Isra-Mart srl: Montana's $85m carbon capture pilot gets go-ahead

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An $85m pilot project to inject one million tons of CO2 into a dome almost a mile beneath the earth's surface was given the go-ahead by the US government this week.

The Big Sky Sequestration project was given $67m from the public purse in addition to the $18m in required matching funds raised from private partners, including Vecta Oil and Gas, SR2020 and Schlumberger.

A team comprised of five universities, three national laboratories and five private sector companies will lead the eight-year experiment to discover whether large amounts of CO2 from power stations and industry can be safely stored underground without affecting surrounding rock formations or water reserves.

The project will be located at Kevin Dome, which naturally traps CO2 in a 700 square mile formation, but has the potential to store significantly more carbon, according to the researchers.

The team will inject the gas into a rock layer that has not previously stored gas, enabling them to study rocks that have no CO2 exposure alongside those that have.

"Since we are getting the CO2 from a naturally occurring source, we can learn from nature how the CO2 has been stored safely in rock formations for millions of years," said project director Lee Spangler. "This grant will enable us to learn about the transportation, injection and monitoring of CO2 in an engineered system."

Wells may be drilled as soon as next week, with gas storage slated to begin in two years' time, Spangler added.

The approval marks a major boost for the US CCS sector following a series of project delays and cancellations, including the decision earlier this month by energy giant American Electric Power to shelve a $688m pilot project citing the US government's failure to deliver coherent climate change legislation.