Carbon Capturing

Basin Electric is already considered the leader in carbon capture. The Dakota Gasification...  More »

Basin Electric is already considered the leader in carbon capture. The Dakota Gasification Plant captures carbon and sends it by pipeline to the oil fields in Canada. Brad Feldman shows us the Power Cooperatives new project that will capture even more Carbon. The Antelope Valley Station in Beulah will soon be on the leading edge of technology. This coal plant already produces about nine hundred megawatts of energy... and soon it will capture its carbon dioxide. (Sandi Tabor/ Lignite Energy Council) This project is vtial to the lignite energy industry in North Dakota because it helps us put together the pieces of the puzzle on how we deal with climate change. Basin Electric Power Cooperative has teamed up with a company called Powerspan to develop a system that will capture about ninty percent of the carbon dioxide produced at the plant. (Frank Alix/ Powerspan) More importantly in a world that is challenged to address climate change and global warming, capturing CO2, 90 percent or more at a cost that is affordable that keeps electricities to consumers affordable where energy prices today in all sectors are under tremendous stress. This carbon capture project will help relieve some of the stress by piping some of the carbon to the oilfields in western North Dakota. Right now the carbon from nearby Dakota Gasification is piped through this pipeline to the oilfields in Canada. This is one of the largest carbon capture projects in the world. Basin Electric CEO Ron Harper says along the 200 mile pipeline there are some tapping points. These are areas where another pipeline could take some of the carbon to the oilfields in western North Dakota. This would allow companies to enhance oil recovery efforts here. (Ron Harper/ Basin Electric Power Cooperative) We have been in very serious discussions with several of them. I think it is very easily said that they would take all of the CO2 we could provide them today. So I think that to me indicates Dave a great deal of interest. Harper says in the next six months they will be in the engineering and design phase of the carbon capture system. He says if everything goes as shceduled, the system should be operational by 2012. Brad Feldman KX News Harper says the designing of the carbon capture system will take about six months. He says at that point they will know for sure how effective the system will be in capturing carbon dioxide.  « Less