Electricity generator to send carbon dioxide to oil field to boost production, reduce pollution

An electricity producer wants to provide its key greenhouse-gas byproduct to boost oil production, Rebecca Smith reports for The Wall Street Journal. The company, NRG Energy, plans "to capture some of the carbon dioxide produced by one of its coal-burning power plants outside Houston and then pipe the gas to an oil field about 80 miles away. In return, NRG and partner JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corp. will get a share of the extra oil that the carbon dioxide helps produce." (Associated Press photo: The Petra Nova Project will strip carbon dioxide from flue gases at NRG's West Virginia Parish power plant in Texas and pipe the gas to an oil field)

While NRG hopes to create a blueprint for success, similar efforts have had limited success in other areas, Smith writes. "Southern Co. is finishing a power plant in Mississippi that will convert coal into a combustible gas and strip out pollutants including carbon dioxide. But the project is expected to cost $5.5 billion, making it the most expensive coal plant ever built in the U.S."

"Stripping carbon from flue gases after coal is burned also has run into trouble," Smith writes. "The process is complex and the captured carbon dioxide hasn't fetched a high enough price to justify the effort. It is cheaper to build a new gas-fired power plant than retrofit an existing coal plant. In 2011, American Electric Power Co. terminated a test project in West Virginia."

But NRG backers say where others have failed they will succeed, because "the cost will be recouped by selling extra oil, not by selling carbon dioxide," Smith writes. "Set to be completed in late 2016, the Petra Nova project will strip carbon dioxide from 40 percent of the flue gases generated by the newest coal unit at NRG's W.A. Parish power plant and then will pipe the CO2 82 miles southwest to the West Ranch oil field in Jackson County, Texas. Injection of carbon dioxide at West Ranch is expected to boost daily oil production to 15,000 barrels from the current 500 barrels. The joint-venture partners will get half the added production." (Read more)