Facts:

Main developer: Fluor

This project is said to be be the first feasibility study of new CCS technology in the pulp, paper and paperboard industry in the USA.  

The combustion of black liquor fuels is a commercially proven technology that has been used at numerous industrial facilities for more than 20 years. Developers Boise Inc and Fluor Corporation seeks to utilise this process to develop CCS for the pulp paper industry.

In phase 1, the team intends to develop a conceptual design for a sequestration system that would be integrated with Fluor's capture system technology.  This could support injecting about 720,000 tonnes per annum of CO2 into a deep flood basalt formation. 

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Battelle will monitor the site for a nine-month period, tracking the chemical evolution in the subsurface. If successful, large scale CO2 sequestration in flood basalt would be possible within eight years.

Financing

The US Department of Energy provided US$500,000 on 2 October 2009.

The US$10 million project is one of 12 Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (ICCS) projects which the US government has partly funded through the Department of Energy (DOE). The grants existed as part of President Obama's Recovery Act. In October 2009, the DOE awarded each of these ICCS projects to conduct a 'Phase 1' feasibility study.

Timing

Washington State's Department of Ecology granted permission for this world's first pilot test of carbon capture and storage in continental flood basalt, October 2010

Having been approved, the pilot project can soon begin injecting some 1,000 tonnes of CO2 into a 4,000 foot well. This is expected to take some two weeks and should be completed by January 2011.

Construction is expected to begin in late 2011, with the project due to become operational in 2014.

http://www.boiseinc.com

http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/news