Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
1/9/2015
The Illinois Basin-Decatur Project, led by the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium and the Department of Energy’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships, has officially stored 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide roughly 7,000 feet underground into the Mount Simon geologic formation, DOE announced this week. “This milestone is an important step towards the widespread deployment of carbon capture technologies in real-world settings,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a release. “The successful testing of these technologies and the lessons learned support a range of industries in the region, while also reducing the amount of emissions in the atmosphere and protecting the planet at the same time.”
The IBDP project has been undertaken to “validate the capacity, injectivity and containment of the Mount Simon sandstone,” according to a Global CCS Institute fact sheet. The carbon injected was captured from the Archer Daniels Midland Company ethanol-production facility in Decatur, Ill., and was transported roughly one mile via pipeline before being injected. The project was intended to inject roughly 1 million tonnes of CO2 over three years. Injection at the IBDP project began in November 2011. According to the DOE release “the injection test performed better than expected, sustaining pressure increases well below regulatory limits.”
Once the IBDP Project is completed, its facilities will be integrated into the Illinois Industrial CCS Project (Ill-ICCS) Project with operations amped up to a commercial scale, injecting approximately 1 million tonnes of CO2 every year for five years. Carbon dioxide from the Ill-ICCS Project will also be injected in the Mt. Simon geologic formation, but at a different location. “A significant benefit of these complementary projects is the opportunity to study the interaction between the CO2 plumes and pressure fronts emanating from two injection wells in the same sandstone formation,” the GCCSI fact sheet notes. The Ill-ICCS Project received its class VI Underground Inject Control permit from the Environmental Protection Agency in September 2014, one of the first such permits ever approved.
