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The U.S. Department of Energy has granted SIUC $300,000 to investigate a possible solution to carbon dioxide emissions from coal power plants, said Jay Means, dean of the College of Sciences.
Means and physics professor Vivak Malhotra are collaborating on a carbon-capture project designed to test the effects of carbon sequestration, or capture. In a carbon-capture system, power plants pump emitted carbon dioxide gas into underground formations such as coal seams or aquifers instead of into the air.
The grant money would cover the costs of equipment and preliminary experiments, which could determine if seismic activity would release stored carbon dioxide and other contaminants into the air, Means said.
A stainless steel, temperature-controlled chamber will be used to subject carbon dioxide stored in rock samples to seismic activity, Means said.
John Mead, director of the Coal Research Center, said research on technologies that manage emissions is important because better use can be made of the large reserve of coal in the area.
“We depend on coal for about half of our electricity today,” Mead said. “It’s a pretty big part of the energy mix in this country.”
Mead said processes such as carbon capture would allow the use of coal resources while other energy sources are developed.
“There’s going to be a transitional period which could be decades long,” Mead said. “Technologies that can use processes such as ... carbon capture could give us much cleaner systems than we’re using today.”
Brent Ritzel, director of public education for Equitech, a partnership of companies dedicated to developing sustainable energy, said carbon capture needs to be researched. While carbon-capture systems should be researched, he said he would also like to see the Department of Energy invest more money in sustainable energy.
“My big problem with this concept is that it’s not sustainable; the planet would be just one big seltzer bottle,” Ritzel said.
Carbon-capture systems are limited by the amount of underground storage space and the amount of energy it can provide, Ritzel said.
“Even if we burn through all the coal on the planet, it would still only take us (through) another 100 to 200 years,” he said. “Anybody who looks at this rationally has to see there’s limitations to it. And if there’s limitations to it, it’s not sustainable.”
