Jul 30 2009
CSIRO scientist Dr Martin Leahy has been honoured for his work in carbon dioxide storage technologies, receiving a Victorian Fellowship award and an Australian French Association for Science and Technology (AFAS) FEAST-France Fellowship top up.
CSIRO's Dr Martin Leahy is a Victorian Fellowship recipient.
Photo by: Peter Glenane Photography
The postdoctoral fellow with CSIRO's Petroleum Resources, who is working within the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC), is one of six young Victorian scientists to win the prestigious award, which was presented by Victorian Governor Professor David de Kretser, at special ceremony at Government House.
The annual Victorian Fellowships provide emerging young leaders in science with the opportunity to travel overseas on a study mission, develop a commercial idea, undertake specialist training and/or enhance their career.
Dr Leahy is helping CSIRO develop a computer model which aims to assess the safety of geological storage sites.
The geological storage of carbon dioxide could assist in reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Federal Government recently released acreage to locate possible storage sites.
Dr Leahy said his computer model incorporates mathematical equations which calculate the position of the injected carbon dioxide plume and he is looking forward to improving its capability.
Dr Leahy will use the Fellowship to travel to three leading research institutes in the UK and the US.
He will start his study mission at Cambridge University where he will be able to test the CSIRO model against both theoretical and experimental models.
Following the UK, Dr Leahy will visit Lawrence Berkley and Stanford universities in the US. Both institutions employ a different modelling approach to map stored carbon dioxide.
Dr Leahy said he hopes the visits will expose him to new ideas and modelling methods which will improve his existing computer model.
The top up AFAS award will allow Dr Leahy to embark on a trip to France to visit collaborators at the French geoscience research institute BRGM and a development team at Schlumberger Carbon Services.
Dr Leahy's work could have significant implications for Victoria, which has the world's second largest brown coal reserves and saline aquifers. These resources could potentially be used for carbon dioxide storage.