1,000 metric tons per day — from an ethanol plant!
The Los Angeles Times reports,
A demonstration project in Illinois is the first in the U.S. to begin pumping over a million metric tons of man-made liquid CO2 into permanent underground storage. The Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium announced this week that its project in Decatur, Ill., had begun injecting carbon dioxide into sandstone formations 7,000 feet below ground.
Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration is a key strategy for combating the industrial emissions that contribute to global warming. In this case, the carbon dioxide is a byproduct of ethanol production in a nearby plant run by Archer Daniels Midland. The project is a joint project by the University of Illinois, ADM and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy.
Robert J. Finley, leader of the project and director of the Advanced Energy Technology Initiative at the University of Illinois, was excited to talk about it, saying: “In the Midwest, and specifically here in Illinois, we’re beginning to document that the geology is very suitable for the storage of carbon. The production of biofuels from crop products can be a very effective way to reduce the carbon footprint of our liquid fuels because you’re taking that liquid CO2 and putting it in the ground.”
Making ethanol, then, becomes a carbon pump. Plants such as corn fix CO2 that is taken from the air. Then, during the production of ethanol for fuel, the CO2 is released and captured, dehydrated and compressed into a liquid, then run through a short pipeline and directly into the ground.
Finley points out that, as a demonstration project, working with an ethanol plant has distinct advantages. With a coal-fired power plant, for example, much of the expense of a sequestration project involves separating the CO2 from the other gases in the smokestack emissions, which are about 12% to 14% carbon dioxide. The fermentation tanks in ethanol production, however, produce about 99.9% carbon dioxide, which is then easily gathered at low cost at the rate of about 1,000 metric tons per day…
1,000 tons per day is about is about 0.0012% of annual manmade emissions. No word on the cost of this extravagance to taxpayers who are paying for this nonsense.
The first CO2 injection project in the US? Not hardly. Try 1972 in the Permian Basin.
It may be time to evacuate Decatur, IL. I guess no one remembers the carbon dioxide upset at Lake Nygos in the Cameroon in 1986. 1700 people and countless cattle died because the heavy carbon dioxide squeezed out the oxygen in the air. I wouldn’t live within 20 miles of one of these carbon dioxide sinks.
To our comrade Nos Lapre in Sydney, Australia; don’t you have a carbon tax going into effect January 1 next year?
12 one hundred thousandths of 1%. Whoohoo, I’ll sleep good tonight, until I realize the cost of this exercise in stupidity.
Is it not true, that the U.S. supreme Court in june of this year, has ruled CO2 a harmless gas, which is vital to life on earth and nobody has the right to tax/atack it? I also believed, that it is CO (carbon monoxide) which is the culprit of pollution and not CO2. Why is it then, that those zealots still persist in spreading lies about CO2 and squander billions of tax-payers’ dollars? Only corrupt groups and individuals benefit from those hare-brained ideas, like banks, investors, corrupt “scientists” and bureacrats and of course, groups like Greenpeace, W.W.F. and other self-interest groups and not the average, hardworking tax-payer, or pensioner. Should the Supreme Court not fine the perpetrators for ignoring that ruling?
Nos Lapre from Sydney, Australia.
Should be no problems, as Decatur, IL isn’t in the middle of the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone. Just on the edge.
It is important to recognize that we are not dealing with logic or science. AGW is a religion which uses taxpayer money as incentive for converts. Choose any religion. Now imagine if 100 dollar bills were given out during services!
“Drilling for gas or oil or fracking causes earthquakes and poisons the water!!!!! It also causes deer to fall over dead at the sight of a well!!!”
But sequestering CO2 3,000 down saves the planet?