First U.S. Large-Scale CO2 Storage (Permanent Deposit) Project Advances

Decatur, Illinois is the site - click here for their demographics

http://tinyurl.com/cv8rct

This article is an excerpt from the DOE web site - click here to access the full story.


"Issued on: April 6, 2009

First U.S. Large-Scale CO2 Storage Project Advances

One Million Metric Tons of Carbon to be Injected at Illinois Site

Washington, D.C. - Drilling nears completion for the first large-scale carbon dioxide (CO2) injection well in the United States for CO2 sequestration. This project will be used to demonstrate that CO2 emitted from industrial sources - such as coal-fired power plants - can be stored in deep geologic formations to mitigate large quantities of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) hosted an event April 6 for a CO2 injection test at their Decatur, Ill. ethanol facility. The injection well is being drilled into the Mount Simon Sandstone to a depth more than a mile beneath the surface. This is the first drilling into the sandstone geology since oil and gas exploratory drilling was conducted between 15 and 40 years ago. No wells within 50 miles have been drilled all the way to the bottom of the sandstone, which the storage well will do.

The project is funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

"This test represents an exciting step forward in the Department's collaborative efforts to develop America’s carbon sequestration capabilities," said Dr. Victor K. Der, Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy. "In Decatur, we're moving from theory to application."

A collaboration between ADM and the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC), the injection test is part of the development phase of the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program managed by the National Energy Laboratory (NETL) for the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE).

The project will obtain core samples of the Mount Simon Sandstone during drilling that will be used in analysis to help determine the best section for injection. The sandstone formation is approximately 2,000 feet thick in the test area.

From 2010 to 2013, up to one million metric tons of captured CO2 from ADM’s ethanol production facility in Decatur will be injected more than a mile beneath the surface into a deep saline formation. The amount of injected CO2 will roughly equal the annual emissions of 220,000 automobiles."