Australian Government Offers A$40 Million To Fund Carbon Capture Project

By Ray Brindal
Dow Jones Newswires

CANBERRA -(Dow Jones)- The Australian Government will contribute up to an extra A$40 million to help develop the Calera mineral carbonation project--the nation's first carbon capture and use project--if feasibility studies and a pilot plant prove successful, Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said late Tuesday.
The Australian and Victorian state governments have already provided an initial A$3.5 million each for the Calera project, which captures carbon dioxide from the Yallourn power station to make solid calcium and magnesium carbonate and bicarbonate minerals that can be used as building materials, the minister told a coal conference in Melbourne.
Funding for the project will come from a A$400 million National Low Emissions Coal Initiative, one of a raft of multi billion dollar programs designed to minimize or capture carbon dioxide emissions. About 75% of Australia's electricity is generated using coal, and more than 90% of Victoria's power, most of it from low rank brown coal.
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