WV Executive

COAL MAKES THE STEAM that turns the generators that produce the electricity that powers the televisions, refrigerators, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners and other entertainment and labor-saving devices in nearly half our homes in the United States.

Coal is the nation’s leading energy resource with reserves surpassing the reserves of all other countries worldwide.

It is a safe bet that West Virginia coal keeps Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street humming day and night. According to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) for the West Virginia Division of Energy, of the 153 million tons of coal mined in the Mountain State in 2007, 110 million tons were shipped beyond state borders to power plants throughout the East, lending credibility to the observation of one proud West Virginia miner who said, “We keep President Obama’s lights on.”

In 20th Century West Virginia, coal was the engine that drove the steelmaking and aluminum smelting, the chemical manufacturing and the glassmaking that became the backbone of the state’s economy. Coal not only provided the raw energy for these industries, but it was also the feedstock used to make the materials that built America. As the artist of the mural for the Mineral Industries Building at West Virginia University, Robert Lepper wrote, “West Virginia’s coal, gas and water were and are her strength.”

Yet today, coal is at the heart of the debate about the long-term viability of fossil fuels. Concern centers around the Earth’s changing climate in relation to the carbon dioxide that is released when fossil fuels are combusted. According to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Electric Power Annual 2007, “Coal produces the largest amounts of carbon dioxide and accounted for more than 50 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation in the United States in 2007.”

Can coal continue to be the bedrock upon which West Virginia’s and the nation’s future will be built in the 21st century? This question is not for the faint of heart.

The Story By Numbers
There is a better than 70 percent chance that a fossil fuel generates the electricity that powers the supercomputers used to run the mathematical models that predict the rise of global temperatures from the release of carbon dioxide. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2007, 48.5 percent of electricity used in the U.S. was coal-based while 21.6 percent was natural gas-based. In fact, the world depends on fossil fuels, with coal supplying 26 percent of the world’s energy, surpassed only by oil at 34.4 percent.

Coal is a global commodity. EIA reports in its Table on Coal Exports by Country of Destination, 1960-2008, that in 2008, 81 million short tons of U.S. coal was shipped worldwide, with about half that amount, 40 million tons, delivered to Europe.

However, at the end of 2008, the global recession caused worldwide demand for coal to drop dramatically. “Despite the global economic crisis, the duration of which is uncertain, over the long run the volumes of total coal traded internationally (will) increase steadily through 2030,” the EIA reports.

The numbers appear to say that coal is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

What does this portend for carbon dioxide emissions? The NETL, whose main facilities are in Morgantown, West Virginia, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, offers an interactive Web site tool which shows carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil and natural gas. The World CO2 Emissions Projected Trends Tool shows that worldwide CO2 emissions from coal are predicted to reach around 18,000 million metric tons in 2030 versus the 8,000 million metric tons emitted in 1990 worldwide. The tool uses International Energy Agency data which assumes that no additional energy policies are adopted by governments worldwide beyond those already in place in 2008. Approximately half of the future emissions from coal are predicted to originate in China.

It can be easy to forget that carbon dioxide is the byproduct of human respiration—we exhale CO2—or that CO2 is important for keeping the Earth habitable. But as the saying goes, too much of a good thing can be bad, and the debate among policymakers today is trending toward the belief that something needs to be done.

It can be easy to forget that carbon dioxide is the byproduct of human respiration—we exhale CO2—or that CO2 is important for keeping the Earth habitable. But as the saying goes, too much of a good thing can be bad, and the debate among policymakers today is trending toward the belief that something needs to be done.

A number of options are being explored, perhaps none with greater interest than carbon capture and sequestration or CCS. For decades, the oil industry has been injecting carbon dioxide into wells to increase oil production. Called enhanced oil recovery, or EOR, the technique is the starting point for much of the research being conducted today.

On the Road to Answers
Will CO2 stay put? Even though oil companies have been using EOR techniques since the 1970s, not much is known about the fate of the carbon dioxide injected underground. Through a project coordinated by the WVU National Research Center for Coal and Energy, faculty researchers from WVU’s College of Engineering and Mineral Resources and the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences are working with researchers from NETL and CONSOL Energy Inc. to find answers. This summer, the team plans to inject 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide into coal in the Upper Freeport formation at a site in Marshall County, West Virginia.

As with EOR, the injected carbon dioxide will release methane trapped in the coal. Methane is the primary component of natural gas that many people use for home heating. The team has instrumented the site with sophisticated equipment to monitor the fate of the CO2. The work is being funded by the NETL and the Zero Emissions Research and Technology Center based at Montana State University.

What about West Virginia’s capacity to store CO2? That’s the question the West Virginia Division of Energy asked NRCCE to find out. The center brought together a team of researchers from WVU and the West Virginia Geological & Economic Survey to get an answer. The Division of Energy was particularly interested in formations that could also produce natural gas that could be sold to offset the expense of compressing and injecting CO2 underground.

The team estimated that the total CO2 storage resource in the known conventional oil and gas reservoirs of West Virginia is 13.5 to 14.9 million metric tons; total estimated CO2 storage resource in the deep (more than 2,400 feet) un-mineable coal seams is 177 million metric tons. According to the study’s authors, this CO2 geologic storage resource amounts to many decades of current statewide CO2 emissions.

What about China? Recognizing the importance that coal plays in both the U.S. and Chinese economies, the U.S. DOE and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of the People’s Republic of China signed an agreement in November 2002 committing the nations to cooperate on clean coal technology.

The U.S. DOE tapped WVU’s NRCCE and the Natural Resource Analysis Center of the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences to help meet the commitment. WVU is the only non-DOE, non-Chinese entity working under the agreement known as Annex II to the Protocol on Cooperation in the Field of Fossil Energy Technology Development and Utilization.

WVU faculty and their colleagues from China and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory conducted a preliminary study of formations in the Ordos basin. Early indications show that the basin may be able to store nearly 3 million tons per year of carbon dioxide over multiple decades.

The Ordos basin is a well-known oil and gas producing region as well as a coal producing area. In fact, the CO2 might be able to be used to enhance recovery of oil and natural gas from the basin, say the studies’ authors. The researchers say these early results warrant a basic engineering design study now being considered by the parties to the Annex II agreement.

The Marshall County, Division of Energy and China projects are just three of many at WVU and around the world that will contribute to coal’s continued viability as an energy resource. Coal people have a way of taking on daunting challenges and triumphing through technological innovation so that we may all enjoy the conveniences of our modern, energy-filled lives.