FirstEnergy plant is chosen for study

All in all, more than $18 million in research will go to the Midwest sites.
AKRON (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Energy has picked an eastern Ohio coal-fired power plant as a test site to determine whether carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by injecting the emissions far below the ground.
The technology is designed to capture the gas, considered a major factor in global warning, before it enters the atmosphere and inject it into pits such as coal mines, abandoned oil fields or saltwater aquifers.
"If it works out as hoped, that will be huge as far as ensuring the coal-fired power plants do have a future," Mark Durbin, a spokesman for Akron-based FirstEnergy, owner of the R.E. Burger Plant in Shadyside. "Anything we can do to add some flexibility to our energy needs is big."
The site is one of 25 nationally and the first in the Midwest. The department is working on the Ohio project with the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, a 30-member team led by Columbus-based Battelle Memorial Institute, the world's largest nonprofit research organization.
The partnership has received $18.1 million to fund this and other projects with $14.3 million coming from the federal government.
More than half of the nation's electricity is generated by coal. In Ohio, that figure is nearly 90 percent, according to the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority.
The partnership has found that rock formations around the Burger Plant, near Shadyside along the Ohio River, include porous sandstone layers thousands of feet below the ground with a dense cap rock above it -- conditions potentially well suited for storing carbon dioxide.
Testing planned
The partnership plans tests over the next four to six months. If the results are favorable, the partnership would begin the process of obtaining permits to drill a test well 4,000 to 7,000 feet deep with the goal of inserting a small amount of carbon dioxide to see how it works.
No decision has been made about how much Burger will get from the Midwest's $18.1 million research pie. Other sites will be considered, Battelle spokesman Mark Berry said.
Industry and government in several countries are spending billions to study underground injection. Ohio also is one of several states competing for a $1 billion power plant with nearly pollution-free emissions that includes capturing global-warming gases and inject them underground.
Another project involves planting trees and plants around the Earth to absorb excess carbon dioxide emissions from the air.
FirstEnergy is among 25 utilities that belong to PowerTree Carbon Co. LLC, a $3 million consortium established to curb emissions by planting more trees in Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi.