Climate change calls upon Pennsylvania leaders to develop a new conservation practice that considers the Commonwealth’s natural resources as competitive advantages in a carbon-constrained world. Geologic and terrestrial carbon sequestration can create new economic and environmental values for sustainable public and private land management, and the public lands can lead the way in advancing this work. Carbon credit trading can create incentives for sustainable forestry practices, and protecting land from deforestation can have increased value under carbon limitations. And, with careful planning, public lands can sustainably provide a range of alternative energy sources. All of these activities can contribute reductions to Pennsylvania’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Terrestrial Sequestration

Pennsylvania’s public and private forests annually sequester about 5 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Over half of the state’s forest lands are in private ownership, and 29 percent are in public ownership. The State Forest comprises 12 percent of the forested area of the Commonwealth, and provides high quality forests products, energy, water purification, recreation, mineral resources, aesthetic value, and vital habitat for the state’s wildlife.

Sustainably managed forests will store carbon for decades (and also provide multiple ecosystem benefits such as improved water quality, habitat, and biodiversity). Durable products made from wood may store carbon for even longer. Because loss of forests to development results in a one-time surge of GHG emissions to the atmosphere as well as forgone future sequestration, reducing the rate of forest conversion and protecting forest land are among the most important and cost-effective tools available to achieve significant carbon storage benefits.

Planting vegetation on underutilized land can contribute to enhanced carbon sequestration if the land utilized for this purpose was not already in forest cover.

Planting trees in urban and suburban areas is quite promising. This option leads to both enhanced sequestration in planted trees, and fossil fuel offsets in the form of reduced demand for heating and cooling. Pennsylvania’s TreeVitalize program aims to plant 1 million trees in the state’s metropolitan areas and streamside buffers by 2012.

Fact Sheet: Terrestrial Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide.

Geologic Sequestration

Geologic sequestration can enable the Pennsylvania to capture CO2 emissions from large emitting sources (e.g., coal-fired power plants) and sequester them in underground geologic reservoirs. Assessments have shown that Pennsylvania has huge geologic sequestration opportunities where future emissions from power plants could be safely stored. Most research has focused on the western counties of the Commonwealth where ample data already exists due to the long history of oil and gas exploration. The geological sequestration potential of central and eastern Pennsylvania is likely to be significant, too, but awaits evaluation.

Four categories of geological reservoirs are considered important carbon sequestration targets in Pennsylvania: 1) deep saline formations; 2) depleted and producing oil and gas fields; 3) unmineable coal beds; and 4) organic-rich (i.e., carbonaceous) Devonian-age shales. Deep saline formations constitute about 85 percent of the total potential, and these alone could accommodate Pennsylvania’s total CO2 emissions for roughly 300 years.

The technology to capture and store CO2 emissions from coal plants is coming to commercial fruition. At coal plants, CO2 can be captured either pre-combustion (through a coal gasification process) or post-combustion. After CO2 has been captured and pressurized, it can be transported via pipeline (or even truck, railroad, or ship) to a location where it can be geologically sequestered. At the sequestration site, the CO2 is pumped through a wellhead down into whatever geologic formation has been identified and approved for its long-term storage. The requisite technology has been widely demonstrated, though not at a commercial scale, in the variety of contexts potentially applicable in Pennsylvania.

Carbon capture and geologic sequestration present some new legal and regulatory issues, primarily for the transportation pipelines, injection and long-term storage, and liability. These issues will need resolution before this technology can help reduce greenhouse gas GHG emissions to the atmosphere.

DCNR is conducting seismic studies and other investigations throughout the state to determine what areas of the state have suitable geologic formations to store CO2.

Fact Sheet: Geologic Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide.