Instead of spending gobs of money to build a dirty coal fired power plant here in S.C., one possible resolution to high energy costs is something that could lie underground, but it’s not coal or oil, it’s CAES – compressed air energy storage.

From Uncle Sam’s Sandia National Laboratories:

CAES facilities function like big batteries. Electric motors drive compressors that compress air into an underground geologic formation during off-peak electric use times like evenings and weekends. Then, when electricity is needed most during high-demand times, the pre-compressed air is used in modified combustion turbines to generate electricity. Natural gas or other fossil fuels are still required to run the turbines, but the process is more efficient. This method uses up to 50 percent less natural gas than standard electricity production.

If Santee Cooper and DHEC get their way, expect to breathe in more than 90 pounds of poisonous mercury a year from now on.

The proposed coal-fired power plant for Florence County will be allowed to release that and other air pollutants under the air quality permit DHEC granted Santee Cooper yesterday.

DHEC claims mercury, ozone, particulate matter and greenhouse gases were addressed, but unless the permit gets turned down, our only savior now may be the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. If they determine “that an alternative energy source is the preferred approach to meet Santee Cooper’s need, DHEC’s air permit will be modified accordingly.”

btw: The American Geophysical Union just said today that oil is not the worst global warming problem, coal is!

Whether it’s dirty coal emissions in the air, or mercury in the water, South Carolina has plenty of environmental concerns to deal with.

Some amazing, concerned citizens here in South Carolina have been going out of their way for us as stringent activists against the dirty coal industry – even taking off a year from college and one winding up incarcerated. Obviously we don’t want anybody winding up in jail, but sometimes, desperate times call for desperate measures.

With help from informed individuals like them, and the fine people behind our South Carolina Sierra Club & other environmental groups, we will turn the table on these Earth-killing corporations.

One way you can help clean up dirty coal plants now is by signing the S.C. Sierra Club Petition today.

A year after MIT’s 2007 study, “The Future of Coal“, Assistant Professor Ruben Juanes and graduate student Michael L. Szulczewski have progressed with the idea of sequestering CO2 from coal-burning power plants and other greenhouse gas contributors by looking at doing it in the real world – on a basin scale.

“Our model is a simple, effective way to calculate how much CO2 a basin can store safely. It is the first to look at large scales and take into account the effects of flow dynamics on the stored CO2,” he said.

By burying the CO2 in naturally deep basins, the idea is that a ‘capillary trapping’ effect will occur, where liquefied CO2 is trapped in underground water – think bubbles of water in oil. The CO2 would dissolve and react with the reservoir rocks to eventually come out as harmless carbonate minerals.