ST. PAUL, Va. – As people arrived from around the world to see an operating carbon capture and storage project in West Virginia, a similar effort – using different technology – is awaiting funding in the Virginia coalfields.
Dominion Virginia Power and Virginia Tech are seeking federal stimulus money to cover half the cost of a $580 million project that would remove carbon dioxide from power plant emissions at the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center. The emissions would then be stored underground.
The project is one of several in the U.S. awaiting funding; earlier this month the U.S. Department Energy announced $1.4 billion in awards for 12 other projects.
Research and testing of such technologies was spurred by the planned government regulation of carbon dioxide, which is designated as an air pollutant because it’s believed to cause global warming.
Greg Edwards, spokesman for Dominion at the power plant, said the local project would use chemicals called amines to capture carbon dioxide. And, he said, the project would handle emissions from 70 megawatts of power generation, removing 545,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year.
Construction would begin in 2013, the year after the plant goes online, and be completed in 2015, Edwards said. The new technology would send the captured carbon dioxide via pipeline into nearby geologic formations.
Nino Ripepi, a research scientist for the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research at Virginia Tech, said the carbon dioxide would be placed in “stacked storage” – or multiple formations at different depths: unminable coal seams, depleted gas fields and saline aquifers. The carbon dioxide would not be injected anywhere near deep underground coal mining operations, he said, and constant monitoring would guard against leakage.
“We’re putting this in formations that have held natural gas for millions of years,” Ripepisaid. “We believe it [the carbon dioxide] will stay there.”
But even with the excitement in the energy industry, carbon capture and storage has its skeptics.
Glen Besa, the Virginia director of the Sierra Club, said while the technology could address the issue of carbon dioxide released by burning coal, it should be retro-fitted onto all existing coal-fired plants before new ones are built – and it still doesn’t solve destructive mining practices.
“Even if we can prove that carbon capture and sequestration works … it’s just not acceptable if you leave the mountains destroyed to get at the coal.”
Besa said it’s also likely that some areas would not be suitable for underground storage.
“In the end,” he said, “you need to factor in all the costs and determine whether there are investments in renewable energy and particularly in efficiency that are cheaper.”
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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