Senator Tester’s Bill Addresses the Carbon Sequestration Question

Senator Jon Tester is co-sponsoring legislation that accomplishes two goals in the battle to curb global warming pollution.  His bill would catalogue the nation’s underground geologic formations that could be used to sequester greenhouse gases and would create a database of such formations.  Tester’s legislation ensures continued funding for researchers studying the storage of carbon dioxide. 

Carbon dioxide is a gas emitted by vehicles and facilities that combust fossil fuels such as gasoline or coal.  Emitted carbon dioxide becomes trapped in the atmosphere and, as is well known now, contributes to global climate change.

If Tester’s funding bill is approved, $315 million will go to seven U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored (DOE) regional research partnerships, including Big Sky Sequestration Partnership, which is based at Montana State University in Bozeman. 

The funding was initially proposed by the DOE, but didn't appear in President Bush’ proposed budget.  Senator Tester’s bill would allocate the research funding from 2008 until 2010.  The seven partnerships would divide $90 million in 2008, $105 million in 2009 and $120 million in 2010.

The Department of Energy formed the regional partnerships in 2004 to study if the capture, injection and long-term storage of carbon dioxide can be done safely and economically.  The partnerships are researching putting carbon dioxide in underground rock formations, which is called geologic carbon sequestration. They are also researching terrestrial carbon sequestration, which is storing carbon in biomass, such as forest or agricultural systems.

Tester’s funding bill will eventually be heard in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on which Tester serves.  To learn more Tester’s carbon sequestration bill, visit his website's newsroom.

This study is important and deserves to be part of a suite of research and solutions to address the climate change crisis.  But coal development and carbon sequestration are likely not the best solutions for reversing global climate change.  For example, on 4/17/07, the Billings Gazette reported on a recent Senate Energy Committee hearing in which an Energy Department official testified that the use of “clean coal technology” to capture and store carbon dioxide, instead of releasing the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, will not be widespread until 2045. In the absence of nationwide caps on CO2 emissions, it appears there is little incentive for industry to spend the money to develop the technology.

In the hearing, Tom Shope, Energy Department acting assistant secretary for fossil energy, said the technology for storing captured carbon would be available around 2012 and that the first wide-scale commercial deployment would begin around 2020.  Shope predicted that common, everyday use of the technology would not be ready until 2045 - with that "assumption...based on when the technology would become so affordable and produce cost savings that it would be used even if the government did not mandate it." . 

There are still many questions to answer regarding the utilization and environmental impacts of carbon sequestration.   Moreover, coal extraction is dirty and damaging to the land and water.  Coal development is certainly not the “end all, be all” solution to the climate change emergency.

Viable solutions to address climate change exist - and they’re right here in Montana!  Let the Montana delegation know it’s time to get serious about supporting development of cleaner, renewable energy sources such as biofuels, solar and wind power, which can be found in our own home state.

To learn more about alternative energies and the pros and cons of coal development, visit the Northern Plains Resource Council and Montana Environmental Information Center.