Quietly, and with little fanfare, an experiment is in progress in West Virginia to see if carbon extracted from coal can be safely stored thousands of feet below the earth’s surface.

For some 18 months, the research has been undertaken at the Mountaineer plant of American Electric Power Co. in New Haven to see if the by-product of coal can be put away without harming the environment — an integral part of clean coal technology.

The project is a joint venture by that utility and Alstom, a global leader in transport and energy infrastructure that operates in 70 countries; RWE, the second-largest electricity producer in Germany; the National Energy Technology Laboratory; and Battelle Memorial Institute, a global energy diversification firm based in Ohio.

As of Sept. 1, the project will take its first major step in testing the reliability of injecting CO2 underneath the earth.

“It’s awe-inspiring, for sure,” reflected Sen. Mike Green, D-Raleigh, who organized a five-hour tour of the installation in last week’s interims session for the legislative leadership.

“The facility within itself is impressive. The technology and the science behind what they are doing was very impressive. It’s going to be a daunting task as far as making this happen on a commercial scale.”

In the initial phase, the plan calls for injecting CO2 into about 6,000 feet of cap rock, a different formation in the core of earth that isn’t porous, Green explained.

“Whenever they go through different layers of the earth’s core, they will concrete about that casing and go down until they get to the actual injection site,” he said.

“They’re looking for porous materials. The project they have now is nearly 100 percent as far as none of that CO2 coming back through the surface.”

The chairman of the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee said he considers clean coal technology and carbon sequestration vital to the economic future of West Virginia.

“West Virginia’s economy depends on the exportation of coal and its use as a worldwide energy source,” Green said.

“This fact-finding mission was designed to help the Legislature understand more about this new technology.”

Green said the experiment becomes even more critical now that Congress is debating a proposed cap-and-trade bill that some fear would come to the detriment of West Virginia’s mining industry.

“This could be the savior that saves coal,” he said.

In the project, the Office of Fossil Energy within the federal Department of Energy has invested $7.2 million, while Alstom and AEP put up $1.4 million. The price tag for the geological research at Mountaineer ran to $4.2 million.

The idea is to test Alstom’s chilled ammonia technology for CO2 capture from flue gases particular to natural gas combined cycle power plants. In a side venture, AEP is working in tandem with Babcock & Wilcos on the development of oxyfuel combustion technology at a 30-megawatt facility in Alliance, Ohio.

“One thing we’ve got to continue to promote is clean coal technology,” Green said.

“We’re so dependent on coal, not only in West Virginia, but the nation. If the administration continues to scrutinize the carbon emissions from coal, that’s something that West Virginia and the other coal-producing states will have to take the lead on.”

Green wasn’t sure what kind of time frame the experiment is functioning under but indicated one injection site would be closed and capped, then another would be explored.

“They’ll be monitoring the initial site pretty quickly, I believe,” he said.

Beckley coal operator Chris Cline operates two mines feeding most of the inventory at the plant, one across the river in Ohio, the other near New Haven.

“It’s a local West Virginia operation,” Green said. “It is using West Virginia coal. This plant 120 miles away (from Beckley) will have a huge impact on Raleigh and Wyoming counties. It will give our local coal industry an opportunity to keep producing coal.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com