Carbon Conundrum: All eyes are on CU pilot project as Congress considers emissions cap

City Utilities is spearheading a joint venture to determine if carbon dioxide emitted from its Southwest Power Station could be funneled some 2,000 feet underground into geological sandstone basins.

There, the gas would theoretically dissolve into water and form solid carbon minerals within the Earth’s crust. Click here for a look at how carbon capture and sequestration works.

But first, several months of geotechnical and hydrogeological analysis must occur. That research will be led by Missouri State University, Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, and Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

The driving force behind the three-year project is a $2.5 million grant secured by U.S. Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond. CU and five other Missouri utilities – AmerenUE, Aquila Inc., Associated Electric Cooperative Inc., Empire District Electric Co. and Kansas City Power & Light – each kicked in $98,000 to supplement the federal funding with another $588,000.

With political support mounting for carbon emission regulations, CU and its counterparts eagerly await the results of the pilot project. Officials said the ability to pump COb into subterranean storage basins could save ratepayers money if utilities are required by the government to capture and dispose of carbon emissions. Those without on-site remedies may be forced to transport the gas.

“Carbon emission is a real hot-button topic right now, and it’s impossible to say exactly what form that future regulation might take, what its impact will be,” said Empire spokeswoman Julie Maus. “We believe it’s better to be prepared. It appears that it’s very likely that there will be future carbon regulation. It’s more when it’s going to occur, not if it will occur.”

Bond and his fellow senators are scheduled to formally debate a bill designed to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from their 2005 level within four years. The legislation – co-sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and John Warner, a Virginia Republican – also seeks to control compliance costs by allowing companies to trade, accrue and borrow emission allowances.

Bond is an outspoken critic of the bill in its current form, which he characterized as a $7.6 trillion “tax increase” on businesses and households.

A phased approach

The CU-led carbon sequestration project is now entering the second of five phases that must be completed before any emissions are injected into geological basins.

“If and only if everything falls into place will we do an injection,” said CU spokesman Joel Alexander. “If we don’t find a reason to go on to the next phase, we won’t.”

The current phase encompasses drilling, coring and pump testing by DNR officials, who will prepare samples for university researchers. In the third phase, those researchers will conduct a battery of laboratory tests and reservoir analyses before working with DNR to develop a model. If conditions are right, CU would initiate the fourth phase by feeding a limited quantity of food-grade COb into an on-site well. The fifth and final phase is a comprehensive report detailing the project findings.

Gary Pendergrass, CU’s manager of environmental compliance, said three questions must be answered before the utility pumps any of the gas into the ground. Researchers will need to determine the rock formation’s storage capacity, the maximum rate that COb can safely be injected and specifics about the mineralization process, he said.

Available geologic data from a 2006 study of core samples from a well about 30 miles north of Springfield are promising, Pendergrass said. The Missouri University of Science & Technology conducted the research on CU’s behalf, he added.

CU officials were reluctant to make predictions about the percentage of COb that could be diverted from the atmosphere if the pilot project proves that the gas can safely be stored underground.

The James River power plant emits an average of about 2 million tons of COb annually, and the average annual COb emissions at the Southwest Power Station total about 1.3 million tons, CU officials said.

Could sequestration cut CU’s emissions by 25 percent or even in half?

“It’s really hard to say,” Pendergrass said. “We really don’t know yet.”

The 300-megawatt Southwest 2 power plant under construction is expected to discharge an average of 2.2 million tons of COb annually when it begins generating electricity in late 2010. At that time, daily COb emissions at the James River plant would be reduced by about 1,400 tons.

Push to capture carbon

A recent British study cited by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s national lab system, suggests that carbon capture and sequestration is “technically feasible.”

Retrofitting a coal-fired power plant with the necessary technology would require a significant amount of infrastructure at a significant expense, the study found. With that technology, however, the capture-and-sequestration system would be able to inject a “high-purity, high-pressure stream” of 6,000 metric tons of COb per day.

The down side: The energy needed to operate the capture-and-sequestration system would result in an additional 600,000 metric tons of COb emissions annually. Also, the estimated cost of capturing the emissions is $50 to $60 per metric ton, or more than $100 million annually for a hypothetical power plant, according to information on the NETL Web site, www.netl.doe.gov.

In addition to the CU pilot project, DOE is funding seven regional partnerships that are exploring the feasibility of carbon sequestration.

Home-grown solutions

Many other cities and states have voluntarily launched efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2002, some of the country’s largest carbon emitters in Chicago pledged to reduce COb emissions below their 1998–2001 levels as part of the Chicago Climate Exchange. A year later, New York obtained commitments from nine Northeast states to form a cap-and-trade COb emissions program called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Bond said Missouri can’t afford to stay out of the game any longer, and he was hopeful the CU pilot project would lead to “another made-in-Missouri solution.” Americans must look beyond the “not in my backyard,” or “NIMBY,” mentality as the country moves forward with efforts to secure energy resources and reduce greenhouse gases, the senator said at the May 27 news conference detailing the CU pilot project.

“Everybody wants clean energy, but they don’t want it in their backyards,” Bond said. “We ought to say, ‘Yes, in our backyard.’”