Sat, Nov 21 2009
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Tax on carbon looming “What do you do with it? What do you do with the carbon?” he asked. “City Utilities is exploring the possibility of putting it underground if the geology is acceptable. This would take two to three years. We would find out how much carbon the ground can hold.
“If we can’t store the carbon here, Missouri consumers will have to build very expensive pipelines to ship the carbon to carbon sequestration sites in other states.” The Missouri Carbon Sequestration Project is being supported by five utility companies and three research partners. The Empire District Electric Co., of Joplin, and the other utilities have each contributed $98,000 to the research. The research is being led by Missouri State University, the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. If the experiment works in Springfield, it could also work with the coal-fired power plants operated by Empire and those operated by the other utilities in the state. “This is an important project for Empire for a couple of reasons,” said Julie Maus, spokeswoman for Empire. “Future regulation of carbon dioxide emissions will add significantly to the cost of producing electricity. We have geology that is similar at many of our own plant sites. The results of this pilot project could be applied at many of our facilities. “We feel that carbon sequestration needs to be researched and investigated because it has the potential for significant cost savings for our customers in dealing with future carbon regulation.’’ Getting results could take some time. Maus said the initial research and testing will last about two years. It will include drilling and coring, and pumping tests. “If all of that proves successful, a test injection would take place using food-grade CO2, which is what they use to carbonate beverages,” she said. “The limited test injection would be followed by another long-term monitoring period for two years or so to see how the mineralization occurs.” Maus said there is a direct link between the Missouri Carbon Sequestration Project and the Lieberman-Warner bill “It’s a direct connection in that we are trying to find a more cost-effective solution for lowering carbon-dioxide emissions,” she said. The goal is to find an economical way to capture and store carbon in preparation for congressional action on a carbon tax on utilities and industries that release carbon dioxide. Bond said a carbon tax would be a tremendous financial burden for Americans if an economical way to remove and store carbon dioxide is not found. A carbon tax, he said, could cost the average Missourian $6,852 more a year if a way is not found to manage the greenhouse gas. Bond said a carbon tax bill could add $1.44 to cost of a gallon of gasoline and could increase electric bills by 153 percent. The experiment will measure how much carbon dioxide gas the Lamotte Formation, a highly mineralized zone of rock 2,000 below the surface, will be able to absorb. If that formation absorbs the gas, then Missouri’s utility companies could avoid the cost of building costly pipelines to carry the gas to deeper injection sites in northern states. Data from a 2006 study of a core sample from a well north of Springfield suggested that carbon sequestration in the formation might work. 
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