Kenneth Richards, Visiting Speaker
Expert Outlines Benefits, Challenges of Carbon Capture and Storage
While capturing carbon dioxide and storing it deep in the ground offers a potential solution to climate change, the policy and legal problems of burying CO 2 pose significant obstacles, according to Ken Richards, a faculty member in law and economics at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.
Richards, whose research focuses on climate change policy and environmental policy implementation, outlined several of those obstacles Tuesday (March 25) in his talk, “Preparing for Carbon Capture and Storage: Policy and Legal Considerations,” co-sponsored by the Center for Energy and Environmental Risk and the Geosciences Department.
Richards explained that concerns about CO 2 have caused several states to mothball or cancel plans for almost 60 coal-fired electricity plants, a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions. But he also noted that interest is high in new electricity plants (using both coal and natural gas) which include carbon capture and storage. Legislation passed by the U.S. Senate on climate change includes funding for carbon capture and storage (CSS), and even one major presidential contender has promised to fund 10 carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects.
Richards described how injecting CO 2 into the ground offers some potential advantages beyond simply keeping the gas from going into the atmosphere. Injected CO 2 may enhance recovery of deep oil and gas reserves. It may also help in the production of methane. Finally, studies suggest that CO 2 could be kept safely below the surface for millions of years—if the sites were well designed and managed.
But CCS facilities also introduce a host of problems, one of which is the sheer volume of the area needed to store captured CO 2. As Richards described, carbon storage requires 750 acres for every million metric tons of CO 2. So, a subsurface area of about 3,500 acres would be needed annually to handle the CO 2 produced by a 630-megawatt power plant recently approved in Edwardsport, Ind. The plant is expected to produce 4.5 million metric tons of CO 2 each year, according to Richards.
“In an ideal world, you would need 3,500 acres, but that’s if the underground area is homogeneous—which most areas aren’t,” Richards said. Richards explained how the carbon capture potential of an underground area depends on the geological formation in that area.
The costs of carbon capture and storage also raise red flags about this solution. Depending upon the method used, the price tag for capturing, transmission and storage of CO 2 is estimated at between 2.5 cents/kilowatthour (kWh) and 3 cents/kWh, Richards said. The costs of measurement, monitoring and verification also need to be factored in.
Yet another issue involves ownership of and liabilities for the subsurface area.
“These sites will cover large areas which likely will be held by many different owners,” Richards said. “Will states need a new eminent domain? How will we handle migration of the CO 2 across state boundaries?”
These are questions yet to be answered, and the answers to those questions will likely determine how effective CCS will be in addressing carbon disposal issues.
Richards serves as the director of the Indiana University at Oxford Program and also as associate director of the Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy. He has published extensively on U.S. carbon-policy strategies and on carbon sequestration in particular.