Sunshine Gas said ZeroGen-1 – the first of three wells in a program designed to ascertain if the general reservoir properties in ATP 722P were capable of accepting CO2 and were regionally consistent – had started drilling.

Sunshine managing director Tony Gilby said his company was pleased to be associated with Queensland Government-owned power generator Stanwell in the pioneering C02 storage and coal gasification trial project, especially within the context of Australia’s current nuclear energy debate.

“The debate over nuclear power has effectively refocused attention on this country’s need to develop other environmentally friendly, low-emission technologies for power generation using our abundant supply of fossil fuels,” Gilby said.

“Through this project, Stanwell is taking a global leadership position on the practical investigation of viable means for the safe and long-term sequestration of this environmentally damaging greenhouse gas.”

The project aimed to demonstrate the viability of integrating coal gasification and carbon capture and storage to generate low-emission base-load electricity.

ZeroGen’s proposed demonstration of base-load electricity generation with a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions had established Stanwell as a key contributor to national and international efforts aimed at finding technological solutions to global warming.

Each of the three ZeroGen wells will be drilled to depths of up to 2km and during testing, water will be initially injected deep underground into the sandstone reservoirs as a substitute for CO2 to determine their quality, before any trials using carbon dioxide.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie launched the project earlier this year and recently announced a $A300 million allocation from the Queensland Future Growth Fund to help the development of clean coal technology in the state.