Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee Hearing:

“Carbon Capture and Sequestration: An Overview”

March 6, 2007

Thank you, Mr. Chairman for convening today's hearing on carbon capture and sequestration.

As we've begun to debate the issue of global climate change, there has been a lot of discussion about carbon capture and sequestration and the potential promise that it holds for reducing the amount of carbon in our atmosphere.

These discussions, however, have focused on the carbon capture portion of the equation, and seemed to assume that the sequestration technology is available.

One of the things that I hope to learn during today's hearing is whether that assumption is well founded.

There are several different possibilities for carbon storage: depleted oil wells, unmineable coal seams, injection into the ocean, or storage in saline solutions.

Yet many of these are still in the initial stages of being tested. The world's first commercial deep saline carbon dioxide capture and storage project was started in Norway's North Sea during 2006. That's not that long-ago.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on the status of carbon capture and sequestration technology.

One final note before I yield back. Two of the final four sites selected for the location of FutureGen are located in my home state of Texas.

I'm extremely supportive of FutureGen and am hopeful that the FutureGen Alliance will ultimately chose to site the plant in its logical place -- the Lone Star State -- but let's not forget that this is a demonstration project.

A ten year, $1 billion demonstration project. And in the end, is only expected to produce 275 Megawatts of electricity, as compared to the 600 Megawatts capacity of most commercial power plants.

There is an enormous amount of time and money being spent to show that this technology is even possible. And I think that it's a sound investment in future technology.

Now, I know that the most difficult part of this project is the hydrogen production component, but it still raises an important question: how far off in the future is the technology of carbon capture and sequestration and how expensive will it be?