Comment Answers from someone who works there (Score 1) 94
I may be able to clarify a few things from the article. While I am not an expert in the field, I actually work for the college where the injection well is located (we're right across the street from the ADM corn processing plant). This project is part of a 30-year study into carbon sequestration; the injection well has been actively functioning for about 10 years now (the well head is about 200 yards away from my office).
To answer some basic questions: ADM is in the business of turning corn into high-fructose corn syrup & a lot of other food-related stuff; they have corn dryers that are roughly the size of apartment blocks which run 24/7/365 to prepare the raw material for processing. To provide enough electrical service for this operation, ADM has their own power plant onsite, and they are beginning work to build another eco-friendlier plant (which is what spurned the Bloomberg article). Currently, some of the CO2 that is created from the power plant & drying towers is captured & converted into a liquid form. The liquid is then pumped a well head (which is situated on my college's property) and injected about 1200m underground into a gigantic cavern in the Mt. Simon Sandstone (underneath the Eau Claire shale). The shale acts as a "seal" to prevent the CO2 from directly returning to the surface, and over time, the CO2 diffuses into the sandstone, and breaks down into its basic elements.
That's the simplified version we explain to visitors. Once the new power plant is built, it is supposed to inject a much higher percentage of CO2 & potentially serve as a model for lower-pollutant energy production. The real question is whether or not this process can provide a net benefit to society, which is what the new power plant & ongoing research is supposed to begin to determine.
If you want additional information, you can peruse the fact sheet for this project on MIT's (now-defunct) Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies site: https://sequestration.mit.edu/... And I'm happy to pass along any questions to our faculty member who teaches carbon sequestration; he can explain things much better than I can!
To answer some basic questions: ADM is in the business of turning corn into high-fructose corn syrup & a lot of other food-related stuff; they have corn dryers that are roughly the size of apartment blocks which run 24/7/365 to prepare the raw material for processing. To provide enough electrical service for this operation, ADM has their own power plant onsite, and they are beginning work to build another eco-friendlier plant (which is what spurned the Bloomberg article). Currently, some of the CO2 that is created from the power plant & drying towers is captured & converted into a liquid form. The liquid is then pumped a well head (which is situated on my college's property) and injected about 1200m underground into a gigantic cavern in the Mt. Simon Sandstone (underneath the Eau Claire shale). The shale acts as a "seal" to prevent the CO2 from directly returning to the surface, and over time, the CO2 diffuses into the sandstone, and breaks down into its basic elements.
That's the simplified version we explain to visitors. Once the new power plant is built, it is supposed to inject a much higher percentage of CO2 & potentially serve as a model for lower-pollutant energy production. The real question is whether or not this process can provide a net benefit to society, which is what the new power plant & ongoing research is supposed to begin to determine.
If you want additional information, you can peruse the fact sheet for this project on MIT's (now-defunct) Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies site: https://sequestration.mit.edu/... And I'm happy to pass along any questions to our faculty member who teaches carbon sequestration; he can explain things much better than I can!
