Tag: oil

Refineries Expand to Process Dirty Oil

Transforming black crude oil into gasoline has
always been a notoriously dirty process. But oil
refineries are expanding so they can use a new source
of oil. That could make the process even dirtier.
Shawn Allee explains why this is happening
and what environmentalists are doing about it:

Transcript

Transforming black crude oil into gasoline has
always been a notoriously dirty process. But oil
refineries are expanding so they can use a new source
of oil. That could make the process even dirtier.
Shawn Allee explains why this is happening
and what environmentalists are doing about it:

Refineries are expanding because they’ve struck oil… and it’s not
far away….

Roxanne Potvin: “Oh Canada, our home in native land …”

That’s right, it’s from Canada.

“Phil here, can I help you? Hey, I’m doing good, how are you?”

Phil Flynn analyzes energy markets for Alaron Trading. Flynn
says Canada’s secret is oil pulled from tar sands.

“If you look at the oil sands that are in Canada, some experts
estimate there’s more oil in the oil sands than there is under
Saudi Arabia. And to be honest with you is, the reason why we
haven’t tapped it earlier is, it’s been a very expensive process to
do.”

But technology’s made tar sand oil competitive with lighter crude
from the Mideast and elsewhere.

Flynn says there’s a downside to Canadian tar sand oil. It’s
heavier, it’s dirtier, and it creates more refinery pollution. But he
says the market wants it anyway.

“You know, we want abundant supplies. We want to be able to
pull up at the pump, pay a dollar fifty a gallon and drive home
happily. But guess what, it doesn’t work that way in the real world.
Believe me, if the prices get high enough, even the environmentalists
will be more open to more negotiations.”

Actually, Flynn’s wrong on that – environmentalists are not willing
negotiate on new refinery pollution. Last year, green groups in
Chicago and Northwest Indiana were outraged by plans to
expand a BP refinery on Lake Michigan.

That BP plant will use new Canadian crude.

A new permit allowed it to dump more ammonia and suspended
solids – in other words… more pollution into Lake Michigan.

Environmentalists and politicians argued with regulators, then they
hit the airwaves …

“This is a clean water alert. BP Amoco has announced plans to
expand an Indiana refinery to process thick
crude oil – already one of the worst polluters …”

“I think that really tapped public sentiment that we’re going in the
wrong direction.”

Howard Learner directs the Environmental Law and Policy
Center.

Learner considers last year’s effort a success.

“Ultimately, BP was forced to back off, and BP is now committed
to no net increase in water pollution.”

That fight against BP’s refinery expansion plan in Indiana was not
isolated. Michigan activists fought a similar refinery expansion
plan in Detroit. Eventually, Marathon Oil agreed to keep water
and air pollution near present levels at that refinery.

Now, groups across the Midwest want to repeat these
performances. Altogether, they’re taking on expansions at ten refineries, from
South Dakota to Ohio, plus another in Ontario.

Learner says each could increase water and air pollution.

“So with these oil refineries having such a major environmental
footprint in our region, we want to make sure that they’re doing the
absolute best, state of the art, pollution control technology at the
beginning rather than later having to come back and say
oh wait a minute, we somehow missed the boat here, we gotta
get it fixed up. That’s not gonna fly.”

Learner says there does not have to be a trade-off between more
pollution and higher gas prices.

“Companies like BP, ConocoPhillips, MurphyOil, and Marathon are
making billions of dollars in profits. They can take and invest
some of those profits, not on doing their plants in ways that increase pollution, but in
ways that reduce pollution.”

But can we cut pollution and keep gas prices level?

Some economists doubt it.

Lynne Kiesling teaches at Northwestern University.

“Regardless of your perception of corporate profits there is a
fundamental trade-off between environmental quality and
increasing our refinery production.”

Kiesling says, when refineries invest in pollution control,
consumers ultimately foot the bill.

And she says drivers are to blame – over time, we buy more
gasoline – even when prices rise. So… oil companies are just trying to meet
our demand with new, dirtier oil.

Environmental groups have preached about getting out of our
cars for years – but they’ve been losing that battle.

They say all they can do now, is to fight the air and water pollution
that comes with dirtier oil.

For the Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Farmers Work to Conserve Water

Some experts say water will be the “oil” of the next generation. As it become
more scarce, prices are going to go up. For farmers, that’s serious business.
Kyle Norris recently spent time with several farmers who say they think
about water constantly:

Transcript

Some experts say water will be the “oil” of the next generation. As it become
more scarce, prices are going to go up. For farmers, that’s serious business.
Kyle Norris recently spent time with several farmers who say they think
about water constantly:


Anne Elder and Paul Bantle are farmers, and they’re pretty hard-core about
water. They keep a hollowed-out rock — it’s like a natural bowl — next to
the barn, and every morning they fill it with fresh water for the farm’s
smaller animals:


“And this amazing thing the cat comes and drinks, the chipmunks come and
drink, the birds come and drink and the bees all drink from the same stone.”


These folks consider water to be a valuable resource. They use it to grow a
variety of fruits and vegetables on their eleven and a half acres. The farm is
a biodynamic farm. Which means it’s organic, but it kind of goes a few steps
further. Anne Elder says biodynamic farming emphasizes healthy soil, and
how to make soil benefit the most from water:


“Healthy soil means it’s alive, it’s active, it’s not compressed but fluffy. It
will have a lot organic matter which will make it more sponge-like rather
than compacted hard tight soil. So when it does rain or when moisture does come,
fluffy soil can take that in and it can just drain through and the roots can
absorb it.”


They till an organic compost into the soil. It’s made of manure, vegetable
matter, hay, and straw. And as biodynamic farmers, they spread herbal teas
on their fields. They do this to feed the plants, and to fight-off problems like
fungus. Their farm is in southeastern Michigan and they get plenty of rain
storms. Paul Bantle says they try to take as much advantage from the rain as
possible:


“Rainwater is way better than any kind of water you’re going to pull from
earth. Irrigation water is cold when it comes from 65 feet down, it’s cold.
Whereas rainwater is warm, in the summer, obviously. And in the late spring
and early fall.”


The thing about cold water is that it shocks plants that have been sitting in
the warm sun all day. And that’s no good. When they need to water the
fields, they pump water from a 65-foot well.


Bantle says he thinks long and hard before using this water for irrigation. He
doesn’t want to dig down further to tap deeper aquifers, even if that means
that the crops will go through a hard time:


“It’s an issue. I mean it’s a huge problem. So definitely I try to be very
conservative about pulling water for irrigation.”


Basically, there are two main irrigation techniques typically used in farming. The first is
drip or trickle irrigation, and this is what Bantle and Elder use. It’s a slow,
easy method that takes time for the water to soak deep into the soil. It’s kind
of like a light, slow rain.


The other technique is overhead irrigation. Picture your garden hose on
spray, with overhead irrigation the water sprays all over. The downside is
that it wastes water because it evaporates and runs-off from the fields.


Lyndon Kelley is an irrigation educator with Michigan State University and
Perdue Extensions. He says drip irrigation is like a mini-van and overhead
irrigation is like a school bus:


“It’s sort of like are you going to take three or four kids to the baseball game
after school each day, well then you’re going to take the mini-van. But if
you’re going to take fifty kids to the baseball game after school every day
then you’re going to want a school bus.”


So, drip is typically used on smaller operations and overhead is usually
used on the larger ones. But Kelley says drip irrigation can be used on larger
farms. It depends on how the roots of the plant take-in water. Grape
vineyards, tomato plants, and some other vegetables respond well to drip
irrigation.


The farm that Anne Elder and Paul Bantle run is a relatively small operation.
They pay a lot of attention to their crops and they water them accordingly,
and all that effort takes a thought and labor:


“It’s almost like a holding-back mentality. How can I let these plants do
what they need to do, until which time the rains will come.”


Farmers are going to have to reevaluate the ways in which they use
water. Some scientists believe climate change will make some places much
drier, and a growing population is already putting heavier demands on the
existing water sources.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

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Energy Bill by the Numbers

  • George W. Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. (White House photo by Chris Greenberg)

The energy bill signed by President Bush has a little bit of something to make almost
everyone happy. Lester Graham reports on some of the highlights:

Transcript

The energy bill signed by President Bush has a little bit of something to make almost
everyone happy. Lester Graham reports on some of the highlights:


The Energy Independence and Security Act is massive, but it can be boiled down to
just a few numbers. First, 35 miles per gallon by 2020… That’s when automakers
have to increase the fleet average by ten miles per gallon.


Second, 36 billion gallons by 2022. That’s when ethanol producers have to increase
production by a factor of five. And two-thirds has to come from sources other than
corn.


And these numbers – 100 watts, 60 watts – those kinds of incandescent lightbulbs
are to be phased out, replaced by more energy efficient lighting.


Most environmental groups can find something to like in the bill. Farmers like it for
the ethanol mandates. And big oil companies like the Act for what’s not in it:
billions of dollars of proposed taxes blocked by Republicans in the Senate.


For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Searching for New Bio-Diesel Source

The U.S. is looking for ways to depend less on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. A popular method is so-called bio-fuels. Those are fuels, such as
ethanol or bio-diesel, made from plants. Cleaner burning bio-diesel has been billed
as an environmentally-friendly replacement for our 60 billion gallon a year thirst for
diesel oil. But there aren’t enough crops or land to produce enough bio-diesel to
replace fossil fuel-based diesel. Amy Quinton reports new research is looking at
another way to make bio-diesel: using algae:

Transcript

The U.S. is looking for ways to depend less on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. A popular method is so-called bio-fuels. Those are fuels, such as
ethanol or bio-diesel, made from plants. Cleaner burning bio-diesel has been billed
as an environmentally-friendly replacement for our 60 billion gallon a year thirst for
diesel oil. But there aren’t enough crops or land to produce enough bio-diesel to
replace fossil fuel-based diesel. Amy Quinton reports new research is looking at
another way to make bio-diesel: using algae:


Bio-diesel is made primarily from plant oils: soybean, canola, rapeseed. Ihab Farag
is a chemical engineering professor at the University of New Hampshire. He climbs
up scaffolding to demonstrate a processor that turns waste oil from the University’s
cafeteria into bio-diesel. Farag says this is more environmentally-friendly than diesel:


“It’s coming from vegetable oil, so therefore it’s cleaner… it doesn’t have the sulfur in it so you
don’t get acid rain issue that you get from diesel, it doesn’t do particulates which are suspect[ed] to be cancer-
causing.”


Almost any diesel engine built in the last 15 years can use bio-diesel, but Farag says
there’s a major drawback: it takes an acre of most crops to produce only 100 gallons
of bio-diesel per year:


“I think it has been estimated that if we are using just something like soybean[s] and want to
produce bio-diesel for the whole country, we need almost an area of land that’s about
two and a half to three times the area of Texas.”


That would be an environmental nightmare because bio-fuels require a lot of fossil
fuels to plant, harvest and process them. They only produce a bit more energy than
the energy needed to make them. It also would put the nation’s fuel needs in conflict
with its food needs. That could drive the price of both sky-high.


So Farag and Master Chemical Engineering student Justin Ferrentino are looking at
another plant. One that’s capable of producing much more oil : algae.
Inside the University’s bio-diesel lab, Ferrentino holds up a glass jar filled with a sea-
green powder:


“This is freeze-dried cells that we’ve grown up in our photo-bioreactor.”


He’s testing different ways of extracting oil from these single-celled algae plants to
produce the most bio-diesel:


“People have projected with micro-algae you can grow somewhere between five and 15,000
gallons per acre per year, so it’s a big difference.”


Compared to 100 gallons per acre of soybeans, it’s a very big difference. Ferrentino
has built a contraption of two small fiberglass tanks, surrounded by florescent lights
and reflectors. It’s called a photo-bioreactor. With the right amount of light, the algae
here grows rapidly:


“When I fill these with growth medium and then add the cells to them and they just
multiply, they divide… they double every ten to 15 hours, when they’re growing
exponentially.”


The more cells, the more oil, and the more bio-diesel. Ferrentino’s photo-bioreactor
is small, producing only a tenth of a gram of bio-diesel. But build one on a larger
scale where there’s lots of sunlight, like the desert Southwest, and it could potentially
produce thousands of gallons on just an acre of land.


And Farag says because carbon is needed to fertilize algae growth, the potential
exists to remove greenhouse gases while simultaneously producing bio-diesel:


“If we can connect it with a wastewater treatment plant, where they have a lot of
waste coming in with lots of carbon in it then you can consume the carbon to grow
the algae and at the same time clean up the wastewater.”


But skeptics say one of the biggest challenges is making algae production
economical. Commercial production would initially yield fuel that could cost between
20 and 50 dollars a gallon. Ferrentino recognizes the drawbacks, but says their
research is worth pursuing:


“I think that our energy needs are not necessarily going to be solved with a magic
bullet, but I think this is certainly one part of it, being that you don’t need arable land
you have the added benefit of maybe being able to use the carbon from flue gases
from power plants, maybe being able to treat wastewater. So, it has some significant
added benefits so it could be one piece of the energy picture.”


But growing algae in the desert or anywhere else doesn’t have the kind of political
appeal that subsidizing farmers to grow soybeans for soy-diesel does. So finding
funding for a commercial-sized algae bio-reactor will face significant obstacles.


For the Environment Report, I’m Amy Quinton.

Related Links

Gao: Biofuel Distribution Problems

  • The GAO found distribution of biofuels is an obstacle to its wider use. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The federal government has no comprehensive plan to deal with an expected
increase in the production of biofuels. That’s according to a new study from
the Government Accountability Office. Dustin Dwyer reports that the lack of
a plan has some real consequences:

Transcript

The federal government has no comprehensive plan to deal with an expected
increase in the production of biofuels. That’s according to a new study from
the Government Accountability Office. Dustin Dwyer reports that the lack of
a plan has some real consequences:


Mark Gaffigan studies energy issues for the GAO. He says there are real problems
getting biofuel capable vehicles where they need to be. For example, when officials at the Post Office tried to buy these so-called flex-fuel vehicles, the only options available were trucks with a larger engine than it needed. On top of that, officials had trouble getting biofuel, so they just ran the vehicles on gasoline.


“So, in effect, what you had was the government with vehicles using more fuel, using
more oil because they weren’t as efficient, when the intent was to try to encourage people
to use flex-fuel vehicles and use some of this ethanol to displace oil.”


The GAO says the Secretary of Energy needs to develop a new strategy that considers
both the production and distribution of biofuels.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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Daylight Saving Not Saving Much

We’ll be springing ahead three weeks earlier than usual this
year. Congress has extended daylight saving time because the
politicians say it will save energy. Rebecca Williams reports
critics are not so sure:

Transcript

We’ll be springing ahead three weeks earlier than usual this
year. Congress has extended daylight saving time because the
politicians say it will save energy. Rebecca Williams reports
critics are not so sure:


Fans of extending daylight-saving time say longer daylight hours
in the evenings will save energy.


But critics of the change say it might actually be a wash.


Ryan Kellogg is a researcher at the University of California
Energy Institute. He studied what happened when Australia
extended daylight saving time.


“They did experience decreased electricity use in the evening
hours when they had more natural light. But they also saw
increased use in the morning when people were waking up in the
dark. Those two effects canceled each other out so on net,
extending daylightn saving time didn’t save Australia any energy
at all.”


U.S. politicians have been predicting we could save the
equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day by extending daylight
saving time. But critics say that’s misleading because most power
plants don’t run on oil.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Auto Show Shows More Green

This week, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit opens to the public. Every year, the event is a showcase for the newest trends for tomorrow’s cars and trucks, and this year, the big trend is fuel-efficient vehicles. Cleaner cars have been promised before, but Dustin Dwyer reports that this year’s green car concepts could be more than just an attempt to polish up a dirty image for the auto industry:

Transcript

This week, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit opens to the public.
Every year, the event is a showcase for the newest trends for tomorrow’s cars and trucks,
and this year, the big trend is fuel-efficient vehicles. Cleaner cars have been promised
before, but Dustin Dwyer reports that this year’s green car concepts could be more than
just an attempt to polish up a dirty image for the auto industry:


The press previews for this year’s Detroit auto show were made up of three straight days
of back-to-back new product launches. Dozens of new vehicles were unveiled. Hundreds
of glossy brochures were offered to reporters, and nothing generated as much interest as
the new Chevrolet Volt concept vehicle:


(Sound of buzzing)


A packed crowd gathered for the flashy and noisy unveiling. GM executives announced
that the concept car could run up to 40 miles without using a single drop of fuel. It runs
instead on electricity cranked out by its next-generation lithium-ion batteries. When the
liquid fuel system eventually does kick in, it recharges the battery for better fuel
economy, getting up to 150 miles per gallon.


And as GM CEO Rick Wagoner told the audience, the Chevy Volt represents a new way
of thinking for the world’s largest automaker. It comes from a realization that oil alone is
highly unlikely to supply enough energy for all of tomorrow’s vehicles:


“For the global auto industry, this means that we must as a business necessity, develop
alternative sources of propulsion based on alternative sources of energy in order to meet the
world’s growing demand for our products.”


GM wasn’t the only automaker to unveil a fuel conscious vehicle at this year’s auto show.
Ford’s Airstream concept, and Toyota’s FT-HS sports car concept both featured hybrid
style powertrain systems, backed by a lithium-ion battery.


It might not be all that surprising for automakers to release such vehicles after a year in
which gas prices surged beyond three dollars a gallon, but analyst Jim Hall of Auto
Pacific says gas prices aren’t the reason for automakers to get into low or no emission
vehicles.


“You do it for two reasons, one, the potential of getting out of the business of making a
mechanical engine that has to be machined and made of multiple pieces and assembled,
and the other part of it is, you never have to spend another penny on emissions controls,
and emissions research, and emissions development and emissions engineering, which, at
every major car company is billions of dollars.”


So, basically, greener technology will eventually be cheaper technology. That means that
for perhaps the first time in the history of the auto industry, the interests of
environmentalists and the interest of business-minded bean counters are finally in line.


The big question now is how to get to that greener future. The concepts at this year’s
Detroit auto show all point to lithium-ion batteries as the next frontier. These batteries
are more powerful, and potentially cheaper than the batteries in today’s hybrids, but
they’re also less stable, and don’t last as long.


GM executives say they think they can resolve those issues and have a lithium-ion
powered vehicle by the end of the decade, but Jim Hall says no way:


“I worked on an electric vehicle program when I was employed in the auto industry
directly, and I learned that there are three kinds of liars in the world. There are liars,
damn liars and battery engineers.”


Of course, not everyone agrees with Hall’s assessment. Some lithium-ion proponents
even argue that the technology could be ready to go right now. Ford, General Motors and
the Chrysler Group have asked the federal government for more funding to speed-
development of lithium-ion batteries.


They say the Japanese government is giving its car companies several hundred million
dollars for battery development, and they want a comparable effort from the US
government. But even if Detroit automakers don’t get the money, almost everyone agrees
that big changes are coming for the auto industry, and that decades-long battle between
the good of the environment and the good of carmakers could be coming to a close.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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A More Efficient Way to Make Ethanol?

The cost of oil is topping out near 70 dollars a barrel and the nation is sending billions of dollars to unstable foreign countries to get it.
With that
in mind, many Americans have begun to think about biofuels from domestic crops. Biofuels such as corn ethanol and soy diesel are the most popular right now. But researchers are looking into plants that don’t require the fertilizers and pesticides those crops need. The GLRC’s Richard Annal reports on one crop that could make ethanol much more efficiently:

Transcript

The cost of oil is topping out near $70 a barrel and the nation is sending billions of dollars to unstable foreign countries to get it. With that in mind many Americans have begun to think about biofuels from domestic crops. Biofuels such as corn ethanol and soy diesel are the most popular right now, but researchers are looking into plants that don’t require the fertilizers and pesticides those crops need. The GLRC’s Richard Annal reports on one crop that could make ethanol much more efficiently:


(sound of pouring liquid)


Researcher Timothy Volk is showing me some liquid that is on its way to becoming biofuel.


“So what comes out of this is a brown liquid.”


This murky brownish substance contains sugars that have been extracted from wood chips. Separating sugars from organic materials is an essential part in the production of the biofuel ethanol, and a new method being developed at the School might revolutionize that process. This lab is at the School of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, part of the State University of New York system. Everybody just calls the school ESF. What makes the process at ESF different is the use of water instead of harsh chemicals as a means of extracting sugar and the use of wood from a type of willow as stock material.


The extracted sugars are then fermented and used to produce ethanol. Mix 85 percent ethanol with 15 percent gasoline and you’ve got E-85. Several models of cars can burn E-85. It burns cleaner than petroleum based products, and reduces the dependence on foreign oils.


ESF’s Timothy Volk says this method differs from others being used, creates several by- products, and leaves very little waste material.


“What’s left over still looks like a wood chip. That could go to the paper industry, and you could still make paper out of it, or you could use that wood chip to produce renewable heat and power. One of the beauties of this is that from a ton of hard wood chips from the forest or willow or where ever it comes from you’re making multiple products and there’s not a lot left.”


For stock material ESF researchers are experimenting with the use of the willow shrub tree. This plant is native and grows to over ten feet tall. The researchers say willow beats corn hands down. You have to burn fuel to plant corn every year. Corn requires fossil fuel-based fertilizers, and you only use the corn kernels rather than the whole plant to produce ethanol.


Jim Nokas is one of the lead researchers on the project. He sees the willow shrub as much more commercially viable than corn-based production.


“The best calculations we have for every unit of energy put into this process you get anywhere from 11 to 15 units of energy out. Compared to the best data available for corn, for every unit of energy put in, one would obtain 1.67 units of energy out.”


In other words, producing ethanol from willow is about ten times more efficient than using corn.


Tom Linberg is a commissioner with the New York State Department of Agriculture. Linberg says he’s excited by the prospect of wood-based ethanol production, and sees growing a low maintenance crop like willow as a way for farmers to earn extra cash.


“I think it’s something that could provide an option for a lot of farmers or land owners to use vacant land. Try and get some income off of it whereas they might otherwise not be getting income off the land. It’s a fairly low impact crop. You know, you plant it once and you don’t really need to do anything else with it, and this is something they could have on the side. Brings in some extra income and, again, helps keep that land productive.”


Willow can be harvested 6 to 7 times before replanting is necessary. It has a year long growing and harvesting season, and provides high yields. With about 2 million acres of dormant farmland in New York alone that could be dedicated to willow production, Volk believes growing willow for ethanol would have a positive effect on the local economy that buying foreign oil cannot offer.


“The real benefit here then is we build them here and it’s locally produced material, so you buy it from the land owners, or the farmers that are producing willow, the people that own wood lots. You buy all that material locally from the local community. You produce the ethanol and hopefully then we are using it locally in the community, and instead of sending energy dollars out of the state we cycle them around the local community and get lots of benefits associated with them.”


The researchers say the willow-to-ethanol process will be ready for commercial application within two years, and if it proves commercially viable the timing couldn’t be better. With ethanol plants being built across the nation, the wood method could become an efficient alternative to corn-based production in many states.


For the GLRC, I’m Richard Annal.

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Chemicals Leak Into Microwave Popcorn

Scientists have found that microwave popcorn could be a source of a chemical that might cause cancer in humans. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

Scientists have found that microwave popcorn could be a source of a chemical that might
cause cancer in humans. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:


(sound of microwave popcorn)


Alright, I like microwave popcorn too, and I don’t like where this study is going, but the
Food and Drug Administration found that the grease-resistant coating inside microwave
popcorn bags can get into the popcorn oil. The coating is made with chemicals similar to
those found in non-stick pots and pans.


Tim Begley is a research chemist with the FDA. He was the lead author on a study
published in the journal Food Additives and Contaminants:


“A microwave popcorn bag is a very, very, very extreme situation, because of the heat
generated on a microwave popcorn bag.”


He’s talking about 400 degrees in just a minute or two. The chemicals used to make the
grease resistant coatings can break down into a suspected carcinogen known as PFOA,
but Begley stresses it is not known whether people are exposed to PFOA after eating a
bag of microwave popcorn. He says more study is needed.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

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Capturing Carbon Dioxide From Coal Plants

  • This is an artist's concept of how the FutureGen coal-burning power plant would look. The FutureGen power plant would confine the carbon dioxide that it generates and store it deep underground. (Photo courtesy of the Department of Energy)

We’re hearing more and more these days about global warming and how human activity is believed to be changing the climate. A lot of the blame has gone to pollution from coal-burning plants that produce electricity. Now, the U-S wants to build a plant that would capture and store the pollution… if it can find the right site. The GLRC’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

We’re hearing more and more these days about global warming and how
human activity is believed to be changing the climate. A lot of the blame
has gone to pollution from coal-burning plants that produce electricity.
Now, the U.S wants to build a plant that would capture and store the
pollution…if it can find the right site. The GLRC’s Julie Grant reports:


The U.S Department of Energy is chipping in 750-million dollars to the
build what’s called the FutureGen coal-burning power plant, and a
consortium of power companies is contributing an additional 250-
million. That’s a billion dollars of investment.


It’s exciting to Craig Stevens. He’s a spokesman with the Department of
Energy.


“FutureGen could revolutionize the way we use coal in this country and
around the world.”


We get most of our electricity from power plants that burn coal and belch
out greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. But Stevens says
FutureGen would be a cleaner coal-plant…


“And that’s important because today, we in the U.S have a 250 year
supply of coal reserves. It is our most abundant fossil fuel. These
electric plants actually burn coal to produce electricity for millions of
Americans. One of the things we want to do is to use this coal in an
environmentally sensitive manner.”


The hope is that FutureGen will capture the carbon dioxide it generates
to store it deep underground. Scientists plan to purify and liquefy the
CO2, so it’s a water-like substance. Then they want to inject it into the
earth. They plan to dig wells 9000 feet deep for CO2 storage. They also
want to use the space left behind from old coal mines, oil and gas wells.


Geologist Neeraj Gupta is with Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus.
He’s been researching what’s known as carbon sequestration since
1996…


“And that time this was just the beginning of an idea that you can take
carbon dioxide emissions from large industrial sources, you know, such
as power plants, and you can purify that, to make like a pure CO2s
stream. And, just like you produce oil and gas from the deep geologic
formations, you can take that CO2 and inject it back into the ground into
those same or similar deep geologic formations.”


Gupta says in the same way fossil fuels are trapped deep in the earth,
carbon dioxide could be trapped underground for millions of years, but
there are a lot of uncertainties.


Dr. Rattan Lal is director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration
Center at Ohio State University.


“Uncertainties are… is there going to be leakage? Either at the place
where it’s being injected or several miles away where there might be a
geological fracture in the rock strata.”


Lal says areas that have the right kind of rock layers and are not prone to
earthquakes, would be the best places to experiment with a project like
FutureGen.


Mark Shanahan is director of Ohio’s Air Quality Development
Authority. He thinks his state might be the perfect place because it has
the right kind of geology. At the deepest levels, the rocks aren’t entirely
solid. They’re porous, like a sponge, but with microscopic holes.
Scientists expect those tiny holes to absorb the CO2…


“The second thing is that that porous geology has to be beneath another
formation that is not porous, so the non-porous formation serves as a cap
on top of your CO2. So, once you put it into the porous formation, it
can’t go up.”


So the CO2 is trapped underground… hopefully permanently. Other
states, besides Ohio, think they also have good places for the plant.


The Department of Energy is currently reviewing proposals and plans to
pick a site by late next year. The agency wants to have FutureGen up
and running by 2012.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Grant.

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