Carbon sequestration drilling begins

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WALLULA — For the next several months the sensory experience of a drive past Boise Inc. will include sound: the rumbling of a giant drill boring into the ground.

Battelle geologist Charlotte Sullivan talks about finding what she estimates to be 8-million-year-old fossilized plant matter in one of the depth samples from the company’s drilling site to explore carbon sequestration on the Boise Inc. Wallula Mill site. She is holding a sample from 205 feet below the surface that contains wood fragments.
 
Drilling has commenced on a scientific test at the property to determine whether the area’s unique geography can play a role in the reduction of greenhouse gases.

“What you see behind us is the culmination of about five years of effort,” said Peter McGrail, the Battelle scientist leading the project, during a visit to Boise’s pulp and paper mill Wednesday.

Over the growling of the drill ¬— a towering piece of equipment sandwiched between Boise’s mill and the overpass on U.S. Highway 12 — McGrail explained how a “germ of an idea” funded with a small lab endowment has grown into a more than $10 million study.

The Wallula Basalt Field Study Pilot will test to see if the deep basalt that lies 3,000 to 4,000 feet underground — far below any potable water — can be used to store and mineralize carbon dioxide, the gas most associated with climate change.

Here’s how McGrail, Boise and teams of scientists and partners expect plans to unfold: Over the next few months, the drilling will continue 24 hours a day, seven days a week. McGrail said officials will know when they’ve reached the right injection spot based on two key factors: sufficient permeability for the liquid carbon dioxide to move laterally and react with water already trapped in the rock, and a hard layer of basalt to serve as a cap rock and prevent the carbon dioxide from traveling toward the surface.

If the site characterization shows that testing is safe and permitting is approved by the Department of Ecology, Battelle will then inject 1,000 tons of liquid carbon dioxide into the well. The injection phase is expected sometime late spring or early summer. 
After that would begin a 12- to 15-month monitoring phase. Scientists would collect water samples to track the change in the chemistry of the carbon dioxide as it reacts with the basalt.

McGrail believes it will eventually convert to calcium carbonate, the substance that makes up limestone.

He said if Battelle can verify the conversion is taking place — as it has done in lab tests — partners will have the confidence to move on to the next phase, which is commercial-scale testing of 1 million tons of liquid carbon dioxide.

That test, part of the Bozeman, Mont.,-based Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership, is slated for land in southwestern Wyoming, said Lindsey Waggoner, Big Sky’s outreach coordinator. She said a project of that scale would require eight to 10 years of study.

The project in Walla Walla County has been contentious at times. The pilot study was originally slated for Port of Walla Walla land in 2007, but was met with outcry in the community because proponents of a coal-fueled power plant simultaneously planned to pursue an operation here based on the results of the study.

Local residents wanted the Port to deny Battelle, a global and science technology agency, access to its land so the power plant couldn’t move forward. Though the plant expected to use the carbon sequestration technology, citizens said it would introduce other pollutants in the community at a time when more alternative energy sources could be pursued.

Battelle was able to complete a $700,000 seismic test on the Port property before the project stalled. The results of that test also applied to the Boise property, which is just across the highway from where the project was originally proposed.

Waggoner said eyes and ears across the globe will be on this project because it is one of the only study sites in the U.S. involving basalt formations. Other studies are largely focused on saline or sandstone formations, Waggoner added.

“This one has worldwide implications and international attention,” she said.

McGrail said the project could also have local applications. He said every 70,000 cases of wine produced generates about 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide. A company could feasibly form to collect the carbon dioxide from wineries around the region for the injection process.

For the sake of the Wallula pilot test, McGrail said the liquid carbon dioxide will likely not be local. He said the test requires pure carbon dioxide, which will probably come from a refinery in Blaine, Wash. The carbon dioxide can be brought in by rail.

As fate would have it, the Boise property has an active rail spur just near the well. McGrail said a hose would be connected to the rail car and the liquid carbon dioxide could be easily injected.

“There is no place else with the opportunity to do that,” he marveled.

For its part, Boise will benefit from site characterization work at its own property. Rob Roxburgh, communications manager for the plant, said the science may be used to help Boise determine its own options for managing greenhouse gases.

Though the plant has allowed Battelle access to its land, he said it has no relationship with proponents of a power plant.

He said Battelle’s work will also save the company the cost of testing the basalt that lies underground.

Test samples from the basalt layers, created by lava flows over millions of years, are taken roughly every 10 feet, said Charlotte Sullivan, a geologist for Battelle. She said everything is recorded for permanent record. Samples are furnished to the state Department of Ecology and also kept for other organizations to study, including universities and colleges.

One of the more interesting samples was taken from about 205 feet deep. Believed to be about 8 million years old, the sample includes seed pods and twisty wood pieces that can be seen under a microscope.

Sullivan, reportedly the first geologist to complete a successful basalt seismic study for carbon sequestration, said the results of the Wallula study won’t automatically pave the way for commercial application.

“In 12 to 18 months, we will be able to say whether the process works,” she said. “But commercial application would be at least three years away.”

Sullivan said anyone who wanted to site an operation would need “a lot more characterization and a lot more study.”

Still, Battelle scientists are thrilled to be testing what they’ve been studying in their labs on a much smaller scale.

“It’s been a long road coming,” McGrail said.