NADIA MITSOPOULOS: It is six minutes past 10. Now, carbon capture and storage has been talked about for a long, long time, but is it viable and can it really help the world get to net‑zero emissions? Now, Chevron has the world’s biggest carbon capture and storage system at Gorgon, but it’s had a great deal of trouble getting it to work properly and meet some of its targets, so it was quite interesting to see that two new offshore sites have just been approved by the Federal Government, and one of them is right here in Western Australia. So, let’s go to Madeleine King, who is the Resources Minister. Minister, good morning, and thank you for joining me.

MADELEINE KING: Oh, it’s a pleasure, Nadia, and I’ve just got to say before we start, I’m very excited about this elimination final coming up, and I know that Freo will beat the Western Bulldogs.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: I will agree with you there, but it’s the premiership, Minister, can we win that?

MADELEINE KING: Oh, we’re going for – we have to go for it. As I say every year, Freo, it’s our year!

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: It’s been our year for a while, but I’m feeling your confidence.

MADELEINE KING: I know for a long time.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: It’s good to get the important stuff out of the way, right?

MADELEINE KING: Indeed, indeed.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Now, Minister, this site, first of all this site off WA, where exactly, is it? How far off the coast? Can you just talk us through it?

MADELEINE KING: Oh, look, I don’t have the precise details in front of me of how far it is off the coast, but I’ve obviously gone through all the documentation in relation to it and the advice from the department and the experts. It is a site that is proximate so that it can be used by the companies involved to inject carbon dioxide back into that, well, basically underwater cavern for want of a better term.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: So, this is the Browse Basin?

MADELEINE KING: I believe so, yes, but there are other prospects around the country as well for carbon capture and storage offshore.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: If we look at the one in WA, the Browse Basin, this is the one that Woodside has that we’re talking about. So, this permit, what is it enable them to do?

MADELEINE KING: Well, it enables them to explore the possibility of a project for carbon capture and storage, so, you know, they are very positive about it, and they think it will work and this enables them to look into that further.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Okay. And so how soon could Woodside be doing this? Do they have to be ready to go now or do they have to have preliminary work done already?

MADELEINE KING: It’s a permit around the work. So, it’s not immediate, and these things do take time, and the thing is there hasn’t been one of these permits issued for a number of years. So, this is new work that has to be done, and they’re not entitled to make use of it until the permit is issued. So, they’ve got to go and do further exploration and make sure it can actually work before they make it work. The thing is we do pre-competitive exploration in this country by Geoscience Australia that identifies areas of prospectivity, around carbon capture and storage, like we do for all other interests in the country, like mineral tenements and gas exploration. So, it’s just another function of Geoscience Australia to identify this, and then put it to the market.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Madeleine King is my guest, the Federal Resources Minister, and, of course, WA member for Brand. So, Minister, what’s the evidence before you then that you have confidence that this technology actually has a future? And if we talk about Chevron as well, they put a huge amount of work and money into its systems at Gorgon, and they’ve really struggled to make carbon capture work and meet some promised targets.

MADELEINE KING: Look, I accept there are some critics around carbon capture and storage. It is a proven technology, but it’s not proven to the stage and the volume of capture that we would like or that certainly Chevron would have expected, and they accept that and I accept that. And that is a very ambitious project, what’s happening on Barrow Island or just off Barrow Island, and it’s challenging because of the underwater formations. And they’re working on that, and they’ve reached agreements with the State Government on how to progress it. But the thing about carbon capture use and storage is, it is proven technology. We need it to work better. I’m calling on the gas industry to, you know, turn their words into action, because if we are to reach a net‑zero emission economy, a global net‑zero emissions economy, we will need carbon capture and storage as part of the overall solution. And that’s not just me saying this; this is the International Energy Agency which has said it’s absolutely vital that we make use of CCS technologies to store carbon dioxide. We have to remember what carbon dioxide is. Too much of in our atmosphere, which we’re experiencing, is bad for the planet. It does cause global warming. And I accept that; the world accepts that. I mean, some people around the place don’t, but we all do as sensible thinking people. But on its own carbon dioxide is not noxious, right? It’s the bubbles in your soda water or out of your SodaStream. So, we’ve got to keep it in balance, how we think about carbon dioxide, and what’s really important is that we make available these possibilities for us to put the large amounts of carbon that is damaging the environment into storage in a natural way.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: How heavily, though, will you rely on this technology to help get to net zero?

MADELEINE KING: Well, we won’t rely on it entirely. It’s one of the many means of getting to net zero. It’s part of the toolkit, and I think another minister may have used that language, but it is. We also want renewable technology, right? We do want more wind power, and Minister Bowen has announced the site off of Bunbury where we can have, you know, greater wind power going into the Western Australian grid, and that’s an important part. Solar energy. And we know BHP and Kwinana, the nickel sulphate refineries basically powered now by renewables. So, people are doing their part on that side of things on getting to net zero, but this is also part of the solution. And, you know, I met with the executive director of the International Energy Agency a few weeks ago now in Sydney, Dr Birol, and he was adamant to me, yet again, that CCS must form part, just part, of our solution to reaching a global net zero solution.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: It’s really interesting, Madeleine King, because I’m getting a lot of texts from listeners who are not as convinced as you are and saying, “Where is the hard evidence that this actually is a proven technology? Isn’t it still in its infancy in trying to get it right?” And I think that’s the key. I mean, is it a proven technology or are still at the point where we’re trying to see if we can prove it as a good technology going forward? Two very different things.

MADELEINE KING: Yes, of course, and there’s a number of projects in the United States where it has been successful. And I would add that the Gorgon project has been successful. It has stored 6.6 million tonnes of CO2, so that’s not what they aimed for, and they had aimed higher, but that 6.6 million tonnes, that has successfully been stored and it’s 6.6 million tonnes of CO2 that’s not in the air. That’s a substantial achievement. Agreed, Chevron wanted to do better, and it still wants to do better, and I support them in those efforts. It is proven and it is happening and, more importantly, I think, we need it to happen. But we need to do lots of things. We all need to reduce our individual carbon footprints, but moreover we need big industry to have a system where they can store CO2, and if we don’t start doing that, we won’t have cement and cement is part of our buildings everywhere. So, we need to provide options to some of these industries and CCS is simply one of them.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: So, Browse, which is a few hundred kilometres off the WA coast, if that was to go ahead, would Woodside then, they would need to pipe the carbon out to their storage site?

MADELEINE KING: Oh, look, I’m not sure of the details around what Woodside have planned around all of their carbon abatement, but I think – 

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Are those pipelines viable though?

MADELEINE KING: Yeah, they’re totally viable. You’ve got to think the gas industry deals with gas and hydrogen is one of those things; it is a gas. And so, they have the tools, they have the technology, they have the know-how to move the substance – these substances around. So, they’re the best-placed people to implement a CCS system. Now, how –Woodside and other companies, also have other abatement programs because they know CCS is not the entire answer so whether that’s forestry projects or otherwise, there are other means of carbon sequestration and offsets. And that’s acceptable. This is what we, as a community have accepted as part of the fight against global warming is the notion of offsets. So, what Woodside and Inpex and other companies in the gas industry, and Chevron, do will be up to them, but what is really critical is they all have a shared goal, just like the Australian Government, that we need to reach net‑zero emissions by 2050, and I’m going to do whatever I can to encourage them to get there.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Okay. And will you be approving more of these offshore areas for carbon capture?

MADELEINE KING: Yes, I absolutely will.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: More in WA?

MADELEINE KING: Look, I’m not sure about that at this stage. We’ve got to go through a process with Geoscience Australia, which is a really, you know, extraordinary national asset which does a lot of this pre‑competitive exploration. So, I’m not going to pre‑empt those decisions or their great scientific work, but there will be more and there needs to be to be more.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Now, before I let you go, just the National Jobs Summit is next week and staffing shortages we know are bad, especially in WA, but, I guess, right across the country. What’s the feedback you’re getting particularly from regional areas?

MADELEINE KING: Yeah, it’s really a big challenge and I’ve done roundtables in Brisbane and Karratha, Kwinana and one in Perth tomorrow – Friday. But certainly places like Karratha, and there’s many places like this around the country, there’s a deficit in housing and, you know, whether it’s housing for mining workers who traditionally paid more, and that needs to be addressed, but, more importantly, housing and cost of living for the services sector that support all of our big industries. Like, I’m thinking child care and health care, nurses, police, teachers, all – well, hospitality, right? So, all of these service sectors are very much challenged just finding places for people to live in the regions, which means other industries don’t grow and those industries don’t grow. So, you know, this is something that keeps coming up. And it’s a really complicated problem but this Government is committed to addressing what gets raised at this summit.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: It’s interesting The Australian is reporting that Woodside hasn’t been invited. Do you know why that is?

MADELEINE KING: Look, I don’t. It’s very contested but, you know, I meet with Woodside, and I will be meeting with them and I – they are able to put feedback, as is anyone else for that matter, like, people can get meetings with me and others to put feedback into the overall summit. That’s why we’re doing the roundtables. Woodside have been at my roundtable in Karratha, and I believe they’re coming to Perth. So, there are many opportunities for people to feed into it and, quite frankly, and I don’t want to, you know, take away from what will be a great summit in Canberra, some of these smaller roundtables are coming up with excellent ideas that will all feed into the same destination.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: I’ll leave it there, and I do appreciate your time. Madeleine King there. She is, of course, the Federal Resources Minister.