FutureGen in the News

While we are extremely disappointed in the U.S. Department of Energy's decision to restructure the FutureGen project, the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) and the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) firmly believe the technical merits of the Mattoon site and the surrounding areas in Central Illinois (including the Tuscola semi-finalist site) make Illinois eminently qualified for the development of clean coal technologies. Our vast coal resources and what we believe to be the best potential sequestration resource, the Mt. Simon Sandstone, make the unique combination of clean coal energy production and sequestration a viable opportunity for the future of energy in Illinois.

We will continue to research the sequestration potential of the Mt. Simon Sandstone through a separate $66.7 million contract from the U.S. Department of Energy. The MGSC, ISGS, and Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) will work together on this carbon sequestration project, which will involve the capture and storage of carbon dioxide from ADM's ethanol plant in Decatur, Illinois. The project is designed to confirm the ability of the Mt. Simon Sandstone, a major regional saline reservoir in Illinois, to accept and store 1 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide over a period of three years. Carbon dioxide from ADM's ethanol plant will be injected into wells drilled to depths exceeding 6,500 feet into the Mt. Simon Sandstone, where the compressed, liquid-like carbon dioxide will be stored in the pores of the rock formation, which is presently saturated with water that is several times saltier than sea water. The safety and effectiveness of the storage will be monitored by the MGSC through an extensive monitoring, mitigation, and verification (MMV) program. The project will begin in spring 2008 with the drilling of the injection well. Environmental monitoring will begin in fall 2008 to collect background information over a year's time. The sequestration and injection of carbon dioxide is scheduled to begin in fall 2009 and should conclude in 2012. The $84.3 million project will be funded by the U.S. Department of Energy over a period of seven years, supplemented by co-funding from ADM, Schlumberger Carbon Services, and other corporate and state resources.

The technical qualifications of the Mattoon, Illinois FutureGen site include one of the best saline reservoirs for carbon sequestration in the Midwest, possibly even in the nation as a whole. The Mt. Simon Sandstone is a thick reservoir, has a good primary shale seal, and is overlain by two additional shale units that can act as backup seals. We are confident in the site and may yet conduct a 3-D seismic survey to image the Mt. Simon reservoir to determine if any faults or fracture systems can be detected, understand its structural configuration, and correlate its properties to data from an injection well so we better understand the surrounding rock that will contain the carbon dioxide plume. Such a survey is an essential step to ensure the safety and integrity of any specific geological carbon sequestration site and also to understand the regional configuration of the Mt. Simon which would benefit future projects located in central Illinois. The Mt. Simon Sandstone is a major Illinois resource supporting development of integrated coal gasification and sequestration. The Illinois Basin contains abundant coal resources suitable for gasification, and the more we understand about the Mt. Simon, the more we can assure ourselves that we can effectively address the need for carbon sequestration as we develop those coal resources. The data from a 3-D survey at Mattoon will qualify the site, and will help qualify any site in surrounding counties, for such projects. It will certainly make the Mattoon site and any surrounding sites much more competitive for any future clean coal projects.

The ISGS has been a leader in geological carbon sequestration research since 2001 and has been researching Illinois Basin geology since its formal inception in 1905. The ISGS' extensive expertise in sequestration, basin geology, environmental geology, reservoir geology, oil and gas, and coal geology has positioned us to support the State of Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) bid for FutureGen. More than 40 scientists and staff members provided geological assessment, GIS data, public outreach, general information, and overall technical support for four of the project sites. The ISGS helped screen the 28 original preliminary sites to select the four sites proposed, two of which were selected as semi-finalists (Mattoon and Tuscola). ISGS scientists modeled the projected carbon dioxide plume in the subsurface and conducted 2-D seismic surveys with interpretation for the selected sites.

FutureGen for Illinois

FutureGen Alliance