The Department of Mines and Petroleum says the State’s first on-shore carbon capture and storage facility could be up and running within four years.
The Collie Hub would capture six million tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted from industry in the South West each year, storing it underground at a site near Bunbury.
The project coordinator Dominique Van Gent says initial studies have been completed and now more extensive research involving local industry needs to be undertaken.
He says if all goes to plan, the facility could be trialed in the region as early as 2014 and would have a significant impact on the State’s carbon emissions.
“Potentially we are looking at a reduction of one third of the carbon emissions in the South West area and that represents about 10 per cent of what’s produced in the State so it is a significant reduction in its own right,” he said.
Mr Van Gent says community input will also be a vital part of the planning process.
“Whether it gets off the ground is really dependent on the information that we get,” he said.
“The community is going to have a lot of questions and they’re probably the same sorts of questions that we have and that we’d like to get the answers to.”
