Alabama Power and it’s parent company Southern Natural began a carbon sequestration project in Alabama earlier this year with a five million dollar federal grant.
The beginnings of a new research endeavor may spell the end of underground carbon sequestration hopes as well as another multimillion dollar waste of tax payer money.
If carbon dioxide (CO2) gas is found to penetrate the abandoned mine shafts that some companies plan to store it in for an infinite period of time the gas can acidify ground water and eventually acidify streams and rivers. A lower pH in rivers (CO2 and water make carbonic acid) caused by CO2 could result in massive destruction of plant and animal life in the area. Most of the CO2 would evaporate from the water back to the atmosphere.
A research team at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has developed tools in EMSL, a national user facility at PNNL, to study the effects of supercritical CO2 on minerals commonly found in potential storage sites. They are presenting their results on October 20, 2010, at the AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition, which takes place this week at the Albuquerque Convention Center in New Mexico.
"The mechanisms of surface interactions with carbon dioxide under these conditions are unknown," says Scott Lea of PNNL. "We need to know if the carbon dioxide can dry out the clay minerals, creating cracks or have other interactions that could create pores in the rock."
Because carbon dioxide will be stored at pressures many times greater than atmospheric pressure, the integrity of the rock must be assured.
The same temperature and pressure conditions create a challenge for researchers trying to observe changes in rock samples as they occur. The PNNL group will present a high pressure atomic force microscope (AFM) head that can integrate with existing commercial systems. The new AFM is designed to handle pressures up to 1500 psi. The presentation will show that the AFM head is capable of operating at temperatures and pressures required to maintain carbon dioxide in a supercritical state and that the noise levels are low enough to observe the atomic scale topographic changes due to chemical reactions that may occur between mineral substances and supercritical CO2.
The presentation abstract can be read here.
As a professional membership organization, AVS fosters networking within the materials, processing, and interfaces community at various local, national or international meetings and exhibits throughout the year. AVS publishes four journals, honors and recognizes members through its prestigious awards program, offers training and other technical resources, as well as career services.
Comments
I believe AP has come out and announced they were "abandoning" this ill-advised taxpayer fleece at their Barry plant, don't know about the others. Maybe you can find out and inform us?
Even if this project does continue, they aren't doing any GWM at the Gaston plant to begin with. Don't imagine they'll start in response to this, because then it may blow the lid off of what the coal ash has been doing to the GW for a long time anyway.
Please stay after this Mr. Hamaker.
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