Carbon capture and storage is key to cutting carbon emissions, but it will take time and a lot of money to make it a reality.

While electric cooperatives lead the utility industry in implementing energy efficiency programs and supplying power from renewable energy, they are also on the cutting edge when it comes to testing and deploying carbon capture and storage technology (CCS). Carbon capture and storage remains a sophisticated, complex process that involves isolating carbon dioxide from other power plant emissions. The collected gas is then compressed, pumped into spent oil and natural gas wells, saline reservoirs, or inaccessible coal seams and, in theory, entombed forever.

As electric utilities strive to meet increasing demand for safe, reliable and affordable electricity in an environmentally responsible fashion, CCS stands, according to a recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology report, “as the critical enabling technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly.” Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for contributing to climate change, gets released into the atmosphere when fossil fuels, like coal and natural gas, are burned to produce electricity.

A 2007 study released by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a non-profit utility-sponsored organization whose members include electric co-ops, finds that U.S. electric utilities can help the nation cut carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2030 by taking aggressive steps in seven principal areas. The most significant reductions, EPRI notes, will come from CCS technologies. “But much work still needs to be done on CCS,” emphasizes George Offen, EPRI senior technical executive.

EPRI points out that building advanced, more efficient coal-fired plants with carbon capture and storage technology will boost capital construction costs by around 40 percent, while the cost for retrofitting existing plants, if possible at all, could run 60 to 80 percent of a new facility.

Moreover, we have to solve the problem of ultimately storing carbon dioxide. “Storing carbon dioxide in a variety of geological formations is something we do not understand. We have to do more research to determine whether it’s even feasible and then address all of the other issues—the policy and regulatory concerns—that go along with it,” says Clark Gellings, vice president of technology at EPRI.

To date, no coal-fired power plants are equipped with CCS technology. And just three plants worldwide remove carbon dioxide from natural gas production and store it underground. Out of these three, the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, operated by Basin Electric Power Cooperative—a Bismarck, N.D.-based generation and transmission (G&T) co-op, supplying wholesale power to 126 member co-ops in nine states—starts the process with coal, which is turned into a synthetic natural gas.

Every day, the Great Plains Synfuels Plant sends 8,700 tons of captured, compressed carbon dioxide via a 205-mile-long pipeline buried 4 feet underground to depleted oil fields in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, where the gas helps bring more oil to the surface. Over the years, more than 10 million tons of carbon dioxide have been captured and shipped in this manner.

Additionally, Basin Electric Power Cooperative has recently selected a developer to launch a CCS demonstration project at its 900-megawatt (mw) coal-fired Antelope Valley Station, located next door to the Synfuels plant. But a CCS venture of this scale will face significant technical and economic challenges: transferring this technology to a large-scale, existing coal-fired power plant has never been done.

Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, a G&T based in Benson, AZ, that supplies wholesale power to six distribution co-ops in the Southwest, will participate with three other Grand Canyon State utilities in the $4 million Arizona Utilities Carbon Dioxide Storage Pilot Project sponsored by the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership—one of seven U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) large-scale carbon storage initiatives.

The Cooperative Research Network (CRN), an arm of the Arlington, VA-based National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), which represents the interests of electric co-ops, has joined a DOE sequestration project near Gaylord, MI, where 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide derived from a natural gas processing plant are being captured and stored in underground saline formations. The Michigan site features most elements of a complete sequestration system, including a compression plant, an 8-mile-long supercritical pipeline, and injection and monitoring wells.

If electric utilities are to implement CCS on a commercial scale by 2020, major projects with coal-fired plants need to begin soon, and they are not going to come easy or cheap. Government funding akin to the Apollo moon program will be needed for research and development.

Glenn English, CEO for NRECA, argues that Congress needs to invest in new and emerging technologies required for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

“Electric co-op consumers are conscious that there is a price to pay for addressing climate change,” he concludes. “If Congress is serious about meeting our nation’s energy challenges, then it needs to move forward in providing the funding needed to create sustainable, long-term solutions based on new technology.”

Jennifer Taylor writes on consumer and cooperative affairs for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

Carbon: The Basics
Carbon, the basic building block of life on Earth, has recently become a celebrity of sorts. Most students receive a formal introduction to carbon in science class, but for those of us who missed out on (or have forgotten) the lessons, here’s a quick summary:

Car ∙ bon (noun): A naturally abundant, non-metallic element that occurs in all organic compounds and can be found in all known forms of life. Diamonds and graphite are pure forms.

Concentrated carbon also makes up the fossil fuels we use to produce approximately 70 percent of our nation’s electricity (primarily coal and natural gas). When those products are burned, carbon combines with oxygen and gets released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

For better or worse, carbon dioxide molecules can last for a century or more in the atmosphere, where they soak up heat. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the atmosphere contained 280 parts per million. Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are currently at 390 parts per million and climbing, with some projections estimating 450 parts per million by 2040. As a result, carbon dioxide is considered a “greenhouse gas” blamed for contributing to climate change.

In the United States, power plants that burn fossil fuels produce about 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year, which is about 39 percent of the nation’s man-made output (the largest single source). Since 1 pound of the gas would fill a beach ball a few feet across, imagine almost 5 trillion beach balls being made every year—enough to fill more than 600,000 football stadiums.

There are several ways to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, some of which take place naturally. Forests, for example, act as a sponge for 15 percent of all carbon emissions in North America. Researchers are even working to develop “synthetic trees” that use absorbent filters to capture carbon dioxide from free-flowing air and prepare it for commercial use or permanent storage deep underground.

Another process is called “carbon capture and sequestration,” through which carbon dioxide can be captured, in an advanced coal power plant, and stored underground. When the technology becomes available on a commercial scale, the result could be huge reductions in the amount of carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere.

Technology holds the key to tackling challenges connected to climate change. Cooperatives will play an active role in this effort.

Scott Gates writes on technology and energy efficiency for NRECA.