Burying 100 Years of Carbon Under Illinois

The Department of Energy will pay $66.7 million to study how to store carbon dioxide underground in the Mount Simon Sandstone Formation, a geologic formation that also spans parts of Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

The DOE thinks this rock formation has the potential to lock up 100 years worth of the carbon dioxide produced in the region, 5,500 feet underground for millennia. Given that this region has some of the oldest, biggest and most highly polluting coal-fired power plants in the nation, the project could eventually allow the region to continue using coal, even if a price is put on carbon emissions.

The fourth test project of its kind in the United States, and one of only a handful in the world, it aims to store about 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide per day from an Archer Daniels Midland Company ethanol plant in Decatur, Ill.

The Department of Energy believes North American geologic formations can store 1,000 years worth of carbon dioxide. Three previously announced projects are planned in the Great Plains, the Southeast and the Southwest. Canada, Norway and Algeria are also undertaking similar test projects.

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