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S. HRG. 110–265 

CLEAN COAL, OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT, NEW 

ENERGY OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH CARBON 

CAPTURE AND STORAGE 

HEARING 

BEFORE A

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SPECIAL HEARING 

AUGUST 13, 2007—BISMARCK, ND 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia, Chairman 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BEN NELSON, Nebraska 

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

LARRY CRAIG, Idaho 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado 

LEMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

CHARLES KIEFFER, Staff Director 

BRUCE EVANS, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota, Chairman 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

LARRY CRAIG, Idaho 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado 

Professional Staff 

DOUG CLAPP

ROGER COCKRELL

FRANZ WUERFMANNSDOBLER

SCOTT O’MALIA (Minority) 

BRAD FULLER (Minority) 

Administrative Support 

ROBERT RICH
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Opening Statement of Senator Byron L. Dorgan .................................................. 1 

Statement of Carl O. Bauer, Director, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Department of Energy ................................................................................ 4 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 5 

How is DOE Responding to These Issues? ............................................................ 6 

Opportunities for Synergy Between Coal and Oil Industries .............................. 7 

Statement of Ronald R. Harper, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager, Basin Electric Power Cooperative ............................................................. 16 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 17 

A Comprehensive Solution to a Complex Problem ............................................... 18 

Coal—a Necessary Part of the Solution ................................................................. 18 

An Example for the Future—the Great Plains Synfuels Plant ........................... 18 

Two Paths Forward for Coal ................................................................................... 19 

Technology Horserace—a Balanced Approach to Incentives ................................ 19 

Enhanced Oil Recovery—a Bridge for Technology ................................................ 20 

Statement of John Weeda, Plant Manager, Coal Creek Station, Great River 

Energy ................................................................................................................... 20 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 22 

Statement of Rod Nelson, Vice President, Schlumberger Limited on Behalf 

of the National Petroleum Council ..................................................................... 23 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 25 

NPC Report Findings and Background ................................................................. 25 

Carbon Capture and Sequestration ........................................................................ 27 

Statement of Jeffrey N. Phillips, Program Manager, Electric Power Research 

Institute ................................................................................................................ 30 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 32 

Summary of Key Points .......................................................................................... 33 

Accelerating RD&D on Advanced Coal Technologies with CO2 Capture and 

Storage—Investment and Time Requirements .................................................. 33 

Reducing CO2 Emissions Through Improved Coal Power Plant Efficiency ........ 35 

New Plant Efficiency Improvements—IGCC ......................................................... 36 

New Plant Efficiency Improvements—Advanced Pulverized Coal ...................... 40 

Improving CO2 Capture Technologies .................................................................... 44 

Pre-combustion CO2 Capture (IGCC) ..................................................................... 44 

Post-combustion CO2 Capture (PC and CFB Plants) ........................................... 45 

Oxy-fuel Combustion Boilers .................................................................................. 46 

CO2 Transport and Geologic Storage ..................................................................... 46 

CCS in the United States ........................................................................................ 47 

CO2 Transportation ................................................................................................. 49 

Policy-related Long-term CO2 Storage Issues ....................................................... 49 

Long-term CO2 Storage Liability Issues ................................................................ 49 

RD&D Investment for Advanced Coal and CCS Technologies ............................ 49 

Prepared Statement of Dr. Gerald H. Groenewold, Director, Energy & Environmental Research Center, University of North Dakota ................................ 62 

(1) 

CLEAN COAL, OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT, 

NEW ENERGY OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH 

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE 

MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2007 

U.S. SENATE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT, 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, 

Bismarck, ND. 

The subcommittee met at 9:38 a.m., in the Pioneer Room, State 

Capitol Building, Hon. Byron L. Dorgan (chairman) presiding. 

Present: Senator Dorgan. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BYRON L. DORGAN

Senator DORGAN. I call the hearing to order. This is a hearing 

of the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee. The hearing subject is clean coal, oil and gas development and new energy opportunities through carbon capture and 

storage. 

I’m Byron Dorgan, chairman of this Appropriations subcommittee. The ranking member is Senator Domenici from New 

Mexico, who is not able to be with us today, but I’m pleased that 

Franz Wuerfmannsdobler is here. Franz is a principal staffer on 

our Energy and Water Subcommittee dealing principally with energy issues. 

I want to thank all of you for coming. This is a very interesting 

subject, and I want to make just a couple of comments as we begin 

and then I will call on a number of witnesses. 

We’re talking a lot about energy independence these days because we are, in my judgment, dangerously dependent on foreign 

sources of oil. Sixty percent of our oil comes from outside of our 

country, much from troubled parts of the world. If, God forbid, 

something should interrupt the oil pipeline tomorrow morning from 

Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iraq, or you name it, our economy, our 

country, would be in very serious trouble. And because we are dangerously dependent on foreign sources of oil, we’re talking about 

how we become less dependent and, therefore, identify the domestic 

resources we can use to become less dependent. 

We have abundant resources of fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural 

gas. We have substantial opportunities in renewable fuels and 

we’re going to do much more in all of these areas. There’s a lot of 

talk about renewable fuels, and we know that we’re doing a lot on 

wind energy in North Dakota, which I’ve supported for a long 

while. We’re seeing ethanol plants being developed and biomass as 
2 

well; we’re seeing a lot of new things happening in the renewable 

fuels area. 

But this should not suggest that we are not going to use our fossil fuels. We are. I don’t think anyone believes that somehow in a 

short, intermediate or long term that we’re not going to continue 

to use fossil fuels. The question isn’t ‘‘whether.’’ The question is 

under what conditions we use them. 

And I say that because these days things have changed with respect to those calculations. Now you can’t discuss these issues without discussing climate change in the same breath. We’ve come to 

an intersection where the issue of climate change relating to energy production and the use of energy is a significant part of many 

future policy discussions, and so we’ll be talking about that today. 

We’re now seeing some of the highest prices for oil and gasoline 

that we’ve seen in the history of this country. We know that 80 to 

90 percent of the proven oil reserves on this Earth of ours are controlled by entities owned by foreign governments—let me say that 

again, 80 to 90 percent of the known and proven reserves are 

owned by entities or controlled by entities that are owned by foreign governments. That’s an important thing to understand in 

terms of the geopolitics of our planet. 

We stick little straws in our planet and we suck oil out of this 

planet that we live on. We suck out about 84 million barrels a day, 

and we use one-fourth of that here in the United States of America, 

about 21 million barrels a day. So we take out about 84 million 

barrels every day out of this planet. We have a prodigious appetite 

for it here in the United States of America. Saudi Arabia has what 

we think to be the world’s largest reserves of oil, 265 billion barrels, but it is not clear that that’s a good number. It’s just the best 

number people have. And as I said, 265 billion barrels—not million, 

billion barrels. 

In the history of oil production in our country, since we started 

producing oil and discovered oil, we’ve produced about 195 billion 

barrels of oil in the United States, and reports indicate that there 

are about 20 billion barrels that are estimated reserves in this 

country at the moment. We also hear that, even though those are 

the reserves that are estimated, there are about 200 billion barrels 

more that remain residually in geographically complicated, partially produced or perhaps even mature oilfields that are potentially achievable; that is, it exists, but is residual oil that is not 

pulled up under normal oil drilling circumstances. Why is that important? Why have I described that? Because we’re also going to 

use coal in the future. 

I have been working on this subcommittee to invest in research 

for coal development. I have increased substantially the President’s 

request for that research. The President has talked a lot about research, but had not quite the appetite to ask for the funding for 

it, so Senator Domenici and I substantially increased funding because we know this Nation is going to use fossil fuels. The question 

is how. And research to unlock the opportunities, for example, to 

have coal-fired generating plants that are zero-emission plants is 

research that, I believe, is very important to the future of this 

country. 
3 

But we also know that in the process of developing various types 

of energy, particularly in the area of coal-based energy, there are 

greenhouse gases that are emitted, CO2 primarily, and we know 

that there is a climate change issue that our country and the world 

is now concerned about. We also understand that with the largest 

reserves of coal, somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 years, perhaps much, much more than that, worth of coal at the current 

usage rates, we must continue to unlock the ability to use that coal 

without injuring our climate. 

And one of the ways to do that, I believe, that we’ve been discussing in our committee and funding research of, is to capture the 

carbon in coal-fired plants and sequester it in oil wells, which may 

enhance oil recovery. And when oil is $60, $70, $75 a barrel, the 

ability to use a product that you need to capture and contain anyway for beneficial use in an oilfield gives you the opportunity to 

help pay for the cost of capture. We could enhance substantial oil 

recovery and protect the environment, even as we continue to substantially use the coal resource that’s in such abundant supply. 

These issues kind of relate and we’re trying to determine through 

research what we can do, how we can do it, what is commercially 

capable now, what we think might be commercially capable with 

the use of new research and technology later. I won’t quote former 

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld about what we don’t know, what we 

don’t know what we don’t know, and he went on and on at length, 

but there’s a lot we don’t know. Some we do know. And as we follow the trail, follow the clues that lead us to believe that, through 

technology and research, we can continue in a very significant way 

to use our most abundant resource—fossil fuels—innovatively, by 

using the product of carbon that is produced in a beneficial rather 

than detrimental way, that could prove dramatic for this country’s 

energy future. 

I want our State to be a leader in this area. We have greater capability than, I believe, any other State in this country. We have 

abundant coal and we have substantial oil. I should mention to all 

of you that the U.S. Geological Survey has indicated to me that in 

early 2008 the Dr. Price study will be redone and we will know 

then what our Bakken shale potential is. If it is anywhere near 

what someone suggested it was we are on the threshold of substantial opportunities in oil development. And, in addition to that, we 

have opportunities in virtually every other form of energy production. Very few States—perhaps no State—has a greater capability 

than we do, and that’s why I’m excited about this. Producing energy for a hungry country and world is a very important thing to 

do. Energy production would enhance our economy, but also, if we 

do it the right way, contribute substantially to the well-being of our 

country. 

So we have a number of people here today. I want to just say, 

as I introduce those who will be testifying that there’s a lot of good 

work going on in North Dakota. We’ve got interesting things happening already, and have for some long while. We have the only 

coal gasification plant in the country—synthetic coal gasification 

plant. We’ve learned a lot from that and are still learning from it. 

We’ve got a lot of other inventive and interesting endeavors here; 

for instance what I think, is the world’s largest CO2 capture project 
4 

that pipes in to Canada for enhanced oil recovery. That’s the Basin 

Electric project. So there’s a lot going on. We’ve got a lot of other 

people that are engaged in new, interesting projects that can significantly enhance our energy future as well. 

So I thank all of you for coming and being a part of this. I want 

to introduce the first witness, Carl Bauer, the Director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Carl is someone who has a 

substantial relationship with the Senate Energy Committee in the 

sense that we call on him a lot for testimony and rely a lot on substantial cutting-edge research being done by him and the people 

who work at his national laboratory. 

Carl, welcome to North Dakota. Thank you very much and you 

may proceed. 

STATEMENT OF CARL O. BAUER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ENERGY 

TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Mr. BAUER. Thank you, Chairman Dorgan. I appreciate the opportunity to provide testimony on DOE’s advanced clean coal technologies and the program for carbon capture and storage. 

The economic prosperity of the United States over the past century has been built upon an abundance of fossil fuels. Making full 

use of this domestic asset in a responsible manner will enable the 

country to fulfill its energy requirements and its obligation to its 

people in the century ahead. 

Given current technologies, coal prices, and the rate of consumption, the United States has approximately a 250-year supply of coal 

available. 

The Nation is also the home to a large resource of oil. We have 

currently proven reserves—and I’m kind of rehashing what you’ve 

already said, Senator, but I’ll just go on with it—22 billion barrels. 

A recent study by Advanced Resources International for DOE identified 390 billion barrels of oil remaining in place after current production methods. The instrument that more than 40 billion barrels 

could be made economic if ready supply of low-cost CO2 was available and improved, technology for enhanced oil recovery was applied. There is a growing consensus that increased level of greenhouse gas emissions are linked to climate change, and fossil fuel 

use has been identified as a major source of these emissions, particularly of CO2. Slowing the growth of these emissions has become an important 

concern and both of these challenges, developing domestic sources 

of fossil fuels and reducing the emissions of CO2 from coal-fired 

power plants, can be addressed through the use of captured CO2

for enhanced oil recovery. While not the complete solution to either 

of these challenges, incremental oil produced from such applications could help offset the initial cost of CO2 capture and storage. 

The prospect of low-cost supplies of captured CO2 could provide the 

impetus for a national reevaluation of the EOR potential in many 

of the mature fields. Continued evolution of enhanced oil recovery 

and advances in developing and deploying CO2 captured from coal 

power could help realize this synergy between the coal and power 

industry and the oil industry. 

Though the challenges are significant, the United States is well 

positioned to capitalize on these synergies. Past DOE-funded re-
5 

search helped advance industrial enhanced oil recovery operations. 

Today the focus is on the carbon captured storage side problem. To 

date, for 35 years of enhanced oil recovery, only 1 billion barrels 

have been produced through the use of CO2 EOR, so there’s a great 

opportunity for a lot more oil to come forward. 

The Office of Fossil Energy’s coal R&D program provides for the 

development of new environmentally responsible, cost-effective approaches to coal use. It includes technologies that will either facilitate the efficient capture of CO2 from the coal-fired plants for subsequent sequestration or directly address the solutions for safe and 

permanently sequestering it in the underground reservoirs. Details 

of these programs are in my written testimony. 

With the core coal R&D program, the Carbon Sequestration Regional Partnership, of which North Dakota is one of the leaders, 

have brought an enormous amount of capability and experience together to work on the challenges of both infrastructure development and stored underground carbon. The partnerships are conducting field tests to validate the efficacy of carbon capture and 

storage technologies in a variety of geological and terrestrial storage sites throughout the United States and Canada. We are working with North Dakota’s Energy & Environmental Research Center 

on the Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership, which is defining the potential of sequestration in North Dakota, South Dakota, and in Alberta, Canada. EERC is also addressing issues related to low-rank 

subbituminous and lignite coal utilization. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

Developing the technologies needed to support a widespread expansion of CO2 EOR could substantially increase existing U.S. reserves and production. The DOE’s efforts are providing the elements needed to enable this expansion by advancing capture technologies to ensure a reliable low-cost supply of CO2 and improved 

EOR technologies to optimize for carbon sequestration co-benefits. 

Mr. Chairman, this completes my statement. I would be happy 

to take any questions you have. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CARL O. BAUER

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity to provide testimony on 

the Department of Energy’s advanced clean coal technologies and the program for 

carbon capture and storage. 

The economic prosperity of the United States over the past century has been built 

upon an abundance of fossil fuels in North America. The United States’ fossil fuel 

resources represent a tremendous national asset. Making full use of this domestic 

asset in a responsible manner enables the country to fulfill its energy requirements, 

minimize detrimental environmental impacts, and positively contribute to national 

security. 

Given current technologies, coal prices, and rates of consumption, the United 

States has approximately a 250-year supply of coal available. Coal-fired power 

plants supply about half of our electricity and are expected to continue to do so 

through mid-century. Because electricity production increases at a rate of about 2 

percent per year, the rate of coal use will increase proportionally. However, the continued use of this secure domestic resource will be dependent on the development 

of cost-effective technology options to meet both economic and environmental goals, 

including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. 

The Nation is also home to a large resource of oil. Although much of the Nation’s 

onshore petroleum resource has been produced, large volumes of crude oil remain 

in place after current production methods are exhausted. These resources are being 
6 

held in place by physical forces or left behind due to geologic complexity being both 

economically and technologically challenged. The total volume of this stranded oil 

is estimated by Advanced Resources International (ARI) of Washington, DC, to exceed 390 billion barrels, of which roughly 200 billion barrels are estimated to be relatively accessible at depths of up to 5,000 feet but do not have CO2 available for 

EOR. To put these numbers in context, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), we have produced about 195 billion barrels of our petroleum resource over the past 120 years and currently have proven reserves of roughly 22 

billion barrels (source: EIA online database, as of December 2005, crude oil, does 

not include natural gas liquids). 

Currently, there is growing consensus that increased levels of greenhouse gases 

in the atmosphere, primarily carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and 

chlorofluorocarbons, are linked to climate change. In this connection, fossil fuel use, 

in general, and coal-fired power plants, in particular, have been identified as a 

major source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Slowing the growth of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions has become an important concern. 

Both of these challenges—developing domestic sources of fossil fuels and reducing 

emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants—can be addressed 

simultaneously through the use of captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). 

While not the complete solution to either of these challenges, incremental oil produced from such applications could help offset the costs of CO2 capture, while the 

prospect of low-cost supplies of captured CO2 in widespread areas of the country 

could provide the impetus for a national re-evaluation of the EOR potential in many 

mature fields. While EOR is a mature technology that has been in commercial use 

for decades, CO2 capture from coal power is not yet commercial. Continued evolution 

of EOR and transformational advances in development and deployment of CO2 capture from coal power could help realize this synergy between the coal/power industry and the oil industry. 

HOW IS DOE RESPONDING TO THESE ISSUES?

While the challenges are significant, the United States is well positioned to capitalize on these synergies. The oil industry has been using CO2 for EOR in commercial applications for decades. As early as the 1970s, DOE-funded projects were assessing the fluid properties of CO2 to establish its applicability in EOR. A special 

focus was given to developing correlations that helped the oil industry utilize these 

properties to optimize commercial EOR projects. During 1993–2003, DOE funded 

nearly half of the $100 million spent on the Class Program CO2–EOR Field Demonstration Projects in six States. Approaches included the use of horizontal wells for 

improved reservoir contact, four-dimensional seismic to monitor the behavior of CO2

floods, automated field-monitoring systems for detecting problems, and the injection 

of increasingly larger volumes of CO2 to increase recovery rates. In summary, this 

DOE-funded research has helped advance industrial EOR operations, but the focus 

is now on the carbon sequestration side of EOR, which is a developing technology, 

rather than the oil production side of EOR, which is a mature technology. DOEfunded research continues to include some research on EOR. 

The Office of Fossil Energy’s core coal R&D program provides for the development 

of new cost- and environmentally-effective approaches to coal use. It includes technologies that will either facilitate the efficient capture of CO2 from coal-fired plants 

for subsequent sequestration or directly address solutions for safely and permanently sequestering it in underground reservoirs. These programs include gasification, advanced turbines, fuel cells, FutureGen, and carbon sequestration, and are 

described in more detail below. 

Gasification 

Gasification is a pre-combustion pathway to convert coal or other carbon-containing feedstocks into synthesis gas, a mixture composed primarily of carbon monoxide and hydrogen; the synthesis gas, in turn, can be used as a fuel to generate 

electricity or steam, or as a basic raw material to produce hydrogen, high-value 

chemicals, and liquid transportation fuels. DOE is developing advanced gasification 

technologies to meet the most stringent environmental regulations in any State and 

facilitate the efficient capture of CO2 for subsequent sequestration—a pathway to 

‘‘near-zero atmospheric emissions’’ coal-based energy. Gasification plants are complex systems that rely on a large number of interconnected processes and technologies. Advances in the current state-of-the-art, as well as development of novel 

approaches, could help reveal the technical pathways enabling gasification to meet 

the demands of future markets while contributing to energy security. 
7 

Advanced Turbines 

The Advanced Turbine Program consists of a portfolio of laboratory and field R&D 

projects focused on performance-improvement technologies with great potential for 

increasing efficiency and reducing emissions and costs in coal-based applications. 

The Program focuses on the combustion of pure hydrogen fuels in MW-scale turbines greater than 100 MW size range and the compression of large volumes of CO2. Since advanced turbines will be fuel flexible, capable of operating on hydrogen or 

syngas, they will make possible electric power generation in gasification applications 

configured to capture CO2. 

Fuel Cells 

Fuel cells could help support the efficiency and emission targets of future power 

plants, such as FutureGen. In order to ensure the ability to site future power plants 

in any State in the country, low emissions of criteria pollutants will be required. 

Fuel cell emissions are well below current and proposed environmental limits. Their 

modular nature permits use in central or distributed generation with equal ease. 

Rapid response to emergent energy needs is enhanced by the modularity and fuel 

flexibility of fuel cells. The ultimate goal of the program is the development of lowcost large (>100 MW) fuel cell power systems that will produce affordable, efficient, 

and environmentally friendly electrical power from coal with greater than 50 percent higher heating value (HHV) efficiency, including integrated coal gasification 

and carbon dioxide separation processes that capture at least 90 percent of the CO2

emissions from the system. The cost goal for fuel cells in coal systems is to achieve 

a ten-fold reduction in the fuel cell system cost. 

FutureGen 

FutureGen is a $1 billion Government-industry initiative to design, build, and operate an advanced, coal-based, Integrated Gasification Combined-Cycle (IGCC) 

power plant to: 

—Co-produce electricity and hydrogen; 

—Achieve near-zero atmospheric emissions, with geological sequestration of carbon dioxide; 

—Demonstrate system integration of cutting edge technologies; and 

—Chart a technological pathway toward an energy future in which near-zero atmospheric emissions clean coal power plants can be designed, built, and operated at a cost that is no more than 10 percent above the cost of non-sequestered 

systems. 

Coal continues to face environmental challenges relative to other energy sources. 

The near-zero atmospheric emissions concept spearheaded by FutureGen is vital to 

the future viability of coal as an energy resource, particularly in light of growing 

climate change concerns. Coal is abundant, secure, and relatively inexpensive when 

compared to other energy sources. With near-zero atmospheric emissions, coal could 

not only produce baseload electricity, but also help germinate a hydrogen energy 

economy. 

Carbon Sequestration 

The Carbon Sequestration Program consists of a portfolio of laboratory and field 

R&D focused on technologies with great potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Most efforts focus on capturing carbon dioxide from large stationary sources 

such as power plants, and sequestering carbon dioxide in geologic formations. Carbon sequestration is a key component of the President’s strategy to slow the growth 

of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as several National Energy Policy goals targeting the development of new technologies. It also supports the goals of the Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international collaborations to reduce greenhouse gas intensity and greenhouse gas emissions. The programmatic 

timeline is to demonstrate a portfolio of safe, cost-effective greenhouse gas capture, 

storage, and mitigation technologies at the pre-commercial scale by 2012, leading to 

demonstration and substantial deployment and market penetration beyond 2012. 

These greenhouse gas mitigation technologies could help slow greenhouse gas emissions in the medium term. They also provide potential for ultimately stabilizing and 

reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR SYNERGY BETWEEN COAL AND OIL INDUSTRIES

Many EOR processes incorporating thermal, chemical, microbial, and a variety of 

miscible gas-injection methods have been employed in the United States. Among 

these, CO2–EOR is most promising and has in fact produced 1 billion barrels of oil 

to date. Because CO2 is miscible with crude oil under certain conditions, it can be 

injected into previously drained oil reservoirs and used to sweep a portion of the 
8 

remaining oil from the rock, helping to overcome the physical forces that trap the 

residual oil. While not all of the easily accessible stranded oil is susceptible for recovery by CO2–EOR, a large proportion could be recovered if a source of low-cost 

CO2 and improved CO2–EOR technologies are developed and applied to the problem. 

A series of CO2–EOR assessments conducted for DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy by 

ARI concluded that, if current high oil prices are sustained over the long-term, lowcost captured CO2 from power plants is available (at a cost of between $27 and $34 

per ton of CO2 delivered to the oil field), and improved CO2–EOR technology is applied which maximizes oil recovery while minimizing the CO2 needed, 47 billion barrels of incremental oil—more than twice the current U.S. reserve—would be economic to produce. Of course, only a few companies currently have access to the state 

of the art technology and oil companies take many factors into consideration when 

determining which investments to make. Therefore, even if these technological advances are made, it is possible that not all of the additional 47 billion barrels of 

domestic oil would be produced. 

Within just the large fields in North Dakota’s portion of the Williston Basin, as 

much as 390 million barrels of incremental oil could have a cost of production less 

than the current price of oil under this scenario. In addition, the feasibility of converting the large unconventional in-place resource within the Bakken Shale of 

North Dakota into economic reserves using next generation CO2–EOR technology 

has not been examined (studies have suggested that 100 to 150 billion barrels, or 

more, of resource may be in-place). However, if injection of CO2 into this fractured 

shale could mobilize a portion of this resource, the Williston Basin’s contribution to 

the Nation’s oil supply could be significantly expanded. 

In addition, while the main focus of CO2–EOR is on maximizing the amount of 

oil produced rather than the amount of CO2 injected, its sequestration potential is 

still significant, though much less than the sequestration potential of saline formations in the U.S. Estimates by Vello Kuuuskraa at ARI are that the technical limit 

for CO2 storage associated with EOR is 20 gigatons and that between 8–12 gigatons 

can be economically stored if next generation EOR technology is developed and applied, assuming that the cost of CO2 is less than $30–$38/ton delivered, which would 

require significant advances in carbon capture technology. To put this into context, 

total man-made U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous 

oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons) in 2004 were the equivalent of about 7.8 gigatons of 

CO2 equivalent. This total includes approximately 6 gigatons of actual CO2. About 

2.2 gigatons of this CO2 comes from coal-fired power plants, and the balance (approximately 3.8 gigatons) stems from oil and gas use. 

According to the Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 

2007, coal-fired generation produced 84 percent of the CO2 associated with electrical 

power generation in 2006, and 33 percent of total U.S. emission of CO2. This forecast also suggests that CO2 from coal-fired power generation is expected to represent 88 percent of all CO2 related to electric power generation by 2030, and 37 

percent of total U.S. emission of CO2. 

CO2–EOR projects represent an early major opportunity for helping to realize carbon capture technology. This opportunity has unique potential to overcome economic, social, and risk obstacles associated with the commercialization of technology. In addition, the use of CO2–EOR projects could help power generation companies to take advantage of the oil industry’s expertise with CO2 handling and injection, and help accelerate the implementation of other underground CO2 sequestration options in coalbeds, depleted gas reservoirs, and deep saline formations. 

CONCLUSION

Today, nearly three out of every four coal-burning power plants in this country 

are equipped with technologies that can trace their roots back to the Clean Coal 

Technology Program. Approaches demonstrated through the program include coal 

processing to produce clean fuels, combustion modification to control emissions, 

post-combustion cleanup of flue gas, and repowering with advanced power generation systems. These efforts helped accelerate production of cost-effective compliance 

options to address environmental issues associated with coal use. Relative to carbon 

capture and storage, DOE is making significant progress in developing the technologies and infrastructure needed for deployment of these technologies in a future 

carbon-constrained world. Evidence of this progress includes: 

—The Carbon Sequestration Atlas of the United States and Canada, developed by 

NETL, the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships (Partnerships), and the 

National Carbon Sequestration Database and Geographical Information System, 

contains information on stationary sources for CO2 emissions, geologic formations with sequestration potential, and terrestrial ecosystems with potential for 
9 

enhanced carbon uptake, all referenced to their geographic location to enable 

matching sources and sequestration sites. 

—Carbon dioxide capture technology is being developed for solvent, sorbent, membrane, and oxy-combustion systems that, if successfully developed, would be capable of capturing greater than 90 percent of the flue gas carbon dioxide at a 

significant cost reduction when compared to state-of-the-art, amine-based capture systems. Research and systems analysis have identified potential cost reductions of 30–45 percent for the capture of CO2. In addition, ionic liquid membranes and absorbents are being developed for capture of CO2 from power 

plants. Ionic liquid membranes have been developed at NETL for pre-combustion applications that surpass polymers in terms of CO2 selectivity and permeability at elevated temperatures. 

—Field projects have demonstrated the ability to ‘‘map’’ CO2 injected into an underground formation at a much higher resolution than previously anticipated 

and confirmed the ability of perfluorocarbon tracers to track CO2 movement 

through a reservoir. 

—The Carbon Sequestration Regional Partnerships have brought an enormous 

amount of capability and experience together to work on the challenge of infrastructure development. Together with DOE, the Partnerships secured the active 

participation of more than 500 individuals representing more than 350 industrial companies, engineering firms, state agencies, non-governmental organizations, and other supporting organizations. 

—The Partnerships are conducting field tests to validate the efficacy of carbon 

capture and storage technologies in a variety of geologic storage sites throughout the United States and Canada. Using the extensive data and information 

gathered during the initial stages of the project, the 7 Partnerships identified 

the most promising opportunities for carbon sequestration in their Regions and 

are performing 25 geologic field tests. 

Developing the technologies needed to support a widespread expansion of CO2– 

EOR could substantially increase existing U.S. reserves and production. The DOE 

efforts listed above are providing the elements needed to enable this expansion by 

advancing capture technologies to ensure a reliable low-cost supply of CO2 and improved EOR technologies to optimize for carbon sequestration co-benefits. 

Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee, this completes my statement. 

I would be happy to take any questions you may have. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Bauer, thank you very much. Let me begin 

by asking about the costs involved. It is one thing to say let’s capture carbon. It’s quite another thing to determine the impact or the 

cost. Will it be economically feasible to capture the carbon? Will 

this destroy projects that are on the drawing boards because it’s 

just way too expensive? Are you a pointy-headed researcher who 

loves to talk in theory about things in practice not achievable? So 

tell me—well, I know you’re not a pointy-headed researcher. 

But tell me, if you will, with what capability we can, in a realistic way, capture carbon and use it for beneficial use? 

Mr. BAUER. I think that’s a very important comment and question. While we can capture—many people make the case that we 

can capture or separate CO2 today, the economics around it are 

prohibitively expensive. Just to give you a quick, round number, if 

we took the 300 gigawatts of coal-powered generation today and 

said that 50 percent of it was going to have to be—of the CO2 produced would have to be captured and done away with, put in the 

ground, that would increase the price of electricity from an average 

of $25 a megawatt for those plants to almost $80 a megawatt. 

That’s a substantial increase. It would reduce the power delivered 

by about 42 gigawatts. That’s about a 15 percent reduction. Or to 

put it in other terms, we would have to find 42 gigawatts of additional electricity to make up for the electricity utilized in the carbon capture and storage. So while we can do it, the potential impacts are substantial. 
10 

To give you a perspective, a megawatt of natural gas right now is about $65 a megawatt, in round numbers. So right now coal is 

keeping the price of electricity down, and nuclear power also contributes to that. This would raise the price. But if we were to say 

we would offset that 42 gigawatts by an additional use of natural 

gas, we would have to find for every 25 gigawatts of additional natural gas, 1 trillion cubic feet of additional natural gas supply, 

which is already a challenge to the United States in that we import 

about 18 percent of our natural gas, and we would have to substantially increase that number to meet that additional. Or another 

way to think about it, the Alaskan Pipeline for natural gas is about 

1.6 trillion cubic feet a year of natural gas when it’s in place, so 

we are looking at one and a half natural gas pipelines just to make 

up for that CO2 cost right now. 

Senator DORGAN. Are there some applications from which it is 

harder to extract and capture CO2 than others, and, if so, what are 

they? 

Mr. BAUER. At present most of our coal fleet is a pulverized coal 

combustion-type fleet, and the flue gas that comes out of those 

combustion plants is very dilute, and so it’s much more difficult to 

capture CO2 from this juncture. Dakota Gasification is a gasifier. 

It converts coal into a synthetic gas. Methanization makes it pipeline grade natural gas equivalent. Right now that CO2 is at a higher concentration, so that’s more readily separable and a better economic perspective and, therefore, it looks like now that those 

plants have a slight advantage on price in dealing with CO2 in 

complexity. 

There are technologies coming forward that look at using more 

oxygen and less air in firing pulverized coal plants, which would 

increase the concentration of CO2, but those are probably 8 to 10 

years from real commercial application. 

Senator DORGAN. Describe for me the work, if any, that you have 

done on lignite coal. 

Mr. BAUER. We’ve done quite a few different kinds of work on lignite coal, everything from—and, in fact, EERC has been a major 

partner in some of that. We’re looking at the transport gasifier. It’s 

a different version of gasification. And it’s almost like a fluidized 

bed coal plant. It moves the coal through the system and it works 

to the advantage of the lignite-type and Powder River Basin-type 

coal for its utilization. We’ve worked on environmental separation 

of mercuries and other emissions from the coal. There’s been work 

with Basin Electric actually in drying lignite coal, which has high 

water content, and that reduces the energy penalty on that. And 

some of the Clean Coal projects that have gone forward have demonstrated these technologies at a reasonable scale for them to go 

to commercial application. I believe they are going to commercial 

application. 

Senator DORGAN. In your judgment, what’s the highest valued 

and best use of lignite coal? 

Mr. BAUER. I think the best use for lignite coal is a combination 

of either electricity production, as it has been used to a large degree, or gasification, as the Dakota Gasification Plant has proven 

is possible and commercially viable, possibly even using it for a 

source of feedstock for coal-to-liquids, azeotrope-type liquids, which 
11 

are a diesel-type liquid, or even potentially to gasoline product. 

And with the price of oil per barrel and the high concentration of 

CO2, I think they’re a viable possibility that it could still compete 

readily in the marketplace with CO2 as a product that has to be 

dealt with either by way of a product or as a way of a waste. 

Senator DORGAN. Lignite coal, to our chagrin, is sometimes referred to as a low-rank coal. 

Mr. BAUER. Yes, sir. 

Senator DORGAN. Describe for me, if you could, in terms of the 

other uses, the uses other than producing electricity, coal-to-liquids, coal-to-synthetic gas, coal-to-plastics, and so on, the advantages and disadvantages of lignite coal versus other kinds of coal 

in those processes? 

Mr. BAUER. The reason lignite coal is called low rank is not to 

imply a value statement, but it’s to recognize that bituminous coal 

is about 13,000 BTUs per pound and lignite coal is about 8,500 

BTUs per pound, so it’s just relative per-pound BTU value. If you 

go to use lignite for a nonelectrical application, probably the way 

one would use it would be to gasify it, which is not to burn it, but 

to put it in an atmosphere and cause it to kind of give off its value 

in a gaseous manner. It’s still a thermal conversion process. What 

comes off is largely carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. 

You would take and reform it by pressing steam through it to shift 

the CO to carbon monoxide into additional carbon dioxide and form 

more hydrogen so that you would have a synthetic gas that comes 

out of the other side and you could either increase the gas into a 

methane, a natural gas-type product, or you could take the feedstock and the hydrogen and use it in chemical processes and applications, or you could take the synthetic gas and go through a catalytic conversion and make a gasoline or a diesel-type product, 

azeotrope process that normally calls for diesel. The other thing 

you can do with it is to burn it and make electricity out of the hydrogen, and the CO2 is a high concentration so it’s readily stripped 

off. 

Now, that is all in theory and pilot scale practice. The CO2 issue 

I, personally, think is more readily dealt with, but there’s still an 

economic challenge, a balance and plant challenge in doing that 

that we haven’t been able to do at a large scale, other than what 

we’ve learned at Dakota Gasification, which, as you pointed out, is 

a major source of insight on the dynamics of doing that. 

Senator DORGAN. My understanding is, and I’ll ask Ron Harper 

about this when he testifies, that we capture about 50 percent of 

the CO2 from Dakota Gasification, and furthermore that, much like 

other applications in these coal plants, as you incrementally capture more and more CO2, the more costly it is per unit of collection. 

Is that the case with CO2 in most cases? 

Mr. BAUER. The issue for CO2 is the higher you go, the harder 

it is to separate what’s left out of the—without taking other fuel 

beneficial. So, for example, if you try to push the limit up towards 

90 or 100 percent, you’re going to wind up taking away some of the 

high-value hydrogen with the CO2 and losing its use or its availability. 

On Dakota Gasification, I think it’s important to remember Dakota Gasification was not initially designed to be a CO2 separation 
12 

and synthetic gas, and so backfitting to separate the CO2 has certain drawbacks or lack of ability to optimize, and if the plant were 

designed from today—and I’m sure Ron can either clarify or correct 

me—you might not do it exactly the same way or you designed it 

to be more efficient, but still, having said that, the higher you go, 

the more difficult it becomes and, therefore, the more expensive. 

Senator DORGAN. Congress is going to make the judgments ultimately about policy, but you are providing your research reports to 

Congress and your best advice. We talked earlier about the economics of it. What do you think is achievable in various applications? And, you know, one of the things that we’ve discussed previously is that people who have projects in mind at this point face 

uncertainty. They don’t know what the rules might be. They don’t 

know what the carbon capture requirement will be. They know 

there will be rules, but they don’t know what they will be or over 

what timeframe or what costs might apply to their projects. What 

kinds of thoughts do you have about how policymakers should establish the framework here? How should Congress establish that 

framework? 

Mr. BAUER. Well, as you mentioned, Senator, I’m not supposed 

to be in the policy business. I can only give a technical and possibly 

some minor economic perspective. I think if we look at the Clean 

Air Act as some indicator of what it takes to get to some regulatory 

structure for business decisions to be made, you’re talking from the 

time of final legislation to actually the publication of regulation 

and rules against which decisions are made so they have to meet 

these requirements or be found in violation. It can be an 8- to 10- 

year process to get through the publication of regulations, the bidding of them, and even the challenges in court before we come out 

the other end with an area of certainty. 

I do know, though, that the regulations for use of EOR exist. So 

using CO2 in EOR process, we believe that our indications of the 

numbers are that, you know, there’s 15 to 20 years that EOR could 

utilize most of the CO2 that’s generated in this country if it were 

made available to the various sites. If you look at enhanced oil recovery sites, most of them are done in the western Texas, southeastern New Mexico area largely because there’s a lot of naturally 

occurring CO2 out there that they tap and release from the ground 

and use it to do EOR. If there were an anthropogenic, manmade 

CO2 readily available in quantity and at a reasonable price, and 

that’s where Dakota Gasification is a model, that’s why the Saskatchewan oilfields buy their CO2, they can get it at a competitive 

price that makes it a very viable source of EOR for them, they’ll 

take as much as they can give them right now, then it makes a 

different dynamic. 

So one thing we might be thinking about as we’re trying to deal 

with the CO2 issue, the greenhouse gas issue, how do we recognize 

the value of EOR in a way that stimulates coal-powered generation, coal gasification liquids to utilize that as a means for the first 

decade of the plant’s operation without having to worry about the 

significant challenges of storage and liability and long-term storage, and what are the Federal, State and local issues and regulations required for them to make a business decision. So that might 

be a way forward at least to provide some near-term certainty. 
13 

Senator DORGAN. Your principal research is in the area of coal, 

and yet in your testimony both before the Congress and also at this 

hearing about the beneficial use of CO2, you’re talking about enhanced oil recovery. Your research includes that? 

Mr. BAUER. Yes. Our research really is all fossil fuels, and actually we do some in the area of biomass and renewables. 

Senator DORGAN. Let me ask—you know, the room is not exactly full of people from the oil industry. And oil is at $73 a barrel this 

morning. 

Mr. BAUER. Right. 

Senator DORGAN. Following your testimony before the Energy Committee a while back, it seems to me that if, at $73 a barrel, 

you can effectively capture CO2, use it for the beneficial purpose of 

enhancing oil recovery, it certainly should be attractive. What’s 

your experience with respect to the oil side of this? We’ve been 

talking about the coal industry, but what about the oil industry? 

Are they interested, excited? Tell me about your work with them. 

Mr. BAUER. Well, I think it depends on the company really and 

the geographical region that you’re talking. If they’re in a region 

where they have potential oilfields that need CO2 to further 

produce, at this present value of a barrel of oil at $70, $74 per barrel, they would love to produce more oil from those fields, and if 

they don’t have a CO2 source handy, they’re very interested in finding one if the economics around it are meaningful. 

One of the problems sometimes is the utility that has the CO2

possibly has to actually backfit their plant to put the capture technology on. That can be quite expensive. We’re not talking about 

millions or tens of millions. 

We’re talking about maybe $200 or $300 million to put on a separation technology depending on the scale of the plant, but you 

would want a larger-scale plant to offset the cost, and then you 

have to move it over there, so one of the wrestling issues is who 

pays for the capture, who pays for the pipeline. If you look at the 

requirements now, I think it would be difficult for a utility to go 

before their utility commission board and ask to build that into 

their rate base case with no law requiring them to do that. So, unless they could show that the economics make sense, they may 

have difficulty with that, or the same thing from the standpoint of 

their investors or if it’s an independent electricity producer. 

Senator DORGAN. But at $73-a-barrel oil—you indicated you 

think there’s 200 billion barrels of oil, potentially recoverable over 

time, that’s residual in the pools? 

Mr. BAUER. Let me just clarify that. 

Senator DORGAN. Clarify that, if you would. 

Mr. BAUER. There’s 200 billion barrels. However, those may be 

technically recoverable but not economically viable. That’s one of 

the problems right now. A reason we’ve only done a billion barrels 

of EOR is in many cases it’s not economically viable. The price of 

the CO2 or the ability to get it to where it’s located offsets the potential profitability. 

Senator DORGAN. What are they recovering in Canada with the 

CO2? Do you know? Probably Ron does. 

Mr. BAUER. I think they’re doing about 5,000 barrels a day, so 

that’s very nice when you think of the price right now, and Ron 
14 

knows better than I what the price of CO2 is, but my understanding is it’s very competitive in the CO2 marketplace right now. 

CO2 down in West Texas is going for about $20 a ton. So it’s probably less than that in certain areas, and from a plant that would 

probably be a high number right now, if anybody would be willing 

to pay more than that, and you’ve got to figure the cost of separation equipment and the movement of the CO2 to the site that it 

would use. So I think there’s a lot of need to foster the dynamics 

between the utility and the potential oilfield user to encourage 

that. 

Senator DORGAN. Is the location of our coal fields in North Dakota, the Fort Union Basin and so on, relative to the oil activity 

that goes on in North Dakota and Montana—I assume that’s beneficial in terms of some future construct of using CO2 capture for enhanced oil recovery? 

Mr. BAUER. I think that could be very possible. And I think what 

would have to be set up would be the infrastructure to move the 

CO2 from those plants to the fields, which I don’t think is a great 

technical challenge, but someone has to decide the business opportunity makes sense or someone wants to foster that. And the same 

thing I think in the Montana, Wyoming oilfields. I know the State 

of Wyoming has been very interested in talking about those things, 

too. 

Senator DORGAN. Franz, do you have any questions? 

Mr. WUERFMANNSDOBLER. Mr. Bauer, if we were to set aside the 

question of funding levels, what is the most critical technology or 

program type of activity that you think would be necessary to more 

substantially move forward so we can prove some of these technologies out so they could be commercially viable, say, within 5 to 

10 years? 

Mr. BAUER. There are two, what I would suggest, major areas of 

high cost. One is the actual separation or capture of the CO2. As 

the Senator mentioned, there has been an increase in the Senate 

mark, and also the House actually recognized the capture challenge 

that would go a long way to moving forward more aggressively to 

take pilot scale or laboratory scale—not necessarily our laboratory, 

by the way—across the country, capture technology up to the point 

where they could be commercially viable within the next decade or 

less. That would be tremendously helpful, because at the present 

previous funding we’re probably 20 years away. 

The other is doing large-scale evaluations and demonstrations of 

putting a million ton-plus of CO2 into the ground. Again, the committee’s work and recent funding there, I think, makes that more 

probable in the near term, and that’s where we’re working with the 

regional partnerships—there’s several regional partnerships, each 

of them, beginning next year to be headed towards sticking a million tons of CO2 into storage reservoirs to confirm what the science 

says and the oil experience tells us is a viable place to store CO2

long term indefinitely. That will take probably 7 or 8 years before 

we go through the full cycle of setting up testing, injecting the CO2, monitoring and further study and analysis for a couple years to 

confirm our results. 

So those are two major areas. I think another area, though, 

which is maybe less expensive, but maybe makes it more chal-
15 

lenging, is for the general public and population, local regulators, 

to understand the viability of carbon storage in reservoirs so that 

they would accept it and the permitting process would be a reasonably standard process and a high confidence that no one would be 

in any way harmed or threatened by what was done there, and 

that will take some funding to provide the opportunities to provoke 

participation and education of those who have to be involved in 

that process and the surrounding public to be fully informed and 

given a chance to work through what does that mean to them. 

Mr. WUERFMANNSDOBLER. Are there any other issues that you 

think would be beneficial so that the general public would better 

understand or the interested industries would better understand 

the opportunities here? 

Mr. BAUER. I think with the—in the last year especially, the discussion around greenhouse gas has begun to get people to be paying attention to what are the alternatives, what can we do about 

it. I think more information in, what I would say, a comprehensible 

manner. As you mentioned, us pointy-headed R&D folks sometimes 

talk in ways that we assume will probably make sense, and I’m 

sometimes told at home I don’t make much sense. But, at any rate, 

that the public could understand the magnitude of this challenge 

and the magnitude of the threat, quite frankly, to their own energy 

and the Nation’s energy security. I don’t think that’s really comprehended. So providing a way to communicate that in a balanced 

manner because, while I support energy from all sources, I believe 

our answers come from all energy sources, I think we need to honestly understand what each source has the high potential contributing and the more pragmatic actuality of contributing. And so trying to put all our eggs in any one basket is not a good answer, but 

trying to find a balance—and I know that’s what you’re working 

on, Senator, and Senator Domenici, as well—a balanced portfolio of 

technologies to contribute to the energy future of this country in an 

economically acceptable way, I think is important for our public to 

understand. I don’t think they really understand it the way they 

should. 

Senator DORGAN. I think that’s an important point. I’m a strong 

supporter of renewable energy—all kinds of renewable energy, but 

that doesn’t mean we’re not going to need to use fossil fuels in our 

future. We are. The question is not whether. The question is how 

do we use those, and that’s why this research is critical. 

What I would like to do, Mr. Bauer, is, with your permission, call 

up the second panel. I would like you to, if you would, take a chair 

at the end of table and be available for questions that might be 

raised by the other panel. We appreciate your work at the National 

Laboratory and appreciate your being willing to come here to North 

Dakota this morning. 

I want to also mention that Roger Johnson, the State Agriculture 

Commissioner, is here with us and Susan Wefald, the Public Service Commissioner. Where is Susan? 

Ms. WEFALD. Right here. 

Senator DORGAN. Thank you for being with us. If I’m missing 

somebody, let me know. Thank you for being with us. I know both 

the Agriculture Commissioner, serving on the Industrial Commission, and the Public Service Commission have very significant in-
16 

terests in both of these issues, and I appreciate both of you being 

at this hearing. 

Next I would like to call Ron Harper, the chief executive officer 

of Basin Electric Power Cooperative, to come up; John Weeda, John 

is the plant manager of the Coal Creek Station at the Great River 

Energy Company; Rod Nelson, vice president, Schlumberger Limited, on behalf of the National Petroleum Council; and Jeffrey Phillips, the program manager, Electric Power Research Institute. Mr. 

Harper and Mr. Weeda are both with us from North Dakota, and 

my understanding is, Mr. Nelson, you’re from Texas. 

Mr. NELSON. Right. 

Senator DORGAN. And, Mr. Phillips, you have come to us from 

New York City. 

Mr. PHILLIPS. Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Senator DORGAN. Charlotte, North Carolina, big difference, sorry 

about that. Accept my apologies. 

Let me turn to you, Mr. Harper. Thank you for being here and, 

as with all of you, your complete statements will be made a part 

of the permanent record and you may summarize those as you 

wish. 

STATEMENT OF RONALD R. HARPER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND 

GENERAL MANAGER, BASIN ELECTRIC POWER COOPERATIVE 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Senator, and I very much appreciate on 

behalf of Basin the opportunity to come before this committee to 

talk about some critically important, what we believe is our future, 

with respect to energy development. 

Senator DORGAN. Can you pull that microphone a little closer so 

that we can hear you better? Thank you. 

Mr. HARPER. Is that better? 

Senator DORGAN. Yes, much better. 

Mr. HARPER. I would like to put three bullets or stakes in the 

ground. First of all, many throughout the electric industry are in 

the process of developing coal-based plants to meet this growing 

economy’s need, and in the coming years we have to figure out how 

to utilize these plants more efficiently with respect to greenhouse 

gases. The second point is we strongly believe that coal must remain a viable part of this country’s energy future. And, lastly, the 

Federal Government needs to undertake an aggressive strategy to 

mitigate the risk of a carbon-constrained future while at the same 

time balancing the needs of our growing economy. 

Basin believes that we are on the threshold of tremendous opportunity with respect to continuing the use of fossil fuels in this country. Technology must, however, be developed to use this resource 

much more wisely and efficiently, including addressing how to capture carbon dioxide. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 was a step in 

the right direction by providing tax incentives, loan guarantees and 

other programs to encourage the commercial development of the 

next generation of clean coal technologies. 

Much has been said already this morning about the Dakota Gasification project, the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, and we believe 

that has been the step to this future and how we might manage 

in a carbon-constrained environment. 
17 

As was mentioned by the earlier presenter, we are a major player in the Plains CO2 Reduction, or PCOR, Partnership. We are also 

involved in the Canadian Clean Coal Power Coalition. But, more 

importantly, we are doing it. We are capturing carbon and providing sequestration opportunity in the Canadian oilfields. We have 

so far sequestered 10 million tons of CO2, and it is our belief that 

the CO2 is being permanently sequestered in those oil fields 

through an opportunity through enhanced oil recovery. 

As we look at developing generation in today’s time frame, we’re 

looking at two technologies. IGCC, or integrated combined cycle, is 

one technology. The other one is what we call supercritical, or our 

pulverized coal type of technology. As has been said, capturing carbon off of a gas facility is much easier than trying to capture carbon off an existing PC facility. 

It’s because of those things that we are engaged in activities at 

our Antelope Valley Station in conjunction with the Dakota Gasification project to understand how we might capture carbon off the 

back end of an existing pulverized coal facility. Our plan currently 

is to find a vendor that will have the right technology that matches 

up with what we’re trying to get accomplished, capture CO2 off of 

the Unit I facility there at Antelope Valley and pipe it around to 

the existing infrastructure at Dakota Gasification. We then would 

look for customers for enhanced oil recovery in western North Dakota, eastern Montana, to avail ourselves of an opportunity to help 

offset the costs of that kind of technology. 

We believe that enhanced oil recovery is a bridge or a financial 

incentive to carbon capture. Again, the costs associated with this 

technology are extremely immense in our view, and so somehow 

there has to be a revenue stream to help offset those costs. We believe that there are opportunities out there to develop this technology. Our vendors’ list is about nine at this point throughout this 

country. We’ve offered five on-site visits so far, so we believe there’s 

a lot of interest in the same concepts that we’re pursuing. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

One of the things that we think is also important, much like 

what you’re trying to do within your committee, is to develop an 

opportunity to provide incentives for this research and development 

opportunities and ultimately to full-scale production that will again 

enhance our opportunity to continue to burn fossil fuels in this 

country. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks and I would stand 

ready to address any questions that you or the other committee 

members might have. Thank you. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RONALD R. HARPER

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Ron Harper and I 

serve as the CEO and General Manager of Basin Electric Power Cooperative. I appreciate the invitation to testify today, and I am here to provide you with Basin 

Electric’s views on the future of coal as a fuel source for power generation, and Basin’s efforts to address CO2 emissions from coal plants, while at the same time enhancing opportunities to increase domestic oil supply. The electric industry is going 

to build significant numbers of power plants, many of them coal-based, in the coming years to meet our Nation’s growing electrical demand. The question of what to 

do with the carbon dioxide produced by these plants is casting a shadow over their 
18 

viability. Coal is a vital part of our Nation’s energy security, and the Federal Government should undertake an aggressive strategy to mitigate the risk of a carbon 

constrained future. For its part, Basin Electric is taking a leading role in finding 

these answers. 

A COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION TO A COMPLEX PROBLEM

Basin Electric is an electrical generation and transmission cooperative with 124 

member cooperatives located in 9 States. Our generation resources include approximately 3,500 megawatts of coal, gas, oil and wind, but we are primarily a coal-based 

utility. As we look to the future, we know we must look at a broad range of solutions 

ranging from efficiency and conservation, to renewable energy, natural gas, and nuclear and how to utilize coal more efficiently. 

Basin Electric is committed to a diverse fuel mix in its generation portfolio. 

Today, Basin Electric has one of the largest wind energy resources in the region, 

with 137 megawatts of wind power. Our board recently approved plans to construct 

two 100-megawatt wind farms in North and South Dakota respectively which will 

be the first cooperatively-owned wind farms in the country. Basin Electric also utilizes four ‘‘one-of-a-kind’’ recycled energy systems, which use waste heat to produce 

22 megawatts of power without any additional fuel consumption or emissions. Four 

more of these systems are scheduled to be built in the near future. 

In November 2005, our membership adopted a goal that by 2010, Basin Electric 

would have renewable resources in its generation portfolio in an amount equal to 

10 percent of the capacity needed to meet the demands of our members. With our 

existing and planned wind and recycled energy projects, we are well on our way to 

achieving that goal. However, Basin Electric needs significant base-load generation 

and, for the foreseeable future, that will come from coal. 

COAL—A NECESSARY PART OF THE SOLUTION

Basin Electric is growing and we are looking at developing new base-load generation. After reviewing all of our options, it became clear to us that to meet our needs 

for low cost base-load power, the best choice was coal. Both North Dakota and Wyoming have ample supplies of coal and we have considerable knowledge of building 

and operating coal-based generation plants. We have built gas generation for peaking purposes and will build more. However, we do not believe it is prudent to build 

base-load gas generation and expose our membership to significant fluctuations in 

natural gas prices. To provide base-load power, Basin Electric is developing two 

coal-based facilities, one is the Dry Fork Station in Wyoming and the other will be 

located either in North Dakota or South Dakota. 

Coal provides 50 percent of the electricity generated in the United States. It is 

our most abundant domestic resource and will continue to play an important role 

in meeting our Nation’s energy needs. However, new technology must be developed 

to use this resource more wisely and efficiently, including addressing how to capture 

the CO2 emissions. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 was a step in the right direction 

in providing tax incentives, loan guarantees, and other programs to encourage the 

commercial development of the next generation of clean coal technology. 

AN EXAMPLE FOR THE FUTURE—THE GREAT PLAINS SYNFUELS PLANT

The questions surrounding carbon dioxide emissions from coal-based facilities 

complicate future development. These CO2 questions must be answered to ensure 

coal’s continued place as a reliable, low-cost fuel source. I believe that part of the 

answer to these questions exist at Basin Electric. Basin Electric is taking a leading 

role in several carbon initiatives, including its membership in the Plains CO2 Reduction (PCOR) partnership and work with the Canadian Clean Power Coalition. 

However, the best and largest example of low-carbon coal is through Basin Electric’s subsidiary Dakota Gasification Company, which owns the Great Plains Synfuels Plant in Beulah, North Dakota. In 2000, DGC began delivering carbon dioxide 

to oil producers in Saskatchewan, Canada. We currently capture roughly 49 percent 

of the CO2 produced at the plant, and ship it to Canada through a 205-mile pipeline 

to Weyburn, Saskatchewan to be used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in an aging 

oil field. Today, DGC provides all the CO2 to the largest carbon sequestration project 

in the world. Through 2006, Dakota Gasification has successfully captured and marketed over 10 million tons of carbon dioxide to two Canadian customers. Total carbon dioxide demand is 152.7 million standard cubic feet per day. The carbon dioxide 

is expected to be permanently sequestered in the oil reservoir and is being monitored by the International Energy Agency (IEA) Weyburn CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project. 
19 

TWO PATHS FORWARD FOR COAL

We have learned a great deal about what works and what doesn’t work with carbon capture and sequestration over the last 7 years. The Synfuels Plant, however, 

is unique. The plant produces synthetic natural gas that is pipeline quality. Given 

the major differences between producing pipeline quality gas and producing gas to 

generate electricity, it is not a simple task to translate this technology to power production. When building new coal-based generation, a utility has somewhat limited 

technology choices. The two most prominent include: Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) or supercritical (ultra-supercritical) Pulverized Coal (PC). 

IGCC Option 

Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) uses the same basic concept in operation at the Synfuels Plant. However, an IGCC power plant would not need to 

purify the gas to a high degree for the gas to be used in a combustion turbine to 

produce electricity. The cost of a new 600 megawatt (MW) IGCC power plant is anywhere from 10 to 20 percent higher than a comparable Supercritical PC plant. Adding carbon capture equipment on the back end considerably increases those costs, 

and the expense of efficiency. 

We are confident that the carbon capture would work on an IGCC facility. However, we are not sure that low rank coals, such as lignite and sub-bituminous, will 

work effectively in an IGCC facility. Basin Electric and the Lignite Energy Council 

have sent North Dakota Lignite to the Department of Energy’s IGCC testing facility 

in Alabama in the past, but the testing raised questions with respect to the sodium 

content of lignite. This has delayed any long-term testing that could readily answer 

questions about how IGCC works on low rank coals. The same is true for sub-bituminous coal, as most of the testing and commercial application of the technology remains focused on low-moisture, eastern bituminous coal. 

In 2006 Basin Electric partnered with General Electric and Bechtel Corporation 

to submit an application to the Department of Energy for tax credits to construct 

a new power plant in South Dakota which would use Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology. Unfortunately, due to problems with the authorizing 

statute, no projects using sub-bituminous coal, such as this one, were considered. 

That legislation has since been fixed, and Basin Electric and GE are reviewing our 

options to submit a second application for the 2007 round. 

PC Option 

While IGCC has its own questions regarding low-rank coals, Basin Electric is confident that a supercritical PC plant will work with low-rank coals to generate power. 

On the other hand, carbon capture technology has not been developed for PC plants. 

Much of the technology is in early development and needs further research. There 

are hundreds of pulverized coal plants still operating around the country that have 

decades of useful life left. These plants cannot be shut down or converted overnight, 

so a way must be found to capture and sequester the CO2 from these facilities as 

well. Supercritical PC plants can be just as efficient as an IGCC plant, so they 

should be considered for similar incentives to help capture and sequester carbon dioxide. 

In order to facilitate the development of this technology, Basin Electric recently 

issued a Request For Proposal to demonstrate carbon dioxide capture at one of our 

existing plants, the Antelope Valley Station. CO2 would be captured from the flue 

gases at Antelope Valley, piped to the neighboring Great Plains Synfuels plant, and 

added to the existing CO2 pipeline system. This would add nearly 60 million standard cubic feet of gas to the pipeline for enhanced oil recovery in North Dakota’s 

Williston Basin or at other regional sites. We currently estimate the cost of demonstrating carbon dioxide capture on a small portion of the 900 MW plant, around 

100 MWs, would be roughly $100 to $150 million. We have received several responses, and have met with interested vendors on site, and are in the process of 

evaluating their proposals. 

TECHNOLOGY HORSERACE—A BALANCED APPROACH TO INCENTIVES

Federal incentives need to be technology neutral. Supercritical PC and IGCC both 

have a place in our Nation’s electricity portfolio. At this point and time there is no 

clear indication that one of these technologies will become the choice for capturing 

and sequestering carbon. The Investment Tax Credit (ITC) authorized in the Energy 

Policy Act of 2005 is essential for building the first plant to demonstrate a ‘‘carbon 

capture ready’’ IGCC plant using low rank coals. In addition, the Senate Finance 

Committee recently proposed a $10 per ton production tax credit for carbon capture 
20 

and coal facilities. Both of these incentives need be to available in the future if viable technology solutions are to be fully explored. 

ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY—A BRIDGE FOR TECHNOLOGY

Enhanced oil recovery can provide a financial incentive to carbon capture. The 

current effort to sequester carbon from coal based facilities requires intensive capital. Enhanced oil recovery can provide one mechanism to reduce that cost. However, even the potential for revenue from selling CO2 does not fully support the business case of adding carbon capture to a plant. A combination of construction and 

production incentives is necessary to such a system financially and commercially 

viable. A $10 per ton production tax credit for carbon sequestration would provide 

this support, and benefit both IGCC and pulverized coal, without discriminating 

against the generation process used. Add to that a $250 million investment tax credit, and you would go a long way to enhance the prospect of building IGCC and PC 

plants that capture carbon dioxide. 

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, the Energy Policy Act provides important tools in 

helping build the next generation of coal-based power plants. These tools need to 

be expanded to provide electric utilities with the assistance they need to develop the 

next generation of power plants and efficiently capture and sequester carbon dioxide 

from existing and future power plants. Thank you again for holding this important 

hearing. I am available to answer any questions. 

Senator DORGAN. Thank you very much. Next we’ll hear from 

John Weeda from Great River Energy Company. Thank you for 

being here. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN WEEDA, PLANT MANAGER, COAL CREEK STATION, GREAT RIVER ENERGY 

Mr. WEEDA. Thank you, Senator Dorgan, and thank you for the 

privilege of testifying here today. 

Great River Energy owns and operates generation facilities in 

North Dakota, and we want to expand those facilities in the State, 

and those plans include innovative uses of coal to allow us to meet 

growing energy needs and help reduce the country’s dependence on 

foreign oil, and do it all in an environmentally sensitive manner. 

Our existing plants are reliable and they are regularly updated 

to incorporate updates in emission controls and enhance the operations. 

Great River Energy plans to build a third power plant in North 

Dakota, the Spiritwood Station. It’s a 99-megawatt combined heat 

and power facility located about 8 miles east of Jamestown, North 

Dakota. As a combined heat and powerplant, Spiritwood will generate electricity for the electric grid and steam to power the neighboring malt plant and a proposed 100-million-gallon-per-year ethanol plant. Doing so will be a highly efficient operation, about 66 

percent compared to most coal-based plants are 30 to 35 percent efficient. It’s because of taking advantage of the energy which would 

normally be released to the cooling towers. 

Fuel for the coal-based combined heat and power plant will be 

beneficiated lignite, supplied by Great American Energy. Highly efficient technologies such as combined heat and power offer additional opportunities for the reduction of regulated emissions and 

carbon dioxide, as well. 

Great River Energy is also commercializing an innovative coaldrying technology that was developed at Coal Creek Station. This 

process uses waste heat from the powerplant to improve the quality 

of the lignite, and, as a result, Coal Creek Station will use approximately 10 percent less coal and the plant’s efficiency will increase 

approximately 5 percent. In addition, emissions are expected to be 
21 

reduced, as well as plant maintenance. The efficiency improvements also result in less CO2 per megawatt of electricity generated. 

The coal dryer also removes mercury. And Great River Energy is 

proud to comment that we partnered with the U.S. Department of 

Energy’s Clean Coal Power Initiative on this project. 

We also use additional steam from Coal Creek Station to power 

the Blue Flint Ethanol Plant. And because a majority of the ethanol energy required is waste heat from the adjacent Coal Creek 

Station, Blue Flint Ethanol did not have to build a $25 million boiler, thus making it a low-cost source of ethanol. Because the plant 

is collocated with Coal Creek Station, it has fewer emissions and 

uses less water compared to an ethanol plant at a Greenfield site. 

Great River Energy, Headwaters Energy Services and North 

American Coal Corporation are exploring the development of a 

North Dakota-based coal refinery to produce ultra clean transportation fuels and electricity. This polygeneration plant would use 

about 10 million tons of North Dakota lignite annually. The integrated process would result in about 32,000 barrels of transportation fuel and 150 to 250 megawatts of electricity and other byproducts. 

The project would utilize proven technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions from the plant, which would then be utilized for 

enhanced oil recovery in western North Dakota. It incorporates carbon capture into its design and is expected to remove and sequester 

70 percent of the total CO2 produced in the process. CO2 would be 

sold to oilfield operators to use in EOR, which is commercially demonstrated technology for use of CO2. 

As a result, the carbon footprint for American Lignite Energy 

fuels will be equal to or less than the domestic fuels that they replace and better than fuels derived from imported petroleum. Electricity from the project’s generating facility will have CO2 intensity 

equal to or better than a natural gas-fired combined cycle plant. 

However, if the United States desires a coal-to-liquid industry 

and more energy independence, the development of the industry 

will require Federal incentives to help address the financial market 

risk associated with oil price volatility and commercializing the industry. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

All of this activity helps spur the North Dakota economy. Great 

River Energy is playing a significant role in economic development 

efforts in North Dakota. Great River Energy is a responsible environmental company and progressive, and we’ve established a goal 

to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to below 2000 levels by 2020. 

To accomplish our goals, we are focused on a number of solutions 

that support a sustainable environment, including energy conservation, renewable energy sources, carbon capture, storage/sequestration research, and other initiatives. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would be pleased to answer 

your questions. 

[The statement follows:] 
22 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN WEEDA

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is John Weeda. I am 

Great River Energy’s plant manager at Coal Creek Station near Underwood, North 

Dakota. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

Great River Energy is a generation and transmission cooperative based in Elk 

River, Minnesota. that provides wholesale electric power to 28 distribution cooperatives. We own power generation facilities in North Dakota and plan to expand our 

operations in the State. Those plans include innovative uses of coal that will allow 

us to meet growing energy demands and help reduce the country’s dependence on 

foreign oil—all done in an environmentally sensitive manner. 

Great River Energy’s existing coal power plants—Coal Creek Station and Stanton 

Station—are reliable and efficient baseload generating stations. We regularly update their emissions controls and enhance their operations. Great River Energy values its reputation as an environmental leader among utilities. We have made a strategic commitment to environmental stewardship and are acting on the evidence that 

climate change is real by pursuing initiatives that support a sustainable environment. Our commitment is based on our core operating principle to make the right 

environmental choices within our technological and financial capabilities. 

Great River Energy plans to build a third power plant in North Dakota— 

Spiritwood Station—a 99-megawatt combined heat and power facility, located about 

8 miles east of Jamestown, North Dakota, near Spiritwood. As a combined heat and 

power plant, Spiritwood Station will generate electricity for the electric grid and 

steam to power a neighboring malting plant and a proposed 100-million-gallon per 

year ethanol plant. Doing so results in a highly energy efficient power plant—at 

about 66 percent, as compared to most coal-based power plants which are about 30 

to 35 percent efficient. This is because the plant will take advantage of the energy 

in the steam which is normally released to cooling towers. 

Fuel for the coal-based, combined heat and power plant will be beneficiated lignite, supplied by Great American Energy. The lignite product will be 7,500 Btus per 

pound with 25 percent moisture (upgraded from 6,200 Btus per pound with 38 percent moisture). The power plant would also use Best Available Control Technologies 

to meet and exceed the stringent health based air quality standards. 

Construction of Spiritwood Station would begin following approval of the plant’s 

air emissions permit by the North Dakota Department of Health. If granted this 

September, the plant would then be scheduled to start operating in the first quarter 

of 2010—following 2.5 years of construction. 

Highly efficient technologies such as combined heat and power offer additional opportunities for the reduction of regulated emissions and carbon dioxide (CO2). Great 

River Energy supports the development of Federal and State-level incentives for the 

development of these facilities that provide electricity while producing steam that 

can be used to power other industrial operations. 

Great River Energy is commercializing an innovative coal drying system that was 

developed at Coal Creek Station. The process uses waste heat from the power plant 

to improve the quality of lignite. As a result Coal Creek Station will use approximately 10 percent less coal, and the plant’s efficiency will increase approximately 

5 percent. In addition, emissions are expected to be reduced, as well as plant maintenance. The efficiency improvement also results in less CO2 per megawatt of electricity generated. The coal dryer also removes mercury. Eight dryers will be built 

at Coal Creek Station, four for each of the plant’s two units, with full operation of 

the system expected by mid-2009. Great River Energy partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Coal Power Initiative on the project. Great River Energy 

will work with partners such as Headwaters and North American Coal to market 

this technology to other power plants that utilize lignite or subbituminous coal. 

Great River Energy and North American Coal Corporation have formed a new organization called Great American Energy to sell additional beneficiated lignite to other 

coal consumers in North Dakota. 

We use additional steam from Coal Creek Station to power the Blue Flint Ethanol 

plant. Great River Energy is a minority owner and service provider for the ethanol 

plant, a 50-million-gallon per year plant near Underwood. Headwaters Incorporated 

is the majority owner and operator. Because a majority of the energy for the ethanol 

plant is waste steam from the adjacent Coal Creek Station, Blue Flint Ethanol did 

not have to build a $25 million boiler, making it a low-cost source of ethanol. Also, 

because the plant is co-located with Coal Creek Station, it has fewer emissions and 

uses less water as compared with an ethanol plant at a Greenfield site. The plant 

also produces enough distillers grain for about 225,000 head of feeder cattle annually. Carbon dioxide from ethanol plants is a potential for sequestration. Head-
23 

waters and Great River Energy are investigating options for a demonstration 

project. 

Our activities are not limited to generating electricity or enhancing ethanol production. 

Great River Energy, Headwaters Energy Services and The North American Coal 

Corporation are exploring the development of a North Dakota coal-based refinery to 

produce ultra clean liquid transportation fuels and electricity. This polygeneration 

plant would use about 10 million tons of North Dakota lignite annually. The integrated process would result in about 32,000 barrels of transportation fuels and 150 

to 250 MW of electricity and other byproducts. 

The partners have completed several preliminary engineering, environmental and 

market studies, and have started more detailed engineering activities to further 

their analysis. Final site identification is under way. If the project were to move forward, engineering and permitting of the facility could take at least 2 years. Financing and construction of the facility would take at least 4 additional years. Engineering activities are being supported in part by North Dakota’s Lignite Research Fund, 

with the North Dakota Industrial Commission committing $10 million towards the 

project. 

The project would utilize proven technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions 

from the plant, which then could be utilized for enhanced oil recovery in western 

North Dakota. It incorporates carbon capture (CO2) into its design that is expected 

to remove and sequester 70 percent of the total CO2 produced in the process. The 

CO2 will be sold to North Dakota oil field operators for use in enhanced oil recovery, 

which is a commercially demonstrated technology for sequestering CO2. Enhanced 

oil recovery has been practiced for decades in Texas and in the Canadian Weyburn 

fields since 2000. The Williston Basin’s demand for CO2 is projected to be greater 

than American Lignite Energy’s CO2 production. 

As a result, the carbon footprint for American Lignite Energy fuels will be equal 

to the domestic fuels they replace and better than fuels derived from imported petroleum. Electricity from the project’s generating facility will have a CO2 intensity 

equal to or better than that of a natural-gas-fired combined cycle plant. 

However, if the United States desires a coal-to-liquids industry—and more energy 

independence—the development of the industry will require Federal incentives to 

help address financial market risk associated with oil price volatility and commercializing the industry. 

All of this activity helps spur the North Dakota economy. Great River Energy is 

playing a significant role in economic development efforts in North Dakota. Blue 

Flint Ethanol is a $95 million plant that employs 37 people. The plant purchases 

corn from North Dakota farmers, and also sells ethanol and distillers grain for 

about 225,000 feeder cattle per year. Spiritwood Station will cost approximately 

$275 million and employ about 42 people when operational, and will utilize upgraded lignite from Great American Energy. Great American Energy is a $20 million venture that will have the capacity to supply one to three million tons of upgraded lignite. American Lignite Energy, if built, could be the largest project ever 

in North Dakota. 

Great River Energy is an environmentally progressive energy company. We have 

established a goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to below 2000 levels by 

2020. This is an expected 20 percent reduction from historical emissions despite the 

fact that we are one of the fastest growing electric utilities in the region. In addition, 25 percent of Great River Energy’s energy will come from renewable resources 

by 2025. To accomplish our goals, we are focused on a number of solutions that support a sustainable environment, including energy conservation, renewable energy 

sources, carbon capture and storage/sequestration research, and other initiatives. 

Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. 

Thank you. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Weeda, thank you very much. Next we’ll 

hear from Rod Nelson, who comes to us from Texas. He is vice 

president of Schlumberger Limited, and he is speaking on behalf 

of the National Petroleum Council. Mr. Nelson, you may proceed. 

STATEMENT OF ROD NELSON, VICE PRESIDENT, SCHLUMBERGER 

LIMITED ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL PETROLEUM COUNCIL 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity, first off, speaking about this important subject of carbon 

management. And I am representing the National Petroleum Coun-
24 

cil here today and the oil and gas industry, if you want to ask some 

questions later. 

The National Petroleum Council recently completed a study and 

presented to Secretary Bodman, a study of the energy future entitled Facing the Hard Truths about Energy. 

Senator DORGAN. Can you pull that microphone just a little closer? 

Mr. NELSON. Is that better? 

Senator DORGAN. Better, yes. 

Mr. NELSON. Let me give you a very brief summary of the findings of that study then I’ll go quickly to the carbon capture and sequestration question. 

The National Petroleum Council examined a broad range of global energy supply, demand, and technology projections through 

2030. The Council identified risks and challenges to a reliable energy future and developed strategies and recommendations aimed 

at balancing future economic, security, and environmental goals. 

The Council proposed five core strategies which must be addressed 

together. 

First, moderating the growing demand for energy by increasing 

efficiency. 

Next, expand and diversify production from all economic, environmentally acceptable energy sources, as you’ve already heard. 

Integrate energy policy into trade, economic, environmental, security, and foreign policies. 

Enhance science and engineering capabilities and create opportunities for research and development. 

And, finally, because we are likely moving into an era in which 

carbon emissions will be constrained, develop the legal and regulatory framework to enable carbon capture and sequestration 

(CCS). In addition, as policymakers consider options to reduce CO2

emissions, provide an effective global framework for carbon management, including establishment of a transparent, predictable, 

economy-wide cost for CO2 emissions. 

So with that background, let me now speak more directly to carbon capture and sequestration, which we think can facilitate the 

continued use of fossil fuels that we have already discussed. Carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, entails trapping CO2 at the 

site where it’s generated and storing it for a period sufficiently 

long—several thousand years, one would guess—in geologic targets, 

probably spent oil and gas reservoirs or deep saline formations. 

The technologies required for effective CCS are, by and large, 

viable today. Projects include Sleipner, Weyburn, which you heard 

about, In Salah saline formation project in Algeria. The hurdles to 

implementation are largely ones of integration and scale. To put 

things in perspective, sequestering CO2 emissions from a onegigawatt coal-fired power station requires pumping into the ground 

about 150,000 barrels per day of supercritical or liquid CO2. 

While the technologies for CCS are essentially available and viable, in that capture and storage can be implemented now, extensive 

scope remains for improvement. In particular, the capture stage of 

CCS is the key, and you’ve already heard that from Carl and that 

dominates the overall cost. 
25 

It’s important to note that there is no experience available with 

a full-scale integration process today, in other words, a coupled, 

large-scale coal-fired powerplant with CCS. Several projects worldwide, most notably FutureGen in the United States and Zero-Gen 

in Australia, are in the process of designing such an experiment. 

Operating such facilities successfully is central to understanding 

the true economics and practical requirements for large-scale CCS. 

One activity in which CO2 is pumped into reservoirs currently is 

enhanced oil recovery (EOR). This provides a proving ground for 

various techniques that are relevant to CCS, and can be implemented while other carbon management solutions are under development. At present, most CO2 EOR is not directed toward effective 

storage of CO2, but the techniques can be modified to improve carbon sequestration for longer term. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

So let me try to summarize. The challenges facing our energy future are daunting, but not insurmountable. Given the massive 

scale of the global energy system and the long lead times necessary 

to make significant changes, concerted actions are needed now to 

promote U.S. competitiveness by balancing economic, security, and 

environmental goals. Carbon dioxide emissions are by their very 

nature a global issue, and atmospheric concentrations respect no 

geographic boundary. As such, ultimately a global solution is required. Carbon capture and storage is in some ways a unique opportunity for the United States to develop technology and demonstrate leadership. We have large remaining fossil fuel reserves 

which could be economically and environmentally converted using 

carbon capture technology. We have the infrastructure and the sedimentary basins to sequester the CO2. The regulatory and legislative framework within which CCS is conducted will have a major 

impact on how rapidly the technology is implemented. The oil and 

gas industry has the skill sets to further develop and deploy this 

technology, but, clearly, cross-industry and government cooperation 

is required. Thank you. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROD NELSON

Thank you, Senator for the opportunity to testify regarding the important subject 

of carbon management. I am here representing the National Petroleum Council, 

which has recently completed and presented to Secretary of Energy Bodman, a comprehensive study of the energy future entitled ‘‘Facing the Hard Truths about Energy,’’ and the oil and gas industry. I would like to start by giving you a very short 

summary of the findings from this landmark study and then delve more deeply into 

the carbon capture and sequestration opportunity. 

NPC REPORT FINDINGS AND BACKGROUND

The American people are very concerned about energy—its availability, reliability, 

cost, and environmental impact. Energy also has become a subject of urgent policy 

discussions. But energy is a complex subject, touching every part of daily life and 

the overall economy, involving a wide variety of technologies, and deeply affecting 

many aspects of our foreign relations. The United States is the largest participant 

in the global energy system—the largest consumer, the second largest producer of 

coal and natural gas, and the largest importer and third largest producer of oil. Developing a framework for considering America’s oil and natural gas position now 

and for the future requires a broad view and a long-term perspective. 
26 

During the last quarter-century, world energy demand has increased about 60 

percent, supported by a global infrastructure that has expanded to a massive scale. 

Most forecasts for the next quarter-century project a similar percentage increase in 

energy demand from a much larger base. Oil and natural gas have played a significant role in supporting economic activity in the past, and will likely continue to do 

so in combination with other energy types. Over the coming decades, the world will 

need better energy efficiency and all economic, environmentally responsible energy 

sources available to support and sustain future growth. 

Fortunately, the world is not running out of energy resources. But many complex 

challenges could keep these diverse energy resources from becoming the sufficient, 

reliable, and economic energy supplies upon which people depend. These challenges 

are compounded by emerging uncertainties: geopolitical influences on energy development, trade, and security; and increasing constraints on carbon dioxide (CO2) 

emissions that could impose changes in future energy use. While risks have always 

typified the energy business, they are now accumulating and converging in new 

ways. 

The National Petroleum Council examined a broad range of global energy supply, 

demand, and technology projections through 2030. The Council identified risks and 

challenges to a reliable and secure energy future, and developed strategies and recommendations aimed at balancing future economic, security, and environmental 

goals. 

The United States and the world face hard truths about the global energy future 

over the next 25 years: 

—Coal, oil, and natural gas will remain indispensable to meeting total projected 

energy demand growth. 

—The world is not running out of energy resources, but there are accumulating 

risks to continuing expansion of oil and natural gas production from the conventional sources relied upon historically. These risks create significant challenges 

to meeting projected energy demand. 

—To mitigate these risks, expansion of all economic energy sources will be required, including coal, nuclear, renewables, and unconventional oil and natural 

gas. Each of these sources faces significant challenges—including safety, environmental, political, or economic hurdles—and imposes infrastructure requirements for development and delivery. 

—‘‘Energy Independence’’ should not be confused with strengthening energy security. The concept of energy independence is not realistic in the foreseeable future, whereas U.S. energy security can be enhanced by moderating demand, expanding and diversifying domestic energy supplies, and strengthening global energy trade and investment. There can be no U.S. energy security without global 

energy security. 

—A majority of the U.S. energy sector workforce, including skilled scientists and 

engineers, is eligible to retire within the next decade. The workforce must be 

replenished and trained. 

—Policies aimed at curbing CO2 emissions will alter the energy mix, increase energy-related costs, and require reductions in demand growth. 

Free and open markets should be relied upon wherever possible to produce efficient solutions. Where markets need to be bolstered, policies should be implemented 

with care and consideration of possible unintended consequences. The Council proposes five core strategies to assist markets in meeting the energy challenges to 2030 

and beyond. All five strategies are essential—there is no single, easy solution to the 

multiple challenges we face. However, the Council is confident that the prompt 

adoption of these strategies, along with a sustained commitment to implementation, 

will promote U.S. competitiveness by balancing economic, security, and environmental goals. The United States must: 

—Moderate the growing demand for energy by increasing efficiency of transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial uses. 

—Expand and diversify production from clean coal, nuclear, biomass, other renewables, and unconventional oil and natural gas; moderate the decline of conventional domestic oil and gas production; and increase access for development of 

new resources. 

—Integrate energy policy into trade, economic, environmental, security, and foreign policies; strengthen global energy trade and investment; and broaden dialogue with both producing and consuming nations to improve global energy security. 

—Enhance science and engineering capabilities and create long-term opportunities for research and development in all phases of the energy supply and demand system. 
27 

1Wilson M, Monea M. (Eds.), IEA GHG Weyburn CO2 Monitoring & Storage Project Summary 

Report 2000–2004 (2004), 273 p. 2 Riddiford, F, Wright, I, Espie, T, and Torqui, A: ‘‘Monitoring geological storage: In Salah 

Gas CO2 Storage Project,’’ GHGT–7, Vancouver (2004). 3Pacala and Socolow: ‘‘Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the next 50 

Years with Current Technology,’’ Science 305 (13 Aug. 2004): 968. 4Third Assessment Report—Climate Change 2001, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change. 5Socolow R: ‘‘Can We Bury Global Warming,’’ Scientific American (2005). 

—Develop the legal and regulatory framework to enable carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). In addition, as policymakers consider options to reduce CO2

emissions, provide an effective global framework for carbon management, including establishment of a transparent, predictable, economy-wide cost for CO2

emissions. 

All five strategies must be addressed together, global cooperation is required, and 

we must begin now and plan sustained commitment. 

With that background, let me know turn to carbon capture and sequestration 

(CCS) underground which can facilitate the continued use of fossil fuels in an increasingly carbon-constrained world. CCS is technically achievable today, and has 

been demonstrated at a project level and applied in enhanced oil recovery. However, 

carbon dioxide has not been injected at the scales (both volumes and time periods) 

that will be necessary in the future. 

CARBON CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION

It is likely that the world is moving into an era in which carbon emissions will 

be constrained. Oil and natural gas contribute more than half the current, energyrelated CO2 emissions. In a carbon-constrained world, the use of oil, natural gas and 

coal will be affected by policy measures to reduce carbon emissions. Carbon management will involve combining several measures to reduce CO2 emissions, including 

improvements in the efficiency of energy use and the use of alternatives to fossil 

fuels such as biofuels, solar, wind, and nuclear power. However, to meet the energy 

demands of the Nation, the United States will continue using fossil fuels, including 

coal, extensively over the next 50 years or more. To do so, and to extend the resource base to include unconventional hydrocarbons such as heavy oil, tar sands, 

and shale oil, it will be necessary, if carbon constraints are imposed, to capture and 

sequester a large fraction of the CO2 produced by burning these fossil fuels. 

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) entails trapping CO2 at the site where 

it is generated and storing it for periods sufficiently long (several thousand years) 

to mitigate the effect CO2 can have on the Earth’s climate. I will only consider geological sequestration and won’t discuss possible alternatives, such as deep-sea sequestration, which is fraught with environmental concerns and issues of public acceptance. Geological sequestration would target spent oil and natural gas reservoirs 

and deep saline formations. 

The technologies required for effective CCS are, by and large, viable. Projects continue at Sleipner field, the Weyburn EOR project in Canada,1 and the In Salah saline formation project in Algeria.2 The hurdles to implementation are largely ones 

of integration at scale. Current possible scenarios of climate change predict that by 

2056, the level of carbon to be mitigated could be 7 billion tons per year or more.3

4 Sequestering a billion tons of carbon each year would entail pumping about 80 

million barrels per day of supercritical CO2 into secure geological formations. This 

amounts to about a quarter of the volume of water currently pumped worldwide for 

secondary oil recovery. At the local level, sequestering CO2 from a 1-gigawatt coalfired power station would require pumping into the ground some 150,000 barrels per 

day of supercritical CO2.5 A power station of that size would generate electricity for 

about 700,000 typical American homes. 

While the technologies for CCS are essentially available, in that capture and storage can be implemented now, extensive scope remains for improvement. In particular, the capture stage of CCS is key, and currently dominates the overall cost. 

Novel, lower-cost approaches to capture would have a significant effect on the implementation of CCS and would, in turn, greatly influence the usability of fossil fuels 

under carbon constraint. Other areas where continued research is important: 

—Fundamentals of storage, such as long-term physiochemical changes in the storage reservoir; 

—Characterization and risk assessment (faults, cap rocks, wells); 

—Reservoir management for long term storage; 

—Integration of fit-for-purpose measurement, monitoring and verification; 

—Ability to inject CO2 into formations; and 
28 

6Kuuskraa VA: ‘‘Undeveloped Domestic Oil Resources: The foundation for Increasing Oil Production and a Viable Domestic Oil Industry’’ 7Oreskes, N: ‘‘The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,’’ Science 306 (3 Dec. 2004): 1686. 

8 ‘‘IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage,’’ Intergovernmental Panel on 

Climate Change, Interlachen (2005), available at http://www.ipcc.ch/. 9 ‘‘The Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change,’’ available at http:// 

www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/independentlreviews/sternlreviewleconomicslclimatelchange/ 

sternlreviewlreport.cfm. 

—Retention and leakage, such as leakage through wells. 

It is also crucial at this stage to undertake an assessment of the total U.S. capacity for CO2 sequestration. While it is reasonable to expect that the combined capacity of existing hydrocarbon reservoirs and deep saline formations is large, a detailed 

understanding of the regional distribution of capacity throughout the United States 

is critically important. 

It is important to note that there is no experience available with full-process integration, e.g. a coupled, large-scale coal-fired power plant with CCS. Several projects 

world-wide, most notably FutureGen in the United States and Zero-Gen in Australia, are in the process of designing and constructing an integrated large-scale 

power and CCS operation. Operating such facilities successfully is central to understanding the true economics and practical requirements for large-scale CCS. 

One activity in which CO2 is pumped into reservoirs currently is enhanced oil recovery (EOR). This provides a proving ground for various techniques that are relevant to CCS, and can be implemented while other carbon-management solutions 

are under development. At present, CO2–EOR is not directed towards effective storage of CO2 but the techniques can be modified to improve carbon sequestration. 

A recent study completed by Kuuskraa 6 for the DOE suggests that application of 

advanced EOR techniques can increase U.S. recoverable oil resources. A total of 10 

domestic oil basins and areas have now been assessed. These assessments indicate 

that the technically recoverable oil resource from application of ‘‘state-of-the-art’’ 

CO2–EOR is 89 billion barrels. In addition, new work on the transition/residual oil 

zone resource documents the presence of 42 billion barrels of this category of oil in 

place in just 3 domestic oil basins (Permian, Big Horn, and Williston). Detailed reservoir simulation assessment shows that about 20 billion barrels of this oil in place 

could become technically recoverable by applying CO2–EOR. Finally, an in-depth 

look at the additional oil recovery from applying ‘‘next generation’’ CO2–EOR technology found further potential. This work shows that combining: (1) advanced, high 

reservoir contact well designs; (2) mobility and miscibility enhancement; (3) large 

volumes of CO2 injection; and (4) real-time performance feedback and process control technology could bring about ‘‘game changer’’ levels of improvement in oil recovery efficiency. 

Government incentives for CO2 storage in association with CO2–EOR, and new arrangements for developing suitable infrastructure for commercial use of anthropogenic CO2 for EOR with storage, could help CO2–EOR for storage succeed, particularly as CO2 becomes increasingly available (and increasingly cheap) under a widescale adoption of CCS. 

There is now a scientific consensus that anthropogenic CO2 is driving detrimental 

climate change.7 Moreover, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 

Special Report on CCS indicates that including it in a mitigation portfolio could help 

stabilize CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere (at double the pre-industrial level) 

with a cost reduction of 30 percent or more, compared to other approaches.8 More 

recently, the UK’s Stern Review estimated that the cost of meaningful mitigation— 

maintaining atmospheric levels of CO2 at no more than double the pre-industrial 

levels—would amount to about 1 percent of global GDP.9 Doing nothing, on the 

other hand, would likely incur a greater cost. These studies indicate that the financial risk to the Nation of delaying action is now so high that a concerted emphasis 

on CCS is already strongly warranted. 

Summary—Technical Issues 

Tables T–V.1, T–V.2, and T–V.3 describe the basis for experience relevant to commercial CCS, current technologies in priority order, and future technologies in time/ 

priority order, with time scales to commercial use. 

Technology today is well-understood and effective and can probably deliver what 

is needed. However, there are some outstanding technical issues: 

—Novel, lower cost capture technologies; 

—Integration and fit-for-purpose deployment of monitoring and verification; 

—Well leakage characterization and mitigation; 

—Protocols for site characterization; and 

—Technical basis for operational protocols and risk characterization. 
29 

TABLE T–V.1.—BASIS FOR EXPERIENCE RELEVANT TO COMMERCIAL CCS 

Experience Basis Significance Limitations 

CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) .......... > 30 years experience; injection 

>>1 M tons CO2/year.

Very limited monitoring programs; 

questions of applicability of experience to saline formations. 

Acid gas injection .................................. > 15 years experience injecting CO2

and H2S into over 44 geologic formations.

Generally small volumes; very little 

publicly available technical information. 

Hazardous waste disposal/underground 

injection control.

................................................................ Most hazardous waste is not buoyant 

or reactive. 

Natural gas storage ............................... ∼100 years experience injecting natural 

gas into rocks.

Limited monitoring; different chemistry; 

built for temporary storage. 

Natural analogs ...................................... Several large (> 50 trillion cubic feet) 

carbo-gaseous accumulations globally; proof of concept.

Most at steady state, transient knowledge unavailable; limited geography 

and geology. 

Conventional oil and gas E&P ............... Nearly 150 years of technology and experience in predicting and managing buoyant fluids in crust.

Hydrocarbon recovery has goals and 

needs which differ from those of 

carbon sequestration. 

Capture/gas separations technology ...... > 70 years separating CO2 and other 

acid gases from gas streams, including at power plants.

Costs still higher than preferred under 

widespread deployment; still no integration of large power plants with 

CCS. 

Large CO2 storage projects .................... 3 large-scale projects; > 6 pending 

before 2010.

Still limited monitoring program; limited geologic representation. 

CO2 pipelines and transportation .......... > 30 years experience at large scale; 

existing regulations likely to apply.

None. 

TABLE T–V.2.—SUMMARY OF CCS TECHNOLOGIES IN PRIORITY ORDER 

Technology Significance Brief Discussion 

CO2–EOR ................................................ Natural arena for exploring CCS ........... Provides a direct commercial incentive 

to pumping CO2 into a reservoir. 

Evaluation of CCS in association with 

coal-fired plant.

Development of integration of required 

technologies.

Projects in USA, Australia and China to 

develop CCS with coal plant. 

Improved capture technologies .............. Key determinant of cost of CCS ............ Significant efforts in USA, Europe and 

Japan to drive down cost of capture. 

Injection of CO2 into subsurface formations.Demonstration of injection and test of 

storage.

CO2 currently injected at the Mt/yr 

level. 

Development of models for migration of 

CO2 subsurface.

Understanding of migration behavior 

underpins characterization and MMV.

Combination of modeling and experiment (e.g. Sleipner) to establish 

CO2 migration. 

Reservoir characterization for storage ... Reservoir characterization techniques 

migrate to CO2 storage estimates.

Available techniques tested at several 

sites. 

Measurement, monitoring and 

verification (MMV).

Available MMV technologies applied to 

CO2 injection and storage.

Available techniques tested at several 

sites. 

Development of CO2 resistant cements.Primary leakage path is likely to be existing wells.Improvements in resistance of cements 

to corrosion are currently being pursued. 

TABLE T–V.3.—SUMMARY OF CCS TECHNOLOGIES IN TIME/PRIORITY ORDER, WITH TIMEFRAME TO 

COMMERCIAL USE 

Technology Significance Timeframe 

Extensive CO2–EOR with substantial CO2 sequestration.Enhanced security of supply through better recovery ..... 2010 

Measurement, monitoring and verification (MMV) techniques.Necessary prerequisite for implementation ..................... 2010 

Site characterization and risk assessment ..................... Determination of site suitability for sequestration ......... 2010 

CO2 leak remediation technology ..................................... Necessary for implementation of CO2 storage ................ 2010 

Demonstration of coal-fired power with CCS .................. Establish precedent for the technology ........................... 2010 

Assessment of U.S. CO2 sequestration capacity ............. Primary requirement for siting power stations ............... < 2020 
30 

TABLE T–V.3.—SUMMARY OF CCS TECHNOLOGIES IN TIME/PRIORITY ORDER, WITH TIMEFRAME TO 

COMMERCIAL USE—Continued 

Technology Significance Timeframe 

Novel, inexpensive capture technology ............................ Key cost determinant of CCS .......................................... < 2020 

Next-generation CO2–EOR with maximum CO2 storage .. Increases usable CO2 storage capacity in structurally 

confined geologic settings by three- to ten-fold.

2020 

Ubiquitous coal-fired power with CCS ............................. Extensive power generation without CO2 emissions ....... 2020 

Rig-site or sub-surface hydrocarbon processing to generate low-carbon fuels or feedstocks and recycle CO2

within the reservoir or field for EOR followed by CCS.

Keeps most of the carbon in or near the reservoir, simplifying CCS logistics and costs, enabling low carbon fuels/heat/power from oil and gas.

2030 

Summary—Nontechnical Issues 

Given the scope of commercial CCS, there are many issues that are not technical, 

per se, but relate to technical readiness and ways to maximize early investment: 

—There is a high likelihood of a critical gap in human capital. Currently, workers 

who can execute CCS are the same as those employed in oil and natural gas 

exploration and production. In a carbon-constrained economy, there will not be 

enough skilled workers to go around. This is particularly true for geoscientists, 

but also true for chemical and mechanical engineers. 

—Development of a comprehensive set of energy policies and strategies is critical 

to provide certainty to make investment decisions. 

—The legislative and regulatory framework within which CCS is conducted will 

have a major impact on how rapidly the technology is implemented and ultimately will determine whether CCS can effectively mitigate carbon emissions 

and provide access to future hydrocarbon supplies. 

—It is not clear that the science and technology programs in place today will provide answers required by regulators and decision makers. Greater dialogue between individuals working with technology and those developing a regulatory 

framework would help to reduce unnecessary regulation and guide R&D goals 

toward the most immediate needs. 

—Infrastructure to transport CO2, such as pipelines, is essential for commercial 

deployment. However, there is concern that pipelines for early project opportunities will not be able to carry additional future projects. Incentives and government action for this infrastructure can help to build networks sufficient to support large-scale, commercial CCS deployment in the United States. 

CONCLUSIONS

The challenges facing our energy future are daunting, but not insurmountable. 

Given the massive scale of the global energy system and the long lead times necessary to make significant changes, concerted actions are needed now to promote 

U.S. competitiveness by balancing economic, security, and environmental goals. Carbon dioxide emissions are by their very nature a global issue, and atmospheric concentrations respect no geographic boundary, as such, ultimately a global solution is 

required. Carbon capture and storage is in some ways a unique opportunity for the 

United States to both develop technology and demonstrate leadership. We have 

large remaining fossil fuel reserves which could be economically and environmentally converted using carbon capture technology and we have the infrastructure 

and sedimentary basins to sequester the CO2. The regulatory and legislative framework within which CCS is conducted will have a major impact on how rapidly the 

technology is implemented. The oil and gas industry has the skill sets to further 

develop and deploy this technology, but clearly cross industry and government cooperation is required. Thank you and I would be happy to answer any questions. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Nelson, thank you very much. Finally, we 

will hear from Jeffrey Phillips, who represents the Electric Power 

Research Institute in North Carolina. 

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY N. PHILLIPS, PROGRAM MANAGER, ELECTRIC POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE 

Mr. PHILLIPS. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for 

inviting me to speak on behalf of our Institute. 

As you know, I testified in front of the Senate Energy Committee 

on the topic of advanced coal-generation technology earlier this 
31 

month, and at that time I made five points. Today’s coal power 

plants are much cleaner and more efficient than the existing fleet. 

Today’s CO2 capture technology will increase wholesale electricity 

prices by up to 80 percent, but we’ve identified a clear technology 

development path that can greatly decrease the cost impact by 

2025. Unfortunately, the funding for that development path is 

sadly inadequate. And, finally, we engineers need some legal experts to help us set out the rules for deep geologic storage of CO2. At this hearing I would like to expand on the technology development path that we’ve identified to decrease the cost of CO2 capture, 

as well as discuss the possibility of using the sale of captured CO2

for enhanced oil recovery as a means to accelerate deployment of 

carbon capture technology and coal power plants worldwide. 

In late 2004 EPRI initiated a new program called CoalFleet for 

Tomorrow, which is an industry-led effort aimed at accelerating the 

deployment of advanced coal power plant technology, particularly 

technology which can capture CO2. In less than 3 years CoalFleet 

has made significant progress, including the creation of what we 

call research development and demonstration (RD&D) augmentation plans for both combustion-based and IGCC power plants. The 

main goal of these plants is to have cost-effective carbon capture 

storage technology ready and proven at commercial scale in the 

2025 time frame. These plants identify the key actions that must 

take place that are not currently funded. More details of our RD&D 

augmentation plans can be found in my written testimony. 

We’re also looking at coal drying and methods for mitigating the 

impact of high altitudes, as well as ways to decrease water use, all 

important aspects for the use of North Dakota lignite. 

CoalFleet is funded by more than 60 organizations, including 

power generators, equipment suppliers, oil companies, and government agencies, as well as coal and railroad companies. It provides 

a forum for all the key players in this field to discuss the issues 

and work together on RD&D to prove carbon capture and storage 

economics. 

I want to take this moment to publicly thank Great River Energy 

for its strong support of CoalFleet, and we would welcome the participation of other power generation and coal-related organizations 

from North Dakota, as well as the other 49 States. 

EPRI is already putting together action plans to implement demonstration projects in the CoalFleet RD&D plants. However, these 

projects will require significant amounts of money in order to move 

forward. One way to offset the cost of these demonstration projects 

would be to sell captured CO2 to the oil industry for enhanced oil 

recovery. 

Recent studies by the U.S. Department of Energy reveal the potential market for up to 17.5 billion tons of CO2 for enhanced oil 

recovery. In theory at least this is enough CO2—this CO2 could be 

provided by 180 coal powerplants, each 500 megawatts, capturing 

90 percent of their CO2 over a 30-year period. That’s a lot of new 

coal powerplants. Now, it’s as much as the U.S. Department of Energy’s energy information predicts will be built between now and 

2025. And the thing that I find most amazing is if we did this, we 

would double domestic oil production. I repeat we would double domestic oil production. Of course, not all the new coal powerplants 
32 

are going to be in areas where the oil industry needs CO2, but 

some are, and even if we could just get 10 percent of these plants 

built with CO2 capture that would give us 18 opportunities to build 

large-scale CO2 capture facilities. And the history of other powerplant technologies tells us that the 18th facility will cost a lot less 

than the first one, which means that if we and the rest of the world 

have to build CO2 capture facilities on all new coal powerplants, 

they will cost a lot less than they would if we miss this win-win 

opportunity. I must point out even if oil companies were willing to pay $15 to $25 per ton for CO2, that would not cover the full cost of capturing CO2 from a coal power plant with today’s technology, whether it’s IGCC or oxy-firing. Consequently, we will have to come up 

with some way to subsidize the cost of capturing CO2 in order to 

make it attractive. 

Our CoalFleet program has also identified other non-technologyrelated impediments to deploying coal power based EOR projects, 

which I would be happy to discuss further during the question and 

answer period, as well as any other questions you have. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

Finally, let me point out, if we develop and demonstrate carbon 

capture and storage here in the United States, the technology will 

be applied—could be applied worldwide, thereby providing additional leverage for R&D funds, creating international markets for 

U.S. technology and having a significant impact on global warming. 

That concludes my testimony. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JEFFREY N. PHILLIPS, PH.D. 

Introduction 

I am Jeff Phillips, Program Manager for Advanced Coal Generation for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). EPRI is a non-profit, collaborative R&D organization with principal offices in Palo Alto, California; Knoxville, Tennessee; and 

Charlotte, North Carolina, where I work. EPRI appreciates the opportunity to provide testimony to the subcommittee on the topic of coal research, development, and 

demonstration (RD&D) as well as the potential benefits if the coal, oil, and gas industries were to work together to sequester carbon and enhance domestic oil production. 

The key points I will make today include: 

—Advanced coal power plant technologies with integrated CO2 capture and storage (CCS) will be crucial to lowering U.S. electric power sector CO2 emissions 

to 1990 levels by 2030. They will also be crucial to substantially lowering world 

CO2 emissions as well. 

—Without advanced coal power and integrated CCS technologies, the cost of electric power will increase dramatically, and the impact on the U.S. economy could 

reach $1 trillion per year by 2030. 

—EPRI’s CoalFleet for Tomorrow® program has identified the RD&D pathways 

to demonstrate, by 2025, a full portfolio of economically attractive, commercialscale advanced coal power and integrated CCS technologies suitable for use 

with the broad range of U.S. coal types. —The identified RD&D will cost $8 billion between now and 2017 and $17 billion 

cumulatively by 2025, and we need to begin immediately to ensure that these 

climate change solution technologies will be fully tested at scale by 2025. 

—Selling CO2 captured from coal power plants for EOR could lower the cost of 

testing CO2 capture technology and would have the added benefit of increasing 

U.S. oil production. 

—The U.S. Department of Energy has identified a potential EOR market for up 

to $17.5 billion tons of CO2, which is equal to the 30-year cumulative CO2 production of 180 coal power plants sized at 500 MW; however, a number of poten-
33 

tial barriers need to be addressed before any such plants could become a reality, 

including regulatory and long-term liability issues. 

SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS

Coal is the energy source for half of the electricity generated in the United States. 

Even with the aggressive development and deployment of alternative energy 

sources, numerous forecasts of energy use predict that coal will continue to provide 

a major share of our electric power generation throughout the 21st century. Coal 

is a stably priced, affordable, domestic fuel that can be used in an environmentally 

responsible manner. Criteria air pollutants from all types of new coal power plants 

have been reduced by more than 90 percent compared with plants built 40 years 

ago. Through the development and deployment of advanced coal plants with integrated CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technologies, coal power will become part of 

the solution to satisfying both our energy needs and our global climate change concerns. However, a sustained RD&D program at heightened levels of investment and 

resolution of legal and regulatory unknowns for long-term geologic CO2 storage will 

be required to achieve the promise of clean coal technologies. The members of 

EPRI’s CoalFleet for Tomorrow® program—a research collaborative comprising 

more than 60 organizations representing international power generators, equipment 

suppliers, government research organizations, coal and oil companies, and a railroad—see crucial roles for both industry and governments worldwide in aggressively 

pursuing collaborative RD&D over the next 20∂ years to create a full portfolio of 

commercially self-sustaining, competitive advanced coal power generation and CO2

capture and storage technologies. 

The potential return on this investment is enormous. EPRI’s ‘‘Electricity Technology in a Carbon-Constrained Future’’ study suggests that it is technically feasible 

to reduce U.S. electric sector CO2 emissions over the next 25 years while meeting 

the increased demand for electricity. The study showed that the largest single contributor to emissions reduction would come from the integration of CCS technologies 

to advanced coal-based power plants coming on-line after 2020. Economic analyses 

of scenarios to achieve the study’s emission reduction goals show that a 2030 U.S. 

energy mix including advanced coal technologies with integrated CCS results in 

electricity at half the cost of a 2030 energy mix without advanced coal with CCS. 

In the case with advanced coal with CCS, the U.S. economy is $1 trillion per year 

larger than in the case without advanced coal and CCS, with a much stronger manufacturing sector. A previous EPRI economic study based on financial market ‘‘options’’ principles found a similarly large benefit to U.S. consumers of having coal’s 

price-stabilizing influence on the electricity system. 

The portfolio aspect of advanced coal with integrated CCS technologies must be 

emphasized because no single advanced coal technology (or any generating technology) has clear-cut economic advantages across the range of U.S. applications. The 

best strategy for meeting future electricity needs while addressing climate change 

concerns and minimizing economic disruption lies in developing a full portfolio of 

technologies from which power producers (and their regulators) can choose the option best suited to local conditions and preferences and provide power at the lowest 

cost to the customer. When it comes to advanced coal with integrated CCS technologies, there is no ‘‘silver bullet,’’ but we can develop ‘‘silver buckshot.’’ 

Toward this end, four major technology efforts related to CO2 emissions reduction 

from coal-based power systems must be undertaken: 

—Increased efficiency and reliability of integrated gasification combined cycle 

(IGCC) power plants; 

—Increased thermodynamic efficiency of pulverized-coal (PC) power plants; 

—Improved technologies for capture of CO2 from coal combustion- and gasification-based power plants; and 

—Reliable, acceptable technologies for long-term storage of captured CO2. 

Identification of mechanisms to share RD&D financial and technical risks and to 

address legal and regulatory uncertainties must take place as well. 

In short, a comprehensive recognition of all the factors needed to hasten deployment of competitive, commercial advanced coal and integrated CO2 capture and 

storage technologies—and implementation of realistic, pragmatic plans to overcome 

barriers—is the key to meeting the challenge to supply affordable, environmentally 

responsible energy in a carbon-constrained world. 

ACCELERATING RD&D ON ADVANCED COAL TECHNOLOGIES WITH CO2 CAPTURE AND

STORAGE—INVESTMENT AND TIME REQUIREMENTS

A typical path to develop a technology to commercial maturity consists of moving 

from the conceptual stage to laboratory testing, to small pilot-scale tests, to larger- 
34 

1 IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA GHG), ‘‘Estimating Future Trends in the Cost 

of CO2 Capture Technologies,’’ 2006/5, January 2006. 

scale tests, to multiple full-scale demonstrations, and finally to deployment in fullscale commercial operations. For capital-intensive technologies such as advanced 

coal power systems, each stage can take years or even decades to complete and each 

sequential stage tends to entail increasing levels of investment. As depicted in Figure 1, several key advanced coal power and CCS technologies are now in (or approaching) an ‘‘adolescent’’ stage of development. This is a time of particular vulnerability in the technology development cycle, as it is common for the expected costs 

of full-scale application to be higher than earlier estimates when less was known 

about scale-up and application challenges. Public agency and private funders can become disillusioned with a technology development effort at this point, but as long 

as fundamental technology performance results continue to meet expectations, and 

a path to cost reduction is clear, perseverance by project sponsors in maintaining 

momentum is crucial. 

Unexpectedly high costs at the mid-stage of technology development have historically come down following market introduction, experience gained from ‘‘learningby-doing,’’ realization of economies of scale in design and production as order volumes rise, and removal of contingencies covering uncertainties and first-of-a-kind 

costs. An International Energy Agency study led by Carnegie Mellon University observed this pattern in the cost-over-time of power plant environmental controls and 

has predicted a similar reduction in the cost of power plant CO2 capture technologies as the cumulative installed capacity grows.1 EPRI concurs with their expectations of experience-based cost reductions and believes that RD&D on specifically 

identified technology refinements can lead to greater cost reductions sooner in the 

deployment phase. 

Of the coal-based power generating and carbon sequestration technologies shown 

in Figure 1, only supercritical pulverized coal (SCPC) technology has reached commercial maturity. It is crucial that other technologies in the portfolio—namely ultrasupercritical (USC) PC, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), CO2 capture 

(pre-combustion, post-combustion, and oxy-combustion), and CO2 storage—be given 

sufficient support to reach the stage of declining constant dollar costs before society’s requirements for greenhouse gas reductions compel their application in large 

numbers. 

Figure 2 depicts the major activities in each of the four technology areas that 

must take place to achieve a set of robust solutions to reduce CO2 emissions from 

coal power systems. This framework should be considered as a whole rather than 

as a set of discrete tasks. Although individual goals related to efficiency, CO2 capture, and CO2 storage present major challenges, significant challenges also arise 
35 

from complex interactions that occur when CO2 capture processes are integrated 

with gasification- and combustion-based power plant processes. 

REDUCING CO2 EMISSIONS THROUGH IMPROVED COAL POWER PLANT EFFICIENCY

Improved thermodynamic efficiency reduces CO2 emissions by reducing the 

amount of fuel required to generate a given amount of electricity. A two-percentage 

point gain in efficiency provides a reduction in fuel consumption of roughly 5 percent and a similar reduction in CO2 output. Depending on the technology used, improved efficiency can also provide similar reductions in criteria air pollutants, hazardous air pollutants, and water consumption. 

A ‘‘typical’’ 500 MW (net) coal plant emits about 3 million metric tons of CO2 per 

year. The annual power output and emissions of the current U.S. coal fleet are 

roughly equivalent to 600 such plants. The contributions attributable to individual 

plants vary considerably with differences in plant steam cycle, coal type, capacity 

factor, and operating regimes. For a given fuel, a new supercritical PC unit built 

today might produce 5–10 percent less CO2 per megawatt-hour (MWh) than the existing fleet average for that coal type. 

With an aggressive RD&D program on efficiency improvement, new ultra-supercritical (USC PC) plants could reduce CO2 emissions per MWh by up to 25 percent 

relative to the existing fleet average. Significant efficiency gains are also possible 

for IGCC plants by employing advanced gas turbines and through more energy-efficient oxygen plants and synthesis (fuel) gas cleanup technologies. 

EPRI and the Coal Utilization Research Council (CURC), in consultation with 

DOE, have identified a challenging but achievable set of milestones for improvements in the efficiency, cost, and emissions of PC and coal-based IGCC plants. The 

EPRI–CURC Roadmap projects an overall improvement in the thermal efficiency of 

state-of-the-art generating technology from 38–41 percent in 2010 to 44–49 percent 

by 2025 (on a higher heating value [HHV] basis; see Table 1). The ranges in the 

numbers are not simply a reflection of uncertainty, but rather they underscore an 

important point about differences among U.S. coals. The natural variations in moisture and ash content and combustion characteristics between coals have a significant impact on attainable efficiency. 

An advanced coal plant firing North Dakota lignite, for example, would likely 

have an HHV efficiency two percentage points lower than the efficiency of a comparable plant firing subbituminous coal from Wyoming and Montana’s Powder River 

basin. Similarly, plants using Powder River Basin coal would have efficiencies about 
36 

two percentage points lower than plants firing Appalachian bituminous coals. Any 

government incentive program with an efficiency-based qualification criterion should 

recognize these inherent differences in the attainable efficiencies for plants using 

different ranks of coal. 

As Table 1 indicates, technology-based efficiency gains over time will be offset by 

the energy required for CO2 capture. Nevertheless, aggressive pursuit of the EPRI– 

CURC RD&D program offers the prospect of coal plants with CO2 capture in 2025 

that have net efficiencies meeting or exceeding current-day power plants without 

CO2 capture. 

TABLE 1.—EFFICIENCY MILESTONES IN EPRI–CURC ROADMAP 

2010 2015 2020 2025 

PC & IGCC Systems (Without CO2

Capture) ................................... 38–41 percent HHV 39–43 percent HHV 42–46 percent HHV 44–49 percent HHV 

PC & IGCC Systems (With CO2

Capture 1) ................................. 31–32 percent HHV 31–35 percent HHV 33–39 percent HHV 39–46 percent HHV 

1 Efficiency values reflect impact of 90 percent CO2 capture, but not compression or transportation. 

NEW PLANT EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENTS—IGCC

Although IGCC is not yet a mature technology for coal-fired power plants, chemical plants around the world have accumulated a 100-year experience base operating 

coal-based gasification units and related gas cleanup processes. The most advanced 

of these units are similar to the front end of a modern IGCC facility. Similarly, several decades of experience firing natural gas and petroleum distillate have established a high level of maturity for the basic combined cycle generating technology. 

Nonetheless, ongoing RD&D continues to provide significant advances in the base 

technologies, as well as in the suite of technologies used to integrate them into an 

IGCC generating facility. 

Efficiency gains in currently proposed IGCC plants will come from the use of new 

‘‘FB-class’’ gas turbines, which will provide an overall plant efficiency gain of about 

0.6 percentage point (relative to IGCC units with FA-class models, such as Tampa 

Electric’s Polk Power Station). This corresponds to a decrease in CO2 emissions rate 

of about 1.5 percent. 

Figure 3 depicts the anticipated timeframe for further developments identified by 

EPRI’s CoalFleet for Tomorrow® program that promise a succession of significant 

improvements in IGCC unit efficiency. Key technology advances under development 

include: 

—larger capacity gasifiers (often via higher operating pressures that boost 

throughput without a commensurate increase in vessel size); 

—integration of new gasifiers with larger, more efficient G- and H-class gas turbines; 

—use of ion transport membrane (ITM) and/or other more energy-efficient technologies in oxygen plants; 

—warm synthesis gas cleanup and membrane separation processes for CO2 capture that reduce energy losses in these areas; 

—recycle of liquefied CO2 to replace water in gasifier feed slurry (reducing heat 

loss to water evaporation); and 

—hybrid combined cycles using fuel cells to achieve generating efficiencies exceeding those of conventional combined cycle technology. 

Improvements in gasifier reliability and in control systems also contribute to improved annual average efficiency by minimizing the number and duration of 

startups and shutdowns. 
37 

Counteracting Gas Turbine Output Loss at High Elevations.—IGCC plants designed for application in the western Great Plains and Intermountain West must 

account for the natural reduction in gas turbine power output that occurs where the 

air is thin. This phenomenon is rooted in the fundamental volumetric flow limitation 

of a gas turbine, and can reduce power output by up to 15 percent at an elevation 

of 5,000 feet (relative to a comparable plant at sea level). EPRI is exploring measures to counteract this power loss, including inlet air chilling (a technique used at 

natural gas power plants to mitigate the power loss that comes from thinning of the 

air on a hot day) and use of supplemental burners between the gas turbine and 

steam turbine to boost the plant’s steam turbine section generating capacity. 

Larger, Higher Firing Temperature Gas Turbines.—For plants coming on-line 

around 2015, the larger size G-class gas turbines, which operate at higher firing 

temperatures (relative to F-class machines) can improve efficiency by 1 to 2 percentage points while also decreasing capital cost per kW capacity. The H-class gas turbines, coming on-line in the same timeframe, will provide a further increase in efficiency and capacity. 

Ion Transport Membrane-Based Oxygen Plants.—Most gasifiers used in IGCC 

plants require a large quantity of high-pressure, high purity oxygen, which is typically generated on site with an expensive and energy-intensive cryogenic process. 

The ITM process allows the oxygen in high-temperature air to pass through a membrane while preventing passage of non-oxygen atoms. According to developers, an 

ITM-based oxygen plant consumes 35–60 percent less power and costs 35 percent 

less than a cryogenic plant. EPRI is performing a due diligence assessment of this 

technology in advance of potential participation in technology scale-up efforts. 

Supercritical Heat Recovery Steam Generators.—In IGCC plants, hot exhaust gas 

exiting the gas turbine is ducted into a heat exchanger known as a heat recovery 

steam generator (HRSG) to transfer energy into water-filled tubes producing steam 

to drive a steam turbine. This combination of a gas turbine and steam turbine 

power cycles produces electricity more efficiently than either a gas turbine or steam 

turbine alone. As with conventional steam power plants, the efficiency of the steam 

cycle in a combined cycle plant increases when turbine inlet steam temperature and 

pressure are increased. The higher exhaust temperatures of G- and H-class gas tur-
38 

bines offer the potential for adoption of more-efficient supercritical steam cycles. 

Materials for use in a supercritical HRSG are generally established. 

Synthesis Gas Cleaning at Higher Temperatures.—The acid gas recovery (AGR) 

processes currently used to remove sulfur compounds from synthesis gas require 

that the gas and solvent be cooled to about 100 °F, thereby causing a loss in efficiency. Further costs and efficiency loss are inherent in the process equipment and 

auxiliary steam required to recover the sulfur compounds from the solvent and convert them to useable products. Several DOE-sponsored RD&D efforts aim to reduce 

the energy losses and costs imposed by this recovery process. These technologies (described below) could be ready—with adequate RD&D support—by 2020: 

—The Selective Catalytic Oxidation of Hydrogen Sulfide process eliminates the 

Claus and Tail Gas Treating units, along with the traditional solvent-based 

AGR contactor, regenerator, and heat exchangers, by directly converting hydrogen sulfide (H2S) to elemental sulfur. The process allows for a higher operating 

temperature of approximately 300 °F, which eliminates part of the low-temperature gas cooling train. The anticipated benefit is a net capital cost reduction of 

about $60/kW along with an efficiency gain of about 0.8 percentage point. 

—The RTI/Eastman High Temperature Desulfurization System uses a regenerable 

dry zinc oxide sorbent in a dual loop transport reactor system to convert H2S 

and COS to H2O, CO2, and SO2. Tests at Eastman Chemical Company have 

shown sulfur species removal rates above 99.9 percent, with 10 ppm output 

versus 8,000∂ ppm input sulfur, using operating temperatures of 800–1,000 °F. 

This process is also being tested for its ability to provide a high-pressure CO2

by-product. The anticipated benefit for IGCC, compared with using a standard 

oil-industry process for sulfur removal, is a net capital cost reduction of $60– 

$90 per kW, a thermal efficiency gain of 2–4 percent for the gasification process, 

and a slight reduction in operating cost. Tests are also under way for a multicontaminant removal processes that can be integrated with the transport 

desulfurization system at temperatures above 480 °F. 

Liquid CO2-Coal Slurrying for Gasification of Low-Rank Coals.—Future IGCC 

plants may recycle some of the recovered liquid CO2 to replace water as the 

slurrying medium for the coal feed. This is expected to increase gasification efficiency for all coals, but particularly for subbituminous coal and lignite, which have 

naturally high moisture contents. The liquid CO2 has a lower heat of vaporization 

than water and is able to carry more coal per unit mass of fluid. The liquid CO2- coal slurry will flash almost immediately upon entering the gasifier, providing good 

dispersion of the coal particles and potentially yielding the higher performance of 

a dry-fed gasifier with the simplicity of a slurry-fed system. 

Traditionally, slurry-fed gasification technologies have a cost advantage over conventional dry-fed fuel handling systems, but they suffer a large performance penalty 

when used with coals containing a large fraction of water and ash. EPRI identified 

CO2 coal slurrying as an innovative fuel preparation concept 20 years ago, when 

IGCC technology was in its infancy. At that time, however, the cost of producing 

liquid CO2 was too high to justify the improved thermodynamic performance. 

To date, CO2-coal slurrying has only been demonstrated at pilot scale and has yet 

to be assessed in feeding coal to a gasifier, so the estimated performance benefits 

remain to be confirmed. The concept warrants consideration for future IGCC plants 

that capture and compress CO2 for storage, as this will substantially reduce the incremental cost of producing a liquid CO2 stream. It will first be necessary, however, 

to update previous studies to quantify the potential benefit of liquid CO2 slurries 

with IGCC plants designed for CO2 capture. If the predicted benefit is economically 

advantageous, a significant amount of scale-up and demonstration work would be 

required to qualify this technology for commercial use. 

Fuel Cells and IGCC.—No matter how far gasification and turbine technologies 

advance, IGCC power plant efficiency will never progress beyond the inherent thermodynamic limits of the gas turbine and steam turbine power cycles (along with 

lower limits imposed by available materials technology). Several IGCC-fuel cell hybrid power plant concepts (IGFC) aim to provide a path to coal-based power generation with net efficiencies that exceed those of conventional combined cycle generation. 

Along with its high thermal efficiency, the fuel cell hybrid cycle reduces the energy consumption for CO2 capture. The anode section of the fuel cell produces a 

stream that is highly concentrated in CO2. After removal of water, this stream can 

be compressed for sequestration. The concentrated CO2 stream is produced without 

having to include a water-gas shift reactor in the process (see Figure 4). This further improves the thermal efficiency and decreases capital cost. IGFC power systems are a long-term solution, however, and are unlikely to see full-scale demonstration until about 2030. 
39 

Role of FutureGen.—The FutureGen Industrial Alliance and DOE are building a 

first-of-its-kind, near-zero emissions coal-fed IGCC power plant integrated with 

CCS. The commencement of full-scale operations is targeted for 2013. The project 

aims to sequester CO2 in a representative geologic formation at a rate of at least 

one million metric tons per year. 

The FutureGen design will address scaling and integration issues for coal-based, 

zero emissions IGCC plants. In its role as a ‘‘living laboratory,’’ FutureGen is designed to validate additional advanced technologies that offer the promise of clean 

environmental performance at a reduced cost and increased reliability. FutureGen 

will have the flexibility to conduct full-scale and slipstream tests of such scalable 

advanced technologies as: 

—Membrane processes to replace cryogenic separation for oxygen production; 

—An advanced transport reactor sidestream with 30 percent of the capacity of the 

main gasifier; 

—Advanced membrane and solvent processes for H2 and CO2 separation; 

—A raw gas shift reactor that reduces the upstream clean-up requirements; 

—Ultra-low-NOX combustors that can be used with high-hydrogen synthesis gas; 

—A fuel cell hybrid combined cycle pilot; 

—Challenging first-of-a-kind system integration; and 

—Smart dynamic plant controls including a CO2 management system. 

Figure 5 provides a schematic of the ‘‘backbone’’ and ‘‘research platform’’ process 

trains envisioned for the FutureGen plant. 
40 

Figure 6 summarizes EPRI’s recommended major RD&D activities for improving 

the efficiency and cost of IGCC technologies with CO2 capture. 

NEW PLANT EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENTS—ADVANCED PULVERIZED COAL

Pulverized-coal power plants have long been a primary source of reliable and affordable power in the United States and around the world. The advanced level of 

maturity of the technology, along with basic thermodynamic principles, suggests 

that significant efficiency gains can most readily be realized by increasing the operating temperatures and pressures of the steam cycle. Such increases, in turn, can 

be achieved only if there is adequate development of suitable materials and new 

boiler and steam turbine designs that allow use of higher steam temperatures and 

pressures. 

Current state-of-the-art plants use supercritical main steam conditions (i.e., temperature and pressure above the ‘‘critical point’’ where the liquid and vapor phases 

of water are indistinguishable). SCPC plants typically have main steam conditions 

up to 1100 °F. The term ‘‘ultra-supercritical’’ is used to describe plants with main 

steam temperatures in excess of 1100 °F and potentially as high as 1400 °F. 

Achieving higher steam temperatures and higher efficiency will require the development of new corrosion-resistant, high-temperature nickel alloys for use in the boiler and steam turbine. In the United States, these challenges are being addressed 

by the Ultra-Supercritical Materials Consortium, a DOE R&D program involving 
41 

Energy Industries of Ohio, EPRI, the Ohio Coal Development Office, and numerous 

equipment suppliers. EPRI provides technical management for the consortium. Results are applicable to all ranks of coal. 

It is expected that a USC PC plant operating at about 1300 °F will be built during 

the next 7 to 10 years, following the demonstration and commercial availability of 

advanced materials from these programs. This plant would achieve an efficiency of 

about 43 percent (HHV) on subbituminous coal, compared with 37 percent for a current state-of-the-art plant, and would reduce CO2 production per net MWh by about 

15 percent. 

Ultimately, nickel-base alloys are expected to enable stream temperatures in the 

neighborhood of 1400 °F and generating efficiencies up to 45 percent HHV with subbituminous coal. This approximately 10 percentage point improvement over the efficiency of a new subcritical pulverized-coal plant would equate to a decrease of about 

25 percent in CO2 and other emissions per MWh. 

Figure 7 illustrates a timeline developed by EPRI’s CoalFleet for Tomorrow® program to establish efficiency improvement and cost reduction goals for USC PC 

plants with CO2 capture. 

UltraGen USC PC Commercial Projects.—EPRI and industry representatives have 

proposed a framework to support commercial projects that demonstrate advanced 

PC technologies. The vision entails construction of two commercially operated USC 

PC power plants that combine state-of-the-art pollution controls, ultra-supercritical 

steam power cycles, and innovative flue gas scrubbing technologies to capture CO2. 

The UltraGen I plant will use the best of today’s proven ferritic steels, while 

UltraGen II will be the first plant in the United States to feature new, nickel-based 

alloys that are able to withstand the higher temperatures involved. 

UltraGen I will feature an approximately quarter-scale CO2 capture system demonstration using the best established technology. This system will be about 15 times 

the size of the largest system operating on a coal-fired boiler today. UltraGen II will 

double the size of the CO2 capture system, and may demonstrate a new class of 

chemical solvent if one of the emerging low-energy processes has reached a sufficient stage of development. Both plants will demonstrate ultra-low emissions. Both 

UltraGen demonstration plants will dry and compress the captured CO2 for longterm geologic storage and/or use in enhanced oil or gas recovery operations. Figure 

8 depicts the proposed key features of UltraGen I and II. 
42 

To provide a platform for testing and developing emerging PC technologies, the 

program will allow for technology trials at existing sites as well as at the sites of 

new projects. EPRI expects the UltraGen projects will be commercially operated 

units dispatching electricity to the grid. The differential cost to the host utility for 

demonstrating these improved features are envisioned to be offset by tax credits and 

funds raised by an industry-led consortia formed through EPRI. 

The UltraGen projects represent the type of ‘‘giant step’’ collaborative efforts that 

need to be taken to advance PC technology to the next phase of evolution and assure 

competitiveness in a carbon-constrained world. Because of the time and expense for 

each ‘‘design and build’’ iteration for coal power plants (3 to 5 years not counting 

the permitting process and $2 billion), there is no room for hesitation in terms of 

commitment to advanced technology validation and demonstration projects. 

The UltraGen projects will resolve critical barriers to the deployment of USC PC 

technology by providing a shared-risk vehicle for testing and validating high-temperature materials, components, and designs in plants also providing superior environmental performance. 

Figure 9 summarizes EPRI’s recommended major RD&D activities for improving 

the efficiency and cost of USC PC technologies with CO2 capture. 
43 

2 C. Bullinger, M. Ness, and N. Sarunac, ‘‘One Year of Operating Experience with Prototype 

Fluidized Bed Coal Dryer at Coal Creek Generating Station,’’ 32nd International Technical Conference on Coal Utilization and Fuel Systems, Clearwater FL, June 10–15, 2007. 

Efficiency Gains for the Existing PC Fleet.—Many subcritical units in the existing 

U.S. fleet will continue to operate for years to come. Replacing these units en masse 

would be economically prohibitive. Their flexibility for load following and provision 

of support services to ensure grid stability makes them highly valuable. With equipment upgrades, many of these units can realize modest efficiency gains, which, 

when accumulated across the existing generating fleet could make a sizeable difference. 

These upgrades depend on the equipment configuration and operating parameters 

of a particular plant and may include: 

—turbine blading and steam path upgrades; 

—turbine control valve upgrades for more efficient regulation of steam; 

—cooling tower and condenser upgrades to reduce circulating water temperature, 

steam turbine exhaust backpressure, and auxiliary power consumption; 

—cooling tower heat transfer media upgrades; 

—condenser optimization to maximize heat transfer and minimize condenser temperature; 

—condenser air leakage prevention/detection; 

—variable speed drive technology for pump and fan motors to reduce power consumption; 

—air heater upgrades to increase heat recovery and reduce leakage; 

—advanced control systems incorporating neural nets to optimize temperature, 

pressure, and flow rates of fuel, air, flue gas, steam, and water; 

—optimization of water blowdown and blowdown energy recovery; 

—optimization of attemperator design, control, and operating scenarios; 

—sootblower optimization via ‘‘intelligent’’ sootblower system use; and 

—coal drying (for plants using lignite and subbituminous coals). 

Coal Drying for Increased Generating Efficiency.—Boilers designed for high-moisture North Dakota lignite have traditionally employed higher feed rates (lb/hr) to 

account for the large latent heat load to evaporate fuel moisture. An innovative concept developed by Great River Energy (GRE) and Lehigh University uses low-grade 

heat recovered from within the plant to dry incoming fuel to the boiler, thereby 

boosting plant efficiency and output. [In contrast, traditional thermal drying processes are complex and require high-grade heat to remove moisture from the coal.] 

Specifically, the GRE approach uses steam condenser and boiler exhaust heat exchangers to heat air and water fed a fluidized-bed coal dryer upstream of the plant 

pulverizers. Based on successful tests with a pilot-scale dryer and more than a year 

of continuous operation with a prototype dryer at its Coal Creek station, GRE (with 

U.S. Department of Energy support and EPRI technical consultation) is now building a full suite of dryers for Unit 2 (i.e., a commercial-scale demonstration). In addition to the efficiency benefits from reducing the lignite feed moisture content by 

about 25 percent, the plant’s air emissions will be reduced as well.2
44 

IMPROVING CO2 CAPTURE TECHNOLOGIES

The laws of physics and chemistry impose inherent limits on the extent of CO2

reductions that can be achieved through efficiency gains alone. Further reductions 

in CO2 emissions will require pre-combustion or post-combustion CO2 capture technologies and the storage of separated CO2 in locations where it can be kept away 

from the atmosphere for centuries or longer. 

Albeit at considerable cost, CO2 capture technologies can be integrated into all 

coal-based power plant technologies. For existing plants, specific plant design features, space limitations, and various economic and regulatory considerations will determine whether retrofit-for-capture is feasible. For both new plants and retrofits, 

there is a tremendous need (and opportunity) to reduce the energy required to remove CO2 from fuel gas or flue gas. Figure 10 shows a selection of the key technology developments and test programs needed to achieve commercial CO2 capture 

technologies for advanced coal combustion- and gasification-based power plants at 

a progressively shrinking constant-dollar levelized cost-of-electricity premium. Specifically, the target is a premium of about $6/MWh in 2025 (relative to plants at 

that time without capture) compared with an estimated 2010 cost premium of perhaps $40/MWh (not counting the cost of transportation and storage). Such a goal 

poses substantial engineering challenges and will require major investments in 

RD&D to reduce the currently large net power reductions and efficiency (operating 

cost) penalties associated with CO2 capture technologies. Achieving this goal will 

allow power producers to meet the public demand for stable electricity prices while 

reducing CO2 emissions to address climate change concerns. 

PRE-COMBUSTION CO2 CAPTURE (IGCC)

IGCC technology allows for CO2 capture to take place via an added fuel gas processing step at elevated pressure, rather than at the atmospheric pressure of postcombustion flue gas, permitting capital savings through smaller equipment sizes as 

well as lower operating costs. 

Currently available technologies for such pre-combustion CO2 removal use a 

chemical and/or physical solvent that selectively absorbs CO2 and other ‘‘acid gases,’’ 

such as hydrogen sulfide. Application of this technology requires that the CO in synthesis gas (the principal component) first be ‘‘shifted’’ to CO2 and hydrogen via a 

catalytic reaction with water. The CO2 in the shifted synthesis gas is then removed 

via contact with the solvent in an absorber column, leaving a hydrogen-rich synthesis gas for combustion in the gas turbine. The CO2 is released from the solvent 

in a regeneration process that typically reduces pressure and/or increases temperature. 

Chemical plants currently employ such a process commercially using methyl 

diethanolamine (MDEA) as a chemical solvent or the Selexol and Rectisol processes, 

which rely on physical solvents. Physical solvents are generally preferred when extremely high (>99.8 percent) sulfur species removal is required. Although the required scale-up for IGCC power plant applications is less than that needed for scaleup of post-combustion CO2 capture processes for PC plants, considerable engineering 

challenges remain and work on optimal integration with IGCC cycle processes has 

just begun. 

The impact of current pre-combustion CO2 removal processes on IGCC plant thermal efficiency and capital cost is significant. In particular, the water-gas shift reaction reduces the heating value of synthesis gas fed to the gas turbine. Because the 

gasifier outlet ratios of CO to methane to H2 are different for each gasifier tech-
45 

nology, the relative impact of the water-gas shift reactor process also varies. In general, however, it can be on the order of a 10 percent fuel energy reduction. Heat 

regeneration of solvents further reduces the steam available for power generation. 

Other solvents, which are depressurized to release captured CO2, must be re-pressurized for reuse. Cooling water consumption is increased for solvents needing cooling after regeneration and for pre-cooling and interstage cooling during compression 

of separated CO2 to a supercritical state for transportation and storage. Heat integration with other IGCC cycle processes to minimize these energy impacts is complex and is currently the subject of considerable RD&D by EPRI and others. 

Membrane CO2 Separation.—Technology for separating CO2 from shifted synthesis gas (or flue gas from PC plants) offers the promise of lower auxiliary power 

consumption but is currently only at the laboratory stage of development. Several 

organizations are pursuing different approaches to membrane-based applications. In 

general, however, CO2 recovery on the low-pressure side of a selective membrane 

can take place at a higher pressure than is now possible with solvent processes, reducing the subsequent power demand for compressing CO2 to a supercritical state. 

Membrane-based processes can also eliminate steam and power consumption for regenerating and pumping solvent, respectively, but they require power to create the 

pressure difference between the source gas and CO2-rich sides. If membrane technology can be developed at scale to meet performance goals, it could enable up to 

a 50 percent reduction in capital cost and auxiliary power requirements relative to 

current CO2 capture and compression technology. 

POST-COMBUSTION CO2 CAPTURE (PC AND CFB PLANTS)

The post-combustion CO2 capture processes envisioned for power plant boilers 

draw upon commercial experience with amine solvent separation at much smaller 

scale in the food and beverage and chemical industries and upon three applications 

of CO2 capture from a slipstream of exhaust gas from circulating fluidized-bed 

(CFB) units. 

These processes contact flue gas with an amine solvent in an absorber column 

(much like a wet SO2 scrubber) where the CO2 chemically reacts with the solvent. 

The CO2-rich liquid mixture then passes to a stripper column where it is heated to 

change the chemical equilibrium point, releasing the CO2. The ‘‘regenerated’’ solvent 

is then recirculated back to the absorber column, while the released CO2 may be 

further processed before compression to a supercritical state for efficient transportation to a storage location. 

After drying, the CO2 released from the regenerator is relatively pure. However, 

successful CO2 removal requires very low levels of SO2 and NO2 entering the CO2

absorber, as these species also react with the solvent. Thus, high-efficiency SO2 and 

NOX control systems are essential to minimizing solvent consumption costs for postcombustion CO2 capture. Extensive RD&D is in progress to improve the solvent and 

system designs for power boiler applications and to develop better solvents with 

greater absorption capacity, less energy demand for regeneration, and greater ability to accommodate flue gas contaminants. 

At present, monoethanolamine (MEA) is the ‘‘default’’ solvent for post-combustion 

CO2 capture studies and small-scale field applications. Processes based on improved 

amines, such as Fluor’s Econamine FG Plus and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ KS– 

1, are under development. The potential for improving amine-based processes appears significant. For example, a recent study based on KS–1 suggests that its impact on net power output for a supercritical PC unit would be 19 percent and its 

impact on the levelized cost-of-electricity would be 44 percent, whereas earlier studies based on suboptimal MEA applications yielded output penalties approaching 30 

percent and cost-of-electricity penalties of up to 65 percent. 

Accordingly, amine-based engineered solvents are the subject of numerous ongoing 

efforts to improve performance in power boiler post-combustion capture applications. 

Along with modifications to the chemical properties of the sorbents, these efforts are 

addressing the physical structure of the absorber and regenerator equipment, examining membrane contactors and other modifications to improve gas-liquid contact 

and/or heat transfer, and optimizing thermal integration with steam turbine and 

balance-of-plant systems. Although the challenge is daunting, the payoff is potentially massive, as these solutions may be applicable not only to new plants, but to 

retrofits where sufficient plot space is available at the back end of the plant. 

Finally, as discussed earlier, deploying USC PC technology to increase efficiency 

and lower uncontrolled CO2 per MWh can further reduce the cost impact of postcombustion CO2 capture. 

Chilled Ammonia Process.—Post-combustion CO2 capture using a chilled ammonia-based solvent offers the promise of dramatically reducing parasitic power losses 
46 

relative to MEA. In the process currently under development and testing by Alstom 

and EPRI, respectively, CO2 is absorbed in a solution of ammonium carbonate, at 

low temperature and atmospheric pressure, and combines with the NaCO3 to form 

ammonium bicarbonate. 

Compared with amines, ammonium carbonate has over twice the CO2 absorption 

capacity and requires less than half the heat to regenerate. Further, regeneration 

can be performed under higher pressure than amines, so the released CO2 is already 

partially pressurized. Therefore, less energy is subsequently required for compression to a supercritical state for transportation to an injection location. Developers 

have estimated that the parasitic power loss from a full-scale supercritical PC plant 

using chilled ammonia CO2 capture could be as low as 10 percent, with an associated cost-of-electricity penalty of just 25 percent. Following successful experiments 

at 0.25 MWe scale, Alstom and a consortium of EPRI members are constructing a 

1.7 MWe pilot unit to test the chilled ammonia process with a flue gas slipstream 

at We Energies’ Pleasant Prairie Power Plant. 

Other ‘‘multi-pollutant’’ control system developers are also exploring ammoniabased processes for CO2 removal. 

OXY-FUEL COMBUSTION BOILERS

Fuel combustion in a blend of oxygen and recycled flue gas rather than in air 

(known as oxy-fuel combustion or oxy-combustion) is gaining interest as a viable 

CO2 capture alternative for PC and CFB plants. The process is applicable to virtually all fossil-fueled boiler types and is a candidate for retrofits as well as new 

power plants. 

Firing coal with high-purity oxygen alone would result in too high of a flame temperature, which would increase slagging, fouling, and corrosion problems, so the oxygen is diluted by mixing it with a slipstream of recycled flue gas. As a result, the 

flue gas downstream of the recycle slipstream take-off consists primarily of CO2 and 

water vapor (although it also contains small amounts of nitrogen, oxygen, and criteria pollutants). After the water is condensed, the CO2-rich gas is compressed and 

purified to remove contaminants and prepare the CO2 for transportation and storage. 

Oxy-combustion boilers have been studied in laboratory-scale and small pilot units 

of up to 3 MWt. Two larger pilot units, at 10 MWe, are now under construction by 

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) and Vattenfall. An Australian-Japanese project team is 

pursuing a 30 MWe repowering project in Australia. These larger tests will allow 

verification of mathematical models and provide engineering data useful for designing pre-commercial systems. The first such pre-commercial unit could be built at 

SaskPower’s Shand station near Estevan, Saskatchewan. SaskPower, B&W Canada, 

and Air Liquide have been jointly developing an oxy-combustion SCPC design, and 

a decision on whether to proceed to construction is expected by late 2007, with a 

target in-service date of 2011–2012. 

CO2 TRANSPORT AND GEOLOGIC STORAGE

Application of CO2 capture technologies implies that there will be secure and economical storage or beneficial uses that can assure CO2 will be kept out of the atmosphere. Natural underground CO2 reservoirs in Colorado, Utah, and other western 

states testify to the effectiveness of long-term geologic CO2 storage. CO2 is also 

found in natural gas reservoirs, where it has resided for millions of years. Thus, evidence suggests that similarly ‘‘capped’’ geologic formations will be ideal for storing 

CO2 for millennia or longer. 

The most developed approach for large-scale CO2 storage is injection into depleted 

or partially depleted oil and gas reservoirs and similar geologically sealed ‘‘saline 

formations’’ (porous rocks filled with brine that is impractical for desalination). Partially depleted oil reservoirs provide the potential added benefit of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). [EOR is used in mature fields to recover additional oil after standard 

extraction methods have been used. When CO2 is injected for EOR, it causes residual oil to swell and become less viscous, allowing some to flow to production wells, 

thus extending the field’s productive life.] By providing a commercial market for 

CO2 captured from industrial sources, EOR helps the economics of CCS projects, 

and in some cases can reduce regulatory and liability uncertainties. Although less 

developed than EOR, researchers are exploring the effectiveness of CO2 injection for 

enhancing production from depleted natural gas fields (particularly in compartmentalized formations where pressure has dropped) and from deep methane-bearing coal 

seams. DOE and the International Energy Agency are among the sponsors of such 

efforts. 
47 

3http://www.co2captureandstorage.info/projectlspecific.php?projectlid=26. 4http://www.adv-res.com/pdf/GamelChangerlDocument.pdf. 

Geologic sequestration as a strategy for reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere 

is currently being demonstrated in several projects around the world. Three largerscale projects—Statoil’s Sleipner Saline Aquifer CO2 Storage project in the North 

Sea off of Norway; the Weyburn Project in Saskatchewan, Canada; and the In Salah 

Project in Algeria—together sequester about 3–4 million metric tons of CO2 per 

year, which collectively approaches the output of just one typical 500 MW coal-fired 

power plant. With 17 collective operating years of experience, these projects have 

thus far demonstrated that CO2 storage in deep geologic formations can be carried 

out safely and reliably. Statoil estimates that Norwegian greenhouse gas emissions 

would have risen incrementally by 3 percent if the CO2 from the Sleipner project 

had been vented rather than sequestered.3

Table 2 lists a selection of current and planned CO2 storage projects as of early 

2007, including those involving EOR. 

TABLE 2.—SELECT EXISTING AND PLANNED CO2 STORAGE PROJECTS AS OF EARLY 2007 

Project CO2 Source Country Start 

Anticipated amount injected by 

2006 2010 2015 

Sleipner ....................... Gas. Proc ........... Norway ............... 1996 ......... 9 MT 13 MT 18 MT 

Weyburn ....................... Coal ................... Canada .............. 2000 ......... 5 MT 12 MT 17 MT 

In Salah ....................... Gas. Proc. .......... Algeria ............... 2004 ......... 2 MT 7 MT 12 MT 

Snohvit ........................ Gas. Proc. .......... Norway ............... 2007 ......... .................... 2 MT 5 MT 

Gorgon ......................... Gas. Proc. .......... Australia ............ 2010 ......... .................... .................... 12 MT 

DF–1 Miller .................. Gas .................... U.K. .................... 2009 ......... .................... 1 MT 8 MT 

DF–2 Carson ............... Pet Coke ............ U.S. .................... 2011 ......... .................... .................... 16 MT 

Draugen ....................... Gas ..................... Norway ............... 2012 ......... .................... .................... 7 MT 

FutureGen .................... Coal ................... U.S. .................... 2012 ......... .................... .................... 2 MT 

Monash ........................ Coal ................... Australia ............ NA ............. .................... .................... NA 

SaskPower ................... Coal ................... Canada .............. NA ............. .................... .................... NA 

Ketzin/CO2 STORE ....... NA ...................... Germany ............. 2007 ......... .................... 50 KT 50 KT 

Otway ........................... Natural ............... Australia ............ 2007 ......... .................... 100 KT 100 KT 

TOTALS ................ ............................ ............................ ................... 16 MT 33 MT 99 MT 

Source: Sally M. Benson, ‘‘Can CO2 Capture and Storage in Deep Geological Formations Make Coal-Fired Electricity Generation Climate 

Friendly?’’ Presentation at Emerging Energy Technologies Summit, UC Santa Barbara, California, February 9, 2007. [Note: Statoil has subsequently suspended plans for the Draugen project and announced a study of CO2 capture at a gas-fired power plant at Tjeldbergodden. BP 

and Rio Tinto have announced the coal-based ‘‘DF–3’’ project in Australia.] 

Enhanced Oil Recovery.—Experience relevant to CCS comes from the oil industry, 

where CO2 injection technology and modeling of its subsurface behavior have a proven track record. EOR has been conducted successfully for 35 years in the Permian 

Basin fields of west Texas and Oklahoma. Regulatory oversight and community acceptance of injection operations for EOR seem well established. 

Although the purpose of EOR is not to sequester CO2 per se, the practice can be 

adapted to include CO2 storage opportunities. This approach is being demonstrated 

in the Weyburn-Midale CO2 monitoring projects in Saskatchewan, Canada. The 

Weyburn project uses captured and dried CO2 from the Dakota Gasification Company’s Great Plains synfuels plant near Beulah, North Dakota. The CO2 is transported via a 200-mile pipeline constructed of standard carbon steel. Over the life of 

the project, the net CO2 storage is estimated at 20 million metric tons, while an additional 130 million barrels of oil will be produced. 

The economic value of EOR with CCS represents an excellent opportunity for initial geologic sequestration projects like Weyburn. In addition, ‘‘next generation’’ 

CO2–EOR processes could boost technically recoverable oil resources in the United 

States by 160 billion barrels, which could help offset oil imports.4 This also represents a potential demand for an additional 17.5 billion tons of CO2 in the EOR 

market. 

CCS IN THE UNITED STATES

A DOE-sponsored R&D program, the ‘‘Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships,’’ is engaged in mapping U.S. geologic formations suitable for CO2 storage. 

Evaluations by these Regional Partnerships and others suggest that enough geologic 

storage capacity exists in the United States to hold several centuries’ production of 

CO2 from coal-based power plants and other large point sources. 
48 

5http://web.mit.edu/coal/ThelFutureloflCoal.pdf. 

The Regional Partnerships are also conducting pilot-scale CO2 injection validation 

tests across the country in differing geologic formations, including saline formations, 

deep unmineable coal seams, and older oil and gas reservoirs. Figure 11 illustrates 

some of these options. These tests, as well as most commercial applications for longterm storage, will use CO2 compressed for volumetric efficiency to a liquid-like 

‘‘supercritical’’ state; thus, virtually all CO2 storage will take place in formations at 

least a half-mile deep, where the risk of leakage to shallower groundwater aquifers 

or to the surface is less likely to occur. 

After successful completion of pilot-scale CO2 storage validation tests, the Partnerships will undertake large-volume storage tests, injecting quantities of ∼1 million 

metric tons of CO2 or more over a several year period, along with post-injection 

monitoring to track the absorption of the CO2 in the target formation(s) and to 

check for potential leakage. 

The EPRI–CURC Roadmap identifies the need for several large-scale integrated 

demonstrations of CO2 capture and storage. This assessment was echoed by MIT in 

its recent Future of Coal report, which calls for 3 to 5 U.S. demonstrations of about 

1 million metric tons of CO2 per year and about 10 worldwide.5 These demonstrations could be the critical path item in commercialization of CCS technology. In addition, EPRI has identified 10 key topics where further technical and/or policy development is needed before CCS can become fully commercial: 

—Caprock integrity; 

—Injectivity and storage capacity; 

—CO2 trapping mechanisms; 

—CO2 leakage and permanence; 

—CO2 and mineral interactions; 

—Reliable, low-cost monitoring systems; 

—Quick response and mitigation and remediation procedures; 

—Protection of potable water; 

—Mineral rights; and 

—Long-term liability. 

Figure 12 summarizes the relationship between EPRI’s recommended large-scale 

integrated CO2 capture and storage demonstrations and the Regional Partnerships’ 

‘‘Phase III’’ large-volume CO2 storage tests. 
49 

6http://www.iogcc.state.ok.us/PDFS/CarbonCaptureandStorageReportandSummary.pdf. 

7http://www.epa.gov/safewater/uic/pdfs/guideluiclcarbonsequestrationlfinal-03-07.pdf 

CO2 TRANSPORTATION

Mapping of the distribution of potentially suitable CO2 storage formations across 

the country, as part of the research by the Regional Partnerships, shows that some 

areas have ample storage capacity while others appear to have little or none. Thus, 

implementing CO2 capture at some power plants may require pipeline transportation for several hundred miles to suitable injection locations, possibly in other 

states. Although this adds cost, it does not represent a technical hurdle because 

long-distance, interstate CO2 pipelines have been used commercially in oilfield EOR 

applications. Nonetheless, EPRI expects that early commercial CCS projects will 

take place at coal-based power plants near sequestration sites or an existing CO2

pipeline. As the number of projects increases, regional CO2 pipeline networks connecting multiple industrial sources and storage sites will be needed. 

POLICY-RELATED LONG-TERM CO2 STORAGE ISSUES

Beyond developing the technological aspects of CCS, public policy needs to address 

issues such as CO2 storage site permitting, long-term monitoring requirements, and 

liability. CCS represents an emerging industry, and the jurisdiction for regulating 

it has yet to be determined. 

Currently, efforts are under way in some States to establish regulatory frameworks for long-term geologic CO2 storage. Additionally, stakeholder organizations 

such as the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) are developing 

their own suggested regulatory recommendations for States drafting legislation and 

regulatory procedures for CO2 injection and storage operations.6 Other stakeholders, 

such as environmental groups, are also offering policy recommendations. EPRI expects this field to become very active soon. 

Because some promising sequestration formations underlie multiple States, a 

State-by-State approach may not be adequate. At the Federal level, the U.S. EPA 

published a first-of-its-kind guidance (UICPG No. 83) on March 1, 2007, for permitting underground injection of CO2.7 This guidance offers flexibility for pilot projects 

evaluating the practice of CCS, while leaving unresolved the requirements that 

could apply to future large-scale CCS projects. 

LONG-TERM CO2 STORAGE LIABILITY ISSUES

Long-term liability of storage sites will need to be assigned before CCS can become fully commercial. Because CCS activities will be undertaken to serve the public good, as determined by government policy, and will be implemented in response 

to anticipated or actual government-imposed limits on CO2 emissions, a number of 

policy analysts have suggested that the entities performing these activities should 

be granted a large measure of long-term risk reduction. 

RD&D INVESTMENT FOR ADVANCED COAL AND CCS TECHNOLOGIES

Developing the suite of technologies needed to achieve competitive advanced coal 

and CCS technologies will require a sustained major investment in RD&D. As 

shown in Table 3, EPRI has estimated that an expenditure of approximately $8 billion will be required in the 10-year period from 2008–2017. The MIT Future of Coal 

report estimates the funding need at up to $800–$850 million per year, which approaches the EPRI value. Further, EPRI expects that an RD&D investment of 

roughly $17 billion will be required over the next 25 years. 

Investment in earlier years may be weighted toward IGCC, as this technology is 

less developed and will require more RD&D investment to reach the desired level 
50 

of commercial viability. As interim progress and future needs cannot be adequately 

forecast at this time, the years after 2023 do not distinguish between IGCC and PC. 

TABLE 3.—RD&D FUNDING NEEDS FOR ADVANCED COAL POWER GENERATION TECHNOLOGIES 

WITH CO2 CAPTURE 

2008–12 2013–17 2018–22 2023–27 2028–32 

Total Estimated RD&D Funding 

Needs (Public ∂ Private Sectors) ............................................. $830M/yr $800M/yr $800M/yr $620M/yr $400M/yr 

Advanced Combustion, CO2 Capture .............................................. 25 percent 25 percent 40 percent 80 percent 80 percent 

Integrated Gasification Combined 

Cycle (IGCC), CO2 Capture ......... 50 percent 50 percent 40 percent 80 percent 80 percent 

CO2 Storage ..................................... 25 percent 25 percent 20 percent 20 percent 20 percent 

By any measure, these estimated RD&D investments are substantial. EPRI and 

the members of the CoalFleet for Tomorrow® program, by promoting collaborative 

ventures among industry stakeholders and governments, believe that the costs of 

developing critical-path technologies for advanced coal and CCS can be shouldered 

by multiple participants. EPRI believes that government policy and incentives will 

also play a key role in fostering CCS technologies through early RD&D stages to 

achieve widespread, economically feasible deployment capable of achieving major reductions in U.S. CO2 emissions. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Phillips, thank you very much. 

Let me read some information—some of you may know this— 

from a Department of Energy report. It says: ‘‘The Williston Basin 

oil [and gas] producing region of North Dakota, South Dakota and 

Montana has an original oil endowment of about 13 billion barrels,’’ 

according to the Department of Energy. Of this, they say 4 billion 

barrels, about 29 percent, will be recovered with primary and secondary oil recovery techniques. But that means 9 billion barrels of 

oil that they estimate exists will be left in the ground or stranded 

if they simply follow the use of traditional oil recovery practices. 

The report also says that a major portion of this stranded oil is 

in reservoirs technically and economically amenable to enhanced oil 

recovery using carbon dioxide injection. Now, it says, that the 13 

billion barrels of oil in place for the Williston Basin includes only 

a modest portion of the larger unconventional oil resource that 

might be in the Bakken shale. As I indicated earlier, I had the U.S. 

Geological Survey here in North Dakota. They are redoing the 

Bakken shale report in, I think, the first quarter of 2008. I would 

have to go back and check on the date. As soon as we get that, we 

will have more information about what the potentially recoverable 

resources are in the Bakken shale. 

But it seems to me like there is a significant opportunity, even 

as we talk now, in additional coal resources being used in plants 

that will produce CO2 if we have beneficial use of CO2 and then 

can enhance oil recovery in the same region. It seems to me like 

it’s a win on both counts. The question is, first of all, how much 

of that is just theory and how much of it will be achievable given 

the economics of all of this? How does one construct the framework 

for it, the infrastructure to make it happen? 

Mr. Harper, let me ask you the first question. You’ve been doing 

some real world work in this capturing and moving CO2, actually 

selling it in a pipeline. What has Basin Electric learned in 
51 

partnering with the oil companies to capture, move and use CO2

for beneficial use? What have you learned? 

Mr. HARPER. Well, the first thing we’ve learned is doing it is not 

necessarily the easiest thing in the world. I recall when we first 

turned the valve in 2000, we learned, as did the oil company that 

they had not successfully prepared their field for the CO2 to be injected in there. Therefore, there were leaks of the gas. But those 

have since been fixed. That particular field today, as I understand 

it, is—it was producing about 10,000 barrels of oil a day. It’s now 

producing over 30. So it’s proving out the technology. In fact, I 

spent last Wednesday and Thursday in the gas plant, as well as 

up in the Weyburn and Midale fields visiting with customers up 

there trying to learn more, and what I found is their long-term goal 

is to capture upwards of 50 percent of the oil out of that field, and 

that’s where they think it will plateau with this current technology. 

As was said earlier, the oil companies are desirous of as much CO2

as we can provide them because they see it as a true benefit. 

What I also found is that both oil companies are doing different 

technologies with respect to how they put it into the oilfield, they 

recycle the existing CO2. And so it was quite interesting to see 

again how they’re applying the different technologies, which to me 

is showing that technology will advance as to where we need to be 

in successfully capturing CO2 and using it for an incentive for oil 

production, but, more importantly, to again continue our long-term 

viability of utilizing fossil fuels. So it’s been a tremendous learning 

curve for us. 

As you mentioned earlier, we currently capture about 49 percent 

of the CO2. As we look at pieces of legislation, one of the recent 

ones was a 70 percent capture level, so I asked our engineers at 

the plant, what would it take for us economically to go from 49 percent to 70 percent? They came back and said it would cost us another $165 million plus another $40 million annually in operating 

costs. Again, those are huge numbers, but I think, again, as we 

move our way through the technology developments, and so on, 

those costs will come down. That’s just some of the lessons that 

we’re learning. 

Senator DORGAN. All right. One quick question, the CO2 goes 

north to the Alberta oilfields, any reason that they were the earlier 

market as opposed to the oilfields in North Dakota or Montana? 

Mr. HARPER. A lot of the work was done prior to me coming here, 

but I’ve since learned through additional discussions that the problem was the pricing of the CO2 and the fact that some of the old 

companies couldn’t come together with the economics to make it 

work, whereas, on the other side, quite frankly, the Canadian government provided them with an incentive to develop those fields, 

and so that lent itself to more economic advantage for that customer up there. 

Senator DORGAN. So, in addition, it was a public policy initiative? 

Mr. HARPER. Absolutely. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Weeda, you’ve described in some detail 

your project, which is, I think, an exciting, interesting and very 

large project. I believe it could be something that’s significant for 

our region and something, I think, that our country could learn 

from. We’re trying a lot of different applications and models around 
52 

the country to try to understand what kinds of capabilities we have 

with various sources of energy. What kinds of challenges do you 

see, at this point, for the project? What do you need to understand 

from policymakers for the purposes of this project and its future? 

Mr. WEEDA. When we’re looking at the American Lignite Energy 

project, it’s certainly a large project, we’ll need financial backing. 

We’re focusing on using technologies that are commercially available that we would be able to get performance guarantees on so the 

bankers would be willing to support the project. And to that extent 

the public policy that would help assure us that the fluctuation on 

oil prices, there perhaps could be a policy that would help us face 

that potential in the event that oil prices went down. 

I think incentives for the development, the industry as a whole. 

We’re being careful to try to develop products that would fit into 

the existing infrastructure and not have to develop a new retailing 

market, but to be able to get those products into the market, the 

public policy that would support that, as well. In addition, the CO2

sequestration portion of it. The CO2 is separated in the process. We 

are also looking at enhanced oil recovery. But as was mentioned, 

the regulatory framework and the liabilities associated with utilization of CO2 are definitely an important public policy aspect. 

Senator DORGAN. Are you optimistic about the future with respect to CO2 sequestration, even though, as you know, much of it’s 

still in the demonstration stage? 

Mr. WEEDA. As we heard from EPRI, similar timeframes of what 

I have heard about when the technology will be mature enough to 

go to the bank and be able to finance a project, but we are working 

closely with EPRI and others on helping develop those opportunities. As I mentioned, we have a goal within our company of reducing our CO2 footprint so we’re very anxious, but we don’t see any 

single technology that’s going to get us there, and that’s why I 

mentioned so many projects today, because we’re looking at the 

small increments of CO2 we can get in each one. One thing I didn’t 

really mention here is the ethanol industry has a CO2 stream 

which could be sequestered. We, of course, with other interests 

here, at Blue Flint and with the coming interests at Spiritwood, 

would like to see opportunities to sequester that CO2, as well. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Nelson, Mr. Harper talked about how public policy in Canada was helpful to that oilfield seeking to engage 

in the purchase of CO2. 

You seemed in your statement to be fairly enthusiastic about the 

opportunities here for enhanced oil recovery using CO2. What kind 

of public policy initiatives are required, do you think, to move forward, if any? 

Mr. NELSON. I do think, first off, just the regulatory and legal 

framework that allows you to understand who has the liability, 

what is the permitting requirements, what monitoring requirements are there, et cetera, and that’s fairly well detailed in the 

NPC report. In fact, we worked with your committee on that. 

That’s one. 

I think the other one is, and was mentioned a little bit, in terms 

of using it in EOR, today there are no requirements to sequester 

the CO2 in EOR projects. It’s mainly to circulate. There’s no requirement to actually sequester the CO2 ultimately. So that’s some-
53 

thing that should probably be looked at. The other thing that I 

think was sort of alluded to, and that is that today, in fact, most 

of the CO2 that’s used in the EOR projects is actually CO2 that we 

produced purposely from the ground, where we had it sequestered 

nicely and taken it out and now are circulating it, so it’s a little 

bit counterintuitive, if you want to reduce CO2, you take the CO2

that’s been sequestered geologically out of the ground and circulate 

it. So I think there is scope to look at some incentives to ensure 

that we are using anthropogenic CO2 for EOR purposes. 

Senator DORGAN. We had invited some local oil interests to testify. They preferred that you speak on their behalf. But is the industry, itself, excited about this, anxious to move toward it, or is 

it just something that exists that they will take advantage of when 

it is possible to take advantage of it? 

Mr. NELSON. Well, I think it’s all driven—I think there are two 

factors. One is that this is not a new concept. The concept of using 

CO2 or other substances to enhance oil production has been around 

for a long time. That’s one. So I don’t know that anybody’s—a light 

bulb has gone off in anybody’s head because they’ve known about 

it. The economics haven’t been there. 

Second, and Carl alluded to this a little bit, is a lot of the older 

fields in the United States now are in the hands of independent oil 

and gas producers, not major oil companies that have big research 

labs. So I think there is clearly scope to improve our understanding 

of what happens in the reservoir. That will have to be led by the 

DOE, and service companies like ours, to get it applied in the field, 

because most of the oil and gas producers don’t have the capability 

to do it themselves, in the lower 48. 

Senator DORGAN. I should mention to you, as you know, the 

President zeroed out oil and gas research in his budget request. 

Mr. NELSON. I know that. 

Senator DORGAN. I added money back in, because I don’t think 

that makes a lot of sense. I understand that perhaps some of the 

majors have some money do some research, but most of the independents do not and, if we’re going to try to solve these problems, 

we have to continue to engage in oil and gas research. That may 

be counterintuitive for some, but I think that since we’re going to 

use fossil fuel, let’s try to evaluate through research, both privately 

funded and publicly funded, how we do it and develop that base of 

knowledge. 

Mr. NELSON. That’s exactly right. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Phillips, you, as you indicated, testified 

previously at the Energy Committee. Let’s talk about your work. 

Some people have said to me that there are other beneficial uses 

of coal, including lignite coal, coal to plastics, obviously coal to synthetic gas, and so on, coal to liquids. You have an array of potential 

uses. What’s your assessment of those potential uses of lignite for 

North Dakota? What is most advantageous? 

Mr. PHILLIPS. Well, we have looked at coal to liquids for transportation fuels, as well as substitute natural gas as they’re doing 

at Great Plains. One of the things that we see is, particularly for 

coal to liquids, you need such large-scale volumes to make it competitive. You basically build a large coal gasification complex like 

they have at Great Plains plus a large oil refinery, and that costs 
54 

billions of dollars, and, frankly, there just aren’t that many organizations in the world, much less the United States, able to do those 

sorts of things. So as GRE was pointing out, there’s going to have 

to be some sort of financial risk mitigation in order to induce various banks to come in and say, okay, we’ll put in our share of that 

several billion dollars. That’s why you’re not seeing it. Even though 

oil prices are at a level where these types of things should be competitive, you’re not seeing a bunch of them being built simply because it’s such a huge hurdle to come up with that kind of money. 

And, again, no one knows exactly what oil prices will be in the future. So that’s the other reason why there’s some hesitancy. If oil 

companies thought that oil prices were going to stay up, they would 

start building right away. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Weeda, you raised the question of the size, 

the scale of the projects of this type. I assume that’s an accurate 

reflection of what’s necessary. You can’t do commercially viable 

small projects when you’re dealing with this, can you? 

Mr. WEEDA. That’s correct. We have also found in our studies of 

this facility that we did need to scale up to the current size to 

make it more economical and, yes, indeed, it’s a major investment 

and certainly going to take a lot of help to get this into a full-scale 

project. We are in the middle of what we call the pre-feed study, 

but the next increment is to go to the full feed study, which is 

about a $50 million investment. 

Senator DORGAN. I’ll ask Mr. Harper, you know, we’re dealing 

with this issue of carbon capture now, as part of the climate change 

calculation. Later we’re going to go to conference dealing with energy policy between the House and the Senate. I suspect that will 

begin in September; it will take a while. But, you know, one of the 

considerations there will be the issue of carbon capture. There will 

be a climate change bill, I expect, at some point in this Congress 

that will begin moving. We don’t know the ingredients to that. 

Right now we need to ask, how do we capture carbon? How do we 

capture it and sequester it? How do we capture and use it? What 

are your thoughts about what is achievable generally speaking? Because you’ve captured and used it for beneficial purposes. Some say 

‘‘We understand you’re going to require carbon capture, but if you 

require carbon capture at 95 or 98 percent, well at this point we 

don’t see that technology or we don’t have that capability and 

you’re just simply shutting down the projects.’’ Give me your assessment of where we are on this discussion about carbon capture. 

Mr. HARPER. First understand I’m not an electrical engineer or 

chemist, but as I listen to my people at the gas plant, my people 

on the electric generation side, we’re talking to major companies, 

General Electric, Mitsubishi, on and on and on. In fact, when I was 

at the plant last Wednesday, Mitsubishi happened to be there and 

we met and discussed it. There are so many little nuances that 

have to be looked at in technology. For instance, the cleanliness of 

a sulfur strain can impact how the capture of carbon takes place. 

So as we look at technologies, my engineers are telling me that if 

you don’t have a very clean sulfur strain, you may have to put on 

additional technologies to clean it up before it ever goes to the carbon capture process—a major challenge. 
55 

But some of the things that were spoken of earlier in Carl’s testimony that, I think, plays a large part in this is the public awareness. You know, one of the things I learned by attending an IEA 

workshop earlier this year was that we can talk about all the technologies, and we will reach some level of technology success in my 

mind—we will, we have to—but people do not today understand 

what really is going on here with respect to carbon capture and 

storage process. They hear it a lot on TV, they hear it in movies, 

they read it in magazines, but the fact of the matter is the everyday person out there, in my mind, does not understand really 

what’s going on here, because if you look at the costs associated 

with all of this—you heard the 18th plant down the road is going 

to be cheaper obviously than the first one. What’s that really going 

to do to our cost of electricity and cost of energy for this country’s 

growing economy, for this world’s growing economy? 

I guess my concern is that while we will ultimately develop those 

technologies, we’ve got to work on public awareness, we have to 

work on regulatory framework, we have to work on the legal aspects of this thing and set the road map for us to move forward, 

because if we don’t, I think we’re going to fail with respect to our 

economy, and I’m concerned about that. 

Now, having said all of that, you heard Carl talk about 2020, 

2025. EPRI and all their studies focused on that 2025 timeframe 

as well. Everybody has a belief today that the IGCC type of technology and carbon capture is already here, they’re working, and 

that’s not the reality. The fact of the matter is all of these are in 

small-scale types of testing going on, and that’s what we’re trying 

to prove at Basin Electric at our Antelope Valley Station project, 

but they’re not there yet. We cannot simply stop this economy from 

growing and say time out until we get the technology to catch up. 

We have to have in my mind legislation that allows time for these 

things to develop, incentives for these things to develop; otherwise, 

we’re not going to be successful. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Nelson, I mentioned to you that the President zeroed out the research for oil and gas, I put the money back 

in. What will that research money be used for? What will be beneficial in terms of these issues, particularly in the area of using enhanced oil recovery techniques using CO2? 

Mr. NELSON. I think that there’s a lot of work still to do, and understand every reservoir is different, so it’s not like a plant on the 

surface where you can build them in cookie-cutter style. So it’s important that we understand the differences and nuances, what really happens chemically and physically downhole when we start injecting CO2. There’s also the study you quoted that had these billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil. Part of that was in 

what’s called transition zones, where we’re talking about areas 

where traditionally the oil has not flowed, it’s high, it’s trapped in 

very tiny pore spaces, so to get that to flow, there’s a lot of work 

to understand whether that really is feasible or whether it’s not, 

quite honestly. 

But I think the other part of it is, and we touched on it earlier, 

a lot of it ought to go towards demonstration projects which help 

the independent oil and gas producers in the United States, particularly the lower 48 of the United States, on land, to help them 
56 

implement these technologies in projects that can start to have an 

impact. So a lot of it is going toward demonstration projects to help 

those independents. 

Senator DORGAN. Let me ask Carl and Jeffrey, as well. Many of 

these projects—John Weeda’s project, for example, have fairly long 

lead times, but we’re in a period here in this country where policy 

change is happening. I mean, you can just see what’s happening in 

this country. All of a sudden energy and climate change are fused 

as part of the consideration of what we do in the future. And so 

because you have long lead times and large projects, and because 

we will not go from zero to 60 with a new standard immediately, 

how do we create a bridge for the certainty that’s needed for investors? We’re not going to get projects built, we’re not going to get 

projects built to demonstrate or to prove what different kinds of 

technologies can offer us if we don’t tell those who want to build 

them: ‘‘Here’s a transition from here to there.’’ I’m not sure I’ve 

asked that question very well here. 

Let’s assume that we’re going to get to a point where we require 

coal to liquids, we get to a point where we require a certain standard of carbon capture, but we’re not going to go from here to there 

within the next 30 days; right? That’s not the way you do that. So 

how do you create the transitional bridge here so that we can continue to get projects built that give us the knowledge and the demonstration of technology that we need as we proceed? 

Carl? 

Mr. BAUER. I think that’s an excellent question. You know, we’re 

asking the industry to fly and they’re not even running on this particular issue. They’re studying it; they’re walking, if you will, 

through the process. They’re making investment out of their own 

bottom line basically because this whole thing is not required as of 

yet, so pretty much the R&D has to come off the bottom line so 

that they at least understand and be able to converse on this as 

they are. So I’m thinking that, recognizing that point, we need to 

pick more realistic in-between points that we would like to stimulate them getting to. I think if we look at what’s been done over 

the past decade or two for wind, how we knew we needed to do 

something about making wind energy a more economically viable 

contributor to the energy picture. 

Well, if we recognize—and I think what we suffer from in the use 

of coal fuel largely is that, because it’s been there a long time, it’s 

assumed it can do whatever it has to do or it won’t play, like we 

can afford it not to play. Well, reality is we cannot afford not to 

play. To replace half the electricity generation in this country, 

there is not sufficient financial capital to do that in 3 decades, 

quite frankly, without having tremendous damage to the country. 

So then how do we move and deal with the other big issue, which 

is how do we get the greenhouse gas down? And I think ways to 

share—if you go back to the question about why Weyburn instead 

of the southwestern part of North Dakota, the Canadian Government put up money to put the pipeline in place, there was a small 

contribution of that from the Federal Government of the United 

States through DOE’s sequestration program, because we want to 

understand the handling and the injection and how that plays, but 

I think the projects that have the potential to utilize CO2 but can-
57 

not financially get there because of economics or if you go to coal 

to liquids, it’s a good idea to address these other issues, how do we 

deal with the CO2 portion of it seems to be the biggest hurdle right 

now, find a way for the financial support, whether it’s loan guarantees, tax credits and R&D. I think those three forces have to come 

together to stimulate the same way that the ethanol continues to 

benefit from some help in making it a market-viable product. Those 

things all have to go forward. 

Now, one of the things, I think—and you know better than I, 

Senator—the discussion becomes why that fuel versus my fuel. The 

reality is we need them all. We just do not have a one-trick pony. 

We have got to have in this country a viable diversity of portfolio 

to meet the demand. I think if we really look at it that way, we 

take a similar approach that we’ve done on some of the renewables 

with coal/liquids and with moving at least CO2 towards EOR and 

defray some of the costs of getting it into a viable position to be 

for the next decade, mainly of EOR as it moves forward. 

Having said that, I do think the plants that get built have a 30- 

to 40-year life cycle, so one has to say those plants have to recognize that they are going to have another level of performance required eventually in 20 years. And how they begin to set themselves up for that should be part of their initial design process. 

Senator DORGAN. Thank you. Jeffrey. 

Mr. PHILLIPS. Yes. You said earlier that Congress was going to 

have to make decisions on climate change policy, and all I can say 

is better you than me. It’s an enormous responsibility and will have 

significant impacts on our economy obviously. 

But in terms of how we could make that transition or that 

bridge, what we’ve tried to do in our R&D augmentation study is 

to point bite-size projects that need to happen in a timeline, with 

the assumption that 2020 is the time that we need to have fullscale technology proven. And I’ll give you just one example of what 

we’re proposing. We’re going to take somebody out there who wants 

to build a new coal plant and say, okay, build that new coal plant 

with the money that you said you were going to use, and then we 

will put together a coalition of other companies and perhaps the 

Federal Government, also, to pay for the cost of adding CO2 capture to a portion of your powerplant. Maybe it’s only 50 percent. 

Then we will take that CO2 and if we can sell it for EOR, it will 

help cover the costs of compressing it, and if we can’t, then we’re 

going to have additional incentives to cover the cost for sticking it 

into the ground. That would be something that we could do—we believe we can get a plant like that going by the 2012 timeframe. If 

you let that run for 4 or 5 years, you’re going to show people that 

this technology exists such that we would then be in a position 

where we could then go forward with a plant that was full-scale, 

a 100 percent—or not a 100 percent capture, but getting as much 

CO2 as we felt was needed. 

So that’s the kind of projects that we’re working on. We certainly 

could use the Federal Government’s assistance, whether it’s tax incentives or direct funds. We’re a 501(c)(3), so I can’t push too hard, 

but obviously any help we can get would be great. 

Senator DORGAN. You can’t push at all. 
58 

I’m going to ask Franz if he has any questions. I want to mention 

to you, because you’re talking about the research that’s needed, 

that in my subcommittee—as I mentioned, Senator Domenici is the 

ranking member, he was previously the chairman of this subcommittee—we increased funding for coal, oil and gas R&D. We increased it by 30 percent above the President’s budget request with 

$88 million for the Clean Coal Power Initiative, $374 million for 

coal research and development funding and $30 million for oil and 

gas research. Within the coal funding account we’ve put in $132 

million for carbon sequestration research, $34 million for innovations for existing plants programs. 

The reason I did this is because it’s one thing to talk about all 

of these issues and say we have to use all of our resources, but if 

you don’t fund it, it’s just talk. And I can tell you, whether it’s education or a whole range of areas, there’s a lot of talk and a lot of 

sloganeering and precious little real investment that’s going to 

make a big difference. If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to invest 

in research; we’ve got to invest in the demonstration projects. We 

just have to do that. And I think Senator Domenici agrees with 

this. We have a subcommittee that is very interested in changing 

the priorities of the President’s budget and substantially increasing 

these investment funds. 

Franz? 

Mr. WUERFMANNSDOBLER. If I might, let me just ask one quick 

question in terms of how the Senator described a bridge or synergy 

approach. What is it that government can do, whether it’s on the 

Federal level or a State level, to help get the utilities, the coal, oil, 

gas, chemical, pipeline and other industries, to start talking to each 

other more? Most people are saying, yes, we’ve got to do this. What 

is it that the government can do in terms of making that happen? 

Mr. HARPER. Trying to get us all to talk together. Good question. 

I think we are. As I travel around, I think the utilities are talking 

to each other. We’re talking to the oil companies. We’re talking to 

the developers, the vendors, trying to find out what we can do to 

effectively change, find solutions to the challenges that we have. 

But, you know, I think the bigger issue again is the funding aspects, but I think even more than that is we don’t have targets to 

shoot at. They’re all around the board. You know, if we could as 

an industry have targets, we’ve proven that we can meet them, we 

roll up our sleeves, work together to develop the technologies. But 

without targets and incentives to get to those targets we don’t have 

anything to shoot at. So if we could have something—and I’ll just 

throw out something here on the table. If we could have something 

that says by 2020 we will have x in place that will move us to that 

continued ability to burn fossil fuels. Now, that x is, you know, use 

some of the recent legislation, 70 percent capture technology available to go in. I’m not saying it would be on board and working at 

that time, because it takes a while. I was interested in the 2012 

timeframe of the plant being on line. I would like to understand 

how he’s doing that because we’re 10 years getting a plant into production. Right, John? 

Mr. WEEDA. Yes. 

Mr. HARPER. But that’s my viewpoint, is I think we are talking, 

I think we’re all interested in finding the ways in which to move 
59 

us forward, but if we had reasonable targets, achievable targets, I 

think we have then something to shoot at along with investment 

opportunities in research and development, et cetera, et cetera. 

I do applaud you, Senator, for putting those dollars back in there 

because you’re absolutely right, the energy bill was put forth, but 

no appropriations were ever made, and that’s a challenge. 

Senator DORGAN. Anybody else want to comment? 

Mr. WEEDA. I would like to comment. Great River Energy believes a good environmental performance is good business, and 

when public policy can merge those two together, it makes a huge 

difference. One example I can point to is that because of the SO2

Cap and Trade Program, Great River Energy took initiative to improve the scrubbing capability in our units, and as a result we’re 

able to offset those costs in the marketplace because we could do 

it more economically than some other locations. So we would certainly be interested in a program that helped us put CO2 in that 

environment, as well. 

I would also like to point out that none of our power stations perform today environmentally like they did on day one. We have continued to make improvements, and sometimes it’s through those 

kinds of incentives—the Department of Energy helping us commercialize the coal-drying technology was another great piece in ability 

to move forward. The support of the ethanol industry has made it 

possible for us to partner with the ethanol industry with combined 

heat and power applications. So I think there are a variety of 

things that public policy can help us do, and looking at some of 

those past models will certainly help. 

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. NELSON. I was just going to echo what’s already been said. 

I do think there is a lot of improvement in terms of dialog between 

the oil and gas industry and coal industry, et cetera. But I do think 

it happens quite naturally once we understand where we have to 

be by 2020 or 2030, we have targets, and the technology will get 

developed. 

I again applaud you for putting money back in, but I think you 

also have to keep it in perspective in terms of oil and gas, anyway, 

research. The oil and gas industry will spend about $6 billion this 

year, so what you want to do is actually leverage that money and 

make sure it does get applied in projects that will impact the 

United States, and I think there’s ways to do that. 

Mr. PHILLIPS. I would just like to make a couple of comments on 

a couple things that could be done. First of all, we need to make 

it clear that early movers are not going to be inadvertently penalized for capturing CO2 and putting it into enhanced oil recovery, 

because, for instance, we end up giving out credits based on your 

current CO2 emissions and they don’t get credit for the CO2 they’re 

already capturing and putting in the ground, they get penalized, 

versus somebody that didn’t do that. 

The second thing that needs to be done is we need some type of 

guidelines on purity of the CO2 that can go into bulk pipelines, because what we’re seeing is a vast array of specifications. The one 

that Great Plains uses has 1 percent H2S in it, which is 10,000 

parts per million. A FutureGen project is looking at using a CO2

pipeline down in Texas that uses CO2 of natural sources—under-
60 

ground sources. They’re saying you can’t put it in unless you have 

less than 10 parts per million. So we’ve got 10,000 parts per million 

in one part of the country, 10 in another. Which one am I supposed 

to design for? I’ll tell you what, the 10 down in Texas is a lot more 

expensive to design to, and to me it’s almost bordering on anticompetitive behavior. 

Senator DORGAN. Thank you very much. I did want to mention 

that Ross Keys was here previously with Congressman Pomeroy’s 

staff. I think he had to leave. I did not introduce Nate Hill, who 

works with me and Franz on energy issues, as well. 

I want to make just a couple of comments as we conclude today. 

First of all, there are national interests that are significant here. 

You know, we did EPACT a couple of years ago. We’ve now done 

another energy bill complementary to the Energy and Policy Act of 

2 years ago. We got another energy bill through the Energy and 

Commerce Committee on which I serve. The House has done its energy bill and it is very different. It appears to me that in addition 

to trying to conference an energy bill between the House and the 

Senate, there will be climate change legislation moving at some 

point in this Congress which has a relationship to, but is separate 

from, some of these considerations. 

So what I’m hearing is the industry needs some certainty, they 

need some decisions made in order to proceed, also so that investors have the confidence to proceed. We’re all in a situation where 

we know a lot less about these subjects than we think we know. 

We have things being done in the research laboratory that give us 

certain indications, but until you demonstrate them on a commercial scale, until you demonstrate them out there in the real world, 

you don’t know the circumstances or the conditions that might 

exist. 

So this is a very important and a very interesting time. My interest in it is for a couple of reasons. First of all, as a member of the 

Energy Committee, I well understand the danger that exists with 

respect to our dependence on foreign energy. If we think this is just 

fine, to have to worry about whether the Saudi pipeline is going to 

be open to us forever, then we’re not thinking very much. I’m not 

talking just about the Saudis. I’m talking about all oil suppliers in 

troubled parts of the world. I think finally that our country is 

awakening to how unbelievably vulnerable we are to supplies of oil 

that come from parts of the world over which we have virtually no 

control. Very few people are focusing on the fact that a substantial 

portion of the oil is controlled by foreign governments. And if one 

really wants to get a migraine, go take a look at what the Chinese 

Government is doing at this point, and has been doing for some 

while, to capture supplies of energy for the long term for their own 

needs and then evaluate what that means in supply/demand relationship and prices for our country with our prodigious energy appetite. 

Having said all of that, I also have a parochial interest because 

I live in a great State and we have unbelievable opportunities to 

produce energy—a lot of energy. As you all know, I’m a big fan of 

wind energy, I think I held five wind energy conferences over the 

years, and we now have a lot of wind energy development going on, 

but I understand that development turned off and on like a light 
61 

switch because the production tax credit, which the Federal Government just stopped and started and stuttered on, would be 

turned off and on, off and on, every 2 years, 3 years, 1 year. So, 

I understand the influence of public policy incentives, in this case 

tax incentives, on all of these projects. 

Even as North Dakota sees more biofuels, more ethanol plants, 

more wind turbines and more wind farms being developed, I’m especially interested in seeing that we have an opportunity to continue to use our lignite coal and enhance the use of oil and gas production. With respect to lignite, I believe, and I’m going to continue 

to push, we can do even more in future years. As I chair this subcommittee, I’m going to push for substantially more research and 

development so that we can get to the point where we can produce 

our coal in these plants with virtually zero emissions into the atmosphere. I believe that’s possible. Our country should aspire to 

achieve that. 

And, second, I also believe that, concerning the kind of plants 

you’re talking about, Mr. Weeda, if we don’t find a way to bridge 

from here to there the opportunity to build demonstration plants 

for commercial scale, commercial size demonstration plants, then 

we will have missed something very significant. We’re going to be 

behind the curve rather than in front of the curve. When I say 

‘‘demonstration,’’ I’m not suggesting a plant that’s worth billions of 

dollars as just a demonstration plant, but is also a plant that will 

demonstrate to us on a commercial scale what capabilities exist in 

a wide range of technologies. If we don’t understand that, don’t 

learn that through the commercial demonstration of these projects, 

this country will fall behind rather than move ahead. So I’m very 

interested in trying to figure out how we bridge from here to there, 

and I’m a supporter of that effort. 

We are going to require carbon capture and we’re going to push. 

I don’t think we’re going to loaf around as a country saying, yeah, 

do what you can, God bless you. I just had one of my colleagues 

offer an amendment like that and it was defeated pretty handily. 

That’s not enough. We’re going to set targets; we’re going to reach 

those targets. That’s the way we’ve always been. We’re innovative 

and aggressive. But even in setting those targets, we’ve got to find 

ways to understand that the time frame here is short to some, but 

long to others. If we’re talking about 5, 10 and 20 years, which is 

the kind of timeframes most of us are talking about, we need to 

have a path in those timeframes to have opportunities to build 

things. So that’s why I appreciate your testimony, Mr. Weeda, because I think you raised those questions. And I don’t know how 

quickly we can answer them, but we’ve got to get about the business of addressing them. 

I think the testimony by all of you was really helpful and will 

be a contribution to the knowledge of our committee and the U.S. 

Senate. And, Mr. Bauer, a continuing thank you to you for your 

work at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, as well as for 

your counsel to our committee. 
62 

ADDITIONAL SUBMITTED STATEMENT

In addition, I would like to include in the record the statement 

of Dr. Gerald H. Groenewold, Director, Energy & Environmental 

Research Center, University of North Dakota. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. GERALD H. GROENEWOLD, DIRECTOR, ENERGY & 

ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

This written testimony pertains to the Energy & Environmental Research Center’s (EERC’s) Plains CO2 Reduction (PCOR) Partnership and its role in carbon 

management in our region. 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory 

has established the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (RCSP) Program, 

which is focused on demonstrating the efficacy of carbon sequestration. The seven 

DOE partnerships (Figure 1) have developed capacity estimates for the major geologic sequestration targets and are currently conducting field validation tests across 

the United States and Canada. The PCOR Partnership at the EERC represents a 

diverse group of 68 public and private sector stakeholders (Figure 2) working together to better understand the technical and economic feasibility of capturing and 

storing CO2 emissions from stationary sources of CO2 in the central interior of 

North America. 
63 

As part of the DOE RCSP Program, the PCOR Partnership region encompasses 

all or part of nine States and four Canadian provinces. The PCOR Partnership is 

managed by the EERC. The PCOR Partnership has developed a credible assessment 

of the region’s major stationary CO2 sources and sinks and has mobilized the expertise and resources of the industries and local stakeholders who will be a major part 

of the ultimate success of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. The 

progress has been rapid, the momentum is great, and the PCOR Partnership is 

poised to develop a commercial-scale CO2 sequestration project that will verify the 

scientific and economic efficacy of geologic sequestration. The next phase of the 

RCSP Program will result in the injection of 1 million tons or more of CO2 in each 

of the seven regions to assess large-scale sequestration in our Nation’s varied geologic settings. 

The PCOR Partnership is catalyzing opportunities for sequestration in the region 

and identifying and resolving the technical, regulatory, and environmental barriers 

that will make carbon sequestration a near-term reality. Throughout its existence, 

the PCOR Partnership has been engaging policy makers and the public regarding 

CO2 emissions, sequestration strategies, and sequestration opportunities. The PCOR 

Partnership’s members include all of the key stakeholders from within the region, 

along with additional stakeholders representing phenomenal global expertise— 

stakeholders representing expertise in energy exploration and production, engineering, geology, economics, agriculture, and the environment. PCOR Partnership members provide financial support as well as technical services to the PCOR Partnership 

by providing data, guidance, and practical experience. 

The PCOR Partnership is engaging the industries that will ultimately deploy this 

new technology. The PCOR Partnership’s oil, gas, coal, and utility industry members are working together to develop commercially viable carbon management solutions. In the Williston Basin (Figure 3) of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, 

Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, the juxtaposition of major stationary CO2 sources 

(dominated by coal-fired power plants) and ideal potential sinks (oil and gas fields) 

facilitates the development of enhanced resource recovery opportunities. CO2-based 

enhanced oil and gas recovery could easily become a multi-billion-dollar opportunity 

for our region, resulting in benefits to the environment and energy industries. The 
64 

favorable geology and socioeconomic conditions may allow our region to become an 

international showcase for the early implementation of CCS. 

The PCOR Partnership has developed a regional vision for carbon management 

that is based initially on enhanced resource recovery projects that build critical infrastructure and expertise for the long-term deployment of CCS technologies. This 

approach will result in the reduction of greenhouse gases while supporting longterm economic growth on the continent. 

For more information on the PCOR Partnership, please see the fact sheets and 

Phase II Prospectus at http://www.undeerc.org/PCOR/products/factsheet.asp. 

CONCLUSION OF HEARING

Senator DORGAN. Does anyone else at the witness table—did you 

want to add something, last words? If not, let me thank all of you 

for being here. This hearing is recessed. 

[Whereupon, at 11:19 a.m., Monday, August 13, the hearing was 

concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.] 

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