby will be eligible for parole

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<v Speaker 3>after twenty four years. He was found guilty of the

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<v Speaker 3>murder in June, in addition to the assault of another

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<v Speaker 3>woman in nineteen ninety eight.

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<v Speaker 2>And the good news, Australia's first purpose built cystic fibrosis

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<v Speaker 2>ward has been opened. Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease

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<v Speaker 2>that causes damaging mucus build up in the body's organs.

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<v Speaker 2>The ward was opened at a Sydney hospital and is

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<v Speaker 2>aimed at providing specialized care and treatment for adults with

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<v Speaker 2>cystic fibrosis. Tom, Welcome back to the pod.

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<v Speaker 6>Lovely to be Here'sara, You're here.

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<v Speaker 2>For a very important reason. It's to talk about dumping

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<v Speaker 2>carbon at the bottom of the ocean. You're going to

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<v Speaker 2>need to make some sense of that for.

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<v Speaker 6>Me, yes, well, dumping carbon at the bottom of the

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<v Speaker 6>ocean was a slightly confusing headline that I had to

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<v Speaker 6>grapple with last week. Zara, and I mean, as you know,

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<v Speaker 6>I think something that we have in common. Neither of

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<v Speaker 6>us are great scientific minds, so it took me a

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<v Speaker 6>little while to wade my way through this particular story

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<v Speaker 6>when I covered it last week. Turns out to be

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<v Speaker 6>a fascinating one. Though it's got a bit of science

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<v Speaker 6>in it, it's got a bit of politics in it.

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<v Speaker 6>It tells us something really interesting, I think about the

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<v Speaker 6>weeds of climate action.

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<v Speaker 2>You're promising a lot there with why it might be interesting,

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<v Speaker 2>but I think that we need to take it back

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<v Speaker 2>a step. Why would we dump carbon at the bottom

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<v Speaker 2>of the ocean.

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<v Speaker 6>So dumping carbon at the bottom of the ocean is

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<v Speaker 6>part of a broad category of things called carbon capture

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<v Speaker 6>and storage, which, basically, as the name suggests, is the

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<v Speaker 6>idea that you might capture carbon dioxide before it gets

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<v Speaker 6>to the atmosphere and then store it somewhere. So if

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<v Speaker 6>you pictures are say like a factory or a coal

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<v Speaker 6>plant or something that's normally going to be pumping carbon

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<v Speaker 6>dioxide into the the idea is essentially, you know what

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<v Speaker 6>if we had a way to capture that, stick it

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<v Speaker 6>in the back of a truck or on a ship,

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<v Speaker 6>and then find somewhere that you can store it. And

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<v Speaker 6>one of the places it turns out that we can

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<v Speaker 6>store carbon dioxide is by injecting it into rocks deep

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<v Speaker 6>under the ground. So, for scientific reasons that I hope

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<v Speaker 6>you won't ask me to explain, there are particular types

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<v Speaker 6>of rock that are suitable for this, porous rocks deep underground,

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<v Speaker 6>and then you know there's another layer of rock above

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<v Speaker 6>that the gas can't get up through, and essentially the

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<v Speaker 6>gas can stay there permanently, I guess, out of harm's way.

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<v Speaker 6>And there are, as it turns out, many of these

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<v Speaker 6>sort of suitable rock formations at the bottom of the ocean.

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<v Speaker 6>So for example, old oil and gas fields, it seems

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<v Speaker 6>tend to be quite suitable places to do this, And

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<v Speaker 6>generally speaking, there are a lot of ocean formations where

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<v Speaker 6>people believe this kind of thing might be possible. It's

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<v Speaker 6>an emerging area of technology, but the idea is it

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<v Speaker 6>could hold a bit of promise as an alternative way

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<v Speaker 6>to reduce emissions.

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<v Speaker 2>So you're talking there about basically capturing emissions before they

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<v Speaker 2>rise and then somehow transporting them to be in the

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<v Speaker 2>bottom of the ocean, right, that's what you're saying. That's right,

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<v Speaker 2>And so then I mean, it sounds pretty good on

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<v Speaker 2>the face of it if that can happen, if they're

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<v Speaker 2>not getting up into the air, that sounds like good news.

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<v Speaker 6>That's great, doesn't that sor?

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<v Speaker 1>Right?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it does surely have to be a catch.

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<v Speaker 6>Yeah, it's fair to say there's been a couple of

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<v Speaker 6>hitches so far Zara with carbon capture and storage, namely

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<v Speaker 6>the capture and also the storage.

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<v Speaker 2>Two fundamental parts of carbon capture and storage spall issues.

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<v Speaker 6>So this is I mean, I'm making light of it.

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<v Speaker 6>This is something that does happen successfully on occasion. But

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<v Speaker 6>so far, what we've tended to find in you know,

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<v Speaker 6>over the few years where we've been trying to do this,

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<v Speaker 6>is that the capture part can be a bit leaky,

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<v Speaker 6>so you know, generally doesn't capture you know, as much

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<v Speaker 6>of the carbon dioxide as you might like. And then

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<v Speaker 6>the storage can be a bit difficult as well to

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<v Speaker 6>achieve success fully. And again the concern that it's not

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<v Speaker 6>air tight and that it leaks out, and particularly at

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<v Speaker 6>the bottom of the ocean, if your storage is leaky,

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<v Speaker 6>if your injection method doesn't work, then that can damage

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<v Speaker 6>marine life around the bottom of the ocean and can

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<v Speaker 6>have significant environmental impacts. So both parts of the problem

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<v Speaker 6>are still really works in progress. But there's a broader

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<v Speaker 6>issue that comes back to the politics and to the

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<v Speaker 6>broader climate change debate, and that is that where this

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<v Speaker 6>carbon capture and storage, or CCS as I'll refer to

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<v Speaker 6>it for shorthand, is actually just going to be used

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<v Speaker 6>as a bit of an excuse for I guess, genuine

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<v Speaker 6>emissions reduction, because we're talking about designing these complicated ways

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<v Speaker 6>to take carbon dioxide out of the sky and put

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<v Speaker 6>it in the ground. Of course, in a sense, the

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<v Speaker 6>simpler way would be to just not be emitting it

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<v Speaker 6>in the first place. And especially when you look at

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<v Speaker 6>energy and obviously we're talking about a transit towards renewable

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<v Speaker 6>energy that doesn't have you know, any emissions or that is,

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<v Speaker 6>you know, very low emissions. There's been a suggestion from

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<v Speaker 6>a lot of environmentalists that CCS is I guess, getting

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<v Speaker 6>in the way of genuine emissions reduction, especially when it's

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<v Speaker 6>being used in the context of fossil fuel burning. And

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<v Speaker 6>I think generally speaking, environmentalists suggests that, you know, fossil

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<v Speaker 6>fuel companies often want to use CCS as a way

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<v Speaker 6>to prolong their burning of fossil fuels, and so as

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<v Speaker 6>a result you know, global agreements on this.

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<v Speaker 2>Can you just explain that would why would that prolong

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<v Speaker 2>their use of fossil fuels?

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<v Speaker 6>Yeah, So, I guess, effectively the idea being if a

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<v Speaker 6>coal plant or a gas plant could say, well, hey,

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<v Speaker 6>you know, we can keep burning coal because we can

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<v Speaker 6>just capture all the emissions and stick them in the

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<v Speaker 6>ground and there's no negative impact on the climate. That's

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<v Speaker 6>essentially you know, the argument that they might make. And

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<v Speaker 6>when this technology hasn't been working perfectly, that's the kind

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<v Speaker 6>of thing that environmentalists say they're worried about. And so

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<v Speaker 6>when you look at global agreements around CCS, and you know,

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<v Speaker 6>the big international agreements, the language that the UN and

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<v Speaker 6>the IPCC and others tend to use is that CCS

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<v Speaker 6>has a lot of potential for activities where emissions are

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<v Speaker 6>really hard to reduce. So a classic example is cement production,

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<v Speaker 6>where we just don't have a way of making cement

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<v Speaker 6>that is greener that doesn't emit. And so you know,

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<v Speaker 6>that's something where CCS might be really useful, but international

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<v Speaker 6>experts tend to be wary about using it in the

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<v Speaker 6>context of fossil fuels. And that's where this starts to

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<v Speaker 6>get into some thornier politics.

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<v Speaker 2>All right, So you just segued us there pretty nicely.

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<v Speaker 2>We're talking about this because of the government and some

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<v Speaker 2>legislation right we are.

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<v Speaker 6>So the government has a bill in Parliament to expand

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<v Speaker 6>the capacity for companies to do ccs in Australia underwater. Now,

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<v Speaker 6>the first thing to say is that it is already

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<v Speaker 6>legal to do this in Australia.

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<v Speaker 2>With is it widespread.

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<v Speaker 3>It's reasonably widespread. It happens a little bit.

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<v Speaker 6>They're about thirty underwater projects worldwide, including some in Australia,

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<v Speaker 6>which shall come to in a moment. You've got to

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<v Speaker 6>get a permit granted by the Environment Minister and it

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<v Speaker 6>has to happen according to certain safeguards. But at the

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<v Speaker 6>moment it is legal to happen within Australian waters. What's

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<v Speaker 6>not currently legal is for Australian companies to export carbon

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<v Speaker 6>for the purposes of carbon capture and storage in other

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<v Speaker 6>countries waters, and that's what the government's now trying to change.

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<v Speaker 6>And the specific reason, really the context for this is

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<v Speaker 6>that there is a gas company in Australia that wants

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<v Speaker 6>to do this in another country's waters, and that is Santos,

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<v Speaker 6>the gas giant in the Northern Territory. They have an

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<v Speaker 6>oil and gas field that is sort of based off

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<v Speaker 6>the Northern Territory. That's about to come out of commission,

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<v Speaker 6>and they say they could use that decommissioned oil and

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<v Speaker 6>gas field to store about ten million tons of carbon

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<v Speaker 6>dioxide each year. It's a whole lot, but it overlaps

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<v Speaker 6>with the waters of Team or Less Day and so

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<v Speaker 6>it would require a different set of approvals. Team or

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<v Speaker 6>Less Day is broadly supportive of the idea. This is

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<v Speaker 6>a bill that the Government is pushing through. It's not

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<v Speaker 6>explicitly about Santos, but it would allow that project and

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<v Speaker 6>other projects like it to get off the ground subject

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<v Speaker 6>to official approvals. And that's something the Government introduced to Parliament.

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<v Speaker 4>In the real world that we live in, including here in Australia,

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<v Speaker 4>most people still drive petrol cars and rely on coal

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<v Speaker 4>and gas for their energy. We cannot change that overnight,

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<v Speaker 4>it is as simple as that. But we can begin

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<v Speaker 4>to take mitigation measures such as carbon capture and storage

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<v Speaker 4>to reduce atmospheric carbon wherever it is safe to do so.

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<v Speaker 2>It's so interesting, and I mean, I can imagine it's

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<v Speaker 2>contentious for a number of reasons. What's the response to

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<v Speaker 2>the Government's bill being.

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<v Speaker 6>So It has encountered some backlash from Greens and independence

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<v Speaker 6>in the Parliament. I guess essentially making similar arguments to

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<v Speaker 6>the ones that I'm referring to earlier, that you know,

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<v Speaker 6>the sorts of concerns that environmentalists have here, and that

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<v Speaker 6>is the idea. The word they use is green washing

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<v Speaker 6>that essentially CCS is used as an excuse by fossil

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<v Speaker 6>fuel companies to keep doing what they're doing.

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<v Speaker 5>Are we dumping carbon in the sea to protect the

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<v Speaker 5>marine environment? Isn't carbon capture and storage an old and

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<v Speaker 5>failed technology, And rather than fight climate change, won't this

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<v Speaker 5>bill make it worse by enabling more gas minds to proceed.

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<v Speaker 6>And there is a bit of a track record of

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<v Speaker 6>that actually in Australia, so we mentioned earlier, the biggest

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<v Speaker 6>underwater CCS project in the world was started by Chevron

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<v Speaker 6>off the coast of Wa in twenty nineteen, and it

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<v Speaker 6>was a catastrophic failure. Continues to be a catastrophic failure.

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<v Speaker 6>It just hasn't worked. They haven't been able to actually

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<v Speaker 6>store the gas at the bottom of the ocean. And

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<v Speaker 6>I guess what the Greens and independents are concerned about

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<v Speaker 6>is that Chevron used this CCS to justify essentially a

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<v Speaker 6>new gas project because they were able to say to

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<v Speaker 6>the government at the approval stage, well, hey, this new

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<v Speaker 6>gas project's going to be super green because we're going

0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:14.720
<v Speaker 6>to take all the emissions and we're going to stick

0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:16.920
<v Speaker 6>it at the bottom of the ocean. But that second

0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.880
<v Speaker 6>part hasn't worked, and in general the technology for that

0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.959
<v Speaker 6>second part is a little bit underdeveloped, and so they say, well,

0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:24.160
<v Speaker 6>this is really just a bit of a you know,

0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.280
<v Speaker 6>a fig leaf. Greenwashing is the word that they use

0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.160
<v Speaker 6>for companies like Chevron to be able to do that.

0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.880
<v Speaker 6>And they point to there's a precinct called the Middle

0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.880
<v Speaker 6>Arm Precinct in the Northern Territory which has some government

0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.240
<v Speaker 6>funding behind it. It's framed as this sustainability precinct. It

0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.680
<v Speaker 6>has some CCS facilities involved, but it also happens to

0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.520
<v Speaker 6>be key to unlocking gas exploration in the Bee lou Basin,

0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:50.240
<v Speaker 6>another controversial new gas project. And so, you know, the

0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.440
<v Speaker 6>concern there is is that this is actually, you know,

0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:54.560
<v Speaker 6>this is an idea that has the support of the

0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:58.320
<v Speaker 6>fossil fuel industry, and the Greens oppose it for that reason.

0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.120
<v Speaker 6>The Independents don't pose it quite as directly as that.

0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.920
<v Speaker 6>They say that they would support the bill with some amendments.

0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:10.520
<v Speaker 6>In particular, they're asking, well, can you just than fossil

0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:15.040
<v Speaker 6>fuel companies from using CCS and restrict it to cases

0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.000
<v Speaker 6>like cement. Now, that would go well beyond the scope

0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:18.679
<v Speaker 6>of the government's current bill. That would be a much

0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.600
<v Speaker 6>bigger change to existing practices. But that's the kind of

0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:24.959
<v Speaker 6>thing that they're currently calling for. And you know, more

0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.439
<v Speaker 6>broadly speaking, I think both the Greens and the Independents

0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.800
<v Speaker 6>are suggesting that this CCS might sound like an emission's

0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.080
<v Speaker 6>reduction method, but they see something different in it.

0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.880
<v Speaker 2>I'm curious to know where the opposition lands on this topic.

0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:41.200
<v Speaker 6>Well, the Opposition, they haven't formally expressed a view. So

0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:44.760
<v Speaker 6>the way these things usually go is that bills go

0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.960
<v Speaker 6>through committees of parliamentarians that consider them in detail, and

0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.920
<v Speaker 6>all that happens off Broadway, and in that process the

0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:57.360
<v Speaker 6>Coalition didn't raise any objections. Generally speaking, when they were

0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.240
<v Speaker 6>in government, they were very supportive of ccs. So although

0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.760
<v Speaker 6>they haven't stated a formal position yet, it's expected that

0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.640
<v Speaker 6>they're likely to support this, which would mean of course

0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:11.079
<v Speaker 6>that the Greens and the independence their votes are essentially irrelevant,

0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:12.840
<v Speaker 6>and that we see a bit of that in the

0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.480
<v Speaker 6>government response. I mean, the government has defended its bill.

0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.960
<v Speaker 6>The Government's tried to emphasize the fact that by putting

0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.880
<v Speaker 6>safeguards around this, essentially, you know, by legalizing it with

0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.480
<v Speaker 6>a permit system, you get greater control over it. You

0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:28.120
<v Speaker 6>will also get greater control over any other countries who

0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.280
<v Speaker 6>want to try and do this in our waters. That

0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.160
<v Speaker 6>this would actually Environment Minister Tenny plyversexes. It's about protecting

0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.400
<v Speaker 6>our oceans, but you know also that this might help

0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.240
<v Speaker 6>to reduce emissions. But yeah, I mean I think that

0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.400
<v Speaker 6>this is one it's a I guess it's an issue

0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:45.160
<v Speaker 6>you do need to kind of peel back some of

0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.800
<v Speaker 6>the layers to understand what's really going on here. And

0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:51.200
<v Speaker 6>certainly when I saw this headline, I guess when you

0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.480
<v Speaker 6>when you look at CCS as a broad principal thing,

0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:56.840
<v Speaker 6>like you said at the start of the podcast, are

0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:58.600
<v Speaker 6>you look at it and your guard It sounds sounds great,

0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.880
<v Speaker 6>it's quite it's quite common, replicated, and it's quite contentious.

0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:03.520
<v Speaker 6>And I think that this is one of those issues.

0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.280
<v Speaker 6>It may sail through the Parliament with the Coalition support,

0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:08.320
<v Speaker 6>but it's one of these ones where, yeah, the devil

0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.040
<v Speaker 6>is in the detail and you know, one form of

0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.760
<v Speaker 6>emission's reductions and another form of emissions reduction. The differences

0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.920
<v Speaker 6>between these things can actually be be really complicated, and

0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:19.960
<v Speaker 6>good to take the opportunity for a little bit of

0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.200
<v Speaker 6>a deep dive into climate change, even if it did

0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.600
<v Speaker 6>require both of us to talk about probably more science

0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.040
<v Speaker 6>than we've done in the last three or four months combined.

0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:29.720
<v Speaker 2>And I specially appreciate that you just said the words

0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:32.160
<v Speaker 2>deep dive when talking about the bottom of the ocean.

0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:34.800
<v Speaker 6>Carbon is better down where it's wetter under the seat.

0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.400
<v Speaker 3>Thanks for joining us on the Daily OS today. If

0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:48.400
<v Speaker 3>you have a story you'd like us to explain this week,

0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:50.880
<v Speaker 3>just leave it in the Spotify question box. We'll be

0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.840
<v Speaker 3>back again tomorrow. Until then, have a great day.