WERC Press Documents
WERC Powerpoint Presentation
This is a brief overview of the project (PDF).
News Stories
Clearing Up, Jude Noland: Wallula Energy Resource Center Withdraws Site-Study Request
April 2008 Sponsors of the Wallula Energy Resource Center have withdrawn their request for a potential site study on the IGCC project proposed for construction near Wallula, Wash.
Walla Walla Union Bulletin: Pilot project could mark major shift
Oct. 16, 2007 "The paper mill off U.S. Highway 12 was a distant speck in the photograph as Dr. Peter McGrail reached for his laser pointer. With a lift of his arm, the red light flitted toward the photo's faraway horizon, behind two scientists in the foreground standing in the wide, open land owned by the Port of Walla Walla. The picture, part of a more-than-hourlong public presentation last week, showed the approximate location of a potentially world-changing pilot project on 500 to 700 acres in western Walla Walla County."
Energy Prospects West: DOE Carbon Sequestration Pilot Set for Eastern Washington
Oct. 16, 2007 "Around the end of November, field tests will begin in eastern Washington's Columbia Basin to determine if the region's massive
basalt formations hold the potential to permanently sequester
millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
If the project is successful, it could mean "a new paradigm for
how baseload generation will be sited," according to Pete McGrail,
project manager and chief scientist of Battelle's Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory, which will be conducting the tests."
Tacoma News Tribune Opinion: Basalt + CO2 = clean coal? Let's hope so
Oct. 10, 2007 "That's what makes the Wallula Energy Resource Center Ð a consortium led by a Gig Harbor company, United Power Ð so intriguing. Its goal is to make coal a much cleaner energy resource by extracting most of its carbon dioxide, compressing it into a liquid and pumping it into the deep, vast basalt formations underlying much of Eastern Washington. WERC intends to do this as part of a planned 700 megawatt power plant in Wallula, Walla Walla County."
Tacoma News Tribune: Cleaning Up Coal
Sept. 30, 2007
"Nothing about the modest brick house on Gig Harbor's tourist-friendly Harbor View Drive suggests that big dreams live here.
But appearances are deceptive. Bob Divers works here. He and his partners have a spectacular and potentially world-changing vision: They want to build a $2.2 billion coal-fueled power plant near Walla Walla Ð one that will safely bury polluting greenhouse gases deep in the earth.
Tri-City Herald: Field tests set on Basin basalt carbon storage
Sept. 15, 2007
"It's exciting on the big picture scale and it's exciting on the regional scale as well because of the resource we walk upon," said Grant Pfeifer, regional director of the state Department of Ecology's Eastern Regional Office.
Walla Walla Union Bulletin: Test may map way for power project
Sept. 15, 2007 "On a larger scale, the test could lead to a new way to capture carbon dioxide that will play into where future power plants can be placed."
Puget Sound Business Journal: Storing C02 in rocks may make cleaner power plants
Sept. 7, 2007 "It's a good example of the new paradigm in terms of siting fossil fuel power plants," McGrail said. "When you look at how power plants are traditionally sited, the critical factors had to do with the operation itself, such as the access to water, fuel supply or transmission lines. This new paradigm says you've got another additional set of factors -- a suitable geologic formation that could support a sequestration effort."
High Country News: A Climate Change Solution?
Sept. 3, 2007
An environmental engineer who favors the techie national uniform - Dockers and a light yellow Oxford shirt - Pete McGrail works out of a utilitarian office and lab, two among dozens of similar small rooms in the rabbit warren of cloyingly beige hallways at the Battelle campus in Richland, Wash. A global science and technology nonprofit, Battelle manages the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation for the U.S. Department of Energy. In the post-Cold War era, the United States' national laboratories have stayed alive by shifting their focus to study technological and scientific issues outside the nuclear arena, including global warming.
Washington CEO Magazine: Walla Walla Energized by New Plants
August 2007
July 5, 2007: Seattle Times: Power plant would bury greenhouse gas
For people worried about global warming, it's one of the Holy Grails: Figuring out how to affordably take greenhouse gases and permanently store them underground...
June 22, 2007: Tri-City Herald: Questions surround power projects
The Port of Walla Walla has agreed to begin negotiations with a Gig Harbor based-consortium that hopes to build a $2 billion coal gasification plant on port land at Wallula...
June 20, 2007: Energy Prospects West
June 20, 2007: KUOW Public Radio
MP3 Stream at link.
June 18, 2007: Walla Walla Union Bulletin
For press inquiries, please contact:
Timothy Killian
press@wallulaenergy.com
(509) 340-1400
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