Did you know that a 500-megawatt coal power plant produces about 4 million tons of CO2 emissions a year? Considering all the power plants that are in the world, that’s about 31 billion tons of CO2 combined! What’s bad is that the U.S. accounts for about 7 billion of these greenhouse gases.
The state of Montana produces about 6% of the world’s coal reserves, mainly from fossil fuel burning coal-fired electric facilities, so it is working towards finding a way to reduce these emissions and to stabilize the CO2 that is already in the air.
Montana State University’s Energy Research Institute in Bozeman has already created a $79 million study to do just this.
The Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership
So how does MSU’s Energy Research Institute plan to reduce the CO2 emissions from the fossil fuel burning facilities? The key is in rocks that absorb the CO2 emissions like a sponge.
The scientists want to see if saline rock formations deep under the Earth’s core can store the CO2 emissions after they are injected into the ground through wells. This plan was devised because it was discovered that CO2 has been naturally trapped 4000 feet under the surface of the Earth for millions of years. So if we can inject CO2 into the ground, this will be a great way to reduce the CO2 emissions starting in Montana and five other surrounding states.
But there are concerns. They are:
- Groundwater contamination
- Leaking gas through existing wells
- The layers of porous rock also need an impermeable layer of cap rock
Because of these concerns, a small pilot test is currently underway in Washington to see if it can be replicated on a larger land mass scale.
Also, at a Wyoming test site that covers about 1000 square miles, the layer of sandstone is 550 feet thick and the cap rock is 75 feet thick. If the CO2 injections work in this area, it could potentially store about 50 billion tons of CO2.
So, what do you think about this green energy storage solution? We think that it’s definitely a unique way to solve the greenhouse gases problem, and we hope that it will prove to be eco-friendly and safe.
Want to read more blog posts on CO2 emissions? Check these out:
- Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Record High
- EPA Sued for Not Regulating Greenhouse Gases
- New Material Captures Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Source: Great Falls Tribune
