What could be the first carbon sequestration facility of its kind in the world is scheduled to be up and operating by this September in Mason County.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has, this week, issued a permit for the $70 million pilot project at Appalachian Power Company's Mountaineer Plant in New Haven, what state officials say is the only such permit ever issued in West Virginia up to now.

Appalachian Power Environmental Affairs Manager Tim Mallan says it's a new approach to a typical coal fired power plant and, Mallan says, many people around the world are watching.

"We can either try to substitute for that (coal) power, which would be extremely expensive and difficult to do, or we can find out how to operate those plants in a way that meets the social objectives that are set," Mallan says.

In the Mason County pilot project, about 1.7% of the carbon now being released into the atmosphere would be captured and put through a chemical process before being pumped 7,800 feet underground.  Once there, Mallan says, it'll be monitored.

"We've got several monitoring wells that will be put around the periphery of the injection wells and then, any CO2 that may move through the rock, we'll be able to monitor its progress."  The permit from the state DEP will allow the Mountaineer Plant to capture and inject up to 165,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide every year.

Mallan admits 1.7% is a small amount of the total carbon released there.  But, he says, they have to start somewhere.  "You've got to develop it in steps and this is a first, very small scale step."

Similar technology is already being used at sites in the North Sea and in North Africa, but the full process that will be put to use in Mason County, from capture to injection, has not been implemented, so far, anywhere else.

American Electric Power is involved in the project as the parent company of Appalachian Power.