(567b) An Overview of the Decatur Illinois CO2 Capture Projects

The Illinois Basin is hosting several major carbon capture projects.  This basin, which underlies most of the state of Illinois, parts of Kentucky, and Indiana, ranks among one of North America’s the best sites for potential storage of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. Within this basin, the Mount Simon Sandstone, a major regional saline reservoir, is the target for sequestration because it has good permeability and porosity with overlying strata of impermeable shale.  Because the regional thickness of this reservoir increases towards the center of the basin, the optimum location for maximum storage of CO₂ is in north central Illinois.  Because of the excellent regional geology and access to industrial scale quantities of CO₂, two projects are being conducted at the Archer Daniels Midland Company’s (ADM) agricultural processing and biofuel production facility located in Decatur, Illinois.  Both projects will demonstrate the ability to inject and store industrial scale quantities CO₂ emissions into the Mount Simon Sandstone.   

Illinois Basin - Decatur Project (IBDP), (Status- in Operation). This project is led by Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS), under the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) Regional Carbon Sequestration Program, and is a large-volume, saline reservoir sequestration test that will inject approximately 333,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per year for three years.

Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage Project (IL-ICCS), (Status- under Construction). This project is led by ADM and will expand the sites CO₂ injection and storage capability to that of a commercial-scale operation.  The project is scheduled for startup in the third quarter of 2013 and will inject up to 1.0 million metric tons per year over an operational period of approximately 2.5 years. ADM will integrate the IBDP compression and dehydration facilities with the new facilities constructed under the IL-ICCS project upon completion of IBDP injection operations in fall 2014. A significant benefit of these two complimentary projects is the unique opportunity to better understand the interaction between the CO₂ plumes and pressure fronts emanating from two injection wells in the same sandstone formation.

IL-ICCS project has the following objectives:

• Demonstrate an integrated system for collecting CO₂ from an ethanol production plant and geologically sequestering in a saline sandstone reservoir:
• Conduct required geologic site surveys, site characterization and modeling.
• Design, construct, and operate a new CO₂ collection, compression, and dehydration facility capable of delivering up to 2,000 metric tons of CO₂ per day to the injection site. 
• Integration of the new facility with an existing 1,000 metric tons per day CO₂ compression and dehydration facility to achieve a total CO₂ injection capacity of 3,000 metric tons per day or one million tons annually.
• Design, construct, and operate a storage site capable of accepting up to 3,000 metric tons of CO₂ per day.
• Implementation of deep subsurface and near-surface monitoring, verification, and accounting (MVA) plans for the stored CO₂.
• Develop and conduct an integrated communication, outreach, training, and education initiative.

The IL-ICCS project has leverage the knowledge and experience gained during the IBDP project.  Site selection, reservoir modeling, MVA development, risk assessment, community outreach, engineering design, and facility construction are many of the areas in which the project team benefitted from the experience and lessoned learned during the IBDP project.  Because of this experience, the IL-ICCS project has an accelerated design and construction schedule and plans for operation within 24-30 months.