WASHINGTON (AP) - How to regulate the capture and storage of greenhouse
gases -- a climate-change prevention technique still being worked out by energy
companies -- will be the focus of a Senate hearing on Thursday.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to receive
testimony about carbon dioxide capture, transportation and sequestration from
officials at various federal agencies and an executive at oil and gas producer
Denbury Resources Inc.
As state and federal regulators consider rules that would put a price on
emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, many energy-intensive
industries are developing plans to store it underground. Carbon dioxide is a
byproduct when fossil fuels, such as natural gas and coal, are burned.
Archer Daniels Midland Co. and a group of state agencies will begin storing
carbon dioxide more than 6,000 feet beneath the company's Decatur, Ill., campus
starting in October 2009. The $84.3 million project is one of seven nationwide
the Energy Department is using to test whether the greenhouse gas can be
captured and stored.
Elsewhere, Peabody Energy Corp., the world's largest private coal company,
last week said it had joined with GreatPoint Energy to develop coal-to-natural
gas plants in Wyoming that would produce cleaner-burning fuel and less
pollution.
Coal plant delays and cancellations have swept the country in recent months
as states attempt to address environmental concerns, but Peabody and Cambridge,
Mass.-based GreatPoint said their plants would use a GreatPoint-licensed
technology to capture some carbon dioxide and store it underground.
Denbury Resources in June agreed to buy and use all of the captured carbon
dioxide from Rentech Inc.'s proposed clean synthetic fuels plant to be built in
Natchez, Miss. Under the agreement, Denbury will build a pipeline and transport
the captured carbon dioxide produced as a byproduct at the Rentech facility and
will then inject the gas underground into depleted oil fields to produce
otherwise unrecoverable oil reserves. The companies expect to share the value of
any government or voluntary carbon emissions reduction credits available from
the arrangement.
Tracy Evans, Dallas-based Denbury's senior vice president, is scheduled to
testify before the Senate committee along with officials from the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, the departments of Transportation and Energy, the
Environmental Protection Agency and others.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|