Mountaineer Coal Plant Launches First Carbon Storage Project

Mountaineer power plant in West Virginia recently unveiled their breakthrough in carbon storage technology. As the first coal-fired power plant to implement this technology at a commercial scale, mountaineer will be liquefying their carbon-dioxide and pumping it deep underground. While this will drastically decrease the carbon footprint of the Mountaineer power plant, environmental groups are upset that the utility is using research money on carbon sequestration rather than renewable technology like solar and wind power.

Further concerns exists about the effect of filling these underground spaces with liquid carbon. There are concerns that this practice could contaminate and acidify groundwater, and even trigger earthquakes. It is also theorized that poisonous metals in the ground could by pushed upward by the liquid carbon, creating soil contamination issues, which the EPA states will require special regulation reguarding liability, post-closure site stewardship, and cost analysis that factors in risk.

Some have viewed carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a "license to build more coal plants." The New York Times quoted Davit Holtz from the Progress Michigan environmental groups as saying that "coal is the drug of choice of a major industry with a lot of political power," and that CCS is little better than a methadone cure for addiction. An editorial on Fast Company echoed these remarks, but also stated that "we can hope that coal will fade away when renewable alternatives emerge. Until then, we may have to give clean coal a smudgy embrace as a key part of our energy near-future."

The CCS project at the Mountaineer power plant is slated to capture a maximum of 300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year — about 4% of the plant's total emissions. If major breakthroughs are made, it is expected that this technology will spread to other power plants in the area, which is called "Megawatt Alley" in the energy industry for the density and size of the generation facilities there. Even with successful CCS implementation, other pollutants like nitrous oxide and mercury will still be associated with burning coal.

This project was partially funded by the CCS equipment manufacturer, Alstom, who hopes to be the leader in the industry via their research and manufacturing efforts at the Mountaineer power plant. Alstom stated that "successful operation of this plant over several years will demonstrate the viability of CO2 capture and storage on a large scale." While figures have not been made public, the New York Times estimates that the two companies are spending in excess of $100 million.