Carbon Series Examines New, Hopeful Projects

There have been times that people trying to grow the economy in North Dakota have had to play catch-up to reach prevailing industry standards in technology or methodology. Businesses, such as in the energy sector, have had to scramble to measure up to contemporary concerns over environmental damage.

Now, in several fields, we’re forging ahead of others, who are in a position to learn from North Dakota.

The Tribune’s carbon series has focused on how intentional, innovative even, the state’s energy sector has become in developing ways of handling what has mostly been a vexing problem: carbon dioxide.

Early on, industry produced electricity in coal-fired power plants or refined petroleum and didn’t worry about CO2.

People in the sector think a lot about CO2 these days.

Reporter Tony Spilde documents today how a project of the Energy and Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks is heavily involved in an international partnership called the Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership, or PCOR. There is a massive effort to study how best to store industry-produced CO2 in the ground. And we have the ideal ground in which to do it.

Spilde writes about the four-year, $130-million project, playing out its research largely in this state.

North Dakota people now are experiencing leadership, rather than playing catch-up.

There are people at Basin Electric and other groups in the energy business that are thinking more than 20 years into the future.

It’s the smart thing to do and the right thing to do, since it will come through rigorous thinking and practical research and development that ways will be found to use the state’s vast energy resources, based on carbon, and still protect the environment from needless damage.

Environmentally friendly technology is required, otherwise the development of ways of using coal and the production of oil really shouldn’t proceed at the promising pace that seems to be happening.

The encouraging fact is that people seem to be envisioning a good future for responsible energy production, not always because federal regulations are forcing them to be smart and good stewards of the earth, but because they want to, they know it’s the best thing to do as Americans and that in the long run it’s profitable.

A federal mandate curbing carbon dioxide emissions doubtless is in our future. People are investing themselves and great sums of money into innovation before a law would force them into compliance.

A pertinent bit of reality is that there’s money to be made on and from CO2 resulting from its usefulness to the oil and natural gas production business in particular.

Much more research over years is needed to study the long-term consequences of sequestering CO2 deep underground.

We’ve got the people to do it and the best geology under our feet to cause one of the signal accomplishments of our century – dealing intelligently with the greenhouse gases we produce.

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