Plan Would Store Carbon in Old Mines and Oil Wells

Pennsylvania’s fossil fuels once helped drive the Industrial Revolution.

Now, spent oil wells and abandoned anthracite mines could help the green movement.

Scientists and state policymakers are wondering if those empty wells and mine workings could one day store greenhouse gases, and in turn, help curb global warming.

Environmentalists believe carbon sequestering — storing carbon dioxide underground — could be a solution to reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The state’s massive network of underground mines and wells means Pennsylvania could play a key role in carbon sequestering, said John Quigley, director of strategic initiatives at the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, or DCNR.

State officials have formed a task force — the Carbon Management Advisory Group — to determine how Pennsylvania’s natural resources could help combat global warming.

Quigley and other state officials assume carbon dioxide will become regulated under the next presidential administration.

"The world is going to change under carbon regulation," Quigley said. "We are looking at the state’s resources through a carbon lens."

The move is part environmental and part economic.

In theory, if companies are forced to make substantial reductions in their carbon emissions, capturing the gases and storing them underground could be a long-term solution, Quigley said.

And if Pennsylvania has mapped the locations of unused mines and gas wells and documents their storage capacity before that happens, the state could attract businesses looking to ditch their carbon, Quigley said.

Scientists believe it is possible to capture carbon dioxide at the source — say the smokestack of a power plant — and force the gas deep into the earth.

Think of it as an underground landfill for carbon dioxide.

Once full, the wells would be capped and the gas would stay put.

There’s been no large-scale demonstration of this type of carbon sequestering, but early research is promising, Quigley said.

DCNR has mapped out all the nonoperating gas and oil wells in the western portion of the state and plans to map abandoned mines in the eastern half, Quigley said.

"Pennsylvania has sufficient geological capacity for several hundred years worth of storage," Quigley said.

On a less high-tech scale, the state’s advisory group is studying how forest owners could benefit from carbon sequestering, Quigley said.

"One of the best ways to sequester carbon is to plant trees," Quigley said. "It’s thirdgrade photosynthesis. Forests sequester a lot of carbon annually."

The advisory group is considering making management suggestions to forest owners — such as selective harvesting — that preserve a healthy growing stock of timber, Quigley said.

Pennsylvania emits 317 million tons of carbon dioxide each year — much of it coming from the state’s coal-fired power plants, said Paul Roth, a resource specialist from the state bureau of forestry.

The state’s forests sequester 17 million tons of carbon dioxide, Roth said, only a small fraction of what the state emits.

"There is a lot of opportunity, but it is not a long-term solution," Roth said of using trees to sequester carbon.

Pennsylvania state agencies need to start talking about longterm solutions to global warming, Quigley said. It could give the state cleaner air and a new economic engine, he said.

"This effort is time well spent," he said. "If Pennsylvania can become the home to carbon sequestering, a whole new industry will be born."