Biggest Carbon-Burial Test Will Hunt For Leaks

The largest carbon burial experiment in the world began in earnest on Thursday when the drilling of a 2100-metre well began in the Otway Basin, on the coast of southern Australia. The project promised the most comprehensive monitoring for leaks to date.

If all goes well, researchers from the Canberra-based Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) will start injecting carbon dioxide into the new well in July. They will start by extracting CO2 from a nearby natural geological reservoir and compressing it into a "supercritical fluid" – a gas-liquid hybrid. This will be injected via the new well into a sandstone reservoir.

The reservoir is shaped liked an upside-down saucer that is partially-filled with methane gas, and covered by a series of impermeable rock layers. Over the following six to nine months, 100,000 tonnes of supercritical CO2 will be injected.