Scientific American takes a look at first carbon capture-storage facility at commercial power plant

In September we reported that American Electric Power's Mountaineer plant in New Haven, W.Va., was set to become the world's first commercial power plant to use carbon capture and storage. Now that facet of the Mountaineer operation is underway, with around 1.5 percent of the plant's CO2 emissions being captured and stored underground, reports David Biello of Scientific American magazine, in a detailed examination of the process and the issues involved. (Alstom photo)

"Mountaineer is the turning point," Philippe Joubert, president of Alstom Power, a subsidiary of France-based Alstom SA, which built the CCS unit, told Biello. "We believe coal is a must, but we believe coal must be clean." Alstom hopes to commercialize its chilled-ammonia technology by 2015. Estimates say the CCS process will add 4 cents per kilowatt hour to the electricity produced at Moutaineer.

Mayor Scott Hill of Racine, Ohio, which sits just across the river from Mountaineer and is likely to sit atop stored CO2 within five years, is cautiously optimistic. "It's supposed to be better down there than in the air," he told Biello. "I wonder what happens long-term." (Read more)