May 18 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Patricia Liles Alaska Journal of Commerce, Anchorage

While the nation debates possible solutions to the escalating U.S. energy crunch, a University of Alaska Fairbanks professor is working to advance a carbon dioxide sequestration project. That, combined with increased coal consumption, could provide long-term, low-cost energy in an environmentally balanced manner.

Paul Metz, director of the Mineral Industry Research Laboratory at UAF, described his proposed project at a mining conference held in Fairbanks in March.

The initial project, which would involve testing three sites for underground storage of carbon dioxide emissions, is the first step in a process that could ultimately help answer the nation's energy crisis.

"The U.S. is rapidly depleting our petroleum reserves, consuming 22 million barrels a day," Metz said. "What is important to know is that we've been blessed with a large amount of coal."

Alaska's coal resource is estimated at 5.5 trillion tons, he said, enough to meet the current U.S. energy demand for at least 1,000 years, if all the nation's energy consumption was converted to coal.

And that's not an unrealistic option, Metz said. "Sixty percent of the nation's electricity is generated with coal," he said, adding that technology to convert coal into liquid fuels exists.

One key problem with converting to coal-fired energy is dealing with the resulting emissions, a growing concern with the ongoing global warming debate.

Federal emissions regulations and the current political movement towards reducing emissions by up to 70 percent were discussed in separate presentations by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Patrick Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute at the March conference.

"This will strangle certain industries," Murkowski said. "There's talk that we would be better to get emissions legislation to President George Bush this year. Even if we don't like it, it will be better than what we will face next year. This is a very, very real issue for us, for Alaska."

Technology currently does not exist to reduce U.S. emissions by the 70 percent being discussed by national politicians, Metz said. "We would have to go back to a very primitive agricultural society where everyone is out hoeing the fields instead of having tractors working. There is not an understanding of the ramifications of stopping using fossil fuels," he said. "That's not a solution, but there is a technical one to prevent emissions from adversely impacting the environment. Science is there and technology is very close."

Instead of imposing stricter emission standards on the nation's industries, Metz proposes a geologic answer to carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal. The answer is storing greenhouse gases underground in mafic volcanic rock formations, which account for more than five-sevenths of the Earth's crust.

"This is a geotechnical problem," Metz said, in a telephone interview in early May. "By far, 99.99 percent of the Earth's carbon is sequestered or stored as carbonate minerals?if we're going to look at ways to store carbon, we should look at how the Earth stores it."

Carbon is most often combined with three other elements-calcium, iron or magnesium-to form a group of minerals called carbonate minerals, such as limestones and dolomites, Metz said.

Mafic volcanic rock, which typically has high concentrates of iron, magnesium and calcium, is formed under very high temperatures and pressures and when exposed to the surface of the earth, weathers and chemically alters. "We can do the same thing that Mother Nature does, only very quickly," Metz said. "Converting mafic volcanics to clay soil takes time because the reactions are temperature dependant. At higher temperatures, it occurs much faster."

Compared to the ambient temperatures on Earth of 20 to 30 degrees Centigrade, ambient temperatures out of the stack of a coal-fired power plant would range from 700 to 800 degrees Centigrade, Metz said. "The high temperatures of carbon dioxide react very quickly with iron, magnesium and calcium, converting to carbonates?permanently storing carbon as either limestone or dolomite."

Additionally, the chemical conversion process gives off heat, which, if captured, could add to the amount of energy produced by the coal plant, Metz said. In addition to storing carbon dioxide, the process may allow recovery of copper, nickel and platinum minerals from the volcanic rock, Metz said.

Not only would greenhouse gases be stored underground, but particulate emissions, mercury and other heavy metal emissions that typically come out of the stack of a coal-fired power plant would be captured and stored, Metz said.

Two projects already in the works to demonstrate carbon dioxide storage are the Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Regional Partnership Project in the Columbia River Plateau and the National Thermal Power Corporation of India Project-Deccan Traps, located in northwestern India.

Metz is working with other researchers at the Michigan Technological University to secure $2.7 million in funding for a project that would evaluate three sites for potential carbon dioxide storage, two in Alaska and one in Michigan.

"We will evaluate chemistry and the structure of rocks to determine whether sufficient conditions allow process to occur at those sites," Metz said. "It would be proposed surface work and some preliminary subsurface work, with bore holes at each location."

The proposal is among several energy-related projects for which the university is seeking federal and state funding. The site evaluation project is just the first step in developing a demonstration project.