녹색성장 : 이산화탄소 배출을 지하세계로……

 

Nestled in the heart of American coal country sits the mountaineer power plant. “What’s this part of the process?” “This is a CO2 compressor.” The newest part of the plant, a 5-story multimillion dollar structure that began operating this fall, makes this facility a one of a kind experiment, as the world’s first ever coal fired power plant to capture and store some of the carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as a heat trapping내쏘다 pollutant.

 

Project manager Brian Sherrick says the West Virginia plant has received worldwide attention. The project is an expensive partnership between plant owner American Electric Power and French company Alstom. The two companies are spending more than $1million to capture just a tiny fraction of the plant’s carbon emissions under 2%.

 

The new technology called carbon capture and sequestration격리 essentially works this way. Carbon dioxide is compressed, liquefied and injected thousands of feet under ground into porous다공성의 rock, sealed off by a layer of less porous rock above to hold the CO2 in place. “We need to be doing many more demonstrations of the carbon storage part of the equation균형 방정식.

 

In the shadow of the plant, just across the river, local resident Elicia Young worries about safety. “This is an experiment. The nature of an experiment is that you do not know what will happen.” She’s concerned about carbon dioxide injections triggering seismic activity지진활동 or leaking out of the reservoirs저수지. Plant owner American Electric Power maintains it is taking proper safety precautions. It’s drilled wells around the injection sites to monitor ground water and keep track of where the carbon dioxide goes. “Catastrophic risks are, probably, I would say minimal.”

 

Geology professor Tim Carr of West Virginia University believes if done properly in the right location, underground rock formations can store carbon dioxide safely. And now a big boost for the project: The US Department of Energy has announced $334 million in stimulus money over the next 10 years. For American Electric Power to expand its carbon capture and storage operation. Company officials say they are also investigating renewable energy, but say putting that infrastructure into place will take time.

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