CO2: too much in atmosphere, too little for industry

Only a few weeks ago, an ABC News report carried images of empty shelves in Coles and Woolworths stores leaving customers to wonder why their favourite soft drinks were unavailable.

In this instance it appears the CO2 shortage was anticipated in consequence of a planned maintenance shutdown at a source location but exacerbated by issues affecting international freight on imported CO2.

Despite the advance notice, the extent of the disruption was considerable, causing major supplier BOC to prioritise supplies for medical and other critical applications.

But while the short-term absence of soft drinks may be an irritation in the wider scheme of things, the absence of red meat, pork, poultry, baked goods, bagged salads and dry ice (for transport of medical supplies and other commodities) takes on a whole new meaning.

In the meat industry, CO2 is widely used to stun pigs and poultry before slaughter as well as further down the processing line for red and white fresh meats in modified atmosphere packaging (MAP).

Perhaps the best example in recent times of industry sensitivity to CO2 shortage was the closure of two fertiliser plants in northern England in September 2021.

CO2 is a by-product of fertiliser manufacture and the two plants at Cheshire and Teesside produced 60 per cent of Britain's CO2 supply needs.

The reason for the closure of the fertiliser plants was the soaring cost of major input, natural gas.

After emergency meetings between industry and government, crisis was averted when the government prevailed upon the US owners of the two shuttered plants to resume production for a period to enable alternative sources of CO2 to be found.

Given the central importance of natural gas in the supply equation for CO2 and the recurring blips in the Australian supply situation, it raises the question of how secure the supply of CO2 for Australian food industries is.

On that score there would seem to be some comforting news.

In August 2022, BOC announced it would construct a multi-million-dollar CO2 processing facility in Longford, Victoria, as part of a new long-term supply agreement with the Gippsland Basin Joint Venture.

The new facility will have the capacity to produce more than 60,000 tonnes of beverage-grade liquid CO2 annually, making it the largest merchant CO2 production facility in the South Pacific.

Under the agreement, GBJV will capture and send CO2 from its Longford Gas Conditioning Plant directly to BOC's new facility.

A 2023 update from GBJV partner Esso Australia said they had reconfigured their plant to supply BOC under the agreement so it would seem the initiative is tracking toward its intended start date sometime this year.

Once operational, the initiative should, as BOC claims, significantly increase long-term CO2 reliability and supply for many Australian industries.

The only problem with all of this is the latest Australian Energy Market Operator's Victorian Gas Planning Report Update.

The executive summary of the report says in part, "GBJV has advised of planned closures of gas plants at Longford Gas Plant, starting with Gas Plant 1 in July 2024, followed by Gas Plant 3 later in the decade, reducing Longford's maximum daily supply capacity to 700 terajoules per day and then to 420TJ/d.

Retirement of infrastructure at the Longford Gas Plant and the decline of the large legacy fields reduces redundancy and supply flexibility, which increases the probability of outages."

This does raise just a small question mark over the reliability aspect of the GBJV/BOC arrangement and how high a priority it is for GBJV to keep the CO2 flowing to the BOC plant.

While Esso and BOC talk up the benefits of the food-grade CO2 initiative, it is after all no more than a by-product of GBJV's core business of supplying energy to Victorian industry and households.

In reality, the project is probably of higher order significance to GBJV as an emissions reduction action under the Federal Government's Safeguard Mechanism.

Administered by the Clean Energy Regulator, the Safeguard Mechanism applies to facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent per year, and from July 1 this year these facilities will need to reduce their baseline emissions each year in line with Australia's federal emission reduction targets. The AEMO report lists the GBJV/BOC initiative as just that.

Obviously, industry will pursue least cost options for its CO2 needs and GBJV/BOC may prove to meet the reliability levels required.

If not, all is not lost.

Back in 2020, CSIRO announced a new technology called Airthena which captures CO2 directly from the air using tiny sponges known as metal-organic frameworks and can be scaled up for commercial production.

Developed in partnership with Monash University, Energy Infrastructure and Resources and H2H Energy, Airthena is the result of recent breakthroughs in advanced filtration methods.

Scaled up, Airthena will allow companies to generate their own supply of CO2 on site.

GOOD rain in southern Queensland has interrupted flow of cattle to meatworks but central and northern plants have been better placed to hold their numbers. As one livestock manager said, if you are going to lose cattle due to weather, Easter short weeks is the time to lose them.

A fortnight ago, pressure of numbers was exerting downward influence on grid rates to the extent that some operators withdrew from quoting. At the same time, southern saleyards were taking some big hits particularly on feeders.

Last week before the wet arrived, rates in south east Queensland adjusted further to 520-525c/kg for YP ox and 450c/kg for heavy cow and would now seem likely to remain at that level until after Easter.

While much of the south is yet to share the good rain, there has been a noticeable snapback in saleyard prices due in large part to northern buying interest.