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E-mail StoryNew Kern power plant to capture, bury pollution
| Wednesday, May 7 2008 3:38 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, May 8 2008 7:50 AM
One of the world’s first emissions-free power plants will be built in Kern County in the next few years as part of a government-funded test to capture carbon dioxide from large sources and store it underground, the California Energy Commission has announced.
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The 50-megawatt plant will be built on Kimberlina Road, about 20 miles north of Bakersfield, on the site of a former biomass plant.
Rancho Cordova-based Clean Energy Systems will build and operate the facility, which will generate power by combusting natural gas using technology based on rocket engines.
The plant is expected to come online in 2011.
Much like oil companies re-inject wastewater deep into the ground, the power plant’s exhaust pipe will divert carbon dioxide into geological formations more than a mile underground.
“I hope 20 years from now people look back and say, ‘Why did we ever have (smoke) stacks on power plants?’” said Keith Pronske, Clean Energy Systems chief executive officer.
The Central Valley’s geology is prime for storage because it has layers of porous sandstone capped by impermeable shale rock, scientists say. The shale acts as a seal to trap the carbon dioxide within the porous sandstone.
The project is expected to prevent more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere over several years. Following a four-year run, the plant may begin supplying carbon dioxide to local oil companies who can use it for enhanced oil recovery.
The Kimberlina project is one of several the federal government is supporting to develop technology to combat climate change through the capture and underground storage of carbon emissions from large facilities like power plants and refineries.
The project is particularly relevant in California, which must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
Clean Energy Systems was founded by aerospace and rocket scientists and has tested its new rocket-engine combustion technology for the past few years at a transformed biomass plant on Kimberlina Road.
The biomass plant was mothballed in 1986 due to stringent air regulations, according to Pronske.
“This is really a unique project and it's exciting for California. This is the first commercial-scale application of a new combustion technology coupled with an injection (of carbon dioxide) into the subsurface,” said Larry Myer, a staff scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and technical director for the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, one of seven regional groups established by the federal government to explore clean energy technology.
“The idea is to show industry and utilities in California that not only is this ecologically sound and safe, but it’s quite valuable as a business model to have industry embrace this,” said Adam Gottlieb, a spokesman for the California Energy Commission.