Published: September 07, 2008 03:16 pm      

Summit explores carbon capture, storage ideas

NDIANAPOLIS — With federal greenhouse gas limits possible in the near future, Indiana's utilities could soon face the challenge of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants that generate most of the state's electricity.

A state-sponsored two-day summit exploring that issue and fledgling technologies that could eliminate carbon dioxide emissions by burying the liquefied gas far below ground drew about 150 people this week to the IUPUI campus.

Gov. Mitch Daniels told the gathering of business, academic and environmental leaders that the nation seems poised to set limits on carbon dioxide emissions to combat climate change.

With those caps likely coming, he said Indiana needs to be a leader in so-called carbon capture and sequestration — removing carbon dioxide from industrial emissions before it enters the air and burying it deep underground beneath dense layers of rock.

"We've got to be ready. We've got to know how, because I think this will be the decision our society makes," Daniels told the group Wednesday. "... We need to move quickly from the realm of the abstract to the real and come to grips with the challenges."

Both Barack Obama and John McCain advocate cutting carbon dioxide emissions. The presidential contenders also support the idea of a cap and trade system that would force companies that cannot meet emission targets to pay for the right to pollute.

If the next Congress moves to pass such rules, it would impose a particular burden on Indiana, which gets 95 percent of its electricity from coal-fired power plants that produce about 130 million tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Rising carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming have prompted scientists around the world to start testing technologies to pump liquefied carbon dioxide deep underground to keep it out of the atmosphere.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates there is enough space underground in North America to store more than 3 trillion tons of carbon dioxide.

Duke Energy, which is building a $2.35 billion coal-gasification plant in Edwardsport in southwestern Indiana, has a proposal before state utility regulators to test technology to capture and store the 630-megawatt plant's carbon dioxide below ground.

Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, who addressed the conference Wednesday, said the Charlotte, N.C.-based company utility is committed to developing carbon sequestration technologies.

"The way we'll work our way through this issue is with technology," he said. "We can build a bridge to a low-carbon world and on the way we can create jobs and investment that will pay off in many different ways."

The Indiana Geological Survey is taking part in a federal study that's assessing the potential of storing carbon dioxide in a sandstone layer far beneath the Edwardsport plant, which is set to open in 2012.

John A. Rupp, the geological survey's assistant director for research, said Indiana has storage space for potentially tens of billion of tons of carbon dioxide in layers of sandstone shale between hundreds and thousands of feet below the surface.

"The aquifers and shales in Indiana have enormous capacity, or presumed capacity. The real numbers aren't going to be known until you actually do some drilling," he said.

Jesse Kharbanda, executive director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, said he's glad the state is having a "serious conversation on how we can decarbonize coal." He attended both days of the summit, which ended Thursday.

But Kharbanda said Indiana also needs a renewable energy standard committing the state to producing a higher percentage of its energy from wind and solar power, and to pursue energy efficiency that can cut power usage by encouraging businesses to upgrade with new equipment.

"It's important to have a discussion on coal, without question, especially for a state as heavily dependent on it as Indiana is. But I think it's also important to have a vigorous discussion about energy efficiency, above all," he said.



Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.