A Canadian farmer, Gary Lewis, has developed a system that pipes tractor exhaust emissions through a condenser and into the pneumatic system of air seeders, which then injects the carbon and nitrogen-rich emissions into the ground along with the seed. The exhaust gases stimulate microbial activity and root growth, allowing the plants to more efficiently extract nutrient and moisture from the soil.

Mr Lewis says that tractor exhaust has allowed him and other farmers working with his technology to grow excellent crops without using conventional fertilisers. He says that he has not used fertiliser on his 250-hectare irrigation farm for at least six years, yet he had seen no loss of production, his soils had moved from pH 8.0 (the same as his irrigation water) to a pH of about 7.0 and soil organic matter levels are now at about 10 per cent.

In addition to the savings in fertilizer, he sees potential income from carbon offsets through the process.

About 150 farmers around the world, including in Australia, Britain, South Africa and recently China, are trialling the technique.

Ian Linklater, who grows wheat on a 3,845 hectare property near the Murray River north of Mildura, was the first Australian farmer to test the system. He spent $20,000 customising equipment that cools his tractor’s exhaust fumes and injects them into the soil as he sows his crop. He says that he has saved around $500,000 in nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers in the two years that he has been using the system.

The Queensland Government has approved the construction of a 900 megawatt "clean" coal-fired powerstation in the Galilee Basin.

The power station is to be built by Galilee Power which is owned by Waratah Coal Pty Limited. Waratah Coal announced Australia’s largest thermal coal mine and infrastructure project, worth $7.5 billion, earlier this year.

Waratah Coal said that the $1.25 billion power station, which will incorporate carbon capture and storage technologies, will employ 60 people when operating and about 1,000 during the construction phase. Construction is expected to start in about three years.

Queensland;s Premier Anna Bligh has released the government’s new climate change strategy, "ClimateQ: Towards a Greener Queensland".

The major initiative is that no new coal-fired power stations will be built in Queensland unless they use world’s best emissions technology and are able to capture and store carbon and must do so within five years of the technology becoming available. One new coal-fired power station is currently proposed for the state, to be built at Wandoan, near Miles. It is already part of a flagship carbon capture and storage scheme.

The climate change strategy also includes an anti-congestion plan, using a high-tech traffic management system, and programs to change travel habits and offset vehicle emissions. The carbon offset scheme will allow the public to purchase offsets for vehicle emissions with the funds being used to purchase biodiversity corridors across the state.

A CSIRO report on Queensland’s potential to mitigate greenhouse gas through biosequestration was also released.

The report found the Queensland government, as the third largest landholder in the world, has significant potential to create carbon "sinks", storing large amounts of carbon in forests and the soil.

Professor Tim Flannery, who is on the government’s climate change council, said it was timely, as US legislation had just created a $20 billion a year carbon sequestration industry there.

Origin Energy has contracted Carbon Consious Ltd to plant more than six million trees over the coming three years in what the companies believe is the largest carbon pollution reduction bio-sequestration project in Australia to date.

Carbon Conscious will plant native mallee eucalypt trees in wheat-belt regions for the purpose of generating carbon permits tradeable under the federal government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction scheme. In return, Origin will pay Carbon Conscious a total of $26 million, by way of planting fees and licence and management fees for a period of 15 years

If Origin exercises further options under the contract, the full project would potentially provide for the planting of more than 30 million mallee eucalypts and sequester about six million tonnes of carbon.

Mallee eucalypt

The Australian Government has announced $1.4 million in funding for research into  biochar – a form of charcoal that can store carbon in the soil for an average of 5,000 years.

The three-year programme, to be co-ordinated by the CSIRO, will be one of the largest such investigations in the world.

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke, said that biochar has the potential to significantly reduce Australia’s carbon emissions. "You can find places where particular biochars have had a fantastic outcome for the soil, impacts on salinity, impacts on water retention, as well as impacts on keeping carbon underground," he said. "But at the same time, there’s a lot of complexity in trying to match the right biochar to the right soil."

See this article at GreenBiz Cafe for more information about the potential of biochar.

Origin Energy Ltd has unveiled plans to capture some of the carbon dioxide output from the Lang Lang BassGas plant in Victoria for commercial use in wine and soft drink carbonation.

The company plans to supply about 25 per cent of the carbon dioxide from the Lang Lang project to a $20 million plant built by Air Liquide which will purify and liquefy the gas.

Meanwhile, scientists have identified ten sites in five areas off the coast of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia which they say are stable enough to be used for carbon storage. Licences for the commercial development of these sites will be available later this year.

Federal Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, said that "This is about Australian industry. Capturing our own CO2 emissions and potentially storing them, having a domestic impact to assist our industry in remaining competitive internationally. It is not about Australia becoming a carbon sink for other companies or countries’ activities, it is un-economic to even think about that."

Australia will set up a A$100 million a year carbon capture research institute aimed at fighting climate change and becoming the world hub for the technology

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that he would seek international backing for the institute at an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week.  "We, the government, want this global carbon and storage institute in Australia to be the global go-to place across the board for clean coal technologies and their application. That is the ambition. … So we will be providing up to $100 million a year to fund this global carbon capture and storage institute." he said.

The new institute would start out in Australia with the objective of helping meet the G8 commitment to have at least 20 industrial scale carbon capture and storage projects in operation by 2020. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown had already offered support, Mr Rudd said.

Currently, there are five pilot carbon capture and storage projects worldwide, including one at Otway in Victoria. "A lot of good work is going on out there, but it’s not very coordinated," Mr Rudd said.

Carbon dioxide has been captured from power station flue gases in a post-combustion-capture (PCC) pilot plant at Loy Yang Power Station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. This is the first time CO2 has been caputured using the PPC process at a power plant in the Southern Hemisphere.

According to CSIRO Energy Technology Chief, Dr David Brockway, “PCC uses a liquid to capture CO₂ from power station flue gases and can potentially reduce CO₂ emissions from existing and future coal-fired power stations by more than 85 per cent.” Future trials will test a range of different CO₂-capture liquids.

The project is part of the Latrobe Valley Post Combustion Capture Project – a joint collaboration between Loy Yang Power, International Power Hazelwood, government and researchers from the CSIRO. The CSIRO is undertaking similar research at Munmorah in NSW and near Beijing in China and is negotiating the installation of another pilot plant at a Queensland site.