Ok, my bad, now I see in the Times article that ammonia is used to capture the carbon dioxide from flue gases, and then the carbon dioxide is boiled out of the solution before being injected as a gas into the sandstone.

 

Why did they hire Mr. Rube Goldberg as their designer?

 

 

 

If all goes smoothly, this week engineers will begin pumping carbon dioxide, converted to a fluid, into a layer of sandstone 7,800 feet below the rolling countryside here and then into a layer of dolomite 400 feet below that.

The liquid will squeeze into tiny pores in the rock, displacing the salty water there, and assume a shape something like a squashed football, 30 to 40 feet high and hundreds of yards long.

American Electric Power’s plan is to inject about 100,000 tons annually for two to five years, about 1.5 percent of Mountaineer’s yearly emissions of carbon dioxide. Should Congress pass a law controlling carbon dioxide emissions and the new technology proves economically feasible, the company says, it could then move to capture as much as 90 percent of the gas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/science/earth/22coal.html?_r=1&em

 

Dr. Stephen R. Humphrey, Director,
School of Natural Resources and Environment,
Box 116455, 103 Black Hall, University of Florida
Gainesville, FL  32611-6455  USA
Tel. 352-392-9230, Fax 352-392-9748
http://snre.ufl.edu