The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is trying to make sure the fight against global warming doesn't result in polluted groundwater supplies.
Advertisement
The agency proposed Tuesday its first regulations concerning the large-scale underground injection of a global warming gas — carbon dioxide.
The move opens the door for power companies to inject carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants into the ground, where they won't contribute to climate change.
The rule is designed to protect groundwater that could mix with those injections. The regulations may not be finalized until 2010 or 2011.
Carbon capture and storage technology has never been successfully used on a large scale. For power companies to use it, carbon sequestration would have to become less expensive than paying to pollute.
Injecting carbon dioxide into the ground is not new. But the scale of storage used to deal with coal power emissions would be unprecedented.
Carbon sequestration shoots slightly liquefied gas more than 2,000 feet into the ground, where it should stay partially liquid and not move much, according to the EPA rule.
Thank you for joining our conversations on NewsOK.com. We encourage your discussions but ask that you stay within the bounds of our terms and conditions. Please help us by reporting comments that violate these guidelines. To review our rules of engagement, go to Commenting and posting policy.
Editor's note: It is not our intent to offer comments on crime or fatality stories.
Leave a comment.
Log in below or sign up (it's free).
No, they want to make the Earth belch. Or you could see it as botox for Earth. They already push waste salt water down wells how's all that carbon going to react when they get together. We will some day have salt water volcanoes. How about sending it up whenever someone shoots a rocket into space? Put it in fire extinguishers and send a million people to the forest fires in California. Send it to GITMO, I'm sure the marines would know what to do with it!
Sparky (Mark), Oklahoma City - Jul 16, 2008 11:06 AM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most companies who recover CO2 wind up selling it to soft drink and welding gas companies? Is that the point since that results in it returning to the environment visavis belches, farts, and MIG.
Saba Tahmassebi, chief engineer in the state Department of Environmental Quality's land protection division, said the state's oil and gas reserves could safely be injected with carbon dioxide.
The EPA rule says about 4 percent of carbon injection sites will be old oil and gas areas.
Tahmassebi said there are risks any time the environment is altered, but that the risks can be minimized if the right rock formations are used.
2
Thank you for joining our conversations on NewsOK.com. We encourage your discussions but ask that you stay within the bounds of our terms and conditions. Please help us by reporting comments that violate these guidelines. To review our rules of engagement, go to Commenting and posting policy.
Leave a comment. Log in below or sign up (it's free).Editor's note: It is not our intent to offer comments on crime or fatality stories.