The Twin Sisters outcrops near Wallula, Washington, are made of basalt. MSU and its p

[ScienceRocks]

"The Twin Sisters outcrops near Wallula, Washington, are made of basalt. MSU and its partners will inject carbon dioxide into other basalt that’s found in southeast Washington and half a mile underground."

Published on July 28th, 2013 | by Nathan

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Storing CO2 Underground In Basalts — Regional Experiment Begins In Southeast Washington

One of the first large-scale experiments to test the feasibility of safely storing carbon dioxide in underground rocks is now under way in southeastern Washington state — about 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide are right now being injected half a mile down into the ground on property owned by Boise Inc. The CO2 is being injected directly into old geological formations which mostly consist of ancient basalt flows — the enormous lava flows lie under the ground of much of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon.

The experiment — which is being led by researchers from Montana State University (MSU) — is being done primarily to test the safety and permanence of such storage methods. “We are excited to be conducting, through our partners, the world’s first injection of pure carbon dioxide into basalts,” stated Lee Spangler of MSU, director of the Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership which is managing the research project. “Basalts have the potential to store over 300 years of the carbon dioxide emissions in the six-state Big Sky region. Perhaps more important is their storage potential in countries with rapidly increasing energy use, specifically China and India.”

This current experiment is what is considered to be a ‘Phase II project’ — one relatively small when compared to the approaching ‘Phase III project’ where one million tons of CO2 will be injected into the ground at Kevin Dome in Montana’s Toole County.

The Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership is being funded primarily by the US Department of Energy (DOE), in partnership with Boise Inc, Praxair Inc, and Battelle. The project — which relies only on already available/proven technology — has the stated goal of finding cheap, effective, and safe, means of storing the country’s CO2 emissions.