May 15--HAWESVILLE -- What was once a cow pasture on a southeastern Hancock County farm is now covered with gravel and a large drilling rig.

A portion of the farm is a test site to determine if it will be feasible to store carbon dioxide emissions underground. State, local and industry officials spent Thursday touring the site, off Sweet Road.

Project plans call for drilling through the Knox and Mount Simon formations, which are about 8,300 feet underground.

"This project is a great experiment in how effective we can be in putting (carbon dioxide) in the deep surface," Jim Cobb, state geologist and director of the Kentucky Geological Survey, told the group before the tour.

Officials want to test the potential for storing carbon dioxide in the earth and find out if coal-burning plants or other plants that emit carbon dioxide could instead store their emissions underground.

State funding for the project was included in House Bill 1 during a 2007 special legislative session. State Rep. Rocky Adkins, a Sandy Hook Democrat, was the bill's primary sponsor and attended the tour.

The Hancock County test site is one of the largest projects of its kind in the country, Adkins told the group.

"I know of no issue that is more important than this energy issue and how we're going to handle it. ... I'm passionate about this issue," he said. "I'm passionate about it, not only for what it will do for Kentucky, but for this country."

The test site was about a 20-minute bus ride from the Hancock County Career Center, where officials began their day.

"I really think this project is going to work," Hancock County Judge-Executive Jack McCaslin said before the tour.

There are several industrial plants in Hancock County, including the Domtar paper mill and Century Aluminum smelter. The county can't recruit many more plants that put out too much carbon dioxide, McCaslin said.

"Hancock County can at least do our part," he said. "We do our part to hurt the (environment). We've got to do our part to clean it up."

The tour included stops in trailers where various underground samples were being analyzed. The group also had the opportunity to tour the drilling rig.

Contractors began drilling the well April 23, and the well is expected to be drilled by mid-June. Carbon dioxide will then be injected into the site.

Testing will last about four weeks. The well will then be sealed and the site returned to farmland, said Paul Heard, a consultant for ConocoPhillips.

The project costs more than $8 million, and the state is paying about $1.4 million. Peabody Energy, ConocoPhillips and E.ON U.S., which formed the Western Kentucky Carbon Storage Foundation, are funding a large part of the project.

Several other industries are also partners in the project.

For updates on the status of the project, visit www.kyccs.org and click on "WKy Deep Test Subproject."

Beth Wilberding, 691-7307, bwilberding@messenger-inquirer.com

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