DOE Awards $66.7 Million for Large-Scale Carbon Sequestration Project; Ethanol Plant the CO2 Source
19 December 2007
The Department of Energy’s (DOE) has awarded $66.7 million to the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) for the Department’s fourth large-scale carbon sequestration project.
The award to MGSC is the fourth of seven awards in the third phase of the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program. In October, the DOE awarded $197 million to the first three large-scale carbon sequestration projects: Plains Carbon Dioxide Reduction Partnership; Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership; and Southwest Regional Partnership for Carbon Sequestration. The first three projects have a total estimated value including partnership cost share of $318 million. (Earlier post.)
The MSGC project will conduct large volume tests in the Illinois Basin to demonstrate the ability of a geologic formation to safely, permanently, and economically store more than one million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). Subject to annual appropriations from Congress, this project including the partnership’s cost share is estimated to cost $84.3 million.
This partnership, led by Illinois State Geological Survey, will demonstrate CO2 storage in the Mount Simon Sandstone Formation, a prolific geologic formation throughout Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and portions of Ohio. This formation offers the potential to store more than 100 years of carbon dioxide emissions from major point sources in the region, according to the DOE.
The partnership will inject one million tons of CO2 into one of the thickest portions of the Mount Simon Formation to test how the heterogeneity of the formation can increase the effectiveness of storage and demonstrate that the massive seals can contain the CO2. The results of this project will provide the foundation for the future development of CO2 capture and storage opportunities in the region.
Researchers and industry partners will characterize the injection sites and complete modeling, monitoring, and infrastructure assessments needed before CO2 can be injected. MGSC plans to drill a CO2 injection well and then inject about 1,000 tons per day of carbon dioxide into the Mt. Simon sandstone, which is approximately 5,500 feet below the surface. The project will inject CO2 for three years before closing the injection site and monitoring and modeling the injected carbon dioxide to determine the effectiveness of the storage reservoir.
The Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium will work with the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Company to demonstrate the entire CO2 injection process—pre-injection characterization, injection process monitoring, and post-injection monitoring—at large volumes to determine the ability of different geologic settings to permanently store CO2.
ADM’s ethanol plant in Decatur, IL, will serve as the source of CO2 for the project, and ADM will cost share the expense of the CO2. DOE will fund the dehydration, compression, short pipeline, and related facility costs to deliver the CO2 to the wellhead.
The seven regional partnerships in the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership Program include more than 350 state agencies, universities, and private companies within 41 states, two Indian nations, and four Canadian provinces. During the first phase of the program, seven partnerships characterized the potential for CO2 storage in deep oil-, gas-, coal-, and saline-bearing formations. When Phase I ended in 2005, the partnerships had identified more than 3,000 billion metric tons of potential storage capacity in promising sinks. This has the potential to represent more than 1,000 years of storage capacity from point sources in North America.
In the program’s second phase, the partnerships implemented a portfolio of small-scale geologic and terrestrial sequestration projects. The purpose of these tests was to validate that different geologic formations have the injectivity, containment, and storage effectiveness needed for long-term sequestration. The third-phase, large-volume tests are designed to validate that the capture, transportation, injection, and long term storage of over one million tons of carbon dioxide can be done safely, permanently, and economically.
In round numbers 400,000 tonnes of CO2 captured and stored annually. If this works, at the current rate of fossil fuel use the world would need more than 10,000 such installations to mitigate AGW.
Posted by: richard schumacher | 19 December 2007 at 08:12 AM
Proponents of biofuels have argued they are nearly carbon neutral since sustainable harvest of feedstock would remove a similar amount of CO2 to that emitted. With thermochemical methods (not distilled corn ethanol) some charcoal could plowed back into the soil making it carbon negative. This proposal seems like a way to head off that approach eg the Range Fuels approach to ethanol. If so ADM must have friends in high places.
Posted by: Aussie | 19 December 2007 at 01:06 PM
Aussie,
Forgive me for finding your comment funny. I assume you are posting from Australia (?). In the US, before cable TV and CNN and whatnot, we basically had 3 TV networks, CBS, ABC and NBC, and that was it. Every Sunday morning there would be political news shows on, in which journalists would ask questions of Washington politicians. ADM and General Electric between them paid for about 90% of the ad spots on the TV during that time (and probably still do for Sunday news shows). So your suspicion that they have friends in high places is right on.
Posted by: Jim G. | 19 December 2007 at 01:39 PM
I agree with Richard to some extent. Around the world there is no prospect of capturing a high percent of CO2 emissions anytime soon. Atmospheric CO2 is not going to fall.
Even so. definitive testing of sequestering is worth the money. It may fail miserably but that will get it off the table. It may work and be economically possible.
GW has become so political that politics must be heeded. That applies regardless of one's personal belief or doubt about how much CO2 is connected to GW.
Sequestration is a tool which may prove useful in the political arena. At the least it should reduce our balance of payments if we can use more coal w/o increasing emissions.
For myself, I continue to hate coal and think nuclear, and a lot of it, is the way to proceed with power generation. Since that isn't likely I advocate doing the best we can in other ways.
Posted by: K | 19 December 2007 at 02:40 PM
Within a few years, we will start to recognise that it's not enough to be carbon-neutral but that we will need to become carbon-negative. So, regardless the relevance of these few tons of CO2, it's good to start developing a technology to sequester large volumes of CO2. Relatively soon, we will be able to transform very large quantities of biomass to H2 and sequester the CO2. This will be truely carbon-negative, removing huge volumes of 'old' CO2 out of the air while making a profit. Although we will need the bulk of our energy from solar, wind, wave and nuclear, this hydrogen will certainly have many applications, while reducing atmospheric CO2.
Ten years ago, wind energy was also irrelevant for global electricity production, while now, windparks being built can replace large powerplants.
These CO2-capturing and sequestration plants can become very relevant when the technology will be fully developed.
We must be sure the technology is developped today. When within a few years the war on climate change will be as serious as the war on terror today, the money to build them will surely be made available.
Posted by: Alain | 20 December 2007 at 03:36 AM
Gentlemen,
Why did the US government seize the research files of Tesla when he died?
Why did the FBI take all his research
and seal it under the Alien Act? What
were they protecting?
Anyone who has bothered to research the work Tesla was doing can see the connection between Tesla's work and research into the use of the earth's own electromagnetic generating force, and his harnessing of it for the production and transmission on a worldwide basis using the earth itself as both the production and transmission grid.
Has any electrical engineer looked at the earth's electromagnetic fields and its generating capacity? It boggles the mind.
And unless I am incorrect, the US Navy's
used Tesla's theories in their research and
development of their ELF capabilities, using the earth's capability to transmit
electrical frequencies over very long distances, to communicate with its underwater nuclear powered submarine fleet employing extremely low frequencies (ELF); and, the HAARP project is not merely being used for Aurora research, it is being conducted in Alaska to test the gathering energy and the ability to weaponize it in another extension of Tesla's theories.
Tesla wanted to make his technology available to the world; the shadow
government wants to keep it for itself
and use it to make war--better and more efficient and on a grander scale, including the ability to control the weather by manipulating the natural power cycles and distribution based on various frequencies it can harness and re-direct. And if you doubt that, then the Soviet scientists must
have been mislead by Tesla too, because they
were actively involved in significant, extensive and expensive research directly
related to his theories and how to put them to work. IF YOU WANT TO FIND A CHEAP,
NON-POLLUTING ALTERNATIVE SOURCE OF ENERGY FOR THE WORLD TO HARNESS, THEN LOOK AT HOW THE EARTH ITSELF GENERATES MORE ELECTRICITY THAN WE COULD EVER HOPE TO PRODUCE ON OUR OWN, LET ALONE UTILIZE. AND IT IS FREE AND ACCESSIBLE FROM ANY POSITION, ANYWHERE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH AND TOTALLY NON-POLLUTING. AND THAT IS WHY THE REAL POWER BEHIND THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-BANKING COMPLEX WILL NEVER ALLOW YOU OR I TO GAIN ACCESS TO HIS TECHNOLOGY.
Posted by: rhlockey | 26 December 2007 at 07:30 PM
How permanent is this storage, really? Earthquakes happen everywhere...even in Illinois. Sooner or later the containment will fail--catastrophically. And then what?
Posted by: Rob | 30 December 2007 at 06:31 PM
Recycle the CO2 with nuclear energy to methanol and then to gasoline.
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 09 October 2008 at 06:54 PM