Virginia Tech is partnering with the only cement plant in Virginia – Roanoke Cement Co. in Botetourt County – to study the feasibility of a regional carbon dioxide storage complex in the Roanoke Valley.
A research team led by Virginia Tech will be funded with a $9 million grant from the Department of Energy CarbonSAFE program and $2.6 million from Roanoke Cement. Project CARDINAL will test the geologic conditions at the Roanoke Cement plant for the ability to store 1.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year for the next three decades.
“Virginia Tech is pioneering carbon storage research in the complex geology of Appalachia,” said Chris Bayne, director of decarbonization and energy at Titan America, parent company of Roanoke Cement Co. “Project CARDINAL will make important contributions to the science and engineering of geologic carbon storage throughout the eastern United States, and we are thrilled to be part of, and support, this important research.”
If proven feasible, the long-term goal is to permanently store carbon dioxide in the same type of geological formations that often hold other resources, such as oil and gas. The geologic formations for carbon dioxide storage at Project CARDINAL would be deep underground, more than a mile below ground surface.
