By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

A research experiment under way at the Southwest Power Station in Springfield could help power plants across Missouri capture and then store carbon dioxide in a deep underground rock formation.

In theory, the gas would dissolve in water in the formation and form solid carbon minerals. Whether the sequestration of the carbon works would be verified by months of geotechnical analysis.

Why is the Missouri Carbon Sequestration Project important? Missouri Sen. Christopher “Kit’’ Bond, a Republican, who helped secure a $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for the three-year project, believes it could help shield Missouri utility customers from the financial downside of proposed Senate legislation that would tax carbon emissions.

The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007 would impose a cap-and-trade program for reducing carbon emissions. Critics, including U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill and U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, believe the cap-and-trade idea forces industries to spend money and that the costs would be passed on to electricity users who rely on coal-generated energy.

“The part of me that worries about our environment says ‘yes’ on this bill while my good government taxpayer watchdog side has lots of sirens going off,” said McCaskill. “But this is an important symbolic vote to send the message that we need to focus on global warming, we need to do it in a fair and responsible way, and we need to do it soon.

“I’m committed to making sure that whatever policies eventually become law protect lower-income and middle- class Missourians from being hit with higher costs.”

Bond said he believes the bill would impose a costly carbon tax on consumers if a way cannot be found to capture and reduce carbon emissions. Putting carbon in the ground would reduce carbon emissions and lower the financial impact on energy consumers.

“A law will be passed to reduce carbon emissions. The Missouri Carbon Sequestration Project is designed to develop the technology and demonstrate how to reduce carbon emissions,” said Bond.

“The Lieberman-Warner bill would take $6.7 trillion out of the economy over a period of years,” he said. “The energy companies and utilities will simply put it in their cost basis. It will come back to the consumers because the technology is not there.”

Bond said the petroleum industry would also pass along costs to consumers in the form of higher fuel prices.

“A cap-and-trade program without the technology is nothing but a tax increase that will drive business overseas and be a huge burden on the economy,” he said. “Reducing carbon emissions is an objective we all share, but Lieberman-Warner is the wrong way to get there.”

Atmospheric scientists believe carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, cars and industry is making the world warmer.

Bond said City Utilities in Springfield soon will have the ability to either gasify or liquefy coal, which will permit the company to separate out the carbon in the coal.