SALT LAKE CITY—The University of Utah and a Utah company plan a joint operation to bury carbon dioxide from power plants deep beneath the ground.
In plans announced Tuesday, the university and Headwaters Inc., based in South Jordan, would team up on a regional carbon sequestration project capable of burying about a billion tons of liquid carbon dioxide in central Utah.
The work is in anticipation of nationwide limits—not yet in place—on carbon emissions, which are linked to the world’s changing climate. Organizers said once those limits are in place, utilities will be looking for ways to reduce their pollution. One solution, they said, could be burying carbon dioxide beneath the ground.
For several years, Brian McPherson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the university, has been testing underground storage of naturally occurring carbon dioxide using grant money from the federal Department of Energy.
Utah’s geology makes it an ideal place to store carbon dioxide, McPherson said. Parts of the state have several stacked layers of porous rock formations interspersed with dense muddy bands that would make it very difficult for buried carbon dioxide to migrate back to the surface.
In some cases, the carbon could be pumped a mile or more beneath the surface.
McPherson said there are three parts of the state that could host perhaps hundreds of spots where carbon is forced underground and stored.
One of those places is on state land near Price, where the university and Headwaters are looking at a commercial application for large-scale carbon sequestration.
Headwaters officials said the regional sequestration site could have enough room to sequester 50 years’ emissions from at least six 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants.
Development could still be years away, require miles of pipeline to be built and require regulatory changes. So far, no companies have made a commitment to have their carbon sequestered at the facility.
But it’s a first step, organizers said.
The partnership is an outgrowth of the Utah Science Technology and Research Initiative launched in 2006 to expand state universities’ commercial research capabilities in the hopes of spurring economic development.
On Tuesday, Gov. Jon Huntsman acknowledged that many were skeptical when the initiative was unveiled. But the carbon sequestration project is a “big, bold, bodacious” partnership, the first of many he hopes to see.
“There’s no success like success,” Huntsman said at a news conference announcing the proposal.
Kirk Benson, chairman and CEO of Headwaters, said coal will continue to be a dominant fuel source in the coming decades and it makes sense to expect limits on carbon. Any effort to reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent to 80 percent will almost certainly require sequestration, he said.
His company already works at about 100 power plants reclaiming waste coal piles and ponds and converting fly ash into building products. Sequestration is a logical next step, he said.
The project with the university, Benson said, will safely and effectively store carbon dioxide “where it will never again see the light of day.”
